Chapter 6
My arms were slick with water, but I used that advantage to wrench myself away from the two men who held me. I was stark naked, with no weapon, but I balled my fists and struck fast.
While gladiators specialized in fighting one-on-one, Aemil had trained me, his top gladiator, to win in all situations.
One of my attackers drew back his foot to kick me in the balls. I caught his leg as it came up and used his own momentum to flip him onto his back. He crashed into the man beside him, who lost his footing and tumbled straight into the pool.
I spun on the other three, jabbing with fists and elbows. I stepped inside one’s planted foot and gave him a sharp shove. He cried out, landing next to his colleague in the water. Neither of them seemed to know what to do when wet except curse and flail.
One of the remaining pair had a knife, its blade long and wicked. I kept my eye on it, while I feinted and struck.
The man slashed out, catching me across the arm, but the blade only broke my skin. I seized the hand with the knife, clamping down on the wrist until I heard bones crack. The man screamed, and the weapon clattered to the marble floor.
I swept up the knife and pointed it at the fourth man, who eyed the blade with respect.
“I am Leonidas the Spartan, champion of the games,” I declared. “Who in Hades are you?”
One of the men in the pool, who struggled to walk through the water, said, “Gladiator?”
The word echoed against the walls, then he trailed off into a language I didn’t know.
I pinned the man I faced with my glare, but my heart pounded. If these were the ruffians after Lucius, and they’d traced him to me, then more might be closing on the wine shop and our apartment even now.
“Tell him to give up,” I commanded. “Or I will find your master and explain why it is bad to harm my friends.”
My assailant looked slightly puzzled. “He wants you to give up. Cease asking questions about Julius Herminius.”
“Why?” I barked.
“Why?” The man repeated, attempting more belligerence. “Because he wants you to. His business is his own.”
“Stealing silk shipments?”
The man shrugged. “I never care what he gets up to. He pays me to see that people don’t bother him about it. So stop, gladiator.”
“I do as I please.”
“Then we’ll have to keep at you.”
The two in the pool had finally climbed slowly out and now scraped water from their bodies. Barbarians new to Rome were always confused about baths. Aemil had once had to whip a pair of new gladiators from northern Germania into a tepidarium, which they’d been terrified of.
“Maybe not near water,” I said, straight-faced.
The man snarled at me. “Who sent you?”
I remained silent. I’d not explain that I was looking into things on my own. If someone had hired me, I wouldn’t be a very good client to give him my employer’s name.
“Cease,” the man repeated. “You have been warned.”
I let my gaze become disdainful as I looked over the two very wet men wiping water from their faces. The third man held his broken wrist and sent me a baleful stare.
I turned my back on them and walked from the frigidarium, taking up my towel, which had survived on the end of a bench. I kept the knife.
By the time I had dried off and dressed in the changing room, the men had vanished. The attendant at the door, who knew me well, told me they’d stamped out and headed down the Quirinal toward the Forum.
The news relieved me. They were not seeking Cassia to bully information from her. I gave the attendant an as for his good memory and hurried away, making for our narrow lane.
All was quiet at the wine shop, our front door closed and locked as always.
“Has anyone come?” I asked when I burst into our apartment.
Cassia raised her head from her writing and regarded me in surprise, then alarm. “No. Has something happened?”
In short phrases I told her about the fight in the bathhouse. After her first concern, her dark brows drew together in confusion.
“They didn’t mention Lucius?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Not a word of him.”
“You say they were more interested in your questions about Herminius? Why should that be?”
I knew Cassia did not expect me to answer, so I thunked myself to my stool and reached for a leftover hunk of bread.
“What has Lucius uncovered?” she asked in a near whisper.
Again, I knew she didn’t seek an answer from me, and I continued to chew the dry bread.
Cassia came out of her stupor, opened a new tablet, and began writing rapidly.
“Lucius has worked for Herminius for years,” I offered. “Why would Herminius suddenly worry that Lucius knows about his swindling?”
Cassia kept her gaze on her work. “I don’t believe Lucius has told us everything.
Yes, this manager, Fulvius, might have spread false tales about Lucius, but would Herminius, who has the audacity to confiscate an entire shipment of silk and then charge the rightful owner money for it worry that Lucius had skimmed a small amount of coin from him?
Herminius could easily have satisfied himself as to Lucius’s innocence or guilt.
No, there must be some other reason Herminius is after Lucius. ”
“I can go back to Marcella’s farm and find out what.” I wasn’t in the best of tempers and would readily haul Lucius up against the wall again until he confessed.
“If necessary,” Cassia, ever practical, answered. “I shouldn’t like to lead Herminius’s ruffians to Marcella, however. It seems they are more interested in your doings than in Lucius.”
“I don’t want to lead them to you.” I swallowed the last of the bread. “You should go to Marcella’s and stay there.”
Cassia shook her head. “That might not be prudent. If Herminius or his ruffians notice me leaving the city, they could follow me. Therefore, there is no harm in me staying in Rome until we know what is happening.”
I’d always believed Cassia could talk rings around the most skilled advocate in the Basilica Julia. I ought to lock her in a cellar to keep her safe, but I didn’t have a cellar handy, and she’d simply figure out a way to escape.
“They know my name, and they’ll find out where I live,” I said. “I was trying to frighten them with who I was, but they’d never heard of me.”
“You said they are barbarians,” Cassia pointed out. “Most Romans wouldn’t readily tell a foreigner your whereabouts.”
She was confident, but I’d been hard pressed to battle all four of those men, who were hardened fighters. My advantage had been their underestimation of my skill and their discomfort with water. Next time, they’d be better prepared.
“If you stay in Rome, I want you somewhere safe,” I stated.
“I’m not certain there is somewhere safe.
I suppose on the Palatine I would be protected from anyone searching the streets, but the domus of the princeps is probably the most dangerous place in all of Rome.
Nonus Marcianus might welcome me, but I’m not certain he could prevail against four toughs from Parthia. ”
I had no idea where the men came from—I only knew they weren’t Roman. They hadn’t been bearded, as many from Gallia, Germanica, Dacia or lands farther north or east were, but they might have shaved to blend in. How Cassia concluded they were Parthian, I didn’t know, but it was plausible.
I could take Cassia to the ludus and persuade Aemil I needed to stash one more person there, but the others I’d brought to him had been male. Cassia would be vulnerable to the gladiators, who’d see no reason not to use a slave, especially a female one, as they saw fit.
Aemil would end up having to constantly guard her, and he’d be furious about that. Also, he’d wheedle some form of payment from me, likely in the form of me training others or fighting the exhibition bouts he was always trying to coax me into.
I sifted through all the people I’d had dealings with since I’d been freed from the games and could think of only one place where Cassia might be both welcome and safe.
“I will ask Sextus Livius to look after you,” I said.
Cassia blinked. “Sextus Livius …”
“Livius has plenty of guards around his house, and he likes you. You could organize his library or something in return.”
“I was in his house only a few hours ago explaining why we used his name to investigate another man,” Cassia protested. “I think Livius will soon have enough of us.”
It was a chance I was willing to take. “He can always say no.”
“I’d rather not. I would have to leave much of my research behind, and also, I’d have no way of knowing if you were well if you stay here. Who would make a note of your safe arrival home every day?”
I did not smile. “Cassia, these men could break you in two without thought. I’ll not have you die because you might fall behind on your note taking.”
I spoke in a hard voice, one that held steel. Cassia lifted her head once more and studied me.
I rarely was stern with Cassia, mostly because I’d learned she didn’t listen anyway, but also because she’d been terrified of me when we’d first been introduced. I’d decided I didn’t want her regarding me in abject fear and had tried to keep myself quiet for her.
But now I was afraid. The men who’d assailed me could easily discover our apartment and find Cassia inside it, alone and vulnerable. I couldn’t stay here every hour of every day, not if I was to clear Lucius and send him home.
I wanted to leap up and smash my stool to the floor, but I’d only end up having to repair the stool and fix any tiles I broke.
“Very well.” Cassia’s answer was so meek that my frustrated anger fled.
“You agree?” I asked in amazement.
Cassia nodded. “Livius will know something of the silk trade. I might be able to find out more in his house than shut in this apartment. And yes, his library might be worth exploring.” The longing in her eyes when she mentioned the library would amuse me any other time.
“Good.” I rose, relieved. “Then we will go.”
“Once I have packed a few things and sorted out which tablets I will need,” Cassia said with maddening calmness. “I’d hate for Herminius’s ruffians to destroy any I left behind. Perhaps you could take those to Marcianus? He’d look after them well.”
I approached the home of Sextus Livius on the top of the Oppian Hill with some trepidation. While Livius was a former slave, he was one now of the wealthiest men in the whole of Rome. He could banish the likes of Cassia and me forever and employed a dozen hard-faced guards to enforce his orders.
The door attendant dozed in the afternoon sunshine, but he sprang to his feet when he heard our step and recognized us. He admitted us into the massive house, quiet at this hour, and took us without question to Livius, who was in his tablinum, the office that opened from the atrium.
Livius rose from behind a desk as strewn with scrolls and tablets as Tatius’s had been, an expression of welcome on his face.
“An unlooked-for pleasure today,” Livius said with enthusiasm. “Thank you for saving me from the tedium of accounts. Though my scribes are trustworthy, I go over them every month to keep myself informed of what my businesses are bringing in or sending out. A necessary evil.”
“Perhaps Cassia can help,” I offered.
Cassia was already gazing at the cluttered desk with longing.
I quickly explained our visit and my worry of danger to Cassia, leaving out any mention of Lucius. I fully expected Livius to balk, but instead, he beamed another smile.
“Of course. Cassia may stay as long as she likes, and yes, I’d welcome her orderly thoughts. Be careful I don’t steal her from you, Leonidas.”
“You can’t,” I said at once. My chest tightened, as it always did when Livius joked about taking Cassia away. “Our benefactor will not release her.”
“So you have told me.” Livius turned to the door attendant. “Have Cassia and Leonidas brought refreshment.”
“I won’t stay.” I patted the heavy bag Cassia had given me to take to Marcianus. “I have many errands to run. But please keep Cassia safe.”
“It will be my pleasure. I have heard of Julius Herminius in the course of my own business ventures. A man to be avoided.”
“I agree,” I said.
Livius waved Cassia to a stool near his desk, and she eagerly unwound her cloak and took the seat, craning to peer at the scrolls. The attendant took the cloak as though she were a patrician matron and disappeared to fetch food and drink.
Both Cassia and Livius bent over the accounts, as though ready for me to be gone. I departed, rubbing at the burn in my chest.
Nonus Marcianus was in his consulting rooms on the Aventine. He sent me a distracted glance when I appeared, then resumed binding the wrist of a boy in a dusty tunic, while the lad’s mother watched anxiously.
Marcia, who’d become Marcianus’s assistant, competently trimmed the bandage when Marcianus finished. She said nothing to either woman or boy, but the woman seemed reassured by her quiet skill.
Marcia sent me a sharp stare once the mother and son headed home, then turned her back to tidy up the room where Marcianus doctored his patients.
Marcia had once been a girl in a lupinarius, a life she’d firmly put behind her. She had no more need to be pleasant to men in general and was gracious only to Marcianus, who’d rescued her.
I lowered the bag of tablets to a table with a clatter. “Cassia needs you to look after these.”
Marcianus, a thin man with a prominent nose and dark hair he sometimes remembered to comb, wrenched open the bag and peered inside.
“She is trusting me with her records?” Marcianus gazed at me in astonishment. “What has happened? Is Rome being sacked?”
I ignored his attempt at humor. “I don’t want her at the apartment,” I said impatiently.
I prepared myself to explain our situation once more, but before I could begin, we were interrupted by Aemilianus, the lanista of my former ludus.
“I’ve been looking for you, Leonidas,” Aemil growled the moment he spied me.
He stamped into Marcianus’s front room, his sandals puffing up dust that had blown across the tiled floor.
“Why was my ludus nearly invaded by Parthians today? They mowed down Plinius at the gate, who was almost useless against them. I barely stopped them storming inside.”
Aemil glared at me with his mismatched eyes, one blue, one hazel. His light brown hair was shaved close to his head, and his bulky body ensured that anyone assaulting him would come out the loser.
“They came to the ludus?” My alarm rose, along with relief I hadn’t taken Cassia there.
Aemil’s glare intensified. “You know who they are?”
“They are seeking a man I am trying to protect. You didn’t tell them where I was, did you?”
Aemil’s belligerence took on some confusion. “What are you talking about? They weren’t searching for you at all, or whoever you think you are guarding.”
I regarded him in similar bewilderment. “Who then? Why did they try to get inside the ludus?”
“They were looking for Xerxes,” Aemil snapped. “I came to find out what in all Hades you know about that.”