Chapter 7
I gaped at Aemil, and Marcianus looked on in shock.
I didn’t want to blurt out the obvious response: But Xerxes is dead. There was no point.
“What did you tell them?” I managed to ask.
“I didn’t tell them anything,” Aemil growled. “Regulus and I pulled them off Plinius and sent them on their way with bruises for their trouble. Plinius told us they’d commanded him to open the gate and let them have Xerxes. He swears he explained that Xerxes was long gone, but they didn’t listen.”
“They must have meant his brother.”
Aemil’s temper splintered further. “Brother? What brother? They wanted Xerxes, said his name plain as day. So Plinius claims. If you want to run to the ludus and beat Plinius until he tells a straight story, fine.” He scowled. “No, wait, he’s had enough for the day. Leave him alone.”
“Ask Septimius,” I said. “A man looking just like Xerxes approached him, and Septimius sent him to me.”
“Did he? I will shake him. Xerxes never mentioned a brother. But you knew?”
I shook my head. “I only learned of him yesterday morning. Xerxes never told me about his brother. Did he you?” I asked Marcianus.
Marcianus popped his mouth, which had hung open, shut. “He did not. Looks just like him, you say? A twin?”
“One year older.”
“Ah.” Marcianus did not bother to hide his disappointment. Twins fascinated him.
“You are saying these barbarians came to my ludus and pounded my guard because they were looking for Xerxes’s brother?” Aemil demanded. “Only, they were confused and called him by Xerxes’s name?”
“Or Plinius heard wrong,” I said.
“Plinius stated: They swarmed me and demanded I let them in to grab a gladiator called Xerxes. Can it be any plainer?”
No, it could not. Plinius, the stoic gate guard, didn’t have the imagination to invent such a thing, so the men must truly have been looking for Xerxes.
Because they thought Xerxes could lead them to Lucius? And they hadn’t, like Lucius, realized Xerxes was dead?
Or, had everyone, including Lucius, been searching for Xerxes for a reason to do specifically with him?
“The hired toughs work for a man called Julius Herminius,” I stated.
Marcianus’s brows rose. “The silk merchant?”
Aemil, by his glare, had never heard of the man, but Marcianus knew much about everyone in Rome.
“Xerxes’s brother worked for him,” I said. “I asked questions about Herminius, and then the men attacked me in my bathhouse.”
Aemil regarded me with disgust. “Leonidas, when will you learn to leave the wealthy alone? They don’t like you prying into their affairs. And then, somehow, I get dragged into your mess. Come back to the ludus and train my gladiators. You’ll lead a much simpler life.”
A life I no longer wanted. Also, if I moved back into a cell in the ludus, even as a free man, I couldn’t bring Cassia with me.
Marcianus’s eyes held understanding. “Leonidas is comfortable where he is, I think.”
“I live more luxuriously than he does.” Aemil heaved a sigh. “Keep them away from my gladiators, Leonidas. Regulus enjoyed himself on them, but if he’d been hurt …”
Then Regulus might not be fit to fight in the upcoming games. Regulus was a favorite, and Aemil could lose much money if the games’ sponsors decided not to include him.
I folded my arms, knowing better than to promise Aemil anything. “Xerxes was already a gladiator in your ludus when you brought me in. How did you find him?”
Aemil shifted his large body irritably. “I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.”
“Did he come straight from a farmer?” I persisted. “Xerxes’s real name was Manius Aelius. How old was he?”
“Leonidas, you ask the most confounding questions—”
“He was eighteen,” Marcianus broke in. “Xerxes told me this when I examined him the first time. He might have been lying, because Xerxes made a joke of everything, but from his bone structure, he was that age or near enough. He never gave me his true name.”
“Because he ceased being Manius Aelius the moment I took him from the market,” Aemil growled.
“Even I forgot that name. I found him at an auction near Veii.” He named a town north of Rome.
“I don’t recall why I decided to go to that auction, but when I saw Xerxes—big and so full of arrogance—I realized he’d make good gladiator.
It took time to make him respect me, but I was right. He was one of the best.”
He trailed off nostalgically.
Aemil’s method of earning respect was regular beatings and locking new gladiators into their cells until they’d learned obedience. After that, he could be lenient, even compassionate, but the gods help any gladiator who tried to defy him.
Xerxes had acknowledged Aemil’s authority, but he’d loved to skirt the bounds of what Aemil would tolerate.
He’d take himself to his cell when Aemil caught him at whatever transgression, putting on a mock mournful expression when Aemil locked him in for the night.
Then he’d either cheerfully use the time to catch up on sleep or bait any who walked close to his cell.
I’d been sixteen and very green when I’d first met Xerxes, not to mention struggling between relief at release from prison and fear of what I’d gotten myself into.
Xerxes had watched me appraisingly the first day I’d stood in the practice ground, awkwardly holding a wooden sword, then he’d stepped in to show me how best to grip it.
You have to seem like you barely remember you have a weapon, he’d advised. Then, when they think you’re not paying attention, you strike.
He’d had the sword from my hand and me on the ground in a trice, then Xerxes had held up the rudis and laughed down at me. I’d sprung up and attacked him, and we’d wrestled each other across the yard while Aemil bellowed at us to cease.
We’d both been confined for fighting, but Xerxes had called encouragement to me down the line of cells, and from that incident we’d struck up a friendship.
Xerxes had taken me fully under his wing. I’d never understood why, but he’d defended me against the ludus’s bullies until he knew I could hold my own.
For nearly seven years, we’d been inseparable. I’d watched Xerxes fall in love with Marcella and met his children as each came along. I’d seen him win almost every bout and lose the only one I’d not been able to witness.
In all that time, he’d never once mentioned his brother Lucius.
“Why does everyone seek Xerxes now?” I asked.
From the blank faces of Aemil and Marcianus, they had no idea.
“It is curious, is it not?” Marcianus said. “What does Cassia say about it?”
“She knows Lucius is not telling us the entire truth. She knew the men hunting for Xerxes were Parthians, but she isn’t certain why they want him. I sent her to stay with Sextus Livius.”
Aemil’s expression went sour, but Marcianus nodded. “A wise choice. I hear he has a well-stocked library.” His voice turned wistful.
“She has probably read half of it by now,” I said.
“I look forward to discussing it with her,” Marcianus said. “Do keep her safe, Leonidas.”
“Explain to this silk merchant Herminius that Xerxes is dead,” Aemil commanded. “And tell him and his toughs to stay far from my ludus.”
He and Marcianus were both certain I was still the obedient gladiator, willing to be guided. In this instance, though, what they wanted exactly matched my purpose.
“I intend to,” I said, then left them.
I made my way from the Aventine past the Circus Maximus and back around to the Vicus Tuscus and the building beyond where I’d spoken to Cassius Tatius.
The same hard-faced guard protected the entrance. His eyes flickered in recognition when I approached, but he did not stand aside.
“Cassius Tatius is not here,” he stated.
“I’m not looking for him,” I answered as flatly. “I seek Julius Herminius.”
“Julius Herminius sees no one.”
“I have information about a man he’s looking for,” I said.
We regarded each other, one stubborn fighter to another.
The silk trade was one of the most lucrative in Rome, but I’d already realized that no one stored silk in this building.
There hadn’t been much room in Tatius’s cubicle for large boxes of gold coins either.
I wondered what was so valuable inside that they’d hired a former legionnaire to keep people out.
We might have stared at each other until the sun set, but two of the ruffians who’d ambushed me in the baths strode out from an inner archway.
They stopped short when they saw me. One looked worried, but the second, the one I’d turned the knife on, glowered.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“Your master is looking for a man called Xerxes,” I said. “I can tell him about that.”
The belligerent man took a step forward. “We know where Xerxes is,” he said in his thick accent. “At the ludus across the Tiber.”
“No, he is not,” I countered. “But I will talk only with your master.”
“He isn’t here,” the man said with growing hostility.
“Someone is sending you out to beat on gladiators and gate guards until you find Xerxes,” I said. “I want to meet him.”
The tough studied me for a moment longer, then turned abruptly, gesturing for me to follow.
The door guard stood aside for me to pass. The look he gave me as I did so held warning. I acknowledged it with a minute nod then walked into the shadowy interior.
The ruffian led me to the arched opening I’d glanced into when I was last here, as I’d followed the assistant, Aulus, out of the building. At the time, I’d made out nothing of what was inside.
It was still dark in the room now, with one small skylight high above to cut the gloom. The second man lit several oil lamps, revealing an office similar to Tatius’s but more disarrayed.
Dust lay thickly on the boxes piled about the room, though semicircular clean spaces on the top of a few showed where they’d been used as makeshift seating.
“Our master, Herminius, is in Florentia,” the first man informed me. Only he and the second man—one of the pair I’d tossed into the pool—were present. I saw no sign of the other two. I wondered if the one whose wrist I’d broken had found a medicus to set it.
“What does he want with Xerxes?” I asked. I stood like a rock near the entrance to the room, so I could duck out quickly if I needed to.
The first man rested his backside on one of the crates, confirming where the dust-free patches had come from.
“Where is Xerxes?” he asked with the same air of command.
I noted uneasiness behind his belligerence. I’d faced plenty of opponents who’d come to me full of snarling determination but had been truly panicked beneath. This man showed the same signs—holding my gaze but twitching his fingers, fixing his brows in a scowl but the corners of his lips trembling.
“Xerxes is dead,” I declared. “He was a gladiator, and he died in the games.”
My mouth was stiff when I said the words. The loss still cut me.
The man’s eyes widened slightly. “What games? When was this?”
“At the Saturnalian Games, two and a half years ago.”
The second man let out a sharp gasp, which made the first man send him a brief glare.
“I do not believe you,” the first man said.
“I can take you to his grave.” I didn’t want this man anywhere near where Xerxes’s ashes lay, but I could think of no other way to convince him. “We put up a stone to him.”
The man I’d thrown into the pool regarded me in open dismay. “A stone?”
“Our collegius paid for it.”
Collegia pooled money from its members for funerals and provided a small amount for any wives or children left behind. Every profession had a collegius, from builders to silk merchants to gladiators.
The fact that we’d erected a stone seemed to finally convince the two men that Xerxes was no more. Stones were expensive, and no one would commission one without good cause.
The second man sank to the floor with a grunt, putting his back to the wall. “Mithras save us.”
“Save you from what?” I asked. “Why are you so interested in Xerxes? Why is Herminius?” I studied the two, who both had gone nearly green in the bad light. “Or does Herminius know anything about Xerxes at all?”
“You are certain he is dead?” the first man asked from his perch on the box.
“Very certain. I saw his body.” I flinched, not liking that memory.
“Then who have we been dealing—” The second man began, but the first man held up his fist, cutting him off.
I studied them both in puzzlement. “Do you mean you’ve been dealing with someone claiming to be Xerxes? For two and a half years?” I thought of Lucius, who looked so like him, but these men would have known Lucius, or at least of him, if they worked for Herminius.
The first man heaved a deep sigh. “We’ve been fools.”
“You didn’t come to Rome at Herminius’s order, did you?” I asked with new conviction.
“No.” The first man shook his head. “We came to find Xerxes ourselves, to keep him quiet. He was going to betray us, or so he told us, if we didn’t pay him five thousand aurei.”