Chapter 11
I twitched and flailed in the bed, trying to break out of the dream, but I found no release.
Xerxes gaped at me, his blood pouring hot over my hand, his eyes filled with betrayal.
“Why didn’t you save me?” he demanded, the words clogged. “Where were you? My dearest friend?”
Xerxes shoved me away but fell himself, landing in a tangled heap. His mouth remained open, and his eyes were sightless, clouded over.
Aemil came charging at me, fury in every stride. “What did you do?” he demanded. “You killed him. You’ll pay.”
He locked hands around my throat, and I struggled for breath. Aemil was ten years older than me, but he was hardly feeble. He squeezed, and blackness rushed up to take me.
I woke with a gasp, seizing the hand that came down to my shoulder.
I found myself facing the manservant who’d left the now spent lamp, skylights above the bed filling the room with morning sunshine.
The manservant burbled in pain, and I swiftly released him. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “Dreaming.”
I’d slept in my tunic, now rumpled, on top of the bed instead of beneath covers, which obviously displeased him.
“The master is waiting for you in the atrium,” the manservant said, rubbing his wrist in irritation. “It is time for the Lemuria ceremony.”
He turned from me abruptly and went out, taking the lamp on his way.
When I reached the atrium, I found the entire household assembled.
Cassia, dressed in her best ankle-length tunic and wearing the gold earrings Livius’s father had given her, stood among the servants of the household.
The men and women around her watched deferentially as Livius approached his head bodyguard, Junius, who held a small jug in his hand.
Menekrates glowered at me from his place with the senior servants when I hurried in, my tunic still disheveled from sleep. At least I’d been barbered a few days ago, so my hair was shaved close to my head, though my chin was now rough with whiskers.
Livius sent me a welcoming nod as I slid through the crowd to stand beside Cassia. She gave me a quiet glance, as though sensing I’d spent a bad night.
A small bowl that was heaped with dark-colored beans rested on the marble lip of the impluvium, the pool that was open to the sky to catch rainwater.
Livius held his hand out over the pool, and Junius poured clear water from his jug into Livius’s palms. Livius rubbed the water all over his hands then shook off the excess. Junius set down the jug and handed him the bean bowl.
Livius cradled this in one hand and began to stalk through the atrium in slow strides. He dug into the dried beans and tossed a handful behind him.
“Ancestral spirits, be appeased by our offering. If malevolent spirits be here, go now.” Livius flung another handful over his shoulder, and beans clattered to the tiled floor.
Junius followed as Livius walked to the tablinum, repeating the ritual and the words. Livius then moved along the length of the house, entering every room, tossing beans over his shoulder and imploring any restless spirits to be calm or flee.
We waited in the atrium, hearing Livius’s footsteps and chants recede as he took the staircase to the upper floor, Junius on his heels.
Even after last evening’s large meal, I was hungry, and my stomach rumbled loudly in the stillness. This earned me disparaging looks but a sympathetic one from Cassia.
After what seemed a long time, we heard Livius’s chants again as he emerged from the upper rooms, descended the stairs, and walked solemnly to the impluvium, his feet scattering the beans he’d strewn about.
Junius lifted another jug and poured its water over Livius’s hands. Livius rubbed his fingers together as before and shook out the excess into his pool.
Then Livius faced us, and said, “It is done. Breakfast?”
As hungry as I was, I wanted to speak with Cassia privately, but Livius gave me no choice.
He waved me toward the peristyle, where we were greeted with cool morning air and a table set for a repast. Cassia disappeared with the other servants.
I readily ate the meal of more dark fava beans, cooked and mashed, and fresh-baked bread with honey.
Because this was a wealthy household, I doubted the servants had swept up the beans Livius had tossed around and cooked them, but they did bring us glasses of the cold spring water left over from the ritual.
“None of my ancestors or anyone else’s ever lived in this house,” Livius said as Junius served us.
“I had it built when I moved to this hill, so it’s very new.
But Lemuria must be kept, mustn’t it? And who knows who lived in whatever house or hut on this spot in the past?
Any ancestors of theirs and any evil spirits who decided to take up residence have been acknowledged.
We can walk without fear in our house for another year. ”
“I must do the ritual in my own home,” I said. “Though it will not take me as long.”
Livius acknowledged this with a grin. “You can always make me laugh, Leonidas. Yes, you must perform your task as head of household, but Cassia can stay here as long as she wishes. We can keep her safe.”
“I agree.” I did not trust Arsakes entirely—he might decide to use Cassia to make certain I did what I said I’d do. “But I need to speak with her.”
“Of course. Junius, will you find Cassia and ask her to come to the garden?”
“Alone.” I did not wish to offend Livius, who was more generous than he needed to be, but I also did not want him to know all of my business.
“As you please.” Livius did not seem affronted by my statement. “It is a lovely morning. She will enjoy a walk in the outer gardens.”
Junius had already departed with the summons, and Livius and I both rose as Cassia returned with him. She was as neatly garbed and coiffed as she’d been at the ritual, the gold earrings glistening against her dark hair.
Livius greeted her cordially, and Cassia’s reply was just as cordial. I was the lout who shifted impatiently, waiting for them to finish the polite give-and-take so I could lead Cassia outside.
We exited the peristyle through a small door that led to the vast space without.
Livius’s gardens were truly grand. He owned a large part of the top of the Oppian, which he’d covered with greenery that stretched behind his home.
Half of the gardens were given over to growing vegetables and fruits, so Livius could always enjoy fresh produce.
The other half had been cultivated with trees, shrubs, flowers, and lawns for Livius’s pleasure.
A shaded perambulatory stretched along the edge of the hill, giving a view over the valley between the Oppian and Palatine hills. Nero’s ambitious Domus Transitoria, creeping ever further across the Palatine, gleamed in the morning sunlight.
I could see, on the Palatine, mechanical cranes heaving blocks high into the air. I spied the small figures of workers guiding the stones into place or climbing scaffolding, the construction continuing despite Lemuria being a holiday. No one halted the everyday labor of slaves and freedmen.
Two of Livius’s bodyguards placed themselves at the end of the walkway, but they did not follow us as we strolled to its far curve. At least, Cassia strolled. I stomped out of earshot of the bodyguards and waited impatiently for Cassia to catch up to me.
“Are you all right, Leonidas?” she asked before I could speak. “I heard from the upstairs servants that you were restless all night, calling out in your sleep.”
“Bad dreams.” I’d managed to banish them when I woke, but now the combat with Xerxes rushed back at me. My hands trembled at the memory of his hot blood on them.
Cassia’s gentle touch on my arm made my eyes snap open. I hadn’t realized I’d closed them.
“How are you?” I asked her, banishing the dream with effort. “Does Livius have his servants sleep on gilded bedsteads with silk covers?”
“No.” Cassia gave me a faint laugh. “I have a pallet. But in my own cubicle, and it is very comfortable.”
“Good.” I hoped not so comfortable she’d never want to leave.
“I am anxious to be home, though,” she assuaged my fears by saying. “Where I can attend to my studies, with my own materials.”
“You brought many tablets here. My shoulder still aches from carrying them.” I rubbed it in demonstration. “Besides, you were excited to see Livius’s library.”
“That is true, but I have had no time to myself to peruse anything in it. Livius’s servants are quite pleased to have a scribe in their midst. Yesterday, I took down four letters to family members who live outside the city, two appeals to advocates in cases involving faulty merchandise, wrote three letters in Greek for Menekrates, and helped tally a written inventory of Livius’s supplies.
I was happy I had a quarter hour to choose a few scrolls from the library to take to my cubicle, which I had barely opened before I fell asleep. ”
“Doesn’t Livius have his own scribe?” I asked in surprise.
“He has three, but for his official business only, and they don’t live in the house. The staff don’t have much time to go find a scribe to write for them, and they didn’t have to pay me.”
“They should,” I said darkly.
So much writing was unfathomable to me. I could write my name now and Cassia’s and tally a few simple calculations, but nothing more so far. Most servants could write even less than I did. I could imagine their eagerness to use her talents.
“They also served me lavish meals and excellent wine and let me use the library to write up all their letters. It was splendid to have such a place to work in.” Her expression turned wistful.
“Better than our apartment,” I agreed.
Cassia became brisk again. “However, at home, I am not interrupted every quarter hour to write yet one more letter before supper. This is a lovely house, but we do not own it.”
We did not even own our own lives, I could have added, though I’d been freed from the games. Cassia was still a slave, and I was expected to stay in Rome until our unknown benefactor revealed why he—or she—had put us together.
“We will go home when I’m certain Arsakes will leave you alone,” I said.
“So far, he has attacked only you,” Cassia pointed out.
I scowled. “He is the kind of man who would use someone I care about to make me behave. I will not risk you.”
“I see.” Cassia studied me, her face softening. The light breeze caught in her hair, tugging a few strands loose and sending the earrings dancing.
I realized I’d just admitted that I cared about her, but I saw no reason to be ashamed of my words. They were the truth.
“I haven’t told you about Xerxes,” I said abruptly.
Cassia leaned on a white marble pillar to listen. This marble had come from Greece rather than Egypt. Livius could afford to import from all over the world.
“You did tell me about Xerxes,” she said. “That he might have been helping Arsakes smuggle silk, or someone using his name did, continuing to do so after Xerxes died.”
“I mean about his death itself.” I drew a breath.
“What if someone realized how much wealth they could make by becoming Arsakes’s go-between?
Xerxes never took anything very seriously.
He might have let slip information about the scheme, or someone heard of it somehow and decided it would be lucrative to take it over. ”
Cassia’s eyes widened as she pushed from the pillar. “You mean you think someone deliberately killed Xerxes? So they could step into his business?”
I was grateful she didn’t immediately protest that Xerxes had died in a fight with another gladiator, nothing odd about that.
“Possibly.” I rested a hand on the stone railing and gazed across the valley to the workers on the next hill. “Perseus—the man who fought Xerxes—got in a killing blow, but he never should have. Xerxes was too good.”
“How did he then?” Cassia asked. “Xerxes did not deliberately invite it?”
“Let himself die?” I shook my head. “Xerxes was never despairing. He’d planned to buy Marcella something special with whatever prize money he won in the games and go to her. He hadn’t seen his children for weeks, and he wanted to take them their Saturnalia gifts.”
“A man with much to live for,” Cassia said. “From all that you’ve told me of him, I agree he did not seem the sort to embrace death. What do you suppose happened, then?”
“I have asked about the match. Regulus saw it, and we reenacted each move in the bout. He said Xerxes was distracted, maybe by someone in the stands. Then at the last, Xerxes lowered his sword and shield, as though he were in a daze, and Perseus rushed in and killed him.”
The dream tried to take over once more, and I clenched the railing in an effort to shut it out.
“In a daze,” Cassia repeated.
The dream, Xerxes’s vacant eyes, and the blood receded, and I blinked.
“That is what Regulus remembers. I wondered if someone could have shot him from the stands or thrown something at him.”
“Possibly.” Cassia tapped her lower lip as she did when her interest was caught. “Something as obvious as an arrow would have been found, but some people can be excellent shots with a sling. Either with a small rock to make him lose his footing or turn the wrong way, or …”
“But the referees would have noticed the interference,” I said. “They’d have stopped the match and had the person in the stands arrested.”
“Unless the referees were paid to not notice,” Cassia countered. “But that would be complicated and bring too many people into the plot. I am thinking of something much simpler.”
“What?” I asked.
“A way that, unfortunately, doesn’t immediately narrow down the who.” Cassia brushed dust from her tunic where it had touched the marble and swung toward the house. “We must speak to Marcianus.”