Chapter 12
The streets on the Oppian Hill were quiet as we departed Livius’s home. Livius had retreated to his office to begin his work for the day, Menekrates told us as he led us to the door, tight-lipped. He was clearly glad to see us go.
The domii we passed on the road had few clients at their doors, as this was a holiday, but some of those who petitioned the wealthy and powerful had taken the chance that their patrons would receive them.
Crowds thickened as we descended the hill, those in the lower city having to go about their business of living, holiday or no. Women carried baskets of bread home, men toted amphorae in small hand carts, and beggar children, who doubled as cutpurses, darted through the throng.
We left the Oppian and made our way around the southeastern base of the Palatine, past the end of the Circus Maximus and the old reservoir opposite it and into the streets of the Aventine.
When we arrived at Marcianus’s open door, for once, he had no patients waiting. At my knock, Marcianus sang out for us to enter.
He and Marcia were breakfasting at a small table in the front room, eating bowls of cooked dark fava beans. My sandals slid on the raw beans scattered across the floor, which attested that Marcianus had performed the spirit-appeasing ritual that morning.
“There’s no more food,” Marcia informed us bluntly when Cassia and I entered.
“Hospitality, Marcia,” Marcianus admonished her gently. “But she is right. We’ve eaten everything in the house.” He slid the last bite of beans into his mouth and chewed, making his point.
“We’ve already breakfasted,” Cassia assured them. “Nonus Marcianus, I have come for your expertise. Whenever you are ready, of course.”
I could tell that Cassia was nearly dancing with impatience, but she would never dream of tearing a man of Equestrian rank, and a friend, away from his meal.
Marcianus’s eyes lit with curiosity. “I am ready now. As I said, we have eaten everything and must wait for the shops to open to acquire more. Not that I ever need much sustenance.”
Marcia shook her head as Marcianus leapt from his stool and ushered Cassia into his consulting room.
“He doesn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive,” Marcia informed me as she gathered up bowls and spoons. “Always tending to someone else’s injuries or poring over his books. At least you haven’t brought him another dead body to gaze at.”
“Not this time.” I’d been guilty of this several times in the past.
Marcia clattered the breakfast things to a shelf in the back of the room and covered them with a cloth. “I’m off to the shops, which are already open. He never knows what time of day it is if I don’t tell him.”
Her exasperation held a note of fondness, Marcia not as disparaging as she pretended. Marcianus had always been absent-minded, caring so much for others he forgot to tend to himself. At least now he had Marcia to look after him.
Marcia took up a basket and swiftly departed, and I continued into the small room in the back of the house, where Marcianus tended the sick and injured. Cassia was already seated on the bench the patients used, Marcianus pulling out a box of scrolls.
“Now,” he said, struggling to lift the crate. I caught it from him and set it on the table. “Thank you, Leonidas. What sort of poison did you have in mind, Cassia?”
“Poison?” I asked abruptly.
Cassia opened a tablet she’d slid from her bag. “I am considering that Xerxes might have died because he’d been given poison, either before his match or during it.”
“Poison.” I repeated the word and sat heavily down beside her.
“It is reasonable, I think.” Cassia faced Marcianus. “Leonidas says Xerxes went into a daze while he was fighting, then simply stopped, allowing the other gladiator—” she consulted a note in her tablet—“Perseus, to land the killing stroke.”
“Yes, I did wonder why Xerxes didn’t deflect the thrust.” Marcianus leaned one hip on the table.
“Your idea has merit, Cassia. A poison can paralyze a man or make him so lax he can’t lift his arms. The method of administering it will depend on how quickly the poison could act.
A slow ingestion time means something he ate beforehand or even a cup of water before the bout.
A faster-acting poison would require a more daring method of administration. ”
“Such as a dart, shot from the stands?” Cassia asked.
“Possibly.” Marcianus stared thoughtfully into the distance. “It would have to be very stealthy, so that no one noticed or tried to halt the match. I didn’t see the bout, but we can find out if anyone noticed Xerxes flinch, as though a dart had struck him.”
“You are both certain it was poison,” I stated.
Marcianus made a conceding gesture. “A good point, Leonidas. This is speculation and should be treated as such. What are the chances that a man could aim a dart, either with a sling or other weapon, and hit Xerxes precisely? A sidestep could easily take him out of range, and I doubt the person would risk trying a second time.”
“It must have been in something given to him before the match, then,” Cassia said.
“Or it was Perseus,” I said.
Both Cassia and Marcianus swiveled heads to stare at me. “What do you mean?” Cassia asked gently.
I grew irritated that the pair of them considered me the brick-headed statue in their midst. “Perseus was close enough to Xerxes to give him poison. He might have coated his blade with it, nicking Xerxes enough to let the concoction work. Then when Xerxes was weakened …”
I looked away from them, willing the dream not to rise in my mind again.
“That is a possibility,” Marcianus said. “One we shall not overlook. For what purpose would Perseus have done so, do you suppose? To give himself a chance to win?”
“It did him no good, in any case,” I said. “Perseus died less than an hour later, in the bout against me.”
Marcianus and Cassia went quiet a moment, my words falling flatly in the silence.
“You explained that Aemilianus meant the match to end with a draw, or with Xerxes winning and sparing Perseus,” Cassia said. “Perseus, therefore, should not have been in fear of his life. I wonder if he was put up to it—paid to make certain Xerxes didn’t leave the arena.”
Her theory fit with what I remembered of Perseus. He’d been greedy for any prize money or reward. He’d have readily taken a payment to weaken Xerxes, which would give him more cash when he won the match.
“If Xerxes had been poisoned before or during the match, or incapacitated somehow … ” I fixed my gaze on Marcianus. “Why didn’t you know?”
Marcianus blinked. “Pardon?”
“Regulus noticed something was wrong. He said nothing at the time, because it had happened quickly and he wasn’t sure. But you are interested in how bodies work, and why they cease working.”
Color rose in Marcianus’s dark cheeks as I spoke, and he nodded.
“You are very right, Leonidas. I ought to have realized. But it was the Saturnalian games, and gladiators were coming in and out, needing to be stitched up or their bones set. Including you, I recall. I was very busy that day, but yes, I should have examined Xerxes more closely. I was so shocked at his death, I’m not certain what I was thinking. ”
I hadn’t been certain of my thoughts either. I’d expected at any moment for Xerxes to rise from the dirt floor, swipe his hands over his bloody tunic, and laugh at me for being fooled.
“It is not your fault he died,” I said.
“I know that,” Marcianus said, resigned. “Not if he was poisoned. But I should have noticed if he was behaving strangely before he went into the arena and told Aemil to pull the match.”
“Aemil wouldn’t have listened to you.”
“Sometimes he does, but no, mostly he doesn’t. No matter what, I ought to have examined Xerxes’s body more closely.” Marcianus sighed, a man weighed down with regret.
“This is all conjecture,” Cassia reminded us.
“We can’t know exactly what happened by merely theorizing.
We will need proof that someone coerced Perseus into poisoning Xerxes.
And, it might not have been Perseus at all.
Xerxes might have swallowed the poison himself—unwittingly—before he entered the arena. ”
“How can we know any of it?” I asked, coming to my feet. “If someone slipped poison to Xerxes, or paid Perseus to do it, or shot a dart at him from the stands, how are we to know? It was more than two years ago.”
Neither Cassia nor Marcianus looked as despondent at this problem as I felt.
“We can discover whether poison was sold and to whom during or before those particular Saturnalian games,” Marcianus said. “And find out if any of those people who purchased it wanted Xerxes to die.”
This seemed a daunting task to me, but Cassia brightened.
“And we can discover whether Xerxes really was smuggling silk, or if someone had been using his name all along,” she finished.
Marcianus’s eyes widened. “Smuggling? Xerxes? I hadn’t heard this.”
I had to explain the entire story again, from Arsakes’s attacks on me to his insistence that Xerxes had been his intermediary for the silk he shipped illicitly to Rome.
“Do you believe these men?” Marcianus asked me.
“I’m not certain,” I admitted. “Xerxes never seemed to have any money—he managed to get out of paying every time we went to a popina. But he did keep Marcella and his offspring fed. He might even have been paying Aemil to let him spend so much time with her and his family.”
“It would be a serious charge if Xerxes had anything to do with smuggling.” Marcianus sobered. “The silk trade is held with tight reins. I can imagine these Parthians are worried that their enterprise might be brought to light.”
“I’ve already heard much about corruption in the silk trade,” I said. “In the last few days, I’ve learned of a merchant who blatantly stole another’s shipment of silk, and one shipment that was confiscated by Seneca to cover a merchant’s debt to him.”
Marcianus nodded darkly. “Seneca has his fingers in many pies. Clever men often overreach themselves, and Nero is already impatient with him. Seneca tried to retire to the country, but Nero won’t have it. Wants him where Nero can keep his eye on him, I suppose.”
I wasn’t interested in Nero’s worries about his former tutor at the moment. “You haven’t explained how we will find out whether you are right about poison, or if Xerxes’s death was only a misfortune.”
“Oh, that is simple.” Marcianus straightened from his slump against the table. “We will speak to the apothecaries who mix some of my medicines. If anyone knows who buys poison in Rome, it will be one of them.”
I wasn’t certain where a person found medicines in Rome, as Aemil had always paid Marcianus to supply them for the ludus. I assumed Marcianus mixed them himself, now with Marcia’s assistance.
“The simple ones, yes,” Marcianus explained as he took up his cloak. “Herbs and oils that are easily obtained. But what we are looking for is special.”
As we left the house, Marcia approached it with a large basket filled with greens and a loaf of bread. She eyed us narrowly.
“Off on an errand,” Marcianus told her breezily.
“I won’t be long. If Aculia brings her children, give them a few anise seeds to chew on and tell her I’ll return shortly.
She has seven in her brood and brings them in once a month,” he explained to us.
“I wash out their eyes. Poor things are always getting sores.”
He walked on with Cassia, but Marcia stepped into my path. “Keep him safe,” she admonished me.
I nodded. “I always look out for him.”
“He is careless.” Marcia leaned toward me. “I will hold you to blame if he is hurt.”
Marcia skewered me with a severe gaze before she condescended to step around me and continue into the house.
My long stride let me quickly catch up to Marcianus and Cassia, who were chatting in Greek as they walked down the slope toward the river.
Marcianus took us over the rickety Pons Sublicius to the Transtiberim. There we left sunny avenues for shadowy, narrow streets and a world I didn’t know.