Chapter 13 #2
“Difficult to do.” Samorix slid the pot away from Marcianus.
“The other gladiator would have to be careful not to get the potion into any cuts or scrapes on his own hands, not to mention he’d have to obtain it from somewhere.
One can make such a concoction from plants in one’s own garden, but do gladiators have gardens?
Or the money to buy flower bulbs? No gladiator purchased poison from me, I will tell you that much for free. ”
“I’m certain he obtained it from a go-between,” Marcianus said.
“However, there is the difficulty of coating his weapon with it at all. Gladiators aren’t handed their swords until they walk out to their bouts, and they wear little but a loincloth and helmet.
How would he carry such a pot, and when would he have time to smear it on his weapon? ”
The answer to that was that someone had done it for him just before the match. Perseus might not have known that his sword had been coated with the poison at all.
That still left the question as to who could have done such a thing.
Aemil was very particular about who was allowed backstage at matches, especially ones as important and expensive as the Saturnalian games.
He kept the cache of weapons under guard, and they were always cleaned beforehand, as well as afterward.
I realized I’d have to rethink my idea that Perseus had cut the poison into Xerxes.
On the other hand, if someone had fed Xerxes a potion sometime before his bout, that opened the field much wider.
“You have given us much to think on,” Marcianus said. “Thank you, Samorix. Now, Cassia must choose her scroll.”
Cassia finished noting down all the two men said then tucked her stylus into its sheath and closed the tablet. “Yes. Can you show them to me, Hadrianus?”
Hadrianus started in surprise that she’d addressed him directly. He regarded her curiously for a moment then turned and moved to the boxes. Cassia followed, her tunic brushing me as she passed.
Hadrianus lifted the lid of the top box, and Cassia eagerly reached inside for the scrolls.
Some had what they contained written on the side—I presumed that’s what the writing was—and some she had to peek at before setting down to examine the next ones.
She spoke softly with Hadrianus as she searched, and he nodded or shook his head in answer to whatever she was asking.
Samorix turned to Marcianus. “Why do you need a scribe, medicus? Are you too lofty to write your own letters? I hear you also have a slave to mix the plasters you slather on your patients’ arms.”
“Marcia is a freedwoman,” Marcianus said quickly. “And Cassia is not—”
“Marcianus’s practice has grown,” I cut in. I did not want Samorix to know more about Cassia than he needed to.
Marcianus blinked at my interruption but fortunately closed his mouth.
Cassia did not notice the exchange. She emerged from the second box Hadrianus had opened, a scroll clutched to her chest, her face flushed with excitement.
“This one,” she informed Hadrianus. “It’s from Apollonius’s treatise on conics. Can he spare it?”
Hadrianus glanced at his master to confirm, and Samorix nodded distractedly. “Take it. I don’t care.”
Cassia tucked the scroll into her bag. “Thank you,” she said to Hadrianus.
Hadrianus was baffled by her, but I could have told him that Cassia felt much more comfortable talking to him instead of ducking her head and being deferential to Samorix.
Also, Samorix was a Gaul, and Cassia, as Samorix had stated in disparagement, was Greek. She believed Greeks to be superior to all other peoples, including Romans, but Gauls especially.
Marcianus thanked Samorix once more, and we departed.
We emerged onto the street, which was as crowded as when we’d gone inside. Midday was approaching, and men and women swarmed the lanes, running errands or seeking taverns where they’d settle in for a repast.
“What now?” I asked once we’d reached a relatively quiet area on the Aventine side of the Tiber. “If Samorix won’t tell us who purchased the poison, how will we find out?”
“Hadrianus,” Cassia said with confidence. She held her small bag close to her side, as though protecting the scroll like a priceless jewel.
“But my dear,” Marcianus protested. “The poor man cannot speak.”
“I imagine he has ways to communicate,” Cassia said. “He seemed intelligent to me, more so than his master.”
I’d also noticed Hadrianus’s quick gazes and the expressions he hid from Samorix. A man who’d survived the quarries would have found ways to keep himself alive. He now had a relatively easy job of fetching and carrying, though I hoped Samorix didn’t test any of his concoctions on him.
“The trouble is how to get him away from Samorix long enough to question him,” I said.
“Leave that to me,” Cassia answered, a smile hovering on her lips. “And thank you, Marcianus, for looking after my little library. I will take it home with me now.”
“We will return to Sextus Livius now,” I informed her.
Cassia’s stubbornness could put the ancient general Hannibal to shame.
“I need time and silence to research these poisons and decide which one most likely hurried Xerxes to his death. I can’t take all my scrolls to Livius’s home, and I would not be left in peace to read there.
Though I would like to return and examine his library at some point. ”
“If you’ve tamed the Parthians, Leonidas, it should be safe enough,” Marcianus added.
I could only prevail against them both if I lifted Cassia over my shoulder and carried her back up the Oppian Hill.
I believed Arsakes desperate enough to find the false Xerxes to leave me be while I hunted, at least until he grew impatient with me. I weighed my worry about him with the fact that Cassia would be inundated with writing requests at Livius’s and gave her a curt nod of agreement.
I strode on with them to Marcianus’s, to fetch Cassia’s overly heavy bag of precious words.
Although Cassia was eager to make a start on her readings, she took care of practical things first, like having us buy our midday meal at the popina at the bottom of the hill. She also visited the baker, who handed over a round loaf of bread with his usual bad grace.
Not until I’d eaten my share of the stew and half the loaf, did Cassia spread out her tablets, sharpen a few styluses, and become absorbed in her writings.
She’d remain so for hours, I knew, so I prepared to visit the baths. I’d missed my peaceful soak when Arsakes and his friends had attacked me, and I wanted the quiet to think.
Today, no such mayhem happened. I did my exercises and let the attendant scrape me down, then I took care to use pools that weren’t deserted.
I walked home refreshed. I found Cassia still immersed in her scrolls, but as I closed the apartment’s upper door, footsteps sounded on the stairs behind me.
I knew those footsteps, though I hadn’t heard them in several months. Cassia recognized them as well and raised her head in alarm.
The spare form of the man called Hesiodos stepped through the door I held open, the scowl on his thin face deeper than usual.
“You are summoned,” he snapped. “The trouble you have dug yourself into is deep on this occasion, Leonidas. We must go, now.”