Chapter 14
We followed Hesiodos, who would not wait for Cassia to put away her writing things or me to change into a dry tunic. The one I wore clung to the damp spots on my body I’d missed with the towel.
“I’m not sure what we’ve done to displease him,” Cassia said in bewilderment as we hastened down the Quirinal.
“It is not for me to instruct you,” Hesiodos said curtly.
He quickened his pace, making certain he stayed ahead of us as we made our way through the relatively empty Forum to the Palatine.
We climbed the road to the top of the hill, the sound of builders’ hammers briskly tapping stone growing louder with our ascent.
I heard the creak and groan of cranes and the shouts of workers who wedged blocks into place.
The Praetorian guards at the gate swiftly opened it as Hesiodos approached. One I knew, a man called Servius, regarded us in surprise as Hesiodos swept past him, but he asked no questions.
As we were raced through the long walkway into the domus and through corridors and across open gardens, I dimly wondered if the Domus Transitoria would ever be finished.
Nero was combining the grand houses of Tiberius and Gaius with the smaller home of Augustus into the largest complex Rome had ever known.
At the moment, I didn’t have time to observe its progress so I could report to Gallus, who burned to work on such a monumental place.
Hesiodos left us in a small anteroom where we’d waited during another visit, with columns of porphyry, arch-framed wall paintings, a mosaic tiled floor, and gilded tables. No seats or benches existed for a visitor’s comfort.
Not long later, the majordomo, a thin man with a shaved head called Lucanus Faustinus, entered, sandals whispering on the tile. He said nothing at all, only fixed us with his disdainful gaze before leading us out again.
Cassia and I exchanged an uneasy glance. We knew who we were being taken to see, yet we’d been given no time to put on our best clothes or for Cassia to refresh her hair. She was neat, as always, but a few locks straggled from the knot she wore at the base of her neck.
Faustinus led us up a flight of stairs to a long gallery, one wall open to a view of the valley where the Circus Maximus lay. An arcade shaded this room from the glaring May sun, but a drop from the wall would be sharp.
Faustinus halted here without a word. No one appeared to be in this space, though I spied movement in the shadows and heard a faint clink of metal. Praetorian guards waited, whether to watch over us or kill us, I couldn’t guess.
Two slaves in thin linen tunics hurried in, placed cushions on a bench, and hurried out again. Another Praetorian guard marched through one of the arched openings, and the princeps of Rome followed him.
Today Nero wore a silk tunic of bright green, with fine-tooled leather boots on his wide feet. Leather gloves as supple as the boots covered his hands, and he carried a chariot racer’s whip.
Beneath a mop of reddish curling hair, Nero’s eyes were wide and filled with the most killing rage I’d ever seen.
I observed this in a flash before Cassia and I were on our knees, our faces pressed against the cool tile floor.
On the previous occasions we’d been summoned before him, Nero would let us abase ourselves for a few moments and then bid us rise while he condescendingly spoke to us.
Today, he stormed over to me and slashed the whip across my back.
“I made you,” he shouted at me. “Remember that, gladiator. I am why you are alive. I can throw you back into the arena at any time, or I can execute you instantly.”
The whip landed on my back once more, stinging hard.
Aemil had whipped me when I’d first come to the ludus, making me understand that he ruled. I’d endured it, knowing I had no choice, though I’d longed to leap up, snatch the stave he used, and break it in two. When it became clear that I could do such a thing but chose not to, Aemil had ceased.
If I tried that here, I’d die the moment I reached my feet. The Praetorian guards, elite fighting men, would surge upon me and stick me full of swords before I could draw another breath.
I folded my hands over my head to ward off the blows, praying to any god who’d listen that Nero would concentrate on me and not turn the whip on Cassia. I could withstand it. She could not.
“Did you think you’d plot against me, and I’d not know?” Nero raged. The whip snapped down, laying open my tunic and searing stripes into my back. “I lifted you up, spoke to you as a friend, played dice with you …”
“I would never,” I tried.
“Did I permit you to speak?” Slash, slash, slash.
Nero grunted as he struck, as though he’d become a machine, losing control of the arm that went up and down.
“Sir.”
Cassia’s voice slid into the mayhem. I willed her to stay silent, to make Nero forget she was in the room.
The whip ceased. I fell all the way to the floor, pain radiating across my back.
“Was it because we went to the street of the poisons?” Cassia asked him.
Nero was silent for a long moment. I watched his left foot pivot, the boot’s leather tightening as he focused his attention on Cassia.
“You admit you were there.”
“We were, sir,” Cassia said in a near whisper. “Only to seek information.”
“On how to murder your prince?” The words grated into the silence. I heard the faint snick of a knife being drawn, one of the Praetorian guards ready to slay at his master’s command.
“On a death in the past,” Cassia answered. “What could have caused it. Who could have.”
Cassia spoke rapidly, but, as when we’d been dragged to Nero before, she cut through his fury and made him curious.
“What death in the past?” His tone held suspicion.
It was rumored that Nero had poisoned his stepbrother, Britannicus, who should have been Claudius’s heir and had been a more favored man than Nero. Claudius too, had expired suddenly, with poison suspected.
Nero’s first wife had died when he’d turned his attentions to Poppaea, now his second wife. The princeps was no stranger to poisons and poisoners.
“The death of Leonidas’s friend,” Cassia explained. “A gladiator.”
“A gladiator?” The words rang with incredulity. “Who would poison a gladiator?”
“That is what we are trying to find out.”
“Hmm.” Nero’s boots twitched. “To fix a match, no doubt. A criminal offense. Who did this vile thing?”
“We do not yet know, sir. Hence, we sought the information.”
Nero repeated the humming through his nose before his boots turned back to me. They clasped his calves perfectly, showing expertise in boot making.
“You should have told me.” The folded whip touched my chin. “Look at me, Leonidas.”
I raised my face, my back smarting under my now-ruined tunic.
“You took Cassia into a dangerous place,” Nero said sternly. “Yes, I have those who watch where you go in the city. You never should have dragged her there with you.”
“That is my fault, sir,” Cassia said. “I would not obey when commanded to go home.” This was not unusual. Cassia never obeyed a person unless she happened to agree with them.
“You should have made her.” The whip pressed into my throat, and I couldn’t stop my gagging sounds. “You are supposed to protect her.”
“Yes,” I struggled to say.
The whip vanished, and I sucked in a grateful breath.
“It might be better for Cassia if she came to live with me,” Nero proclaimed.
I lay very still, while the floor seemed to press hard into me. My body felt suddenly hollow, an emptiness so great it superseded the stinging, raw skin on my back.
Nero could take Cassia from me, and I wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.
I could argue that she belonged to our benefactor, who’d already declared her not for sale, but this was Nero.
He’d scour Rome until he discovered the benefactor’s identity and then have him or her arrested and executed in order to confiscate his property, which would include Cassia.
Augustus had been notorious for such a thing before he’d become princeps.
Nero would confine Cassia to this sumptuous house, and I’d never see her again. Whether he would use Cassia as a scribe, a confidante, a bedmate, or a person to play his new music compositions for, I couldn’t say, but she’d be out of my life forever.
“I need her,” I blurted out.
The whip returned, though it only brushed my chin. “What did you say?”
“I need Cassia. To help me find out what happened. I can’t do it on my own.”
Every word was the truth. I could blunder about Rome shaking poison sellers and silk merchants until midsummer, but I would not get very far.
These men had bodyguards, like Arsakes and his companions or the guard at Tatius’s office, who might slit my throat and dump my body in the river if I asked too many questions.
Cassia could learn things without leaving our apartment. She knew people all over the city, and she could read records that others had left, both recently and far into the past. She was also clever and thoughtful, funny and kind.
I did not want to live without her.
The room was completely silent, as though everyone held their breaths, waiting for Nero’s pronouncement.
The whip withdrew once more, and Nero took three paces away from me. He turned back, the boots pointed directly at my face.
“Very well, she may assist you in solving this puzzle,” Nero said. “Then we will do what is best for her.” He stepped forward once more. “When you do find this poisoner, if one exists, you will bring him to me and tell me all. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” I managed.
“We cannot have someone poisoning gladiators.” Nero’s tone turned petulant. “It will ruin the games.”
I croaked an agreement, though Cassia remained silent.
Nero threw down the whip in disgust. “Get up, Leonidas. Go. I don’t want to see you anymore.” He turned and marched out of the gallery, a contingent of Praetorians in his wake.
Before I could climb to my hands and knees, two of the remaining guards lifted me, one on either side. Once I had my feet beneath me, they let me go. I staggered, but I held out a hand to fend them off when they made to grab me again.