Chapter 17 #2
I found Marcianus and Cassia deep in conversation, the remains of a loaf of bread and a jug of wine on the table. They were arguing, from their gesticulations and adamant voices, but in Greek, so I had no idea about what.
Cassia glanced up as I tramped in and shook water from my body. She immediately ceased whatever point she was making to fetch another plate and hunk of bread. Hail clattered on the roof and bounced on our makeshift terrace, but the apartment was dry and cool, comforting.
I sat down on the visitor’s stool, since Marcianus had taken mine. I planted my elbows on the table and stuffed the bread into my mouth, washing it down with the wine Cassia poured for me.
“I regret I brought in nothing else to eat,” Cassia said to me apologetically. “I became absorbed in my reading, and then Marcianus came.”
I shrugged. I could have carried something home from the popina in the Argiletum or stopped at another along the way, but I’d thought only about getting out of the hail and telling Cassia about my meeting with Vitus.
“We’ve narrowed down the poison used on Xerxes to two possibilities,” Marcianus told me as I ate. “Each of us favors a different one, but I suppose we will never know which of us is correct.”
Cassia, by her expression, did not agree, but she kept silent.
“What are they?” I asked.
“The snake venom and the hemlock,” Marcianus said.
“I suspect the venom, while Cassia believes it was the hemlock. Regardless, either would be strong enough to weaken Xerxes without him realizing it until too late. If he ate a dish containing either one, say less than an hour before going into the arena, the effects would begin once he was facing his opponent.”
I swallowed the last of the bread. “We never eat a meal too close to a fight. It slows us down.”
“He might have drunk the poison,” Cassia said. “In a strong cup of wine.”
I shook my head. “We also don’t want to be tipsy.” I drained my cup, letting Livius’s Caecuban wine drive away the aftertaste of the inferior vintage I’d consumed at the popina.
Marcianus deflated. “That is true.”
“What about pastry?” Cassia asked. “If someone offered Xerxes a pastry before the match, would he take it? It wouldn’t be as heavy as a meal but sweet or spicy enough to disguise the taste of poison.”
I considered this. “Xerxes did like sweets.”
“You are brilliant, young Cassia,” Marcianus proclaimed. “Now, all we must do is discover who Xerxes met before the match and whether they gave him a pastry. Who would he accept such a thing from?”
“Only someone he knew,” I said. “And trusted.”
“A woman,” Marcianus suggested.
“He was devoted to Marcella by then,” I said. “Also, Xerxes wouldn’t have taken anything from a woman—or man—if he suspected that whoever threatened him away from the silk trade had sent it.”
“Did someone threaten him?” Cassia asked in surprise.
I refilled my cup from the jug and related to them all that Vitus had told me.
Marcianus nodded once I’d ceased speaking. “I remember Vitus. He was not the sharpest of men, but quiet and observant. I think we may trust his tale.”
“The imposter must have taken over Xerxes’s name just after Xerxes quit the trade,” Cassia said as she finished noting down the reported conversation. “They frightened him enough to make him retreat and then stole his business. I wonder what they threatened him with?”
“Exposure,” Marcianus declared. “Reporting him to the magistrates. A gladiator wouldn’t survive that.”
“If the person who threatened Xerxes took over the smuggling, he could be dragged to execution himself,” Cassia argued. “Xerxes would be able to threaten him with exposure in return. An impasse. No, it must have been something that frightened Xerxes very much.” She made a thoughtful note.
“You are forgetting that Xerxes died years after the threat,” I said.
“If Xerxes was finished with the trade, according to Vitus, not long after I came to the ludus, then it was six years from that time to when Xerxes died in the Saturnalian games. Why wait so long to kill him?” I studied the dregs of my wine.
“Maybe we are wrong, and Xerxes’s death had no connection at all to the threats or the silk smuggling.
It was Perseus, after all, wanting to move up in the ludus. ”
“I consider it unlikely that Perseus was involved at all,” Cassia said.
“If what you have told me of him is correct, Perseus was not the sort to come up with intricate ruses to gain what he wanted. If someone else coerced Perseus, again we have the problem of opportunity to smear poison on Perseus’s sword before he went into the arena.
I will return to my theory that someone fed Xerxes poison somehow before the match. ”
“They could have done so,” Marcianus said. “Gladiators have adoring devotees, who bring them many gifts, including food.”
“That is true,” I agreed. “Food, wine, trinkets, coins, jewelry.” I’d also received a few more intimate offers from women as well as men, but I didn’t want to say so in front of Cassia.
“Therefore, someone pressing a sweet pastry on Xerxes before a match wouldn’t be unusual,” Cassia said.
“Aemil discourages such things until after the bouts are done for the day,” I said. “But he can’t be everywhere at once.”
“It is a place to start,” Cassia said determinedly. “Marcianus, would you ask at the ludus if anyone remembers such a thing?”
“I would be delighted to,” Marcianus answered. “You might have the right of it, my dear. If we can trace back what Xerxes ate and who doctored it, we can discover which is the correct poison.”
To Marcianus, the how was always more important than the who or why. If the victim had been anyone other than Xerxes, I’d be amused.
“I can return to Samorix and pry out of him who bought what two and a half years ago,” I offered. “Even if the killer didn’t purchase the poison from Samorix, I wager he’ll know who sold what at the time and to whom.”
“If Samorix has close ties to Nero, you will be taken right back to the Palatine,” Marcianus warned. He sighed. “I apologize for not knowing his connection before. I had no idea I would bring so much trouble upon you.”
I felt my back twinge, though Cassia’s salve had worked wonders. “It is not your fault. Why would you believe Samorix reported everything to the Palatine?”
Marcianus shook his head, morose.
“We considered speaking to Samorix’s slave, Hadrianus,” I reminded Cassia. “He seemed much cannier than Samorix believes.”
“Oh, I have not forgotten about Hadrianus,” Cassia said. “I’ve invited him to come to us anytime he can get a free hour. We can ask him then.”
I stared at her in surprise then recalled how she’d been murmuring to the big man when he’d been opening the boxes of scrolls for her.
“How will you understand his answers?” I asked. I assumed Hadrianus had learned to express himself, but a complicated conversation would be difficult.
“I will teach him to write,” Cassia said, beaming. “That will take some time, I know, but I can tutor him enough at least for him to spell a name.”