Chapter 23
I halted in surprise when Agapios stepped into my path as I entered the colonnade. Once a soldier, captured in a long-ago war, Agapios had been in the ludus longer than I had.
Aemil had started him as a gladiator, but when it became clear that Agapios didn’t have the deadly focus necessary for single combat, Aemil had demoted him to keeper of the practice swords, shields, and armor.
Agapios was now older than the rest of the gladiators, with a balding head and lines about his dark eyes.
I’d always known him as an easygoing man who looked after the equipment without fuss.
Aemil had been wise to give him the job, because everything was always well cared for and handed to us in an efficient manner.
“You saw Xerxes,” I stated.
Agapios nodded. “Outside the arena, the day he …” He stopped. Agapios had been fond of Xerxes as well.
“What did you see?” I loomed over him, too agitated to acknowledge his grief.
Agapios mastered himself. “He was near the entrance, and people crowded around him, like they always did. Everyone wanted to be next to Xerxes.”
So I recalled. Xerxes knew how to play to the crowd, drawing cheers, even when he was on the streets. He acknowledged individuals, especially children, talking to them, drawing them out, truly interested in them.
“A woman came forward and tried to hand him something. I couldn’t see what, but it was wrapped in a cloth. She said it was from her mistress.”
I focused on Agapios with sudden intensity. “Was it food? Like a pastry?”
“Could have been. But Xerxes didn’t take it. I heard him tell the woman he never ate anything before a bout.”
“Ah.” I deflated. I thought I’d found the answer, but it seemed not.
“Xerxes did something odd, though,” Agapios continued. “When the woman started to turn away, he flinched and slapped his arm, as though he’d been stung.” Agapios clapped his hand over his upper left arm in demonstration. “I wondered at the time.”
My heartbeat quickened. “Did the woman stick him with a pin, or a knife?”
“Not that I saw. She was carrying the gift away carefully, as if it were fragile. But a man had brushed past him. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but then Xerxes died, and I overheard you asking Regulus just now if Xerxes ate or drank anything that day.
You think someone dosed Xerxes before he fought his bout? That’s why he let Perseus kill him?”
“Do you remember the man who passed him?” I demanded. I was at my fiercest, but Agapios was too sad in remembrance to be worried. “What he looked like?”
“No, I’m sorry to say. He was a Roman, dark-haired, the same build as any other Roman. He slid through the crowd, who all then hurried inside to watch the match.”
“He went to the match as well?”
“I think so. But I had my duties to attend to, so I wasn’t paying attention. Then when Xerxes was killed, everything else went out of my head.”
As it had from mine.
“Thank you for telling me, Agapios.” I fished a coin from my pouch, but he waved it away.
“It’s nice to talk about him,” Agapios said. “Aemil never wants him mentioned.”
Aemil had spoken the truth when he’d said Xerxes’s death had devastated him.
“Would you remember the woman?” I asked. “The one who brought him the gift? She might have seen what happened.”
Agapios brightened. “Oh, I know her. She’s a maid for Horatia Lucanus Varinius, whose husband has a villa on the Esquiline. Xerxes had been Horatia’s favorite, and she was always trying to entice him into her house.”
I gripped Agapios by the shoulders. “May the gods favor you, Agapios. Thank you.”
“Will you tell me what you discover?” Agapios asked when I spun from him. “I want to know.”
“I will. I’ll catch whoever did it and thrash him until he can’t stand.”
“Good,” Agapios said. “Give him a blow or two from me.”
I made my way immediately to the Esquiline, seeking the home of Horatia Lucanus Varinius, wife of a prominent senator.
I wondered whether the senator had known of Horatia’s infatuation with Xerxes, but many patrician men pursued their own business and paid little attention to what their wives did.
As long as the wife didn’t publicly disgrace them, all was well.
Likely why Horatia had sent her maid to give Xerxes her gift instead of seeking him herself.
The sun was at its hottest by the time I reached the house. I wasn’t certain how to approach. If a gladiator knocked on the front door, Horatia might have me arrested, pretending outrage in order to keep her reputation safe.
I wished only to speak to her maid, in any case, though I didn’t know the maid’s name or if she still worked for Horatia.
I ought to have consulted Cassia first—she probably knew a few servants of this house or could easily ingratiate herself with them.
But I’d been in too much of a hurry to make my way straight to the Esquiline.
The sun beat on my bare head, making it throb. The cool interior of a shop across the road beckoned, and I stepped into it.
They sold pastries here, delectable dough cases holding cream or apricots or bright strawberries, the first of the season. The proprietor came forward as I gazed at the platters piled with confections and sent me a knowing look.
“If you are thinking to take one to Horatia Lucanus Varinius, she doesn’t like sweets.” The man, as shaved-headed as I was, but older, wrinkled, and small in stature, gave me a wise nod. “I saw you eyeing the house. Other guests have foundered trying to soften her up with a pastry or two.”
“I wasn’t thinking of speaking to her,” I said.
The man’s face crinkled further in a smile. “Not all the men who arrive bother with conversation.”
“She has a maid,” I stated.
“Ah, yes, Julia. Pretty young thing. Now, she likes pastries.” He winked.
“Has Julia been Horatia’s maid long?” I asked. The honeyed strawberries set into a nest of baked dough were drawing my gaze.
“As long as I can remember. I’ve had this shop for twenty years. Julia likes apricots.”
I knew it would be useless to ask the man if he’d sold pastries to Julia—or to Horatia via Julia—on a December day two and a half years ago. Someone from the household likely stopped by every day to provide the senator his dessert even if his wife didn’t care for it.
“I’ll take two of the strawberry,” I said, fishing out coins.
The proprietor shrugged. “As you like. The ladies aren’t home anyway.
They went to Baiae for the summer.” As my dismay rose, he added, “Though I hear they are coming home tomorrow, for some business Horatia must take care of. The servants left behind are in a flap to get everything ready for her. Unexpected, this was.”
I thanked the man and paid him, and he wrapped the pastries in a cloth for me.
“Want me to send a message to her?” the proprietor asked. “Horatia or Julia, as you like?”
“No,” I said, then softened my blunt tone. “No, I’ll try again tomorrow. No need to mention me at all.”
“As you wish, gladiator. Enjoy the pastries.”
I walked down the hill, my pace slower than when I’d charged up it. I’d learned more today but still wasn’t close to putting my hands on the man who’d caused Xerxes’s death.
A man who could be dead himself, I realized. Hadrianus had indicated he’d know the man if he saw him again, but poisoner might have died without Hadrianus’s knowledge.
Xerxes had been killed because Lucius had contacted him after years of silence, suggesting they start their silk trade again.
The person who’d covertly taken over Xerxes’s part somehow intercepted the message and feared Lucius and Xerxes would find him out.
And so, he’d murdered Xerxes before he could respond to Lucius.
Mihrdat had told us that he’d ended his collusion with the false Xerxes—Cassia and I assumed because it was no longer profitable for him.
But what if Mihrdat had decided that dealing with the false Xerxes was too tricky, and had his ruffians end the man’s life?
The false Xerxes had tried to coerce money from Arsakes, probably to gather enough to flee into safe retirement.
Mihrdat might have found him and finished him before Arsakes could.
Mihrdat could also have been responsible for the attack on Arsakes and Gotarz, wanting them out of the business as well. He might have hired a Roman to do his bidding rather than risk one of his own men.
I could be chasing a ghost after all.
I was not in the best mood when I reached home.
I found Arsakes in the act of moving out. The other two beefy Parthians had arrived and were steadying Arsakes on his feet when I stormed in.
“I tried to explain that Marcianus said he shouldn’t be moved,” Cassia told me in resignation. “But Arsakes is insisting.”
“I’ll rest better at home,” Arsakes said. “My bed’s more comfortable.”
Arsakes’s escorts eyed me warily as I stood aside to let them leave. They hadn’t forgotten the dunk in the frigidarium.
The two managed to get Arsakes down the stairs with only a minimal of growling from him. Cassia followed with cloths she instructed them to apply to his wound if it seeped and an admonition to return to Marcianus if the pain grew worse or the injury was slow to heal.
I did not hide my relief once I shut the door on them, leaving Cassia and I alone in the quiet apartment.
“They were discussing the funeral for their friend Gotarz,” Cassia told me as I bolted the door. “It is very sad.”
It was. Whoever had attacked Arsakes and Gotarz hadn’t cared who would be hurt and who would mourn once he was finished.
I pulled out the pastries and silently laid them on the table.
“Oh, how lovely,” Cassia said in delight. “I adore strawberries. Let us feast.”
She brought out plates, because it was her way to eat anything on a plate or in a bowl. I’d questioned her about that once, saying we’d only have to clean the plates again, and she’d stared at me as though I’d run mad.