Chapter 26
Aulus twisted in Xerxes’s grip, swinging his knife, the blade glinting in the light of the lamp Cassia held.
“Let him go,” Cassia commanded in panic. “The knife might be poisoned.”
Xerxes, who resolved from ghost to the very real form of his brother, yelped and dopped Aulus.
Aulus swung to face him, then his eyes widened in shock. “No!” he shouted. “You are dead.”
Lucius spread his arms. “I’m indestructible, me.”
Aulus blinked, trying to resolve the contradiction, then he snarled and struck again. Lucius quickly brought up one arm, encased in his silk-lined cloak, to deflect the knife. Aulus’s momentum crashed him into Lucius, both men tumbling toward the still-open drain.
Cassia danced around them as they grappled. She clutched a brick she’d swept from the floor, as though trying to find an opening to bang Aulus over the head. I heard another step in the shadows, and I tried to call a warning to her, but my voice wouldn’t work.
Lucius and Aulus fell at the very edge of the hole, and Aulus forced Lucius’s head into the empty space. Lucius fought hard—if Aulus managed to get Lucius’s shoulders over the lip, he’d slip through and be swallowed by the Cloaca.
Cassia loomed above Aulus and brought her brick down. She aimed for the back of his skull, but Aulus sensed the blow and spun from it, making Cassia lose her balance and fall to her knees.
Lucius began sliding into the opening and shouted in terror. Cassia untangled herself and grabbed Lucius by his ankles, pulling him hard toward safety.
Aulus attacked them both at once. Lucius managed to roll himself and Cassia from the drain, then Lucius shoved her away from Aulus’s swinging knife and came to his feet with Xerxes’s skill.
Aulus ignored him to go after Cassia. He caught her around the waist as she struggled upright and carried her swiftly back to the opening.
I couldn’t shout, couldn’t move, couldn’t leap up and run to save her. Lucius darted for them, but Aulus held Cassia high over the hole, his knife against her ribs.
“Back away, or I drop her,” Aulus commanded.
Lucius stilled, eyes wide. I could only watch in horror and do my best to inch my body toward them.
What I could do, even if I reached them in time, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t lie inert and see Cassia die. Losing her would grind a terrible emptiness into my life.
Cassia struggled mightily, but Aulus, though small, was strong and tough, as legionnaires were.
I edged closer and closer, the hard floor scraping my back, my hands still unable to move. My bare foot touched Aulus’s ankle, but I was afraid to kick, fearing he’d take Cassia into the sewer with him if he fell.
The shadow I’d glimpsed before advanced, large sandals slapping the ground. They covered the feet of the huge Hadrianus, former quarry slave.
He lumbered forward like an enraged bull, caught Aulus in the side, and bowled him and Cassia away from the opening. Cassia, released, landed on the floor, fortunately well away from the hole, and gasped for breath.
Hadrianus and Aulus tumbled over and over each other, Aulus’s knife blade flashing. Lucius stepped forward, seized Aulus’s flailing hand, and wrenched the knife from it.
The struggling men neared the drain, Aulus gaining enough ground to send Hadrianus toward it first. Hadrianus’s back and shoulders slid in, but Hadrianus braced himself, using his bulk to remain firmly on solid ground.
In a sudden move, Aulus hauled himself up, gave Hadrianus a hard shove, and danced away. Hadrianus scrabbled, but he started to fall. Lucius grabbed Hadrianus’s legs, face tightening as he braced against Hadrianus’s weight.
Aulus circled the hole and stood on its lip, gloating. But, in his glee, he’d strayed too close to me.
I kicked his foot, and Aulus slipped.
Cassia rushed at him, brick in hand once more. As Lucius dragged Hadrianus out of the way, Aulus recovered and whirled to face Cassia.
I kicked again. Aulus, focused on Cassia, stepped hard sideways out of my reach, and found himself on the hole’s very edge, one foot landing on empty air.
Aulus’s eyes widened. He flailed, overbalanced, and tumbled into the hole.
Aulus screamed, loud and long, reaching desperately for Cassia, for me. His screams intensified as he went down, down, down into the depths of the great sewer of Rome.
The roar of water drowned his cries, and he was gone, silence rolling in to fill the space.
For a moment, no one moved. Then Lucius spun from the opening, hands on top of his head while he blew out a breath in relief. Hadrianus got to his hands and knees and peered into the drain, as though trying to see where Aulus had gone.
Cassia hurried to me, her long hair coming loose from its knot. Her hair poured over me as she flung herself to her knees beside me, softer than the silk lining of Lucius’s cloak.
“Leonidas,” she whispered.
Cassia gathered me to her, resting her head in the curve of my neck. She said nothing more, and I was content.
“Ah.” I flinched and jerked when Marcianus poked at me once more with the long pin he’d been sticking me with.
Marcia stood behind him in the gloom of the cellar, failing to keep the amusement from her face.
Cassia, after she’d recovered herself, had taken charge with brisk efficiency. She’d sent Hadrianus to find Marcianus and ordered Lucius to cover my supine body with his cloak. I’d been right when I’d decided Cassia’s hair was more pleasing.
She then told Lucius to drag the grating back over the drain. Hadrianus had helped him with that before he’d hurried up the stairs to the Aventine.
The grating had a lock that joined the grill to the iron frame it rested in.
Aulus had left the key in it, and Lucius now relocked it and slid the key into his belt pouch.
He started to do the same with the knife he’d taken from Aulus, but Cassia held out her hand for it. Lucius reluctantly handed it over.
Cassia tucked the knife into her tablet bag, which she’d apparently brought with her when she’d come to rescue me.
Marcianus returned with Hadrianus not long later. Marcianus, once he’d made certain that I would live, was, as usual, more interested in the nature of my ailment than my suffering.
“The feeling is returning,” he announced, mercifully putting away his pin. “You say it began in your hands and feet? Your extremities? Then worked its way inward?”
“Yes.” I could barely speak, my jaw stiff as I forced out the words. I still lay on my back, where I’d come to rest after Aulus’s fall, though Cassia had straightened me before she’d covered me with the warm cloak.
“You are fortunate Cassia found you.” Marcianus turned a curious gaze to her. “How did you know to seek him here?”
“Hadrianus told me.” Cassia waved a hand at Hadrianus, who’d folded up to hunker in a corner.
“I decided I’d teach him how to write the names of the men who might have benefitted from Xerxes’s death, knowing one of them would have purchased the poison.
He grew excited when I sounded out the name of Cassius Tatius but then denied he was the man who’d purchased the poison.
Between my next questions and his gestures, we concluded that it was Tatius’s assistant who’d bought the poison, though whether for Tatius or his own purpose, we didn’t know.
Leonidas had gone to the Esquiline to find someone who might have seen the poisoner, and I decided I ought to seek Aulus and ask him a few questions. ”
I grunted between my teeth. “Foolish.”
Cassia ignored me. “I thought it better not to rush in through the front door and demand to know whether Aulus or Cassius Tatius had poisoned Xerxes. I rather thought it was Aulus, because Cassius Tatius is well known in the silk trade and wouldn’t have had to take part in illegal importation schemes.
He could have, but it was more likely Aulus, who would have to be secretive and willing to kill to keep his secrets. ”
“Wise of you,” Marcianus said with approval. “So, if you didn’t rush in through the front door, how did you find Leonidas?”
“The tunnels,” Cassia said brightly. “They are for maintaining the sewers, but many are disused. Leonidas and I found them long ago, and we’ve been mapping them ever since. One led right under this building.”
“You are a marvel, my dear” Marcianus said, and I agreed. “Also, you were quite right about the poison Aulus used. By Leonidas’s symptoms, it was indeed hemlock. Very clever of you.”