Chapter 5
Cassia set a pace for home that gave us no more time for conversation.
Epikrates had not exaggerated when he’d said all of Rome was on holiday.
It was now the fourteenth day before the Kalends of January and the streets were thronged with revelers.
Two days ago, on the first day of Saturnalia, a ceremony and feast had been held at the Temple of Saturn on the slope of the Capitoline, but the general celebration would go on for a few days, the games at the Circus for ten.
In one lane, we came across a man in a slave’s tunic sitting in a sumptuous chair full of cushions, while he ordered young men in finer clothes—patrician’s sons—to do ridiculous things like walk backwards or dance wildly, flapping their arms. Everyone was laughing, including the highborn youths.
Patricians, Equestrians, and slaves alike wandered the streets wearing the pilleus, the freedman’s cap. During Saturnalia, everyone was considered free together, slaves allowed liberties they’d never have the rest of the year.
Most shops were shut, but those that were open, selling Saturnalian trinkets and small scrolls with verses to go with them, did a thriving business. So did the popinae, which held more revelers.
We pressed our way to the Quirinal and the Vicus Longus that took us to the tiny street that held our apartment. The wine shop beneath our home was shut, and I unlocked the bolt I was constantly replacing to the door that led to the apartment above.
Once inside, Cassia shed her cloak and hung it on its peg, draping her older cloak on top of it to keep it clean.
She loved her new cloak. It would be even more sumptuous adorned with the pin I was determined to buy for her. The sooner we returned the money to Drusus and collected any reward plus the fee from Aemil, the sooner I could purchase the gift.
I laid the rudis on the shelf as Cassia sat down at the table, opening the pouch to study its contents. Usually, she poured wine to refresh us after a trek across the city, but today it was I who uncorked the flask and filled our cups.
Cassia had bought this wine downstairs, a cheap vintage, but drinkable, even if it tasted a little of vinegar. Sometimes our acquaintance Sextus Livius sent us an amphora of excellent wine from one of his vineyards in Campania, but we’d finished off the last one a few weeks ago.
“It is Saturnalia,” I said in jest as I set down the cups. “Today, I serve you.”
“Pardon?” Cassia jerked her head up, blinking in surprise. “Oh, forgive me, Leonidas. I am lost in thought.”
I sat down opposite her as she absently lifted her cup and took a small sip. Cassia grimaced at the taste and set the cup down quickly.
I gulped my wine, knowing it would go down easier if I didn’t bother to savor it. “Are you afraid Drusus will have Ariston and his family arrested?”
“We will make certain he doesn’t.” Cassia fixed an adamant gaze on me. “We can say we chased the thief out of Rome and lost him in the hills beyond. Drusus can send out his own guards to search the wilds if he wishes, but anyone they find there will be too dangerous to approach.”
A good plan. “Is that why we are not going to Drusus right away?” I asked. “To give us time to follow this bandit who doesn’t exist?”
“Partly. Partly because this amount of money troubles me.”
“It troubles me too.” I ran a hand across my hard stomach, not liking how the wine was sitting in it. “If Ariston had been caught with that gold, he’d already be dead.”
“I agree. It would not go well for his family, that is certain, which is why we will not mention them.”
“They are very grateful to you,” I observed. “I’ve never seen a freedman bow to a slave.”
In truth, I didn’t always remember Cassia was a slave either. As a scribe, she was a superior form of being. Our household and our entire lives were now run according to her—gently made—dictates. I didn’t mind. I preferred Cassia’s orders to Aemil’s shouted curses and heavy fists.
Cassia eyed me speculatively. “Epikrates does not regard me in that way. Or, rather, in his eyes and the eyes of his god, we are same.”
“What god is that?” I asked in bewilderment. The deities who dwelled in the temples on the Capitoline were very aware of who was who in Rome.
“Did you not guess?” Cassia said, surprised. “They are Christian.”
“Ah.” I did not know much about the Christian sect, though I’d met a few of that religion when they’d passed through Aemil’s ludus.
They’d not been condemned to the games for being Christian—they’d simply been gladiators sold to Aemil from the market.
“Is that why I saw no ancestor masks or household god or goddess figurines on their shrine?”
Cassia nodded. “The cupboard contains the sign of their god, the cross, when opened. They keep it closed so that strangers do not see.”
I drained my cup and thunked it to the table. “What sort of god wants to be known by a device used to torture and execute criminals? I hear that they eat pieces of their dead god as well.” I screwed up my face in distaste.
Epikrates and his family had seemed so innocuous. I couldn’t imagine them participating in the strange and bloody rituals Christians were supposed to perform, always in secret.
Cassia regarded me patiently. “They don’t eat their god, or anyone’s flesh for that matter. They use bread and wine in a symbolic feast. No bodies are consumed,” she finished with a touch of humor. “The ritual is to honor his sacrifice for them.”
“We honor our gods by giving them offerings,” I countered, thinking of the bull killed for Saturn two days ago. “Then we eat the meat, which symbolizes having a decent meal.” I tried to add my own humor to the conversation.
I didn’t much like beef, preferring simple lentils or grains, but I’d have a mouthful at a festival honoring whatever god was on the calendar that month.
“We have the feast because the gods and goddesses can’t actually eat what we sacrifice, can they?” Cassia said. “They also don’t consume any offerings of wine or grain we leave for them at their temples. The priests or priestesses do. It stands to reason—statues don’t need food.”
“Are you a skeptic?” I asked, not entirely surprised. Cassia never showed much loyalty to a particular goddess or god, only to the ghost of her father and whatever simple deities might be inhabiting our home.
“Perhaps, though it never does one good to admit it. I don’t mind participating in the festivals.
It is important to be part of the life of Rome, isn’t it?
” Cassia rested her hands on the table, taking on the philosophical tone she assumed when discussing abstract matters.
“That is one reason the Christians tend to be regarded with suspicion. They refuse to perform the rites honoring other gods, especially those of the divine Caesars, and won’t allow the rest of us take part in theirs. ”
“I’m not certain I wish to take part in them. Why do they want their god inside them? Even symbolically?”
“I’m not certain.” Cassia frowned in thought. “To become one with him, or to become like him? He did let himself be killed, in human form, in a gruesome way, to prove his devotion to his followers, even those who mocked him.”
I shook my head. “I’ll stay with Hercules. A strong warrior.” Many gladiators prayed to him for protection.
“Osiris was killed and dismembered, then resurrected,” Cassia said. “Dionysius was as well. They faced death and overcame it, which made them extremely powerful gods.”
I conceded that she had a point. But it was far less dangerous to continue to make offerings to Hercules, who had helped me survive to this day, then to try to join a sect that made Nero nervous.
“You still have not told me why you don’t want to return the money to Drusus,” I said, steering us back to the subject. “Do you think he stole it from someone else?”
“No, but I believe he meant to give it to someone else, someone he’d meet at the Circus Gai. And not for a noble reason.”
My brows rose. “Fixing the games, maybe? Aemil would never take a bribe like that, but other gladiators might.” Regulus was the first name that sprang to mind.
“I am speculating on something more sinister.”
“If so, he wasn’t very secretive about it,” I mused. “He had a tantrum when he found his money gone, drawing attention to himself.” Nero’s attention, which could be hazardous.
“Drusus is the sort of man who believes nothing can touch him,” Cassia said. “Which makes him so dangerous.”
Cassia opened the pouch again, lifting out the coins and stacking them into five neat piles of four each. She noted the amount on one of her tablets then leaned in to study the gold.
I gazed at it as well, captivated. I rarely saw an aureus, even a denarius for that matter. A brass sestertius or a few copper asses were the most I usually held in my hand.
“Whatever he needs it for must be very expensive,” I said, my voice quiet.
“So much money.” Cassia’s voice was equally soft as she remained rapt on the coins. “No one but Epikrates and his family knows we have it.”
I stilled as I caught her meaning. Epikrates and his family would be unlikely to tell anyone they’d ever seen Drusus’s sack of gold, let alone that we’d taken it away with us.
The sum on the table would enable us to leave Rome, to travel far from our mysterious benefactor and the whims of Nero. Once we were in some remote outpost of the empire, I could pay an official to declare Cassia a freedwoman, or we could simply say she was, so that no legal trail would follow us.
We’d be wise to change our names, but as I hadn’t been born Leonidas, that would be easy for me.
“The cities of the east are beautiful places, my father told me.” Cassia’s voice held longing. “Ephesus is a jewel on the sea, and Smyrna and Pergamum hold luxuries never seen in the backwater of Rome. Then there’s Halicarnassus, Antioch, Tyre. They are even farther away, warm and beautiful.”
I’d never heard Cassia speak like this. Most of the time she focused on practical matters, such as how much bread to fetch from the baker and how much wine to purchase for the week. She recorded the wages I earned, sequestered the money, and doled it out sparingly to keep us fed and the rent paid.
Now her voice took on a dreamy lilt, a yearning for the places of her ancestry. To be free in the warmth of an eastern city filled with fountains and citrus trees, where we’d lounge in the sun and eat dates covered with honey.
This pile of gold could take us there and keep us in comfort for a long while.
We’d have to carefully plan how we’d get away without notice, but Cassia was clever enough to come up with some scheme.
Then we’d be fugitives. If we simply disappeared, Drusus would likely tumble to the fact that we’d run off with his money. A senator prominent enough to have seats at the Circus next to the princeps’ could afford to hire men to hunt us down.
If Nero grew annoyed at us for our departure, whether or not he cared about the inconvenience to Drusus, he had even more resources for finding us. He’d bring us back to Rome to face terrible deaths.
But if we planned well, we might escape, never to be seen again.
Cassia let out a sigh and began sliding the coins back into the pouch.
“Perhaps someday,” she said, resigned. “When we can go without fear of reprisal.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, not in disappointment, but because she’d said we .
I cleared my throat. “Do I take the money to the princeps, then?”
“No.” Cassia raised her head and gazed at the wall behind me. She often did this when thinking hard, so I was not alarmed. “You will return it to Drusus. Then we will watch him, to see what he is up to.”