“Woman?”He scowled.“What woman?”
“Floriana.”I was too hurried to explain, but Aemil knew.
“You want to waste Nonus Marcianus on a whore?”Aemil’s eyes widened in incredulity.“He’s busy.”
Gladiators were more valuable, he meant.We commanded a high price, while prostitutes could be found on every street for anas.
Aemil had no intention of sending for Marcianus, I could see.He’d only come to crow that I’d returned to beg him for employment.
Fortunately, the boy I’d called out to had heard me and was now trotting from the cells, with the lankymedicusbehind him.
Nonus Marcianus had gained a reputation for being able to save even the most injured gladiator, alternately cajoling and cursing said gladiator to hold still and let him work.Aemil valued the man, because he couldn’t afford to lose many fighters.The idea that all gladiators battled to the death in every match was a myth.Alanistaput years, dedication, and money into training a gladiator for the games.Aemil could ask any price he wanted for us, because he had Marcianus to keep us whole as long as possible.
Marcianus had brown hair and a nose too large for his face.He appeared amiable and even simple, but he was the most capable man I knew.
“You seem to be whole.”Marcianus looked me up and down when he reached me.“Why the commotion?”
I hastily explained, words tumbling.Aemil’s sour expression deepened.“She’s already dead then.”He dismissed Floriana with a wave.“No one survives poison.”
“Not necessarily,” Marcianus said.“Let me get my things.”
Aemil planted himself in front of themedicus.“You’re working onmymen.The whore is beyond saving.”
“I’ve set all the bones I need to and closed the worst of the wounds.I have a few moments to spare.I fear the poor lady does not.”
Aemil was large and fearsome.Marcianus, who’d begun life in an Equestrian family, was small-boned and pale from sitting indoors peering at books.However, it was Aemil who grunted and backed down.
“Go on,” he grumbled.“I know you’ll have your way.”
Marcianus immediately left us and disappeared into the cells.He returned in a moment carrying a cloth sack.“We should run.”
Without waiting for my answer, he jogged past me to the gate and out.
By the timewe reached the Subura, interested passersby had gathered around Floriana’s house.I pressed through, clearing a path for Marcianus.
A few vigiles lurked on the street, looking on in case the crowd turned into a mob.Vigiles worked mostly at night, watching out for fires, but part of their job was to keep order at any time.A man I recognized as an urban cohort, who performed the same function during the daylight hours, hovered on the opposite side of the gathering, eyeing the vigiles in mistrust.
Neither the vigiles or the urban cohort would even look at the Praetorian Guard who’d stopped to watch.The Praetorian must have been passing on another errand, because those elite fighting men kept themselves to the Palatine or their training field in the Campus Martius.
Lucia hurried out to meet me, parting the onlookers to tug me inside.Marcianus slipped in behind me.
“Has she died?”Marcianus asked in clipped tones.
“No, but she’s powerful sick.”Anguish rang in Lucia’s voice.The other ladies hovered, fearful.Floriana wasn’t always a kind mistress, but if she died, the women would be out on the streets.
Marcianus made his way to the small room at the end of the hall.I heard a whispered groan as Floriana struggled to live.
I pulled Lucia to my side.“Leave him to it.”
Marcianus could make healing concoctions I’d never heard of and knew how to stitch wounds with fine thread so that they closed and mended.Some believed he used magic to assist him, but Marcianus believed in little but what his own experience told him.I had faith in his skill.
He knelt by Floriana’s pallet, never minding the filth pooled there.I do not know what he assessed, but he reached quickly into his bag and instructed that someone bring him a mortar and pestle.
The youngest lady in the house, Marcia, peeled from the group to obey.Marcianus never snapped, never commanded.He simply asked in his reasonable voice, and others hurried to do as he wished.
“Leonidas,” he said in the same quiet tone.
I knew what he meant.“Out,” I said sternly to the hovering women.He needed room to work.
