“This is Cassia,” I said.“She works for me now.”
Cassia adjusted her palla to cover most of her face and bowed her head in deferential greeting.She studied Marcianus as he blinked in surprise at my announcement, then she began speaking to him.In Greek.
Marcianus’s surprise turned to astonishment, then delight.He answered her, and the two began a conversation, both behaving with cordiality, but what they said, I had no idea.
Marcia returned, breathless and flushed.“No salad of any kind.As I said, lentils and bread.”
Cassia made a note.“What time did the symptoms occur?”she asked Marcia.
Marcia stared at her and addressed her answer to Marcianus.“We found her like that this morning, in the first hour.Lucia was shouting.”
Marcianus nodded, and Cassia’s stylus moved across the wax.
“May I see your notes?”Marcianus asked, and Cassia handed him the tablet.He glanced over the scratches in approval.“Very succinct.”
“Thank you.”Cassia took the tablet as he held it out to her.“I find it helpful to keep a record of events.”
Marcia and I exchanged a baffled glance.
“If anything changes, send for me,” Marcianus said to Marcia.“My house is near the fountain of the three fishes on the Aventine.”
“Yes, sir.”
Marcianus had a way of commanding instant respect.His presence wasn’t powerful or dominating, but men and women alike fell all over themselves to do what he asked.
He began to walk away, but Cassia called after him, “Your fee, sir?”
Marcianus turned back with a start.He quickly assessed the house with its weary, mussed ladies, me still in the tunic of a slave, Cassia and her plain draperies, stylus hovering.
“Oneas,” he said.“Payable whenever it can be done.”
Cassia’s stylus moved.Marcia slid back into the house with the last of the ladies.Marcianus gave us a gesture of farewell and strode down the street.
The spectacle over, the lingerers went about their business, ready for the next entertainment they might stumble upon.
“He has much kindness,” Cassia observed as we watched Marcianus go, his lanky body jerking, until he faded into the crowd.
“I would be dead three times over if not for him.”He’d patched up wounds Aemil had been certain would kill me.
“Astute as well.He knows they can’t pay much but would be insulted to receive charity.”
“What were the two of you speaking of?”I asked.“I don’t understand Greek.”
Cassia flushed.“He asked where I came from and why I am assisting you.About my family and background.He was born in Athens, he said, though his parents were from Rome.He knows that part of the world better than this.He said he studied medicine in Athens and Ephesus.”She sounded impressed.
They’d exchanged much information.I hadn’t known this about Marcianus, and I still knew little about Cassia.
She tucked away her stylus and tablet and gazed at me with a critical eye.“You will need a barber.And a new tunic.”
“Later.”Now I wanted to sleep.
“We cannot wait,” she said.“You might have a job, but you must present yourself at a patrician’s house, and you will need to be shaved and in clean clothes for that.”
Chapter 5
“Job?”I asked in surprise.Cassia had said she’d begin her search for one last night, but I hadn’t thought she’d find one so quickly.“Doing what?For who?”
“A retired senator on the Esquiline.We must hurry, or he will cease admitting clients for the day, and we’ll have to wait until morning.As that will be another day of expenses, I suggest we meet with him as quickly as we can.”
