Paulinus shrugged, waving me back to the chair so he could continue with my half-shaved face.The men watched in puzzlement then slowly returned to the bench, the excitement over.
When Paulinus finished, Cassia calmly asked him the price of the shave, as though she hadn’t been accosted by a brute on the street only a short while before.She made a note of Paulinus’s answer and serenely told him he’d be paid at the Nones of the coming month.
I followed her out, and we walked along toward the Quirinal.
“Were you hurt?”I asked.
“No.”Cassia sent me a quick glance.“Thank you.”
“You belong to me.”I had to cough—Paulinus’s shaves always scraped part of the skin away, leaving me with a rough throat.“That means I take care of you now.”
I’d never had a slave of my own, and I wasn’t certain how things worked.But Aemil had seen to my needs in all my years of slavery, and I assumed this was the way of it.
Cassia glanced at me with an unreadable expression then put her head down, stepping gingerly from stone to stone.I would have to teach her how to walk on Roman streets.
Cassia had purchasedme several tunics, which weren’t much different from tunics I’d worn as a gladiator, but were of better cloth and a tad longer.Freedmen were prohibited the toga, so I wouldn’t have to bother with that, which suited me.Cassia had, however, found a cloak for me, large, dark, and woolen, to wrap up in when the weather grew too cold.
As I stripped out of my dirty tunic and donned a new one, Cassia averted her eyes, as though a man’s flesh embarrassed her.Without looking at me, she gathered the old tunic and dropped it into a corner.Everything else, she hung neatly on pegs.
“You will need new sandals,” Cassia observed, and I glanced at my old ones.They were well made, only the best for the top gladiators.But I’d worn them all year and the straps were fraying and soiled.
“I hope the job you found pays much,” I observed as I took up the cloak.“Or we’ll be fleeing the city to avoid being arrested for running up debts.”
“It will,” Cassia answered with confidence.
Her lack of worry did not reassure me, though I had to admit her skills in bargaining had let us eat well so far.
The sun was up, the day warming, by the time Cassia and I walked along the lower slope of the Quirinal, past the shops where I’d had my shave, and to the Esquiline.A wide fountain at the hill’s base drew a crowd of mostly women who filled jugs of cool, flowing water.This was a large fountain with a pillar in the middle and four spouts, each fashioned into a face—the water came out of the mouths.
The women stared at me in blatant interest as we passed.One set her jug on her bared shoulder and trudged up a narrow, steep street.Cassia shifted that direction.The woman glanced once behind her then ignored us.
Shops made up the ground floors of five- and six-storied insulae that lined the lower streets of the Esquiline, the buildings towering above us.As the road bent up the hill, the insulae fell away to be replaced by one- and two-storied homes, thedomiiof the wealthy.Shops were built into these dwellings as well, as owners of the houses saw no reason not to collect extra rent by letting out part of their property.
I’d been to homes on this hill before, invited by the highborn to perform at suppers, or simply to sit while thedominus’sacquaintances marveled that a dangerous fighting man reposed in the triclinium during a banquet.
Women had brought me to this hill as well, wealthy matrons craving novelty, though I’d rarely accepted an invitation.Aemil liked to crisply declare he wasn’t running a brothel and that he’d sell a gladiator who brought scandal to hisludus, but some, like Regulus, did sneak away from time to time to be their lovers.
The slave woman with the jug turned a corner and disappeared into a side door of the very house Cassia halted before.
The front door of thisdomuswas nearly hidden in a recess between a basket-maker’s and a pastry shop, the latter of which poured out a scent of warm honey to those waiting to purchase the delights.The benches that lined the niche before the door of the house were empty.Here the clients would sit, waiting for thepaterfamiliasto see them, but usually the appointments were first thing in the morning.We were late.
The door slave, a young man with lanky hair who lounged on one of the benches, sprang to his feet as I bent my head under the low roof of the entryway.
The door, wood with its large cross beams studded with bronze, a bronze knob in its center, stood open, letting air into thedomus.We must have been expected, because the door slave scurried inside, beckoning us to follow.
This house was not as large as some of the villas I’d visited, but it was spacious enough.Water quietly trickled into a square basin in the atrium, the basin reflecting the blue sky in the open square above it.Green plants lined the edges of the fountain, and a large gathering of flowers in a vase decorated a lone table on one wall.
The walls had been painted white, in a new style, replacing blocks of red and black that typically outlined scenes of the outdoors or famous battles.The white walls held intricate lacy patterns of gold draped around clusters of figures.They were soldiers, I saw on closer inspection, but sparring and drilling, not slaying enemies.
A shrine stood against one of the longer walls, with small statues and several plaster masks that I assumed were the ancestors of thepaterfamilias.
The majordomo of the house, a haughty man with black hair carefully combed in his attempt to hide a bald spot, emerged from a shadowy hall beyond the atrium.He was likely a slave, but a lofty one, like Cassia.
“You are late,” the majordomo announced.
“My apologies, Celnus.”Cassia bowed her head.“An unavoidable delay in the streets, and then we had to make ourselves presentable.”
She spoke with deference but far less tension than I’d seen her with the barber and his customers, or Lucia and Floriana’s ladies.She’d also relaxed with Marcianus.I realized she considered the medicus and this majordomo as her equals—Marcianus in intellect and the majordomo in social status.
