“Yes.”My answer was simple.“I burned offerings for him.”
Priscus studied me as I faced him.I didn’t look him directly in the eye but kept my gaze on an Egyptian marble pillar to his right.
After a long, silent moment, Priscus gave me a nod.“You’ll do.My majordomo is incensed that I am not leaving every detail of hiring you up to him or Kephalos, my scribe, but I like to judge a man for myself.You fight well, but you mourn those who have fallen, and spare others you could easily have killed.That tells me you are a man, not a machine.I need you to accompany me to Ostia Antica.I have valuable cargo to retrieve, and I and the cargo will need much protection.”
Not an uncommon request.Romans often had business that took them to Ostia, on the coast, either to meet ships from Egypt and farther east or to take care of problems in their warehouses that hirelings or slaves couldn’t manage.
The road to Ostia was dangerous, with brigands waiting to rob a man of all he had.Most travelers went in caravans or hired fighting men like me to protect them.Costly goods equally needed protecting.
I bowed my head to show I understood.Whatever Priscus’s reasons for the journey should not concern me.I would accompany him and fight off any who tried to accost him.
“I warn you beforehand, we will be in grave peril.”Priscus spoke lightly, his eyes taking on a twinkle.“There are those who will try to relieve me of my life, probably before I even reach the port.If they succeed, my friend, you too will be put to death.”
Chapter 6
“Ihope we live to collect the fee,” Cassia said when we reached our apartment once more.“It is quite a large one.”
She unwound and neatly hung her palla then took the cloak I’d dumped to a stool and shook it out, smoothing the folds before she hung it on the next peg.I wondered why she’d bother straightening a garment that would only get wet and windblown, but I didn’t mention it.
Cassia looked pleased with herself.Once Priscus had gained my word that I would protect him on the way to and from Ostia, he dismissed us cordially and went back to his plants.Celnus had taken us to the atrium, where another man had waited—Kephalos, a scribe originally from Smyrna—who had haggled with Cassia over the price.
I’d listened in fascination as Cassia, who’d barely spoken above a deferential murmur since I’d met her, argued loudly with the scribe about risk to me on the road, the senator’s declaration that I would be killed if he was—not by his own people, Priscus had said quickly.But, he claimed, those who had failed to guard him well in the past had been struck down later.The gods, Priscus supposed.The only explanation.
Kephalos the scribe had tried to point out I was nothing but a hired freedman, no longer a prized gladiator and so not worth as much.Cassia had come right back with the fact that Priscus himself had approved of me, and that I’d retired at the head of myludus.She’d clinched the deal by implying that I’d had many other offers, more lucrative than this one, and if Kephalos didn’t want to disappoint his master, he should agree to my price.
Fiftysestertii.Enough to feed and keep us for many days.
“What other offers did we have?”I asked her now.“How much were they for?”
Cassia looked at me in surprise and then gave me a small smile.“No others.I did not so much state that as let Kephalos believe it.”
Thinking through her conversation with the scribe, I realized Cassia had never actually said I’d had other offers.I had to admire her resourcefulness.
“Do you think Priscus lied about the danger?”I asked.“To make me guard him more carefully?”
“I am not certain.”Cassia laid out bowls for the meal we’d purchased on the way home.“Decimus Laelius Priscus is from an old patrician family, one of the most respected in Rome.My former mistress spoke highly of him, and that was a feat.She disliked everyone.”Cassia winced, and I imagined the mistress had taken that dislike out on her household servants, including her scribes.“Priscus has much money but these days not a lot of power.He’s retired and interested in his garden, as we saw.He was a very good friend to the emperor Claudius.”
Claudius had been Nero’s adoptive father.I was not one for politics, but I knew that not all friends or family of Claudius survived Nero’s rise to power.Some had quietly left the city, while others had been arrested for crimes real and imagined, and executed.
“Why is Priscus still alive then?”I watched Cassia ladle out the lentil stew and lay the bread in the middle of the table.
“Who can say?I’ve heard little about him except that he has vast wealth and spends much time reading and gardening.He did not have a lot of power in the senate, though many friends.”
And he had money, I finished silently.A man would be respected for that alone, if only in the hope that some of his wealth would fall to those ingratiating themselves with him.
“Maybe we should have asked for a higher price,” I half joked as I seated myself and lifted a spoon.
Cassia rewarded me with a fleeting smile.She quickly lost it and retreated to the other side of the table.This time she didn’t wait to be asked to join in the meal, but she did not take her first bite until I’d shoved some stew into my mouth.
“No garum today,” I said after I swallowed.
Another brief smile, then Cassia nervously opened her tablet.“A savings.”
I noisily ate stew, mopping it up with bread.I found a pebble inside the bread, larger than most, and spit it onto the floor.The grit from grinding mills didn’t always come out of the flour before the bread went into the oven.
“I need to pay Floriana for Lucia,” I said after the silence had stretched.“I’ve been to her twice.”
I thought to set her at her ease, but she gave me another worried look.“I see.”
