Dead?I seized Lucia by the arm and pulled her with me down the hill and through the side street to my new abode.I tugged her inside.
“What happened?”I demanded as we climbed the stairs.“I thought Marcianus cured Floriana of the poison.”
Marcianus could work miracles.If he said the woman would recover, she should have.
“He did.She was healing.”We reached the apartment, which was empty, Cassia nowhere in sight.“She felt well enough to go out again.There was a fog, a heavy one—oh, five days ago.Someone stuck a knife into her.Leonidas, I’m so afraid.”
I sat down heavily.The morning we’d left Rome, six days ago, the fog had been dense, opaque, typical.“What happened?Who did this?”
Lucia hadn’t bothered with cosmetics today, and her face was blotchy, her eyes red-rimmed where they were usually lined with kohl.“They will kill me next.Where can I hide, Leonidas?You are free now.Take me away from here.”Her panic was true.
I grasped her wrist, trying to calm her.“Who arethey?And why would anyone want to kill you?”
“Whores know secrets.”Lucia’s lips twisted.“At least, people think they do.”
“What secrets?”
Lucia pulled from my hold.“I don’t know.But they will think she told me.All the girls have fled.Marcia ran off to find thatmedicusof yours—I don’t know what good that will do her.I thought of you, but you weren’there.”
She began to weep, sobs jerking her body.Lucia folded her arms over her stomach, trembling in her frayed linen gown.
I rose and drew her into my arms.Lucia did not embrace me but leaned against me, as though taking comfort in my strength.
Cassia found us like this, me stroking Lucia’s hair and trying to quiet her.Cassia set down the basket of bread and the clay pot that smelled of stew and turned to me inquisitively.
“This is Lucia,” I told her.
“Ah.”The word was quiet but held understanding.
Lucia jerked from me in alarm.When she saw Cassia she relaxed, as though dismissing her as unthreatening.
“Give Lucia some of the money,” I ordered.“She needs to leave Rome.Floriana is dead.”
Cassia made no move to obey.“Dead?But …”
“Stabbed.The morning we left.Lucia is afraid.She must go.”
Cassia regarded Lucia dubiously, and Lucia frowned.“Do not stand there gaping at your betters, girl,” Lucia snapped.“Do as he says.”
She might have been a fly buzzing about the room for all Cassia paid attention.Cassia directed her words to me.“If Floriana is dead, are her women released by her will?Or owned by someone else?”
“Floriana freed all of us a few years ago.”Lucia also spoke to me as though I were alone in the room.“She’d been a slave herself but was freed by her husband, or a man she called her husband.Fat lot of good he was.He’s somewhere in Etruria.He probably doesn’t even know she’s dead.”
“Someone will inform him,” Cassia said.“He’ll come to wrap up her business, or send a retainer to do it.”
“None of this matters.I need to leave.”Lucia turned to Cassia.“Fetch the coin.”
Cassia glanced at me for confirmation, and I gave her a nod.“Enough so she can journey … somewhere.”
I had no idea where in the empire Lucia would be safe.If Floriana’s murder had been on impulse—a robber chancing upon her in the fog—Lucia might be fine a few miles out of the city.But if Floriana been killed by important men, fearing she and her women knew things they should not, Lucia might be hunted with persistence.I would have to warn Marcianus to hide Marcia.
Cassia went without hurry to a spot near my bed, hunkering down to move one of the stones in the floor.She drew from a recess below it the clinking bag Kephalos had handed her.Lucia watched with interest, as did I.I’d no idea where Cassia had hidden the money.
Cassia carried the bag to the table, scooped out a handful of coins, and carefully lined them up.The inevitable tablet came out, she making marks as she sorted the coins into stacks.
“What are you doing?”Lucia demanded of her.“Are you a moneylender now?Just give them to me.”
She lunged at the table, but I caught Lucia’s arms in a firm grip.“Let her.She’ll know how much you’ll need.”
