The vision enticed me.An impossible one for a freedman and a slave who considered extra covers for the beds a luxury.
I took to that bed after relocking the door and murmuring a good-night, seeking dreams of a secluded home, where none would stare at me but the birds.
The dreams did not come,only darkness.In the morning, I woke to a rumbling voice on the stairs.Cassia retreated hurriedly to the balcony as a large man burst through the door.I’d bolted it after the vigile departed, but the wooden bar was flimsy.I would have to replace it.
“Leonidas!”
The shout filled the room.At one time, I’d respond with a hearty,Regulus!But his tone held no friendliness.It was early, perhaps the second hour, sunlight scarcely filtering into the narrow street outside.
I rose from my pallet, pulling on my tunic, slipping feet into sandals that had been laid out by my bed.
I said nothing as I walked from the alcove to face him.Regulus had said he’d kill me, and he might have come to do just that.
Regulus was a Latium, a bit shorter than I was.His dark hair was shaved close, his brown eyes hard and intense.
“So this is freedom.”Regulus glanced around the narrow room and slice of sunshine from the balcony.“Not much bigger than my cell.”
Which had once been mine.
“I don’t need a lot of space.”
“No, Leonidas was always content with what he had, never wanting more.Ready to die in the games.So was I.Remember?”
His glare pinned me.Regulus and I had been friends, not as close as I had been with Xerxes, but after Xerxes had fallen, I’d found refuge in bantering with Regulus.We’d shared triumphs, drink, stories, laughter.
I saw none of that in the man who faced me, his rage pressed behind a wall of scorn.
“Nowyouare the champion,” I said.“Stay alive and gain your freedom.”
“Not if freedom meansthis.”Regulus swept his gaze over the barren room, the stools at the table, clothes on pegs, the woodenrudison its shelf.“I thought you’d have seventeen women in here.Where are they?”
He glanced under the table as though expecting to find a group of scantily clad dancers hiding there.
“I preferred Lucia.She had to leave Rome.”
“Huh.”Regulus transferred his gaze to me, his expression too knowing.“After Floriana was gutted.Some sayyoudid that, Leonidas.”
I eyed him in surprise and alarm.“Why would I kill Floriana?”
“Everyone knows you owed her money and couldn’t pay.The arrogantprimus palus, turned away by a madam.You were in thelupinariuswhen she took sick.When she didn’t die, you used a more direct method.”
My alarm turned to impatience.“I brought Marcianus to the house to heal her.Why would I do that if I wanted her dead?”
Regulus shrugged.“A blind.You had no way of knowing if Marcianus could save her.You could have hoped the poison too strong or that it had been too long inside her.”
“I wasn’t in Rome when she was stabbed,” I pointed out.“I went to Ostia.”
“How will anyone know that?She was killed in the early morning, about eight days ago now, in the fog.Body found when the fog cleared.”
The wooden shutter scraped back, and Cassia ducked into the room from the balcony.Regulus started, then gave me a smirk.“You see?I knew the women were somewhere.”
If he thought Cassia a promiscuous brothel slave, he’d be disappointed.She looked more like adominawith her hair in its tidy knot, her dress modest, baring as little skin as possible.
Cassia opened a large wooden box and withdrew a stack of tablets and several scrolls.She opened the first tablet and scanned through the writing.
“Leonidas left Rome seven mornings ago at the first hour.”She pointed to a line of text she’d written then touched a papyrus scroll.“I have the contract between him and a retired senator to escort him to Ostia.Leonidas left this house before the first hour and traveled directly to the gates, where he met the senator.He was not out of my sight or the senator’s or his servants’ from that hour forward.We returned to Rome four days after that.”
Regulus listened with his mouth half open, his dazed expression almost comical.“Who isshe?”he demanded.“Your council?”
