That was true.But it was a part of me no one knew, one I’d keep to myself for now.
Courtesans and matrons had teased me trying to learn my name, or they’d demand I tell them.I’d started to claim I didn’t remember, until I almost believed it.
Cassia regarded me for a moment or two longer, then she smiled and let me be.
She took the papyrus slip and set it on the shrine, weighting down one corner of it with a small bronze statuette in the form of a tiny god.A household god, one of the dozens of lesser gods who guided us from day to day.It was good to honor them too.
She returned to her stool and tablets.“What did you learn about Floriana?”she asked, poised to write.“Did you see Priscus?”
I plunked myself down on a stool and I told her all I’d done since leaving this morning—meeting Gallus at Floriana’s, visiting Marcianus, chasing the vigile, what Priscus and I had discussed, and my encounter at the baths.Cassia noted it all down, but she looked up with a gasp as I described being held under the water in the frigidarium.
“Was it Regulus?”she asked immediately.
“No, the hands weren’t right.He’d also find it a cowardly way to settle his anger.”
“Or the vigile?”
“Not right for him either.”
Cassia pondered this.“Unlikely that a complete stranger would try to drown you in a place he could so easily be caught.It must be connected either to you helping Priscus or to Floriana’s death.Perhaps whoever poisoned her believes you know who did it.You were there on the day.”
“Asleep,” I reminded her.“I’m hard to wake.”
“Is that commonly known?They might be terrified that you’d seen them.It was definitely a man who attacked you today?”
“The hands were a man’s, large and hard.”
“Hmm.”Cassia tapped her lip with her stylus.“We have not yet discovered where Floriana was struck down.We should do so.”She closed her tablets, setting them in a neat line, and rose to fetch her palla.
“Now?”I asked in surprise.“Where do you think we need to go?”
“As I said before, we ask questions.Someone must know where it happened.If a man is out to kill you, and if Regulus grows rash enough to denounce you, then we must find the murderer, and quickly.”
I was on my feet.“I agree, but if killers are stalking me in the streets, you are in danger with me.”
“Not necessarily.”She was maddeningly calm.“As I say, no one notices a slave.Besides, I can keep a lookout in case he tries again.”
I knew, as I took up a cloak against the continuing rain, that I would not be a master who rigidly controlled his servants.The chances of Cassia listening to me and obeying were less than a raw new gladiator winning his first bout against aprimus palus.
I putinto action my second idea of a person to ask about Floriana’s murder.I led Cassia across the Forum Romana, less crowded now that afternoon had come, and to the Palatine.
A man didn’t simply walk up the Palatine Hill and demand access to thedomusof Nero, but I had no intention of going inside today.I halted outside the gate and asked the men on guard if Severus Tullius was on duty.
Cassia proved correct that no one noticed a slave, particularly a female who kept herself covered with her head bowed.The guards’ eyes were on me, as was that of the boy sent running to inquire.
I was in luck and Tullius was there.He emerged cheerfully from the palace, brushing past the guards with a nod, and out the gate to meet us.
Tullius and I strolled together among the hill’s greenery in the gently falling rain.Cassia walked several paces behind us, a fold of her palla over her nose and mouth to shut out the damp.
I asked my question.Tullius’s face creased in confusion, and he took ten or so strides in silence.
“Why are you interested in the death of a freedwoman?”he asked.“A whore at that?”
“Because I don’t want to be accused of her murder.”
Tullius became still more puzzled.“Why shouldyoube?No one would listen.You are a hero—you survived the games with your courage and skill.No Roman will let you fall.”
“They might if enemies accuse me personally of the crime,” I said.
