I didn’t know much about the man beyond the buildings he’d left.Gallus, thearchitectus, would have loved to work on a project like these baths or this garden—he’d said wistfully that he wanted to build something all admired.Perhaps one day he would.
Cassia and I walked the garden’s paths, which were quiet.With the winter cold, most people had retreated indoors to the warm baths.
Nowhere did I see Lucia skulking, or even the cloaked figure of a woman.If Lucia had sought sanctuary in these gardens, she wasn’t here now.
“She might have taken rooms in the area,” Cassia suggested.“To be near a place she liked.”
Finding out would take a massive search, though admittedly less so than looking for her in the heart of the city.The Campus Martius, where the baths lay, was on the outskirts of Rome.It held training grounds for the legions and was not as heavily populated.
We left the quiet oasis of the gardens and returned to the streets.Not many insulae lined the area, as for a long time, none had been built on the Campus Martius.But after more prominent men had started erecting buildings, such as the Theatre of Pompey, Agrippa’s baths, and the nearby Pantheon, shops had appeared, and over them, rooms for the shop owners, which were sometimes rented out to other tenants.
Cassia fearlessly approached shopkeepers who were closing up for the afternoon, and asked about their lodgers.She knocked on doors if they were already shut.Lucia would recognize me too quickly, so I skulked a block away, pretending interest in a tavern, while Cassia questioned the inhabitants around the Saepta Julia, where I’d fought in gladiatorial combat, and the Vicus Pallacinae.
I realized as I watched Cassia follow one worker ruthlessly until he turned in exasperation to answer her, that slaves would more readily speak to other slaves.I was wise to let her get on with it.In the world of slaves, Cassia, as a learned scribe, even if a woman, outranked many.She had a fine sense of her own place, and used it.
Cassia returned to me, ordered stew and wine from thepopina, and handed me the jars to carry home.
“No one has seen her,” she said, deflating.“I’d hoped this would be easier.Lucia is a distinctive woman.”
“She might have dyed her hair a different color,” I suggested.“If you were asking about a red-haired woman that might be the only thing they would remember.”
“I described her in more detail than that.”Cassia frowned as we navigated the increasing foot traffic toward the Quirinal.The Vicus Laci Fundani led us east and north, away from the crowds of the imperial fora.We passed a crossroads shrine and took the Vicus Salutis, which returned us to the Vicus Longinus and our tiny street off it.
When we reached our apartment, I sat glumly down to the soup, lukewarm now, and the leftover bread from breakfast.I could not see that we’d made any headway in our tedious search.
“I suppose we at least learned that Marcia knows something,” I said after a time.“And that Marcianus won’t let us shake it out of her.”
“He will tell us if it’s important, as I said.”Cassia ate serenely, spilling not a drop.
“You believe in him.”
“So do you,” she countered.
I could not argue.Marcianus had kept me alive when I’d been a raw recruit, full of bravado and energy but lacking in skill.I studied a scar on my upper arm, where a sword had sliced it to the bone.I still had the arm, with only the scar cutting across it to attest to the injury, because of Marcianus.
“I trust him, yes.”
But I wished Iknewexactly what had happened to Floriana instead of having to rely on trust.I’d trained hard as a fighter so that I could compensate for the uncertainty of the arena.It was better to be over-prepared and never use half the moves I knew than not prepared enough—which could spell certain death.Knowing was better than guessing.
A thought struck me.I dropped my spoon into my bowl, sending dregs of soup fountaining to the table.Ignoring Cassia’s look of dismay, I jumped to my feet.
“I know where she is.”
Before Cassia could form the word,Where?I was out the door, my passage fluttering the cloaks on their pegs.
Chapter 19
We’d been so close.I cursed under my breath as I tramped back the entire way we’d come after leaving the gardens.
The Saepta Julia loomed, glittering under the afternoon sky, its colonnades dwarfing the line of shops where Cassia had hounded landlords and their servants.
Beyond that and Agrippa’s baths, I passed the stables that held the chariot racing teams, and crossed the bridge to the far side of the Tiber.From there I charged to the wall and the gate that closed off Aemil’sludus.
I hammered on the gate.The guard opened it, but when he recognized me, he tried to block my way with the gate and his body.
I shoved both aside and stormed into theludus.
The open training area within was lined with wooden posts on which gladiators practiced stabbing and hacking.The practice swords were wooden—the real weapons were safely locked away until the games.
