Chapter 4
Cassia made this announcement as though gaining entry to the villa of a wealthy woman would be no trouble at all.
“How?” I demanded.
Cassia eyed me without distress. “I will tell you all in the morning. You have had a shock, Leonidas, and you should sleep. I cannot go on the moment, so the discussion will keep.”
I stared at her in frustration, though I knew she was right. I was bone-weary, my eyes sandy, the tiredness that accompanied any agitation coming over me. Cassia went back to marking in her tablets, humming a little tune in her throat.
I heaved myself to my feet, set the shutters’ boards into their slots in the floor, and went to bed. I’d pry from her what she meant when I woke again.
Cassia was no stranger to villas, I reflected as I shucked my sandals and settled into my bunk. She’d been raised on a large estate in Campania, away from the harsher world of Roman streets. Her father had been the family’s scribe and accountant, and though a slave, would have lived in better circumstances than most. The man had obviously been able to have a family, though Cassia had never spoken of her mother.
I drifted off to Cassia’s light voice as she sang something in Greek. I dreamed of her walking in her careful way through the ambulatory of such a villa, high on a hill, with the bay of Napoli spread before her in its blue glory. In this dream, she owned the house and dressed in a matron’s silks with the gold earrings a grateful patrician had given her earlier this year glittering against her hair. A gladiator who looked like me tried to gain entrance to this house and was repulsed by a sneering majordomo, while Cassia looked on serenely.
When I jerked from sleep, morning had dawned, sunlight pouring through the tiny window above me. Marcianus was helping Cassia open one of the board shutters to the balcony.
I peeled myself from the bed, scrubbing at my face. Marcianus leaned the unwieldy shutter against the wall with some difficulty.
I’d slept in my tunic, which I straightened as I padded toward Marcianus in my bare feet.
“What did you find out?” I asked him.
“A joyous good morning to you too, Leonidas,” Marcianus said without rancor. “May your ancestors bless this house.”
I grunted but gave him an apologetic nod. “Didn’t sleep well.”
“I understand. Ajax was quite a shock.”
Cassia quickly poured Marcianus watered-down wine and waved him to the stool reserved for guests. A new spray of flowers reposed on the shrine to our ancestors, the water jug was damp with a fresh draw, and sunlight gleamed on the bronze sculpture of a hand studded with blue stones, a gift from the same patrician who’d supplied Cassia’s earrings.
“I know you want to learn what I found,” Marcianus said in his unruffled manner as he took a sip of wine. “I was correct that Ajax had been dressed in his costume after death. The way the straps left marks—or did not—on his skin, and so forth, tells me this.”
He paused to drink before he went on. “It appears that he was felled with a blow to the head, There is a large gash in his skull, the bones beneath broken. He might have obtained the wound falling against something hard, including a stone floor, but I do not believe so. It is not a sword wound but made by something long and narrow. His stomach held the remains of a meal, a rather rich one. Meat and apricots, dates, a few other things I could not identify, and interestingly, flecks of gold.”
Cassia flinched but she dutifully wrote down his words. I, the hardened gladiator, took a quick gulp of wine as I tried not to picture Marcianus rooting around in a man’s stomach, picking over its contents.
I swallowed and eased out a breath. “Someone fed him a good meal and then hit him when he turned to leave it?”
“That is entirely possible.” Marcianus nodded.
“Flecks of gold?” I asked.
Cassia answered, “Gold leaf. Cakes or fruit can be gilded as decoration. So a hostess can serve her guests golden food.”
“Gold is poisonous,” Marcianus said cheerfully. “Though the tiny dose of gilt in one meal won’t cause too much harm. In any case, there wouldn’t have been enough time for him to die of that. He was killed before he even was able to digest it.”
“He dined with a wealthy woman then,” I said. “Or man. After he left the last lupinarius in the Subura?”
“A lavish supper, or a breakfast.” Marcianus opened his hands. “He hadn’t lain in that alley long—he was still quite clean, and the lane was a mess—but I’d say he met his end night before last or as late as yesterday morning. Poor fellow.” Marcianus let out a breath. “Ajax was not the most congenial of men, but he did not deserve this.”
Ajax had been arrogant, as most champion gladiators were, every bout survived serving to pump more confidence into him. He’d also, like Herakles, held himself above Romans, saying his tribe, called the Quadi, was far more savage than any of us could hope to be. Ajax had loved flattery and basked in his fame.
“I can imagine he’d have easily accepted an invitation to dine,” I said. “Ajax liked being celebrated.”
“And suspected nothing,” Marcianus went on. “As I say, he likely rose from his meal and was hit right away. There is nothing to indicate he fought or struggled.”
A deliberate murder then. Not a bout gone wrong, not Ajax attacking someone in a pique and being hit too hard in return.
