“Not an accident,” I stated.
Marcianus shook his head. “It is a slight possibility that he wasn’t meant to be killed. Slight. Someone could have hit him with a length of piping as a joke and exerted too much strength. Or was furious with him and simply wanted to hurt him.”
Cassia glanced up, her stylus poised. “If we discover where he had the meal, we will likely find who killed him.”
“Very likely.” Marcianus poured more wine for himself before Cassia could reach for the jug. “He might have been struck down in the street when he emerged from whatever house he was in, but it’s more probable he met his end inside it. His body was clean—a domus or villa would have the space or outbuildings in which to wash him.”
A chill crept down my spine. “What you mean is someone invited Ajax to dine—or to spend the night with them if the meal you found was breakfast. They fed him well, then as he turned to leave the table or the triclinium, hit him hard enough to kill him. Then they removed whatever clothing he wore, cut up his body, dressed him in gladiator gear, and carted the pieces back to the Subura, where they lined him up as though placing bones in a tomb.”
I finished, my mouth dry. Cassia and Marcianus had stilled as I’d spoken, the appalling crime becoming more real with my words.
“Who would do such a thing?” Cassia asked in a quiet voice. “And why?”
Marcianus pushed away his cup. “This is why I prefer being amedicus. I see the body and what happened to it. I don’t worry myself about what morals a man would lack to be this strangely cruel.”
That ability to separate his job from the reality of life was how he managed to work for the ludus, I realized. Marcianus focused on sewing up our wounds, mopping away the blood, and setting broken bones, not on the terrible theatrics of the games.
Cassia’s stylus made a soft click as she set it down. “The question is—did this killer have such anger at Ajax that they would mock him in death? Or is their focus on gladiators in general?”
I should have felt great fear or dread as Cassia’s question sank in. Someone in the city of Rome could be hunting gladiators, using this odd method of murder. They might not distinguish between current gladiators and former ones.
But just as stepping into the arena had a numbing effect on me, as I fixed on survival alone, I felt strangely empty as I returned Cassia’s and Marcianus’s stares.
“I will hunt down Rufus and Herakles,” I said. “And Regulus.” Regulus, with his great pride, might readily fall into a trap of a banquet put on for him. Though I wondered if Regulus would be foolish enough to turn his back on another. He was pompous but careful.
“You should,” Marcianus agreed, his briskness returning. “I will report to Aemil and cart Ajax’s body to the ludus for a burial.”
The organization of gladiators—ourcollegia—would see that there was a marker for Ajax. We paid into a fund, which footed the cost of burials and small pensions to surviving wives and children. Xerxes’ widow had received a few sestertii from the cache when he’d been killed. Ajax would be buried outside the city walls in the space Aemil had purchased for members of the ludus.
“I will inquire at the Villa Flores about Herakles,” Cassia said, as though this were a reasonable suggestion. “Leonidas will find Rufus’s wife and make sure Rufus is safe with her.”
I rose. “No.”
Cassia sent me a perplexed frown. “I know the people at that villa, as I told you last night. I will be able to find out more on my own.”
“At a villa where a gladiator could have been given his last meal?” I rested a balled hand on the table. “No.”
“I have to agree with Leonidas,” Marcianus said. “It will be dangerous for you, in any case. You might not be admitted, or even ejected bodily if your questions infuriate the mistress or master. If Herakles is the lover of the lady of the house, or Ajax was, she will never impart such information to you.”
Marcianus said the words I wanted to but could not form.
Cassia regarded us with a patience I’d come to know meant she comprehended far more than anyone else in the room.
“I do not intend to question the lady of the house at all,” she said. “She’d never answer a slave, and as Nonus Marcianus has stated, would have me turned out of the villa. But I know her servants, some of them quite well. I will not speak to the lady—she will never know I was there.”
Very likely the lady would not. As a gladiator, whenever I was invited to a patrician’s domus I was admitted to the public rooms, expected to show off my skill, discuss bouts, or take one of the highborn women to bed. I’d never skulk about the kitchen or back rooms of the house with the servants.
Though a scribe ranked far above a gladiator in the hierarchy, Cassia would be expected to remain in the background with the other household staff, unless requested specifically. I had fame without status, and she had status without fame.
“It is still dangerous,” I rumbled. “Slaves must tell their master and mistress anything they command, such as why a scribe who worked for their friends in Campania came to interrogate their servants.”
“The master of the Villa Flores died a few years ago.” Cassia lifted her stylus, one thin lock of hair falling from her knot. “The mistress, Domitiana Sabinus, still lives in the house, though her son in Hispania technically owns it. She has been taking lovers from the ranks of actors, charioteers, and gladiators. So say her servants. They are rather ashamed of her behavior, and I am confident they will say nothing to her about me. She has lost their respect.”
Cassia’s firm lips told me this was the worst thing a lady of a household could do.
“Ah.” Marcianus relaxed. “If you have friends to speak to, things might be well.” He turned to me. “She will go only to ascertain whether Herakles is there or has been there, and where he is now.” As I started to speak, Marcianus held up a slim hand. “I will accompany her.”
“There is no need,” Cassia said quickly. “I can be unobserved on my own.”
