The wine merchant raised a hand in greeting as I unlocked the door—I’d managed to install a new bolt not long ago—and we went inside and up the stairs.
Cassia disentangled herself from her cloak in the dim coolness of our rooms, then reached for a jug of wine and one of water to mix a refreshing drink for us.
“Who was the man you were speaking to at the villa?” I asked as Cassia set the water jug next to the wine. “Was he your lover?”
Cassia jolted, nearly spilling the water. “Gracious, no. Why would you believe that?”
“Herakles told me this.” I could never be anything but blunt.
“I see.” Cassia arranged the jugs neatly on their shelf and handed me a cup. “Herakles is wrong. I have several acquaintances in Domitiana Sabinus’s home. One is called Helvius, and I know him fairly well. He is also a scribe—Domitiana’s secretary.”
I conceded that Herakles had exaggerated to stir up trouble, but a small knot formed in my stomach. Cassia had a quick mind and a talent with numbers and writing. It would be natural for her to be drawn to another scribe, a person who shared her interest in literature and languages.
Why this should cause me to flinch, I did not know. I had no such annoyance when she spoke with Marcianus about the same subjects.
She could not go to another man without permission in any case. Unless she was freed, she could not marry or form any relationship against our benefactor’s will.
She might, of course, save to buy her freedom, but I’d never seen any evidence of that. Perhaps, as I had when I’d been a gladiator, she’d concluded that her price would be unreachable.
I would inquire of Hesiodos, the slave who was our go-between for our benefactor, exactly what her price was. An idea was forming in my head, so new it made me rub my temple with callused fingers. But I could do nothing until I spoke with Hesiodos.
I gulped the watered wine, letting the liquid wet my parched throat. “This Helvius would be in a good place to know what goes on inside the villa.”
“Exactly my thinking.” Cassia took a delicate sip and set the cup aside. I’d noticed that ever since she’d been poisoned by a draught of wine, she’d been very careful not to drink too much at one time.
She was waiting for me to take a seat, so I scraped out a stool and thumped to it. Cassia brought out leftover bread from breakfast and placed it in the exact center of the table.
“Helvius knows quite a lot.” Cassia smoothed her tunic as she sat. She did not reach for the bread, but I knew she expected me to. I broke a chunk from the wedge and dunked it in my wine, and only then did Cassia set a smaller morsel on her own plate. “Domitiana Sabinus was married to a consul called Severinus who left her very well off. She also inherited money from her own family. Domitiana is a very wealthy lady.”
“Perhaps that is why Livius was there,” I offered. “The wealthy befriend each other.”
“He is a freedman, no matter how much he is worth. But handsome, and that might be Domitiana’s interest. She apparently likes young and comely men.”
“Is Herakles comely?” I asked skeptically. He was hard-faced and ungainly to me.
“To many, yes, I suppose he is. Herakles is strong, and though not as pleasing of countenance as you are, he is unusual. The barbarian coloring fascinates some women. Notice she wore a wig to resemble a woman of the north. I know of onedominawho will only have red-haired slaves or freedmen working in her house. She enjoys looking at them, she says.”
“Like pet birds,” I said in distaste.
“Yes, though hardly as pampered. She’s not a kind mistress.”
I said a silent prayer bidding the ancestors of these servants, whoever they were, to watch over them.
I realized in the next instant, that Cassia had saidnot as pleasing of countenance as you are. She spoke of me only in comparison to Herakles but for some reason, her observation trickled a tiny bit of warmth through me.
I took another large bite of bread. “Livius might tell me why he’d visited her, if I ask. Or he might not.”
“If it was private business, he most certainly will not.” Cassia returned to her wine for another minute sip. “Helvius explained to me more about the household. I knew a little from my previous stays in the villa, but he filled in the gaps. Domitiana’s son is a praetor in a small city in Hispania where he enjoys his power. He rarely comes home as he doesn’t like his mother, so he leaves her to her own devices. Domitiana also has a daughter.”
The way Cassia’s mouth tightened signaled to me that this fact was significant.
“Does the daughter live at the house?” I asked. “Perhaps Livius’s visit had something to do with her.”
“Helvius did not think so. The daughter, Severina, is married to a man called Tertius Vestalis Felix and has her own villa on the Caelian Hill. She met her husband, a retired proconsul, when she and her mother visited her brother in Hispania a few years ago. Severina is also horribly spoiled. According to Helvius, she’s found fault with everyone since the day she was born. I’ve never met her myself.” Cassia set aside her wine cup. “She’d been sent off with governesses to her father’s relatives from a young age—her mother had little to do with her.”
I’d known patrician parents who were very close to their children—a man named Priscus, for example, loved his adopted son without shame. Others couldn’t be bothered with them. As one who’d never known his father and barely remembered his mother, I didn’t much understand either situation.
“If her husband is a retired proconsul, he must be much older than she is,” I said. A man with a political career went from aedile to praetor to senator, and usually was not elected consul or given a proconsulship until later in his life.
