“Where did you look for Rufus?” Cassia asked them.
“Everywhere.” Merope threw open her arms, a graceful movement. “Didn’t we, Gaius?”
“All over the Transtiberim,” Gaius agreed. “Every popina in every street, every lupinarius we could find. Up to the temple of Jupiter and back to the Naumachia. Crossed over to the Aventine and scoured it as well. Merope said we’d better tell you what we did—or rather didn’t—find, so we came here. We searched in many more popinae along the way.”
Cassia quickly wrote down every word. “I am growing very concerned for Rufus. Perhaps we’d better discover if he’s returned to the ludus or to Chryseis.”
“We’ll check with Chryseis.” Merope beamed us a wide smile, her eyes lighting with mischief.
“Better not,” Cassia advised. “If he is hiding with her, or if she has him trapped, she will never let you see him. You could ask at the ludus, and Leonidas and I will speak to Chryseis. She knows Leonidas now.”
“She did not warm to me,” I warned.
“She couldn’t warm to anyone,” Merope said decidedly. “Oil hardens in her hand.”
“Then it’s settled,” Cassia said. “Merope and Gaius will journey to the ludus and inquire about Rufus while we seek Chryseis.”
She spoke as though there was no more argument to be made. Such was the firm power of her reasoning that Merope and Gaius nodded, if reluctantly.
“Talk to Septimius, the gate guard,” I said. “Tell him I sent you.”
“And let us know what you discover,” Cassia said. “Leonidas and I will seek you in your rooms after we speak to Chryseis.”
Merope wasn’t happy that she couldn’t confront Chryseis, but Gaius appeared to think it wise. An encounter between the two women would only lead to shouting or even violence, and we’d be no closer to locating Rufus.
We left the apartment together and parted at the bottom of the stairs. Gaius steered Merope toward the river and the Transtiberim, and Cassia and I descended the Quirinal and started our trek toward the Aventine.
“I understand why Rufus likes Merope,” Cassia said as we walked. “She has fire. Most Roman women are raised to be subdued and obedient, no matter what class they come from. I can see him responding to that.”
“Youare not subdued and obedient,” I said.
Cassia blinked up at me from under her cloak. “How can I not be? I was born into servitude.”
“You are soft-spoken and duck your head, but you also do exactly as you please. Including accompanying me to a dangerous part of town to confront a dangerous woman.”
Her stare was perplexed. “Not exactly as I please. I do what makes the most logical sense. My father taught me that.”
“What makes the most logical sense toyou,” I countered. “Even when you’re ordered not to.”
“You did not order me to stay behind today.”
“No.” I took a few strides, turning sideways to move through a knot of men with baskets of produce hoisted on their backs. “It made the mostlogical sensefor you to accompany me.”
Cassia pulled a fold of cloth over her mouth to hide her expression and bent her head to study the large stones at her feet, still hesitant on the uneven streets of Rome.
I led us across an increasingly deserted city and around the Forum Bovarium—the cattle market—past a shrine to Ceres near the Circus Maximus and onto the Aventine. I wondered if Marcianus had returned home. We could call on him after we met with Chryseis, if the woman even proved to be in. It wouldn’t take much longer to speak to Marcianus before we met up with Merope and Gaius again.
The lower streets of the Aventine were more crowded than the heart of Rome, as people sought home in the late afternoon sunlight. Clouds formed on the horizon, and I tasted a bite of chill in the air—it would rain tonight.
The basketmaker’s wife was nowhere in evidence when I peered into the shop on the ground floor of Chryseis’s insula. Nor was the daughter, but the basketmaker himself was there, tidying away unsold wares.
Baskets of all sizes, from tiny bowl and plate shapes to wide two-person baskets for hauling wood, hung from the walls or rested on the floor or the benches the basketmaker had just brought inside from the street.
The basketmaker glanced briefly at me then went back to stacking small woven mats on a shelf. When I asked whether Chryseis was above, he only shook his head and waved my words aside, as though he did not understand them, muttering a few syllables of his own.
Cassia stepped out from behind me, slid down a fold of her cloak, and began addressing the man in a language that sounded Greek, but not quite the same as what I’d heard her speak with Marcianus.
The basketmaker jerked his head up, an expression of pleased astonishment unfolding across his face. He set aside the mats, and once Cassia finished, responded with enthusiasm. As Cassia continued the conversation, the basketmaker became eloquent. The two corresponded a long time, the basketmaker waving his hands for emphasis, while I, the ignorant Roman, watched in incomprehension.
