“She had nothing to do with it,” I tried. I looked around for Cassia, but she’d slipped out in the melee.
“Doesn’t matter. She’s a witness, and I can’t have her screaming in here all night. I’ll give her to the captain of the cohorts. If she’s innocent, she’ll be able to prove it.”
I knew that wasn’t necessarily true, but I couldn’t stop him without fighting the other vigiles now streaming up the stairs, plus all the tenants who appeared pleased that Chryseis would be led away in shackles. I’d have to let the captain take her and decide how to help her in the morning.
Chryseis’s reaction had not been feigned. Whatever she’d felt about Rufus, she’d not expected to see him dead.
Another shriek sounded over the impatient snarls of the vigiles as they swarmed up the stairs, responding to Avitus’s summons.
“You killed him.”It was Martolia, her words cutting into the room. “You killed him, you filthy bitch.”
Martolia easily twisted past the men closing on Chryseis and seized the woman by the throat.
I grabbed Martolia around the waist and hauled her from the still-wailing Chryseis. Martolia kicked and fought, but she was no match for my strength.
“Someone shut her up,” the watch captain said in disgust, gesturing at Chryseis.
One of his men sent a tight punch to Chryseis’s face. Her head lolled, her mouth closing as blood seeped from it. Chryseis didn’t fall senseless, but the blow dazed her, and she did not resist as two vigiles pulled her up and half dragged, half marched her to the door.
Martolia collapsed in my arms and began to cry—heartrending, lamenting sobs.
“Everyone out,” the watch captain bellowed. “Get this door bolted. Leonidas …” He turned to me, uncertainty in his eyes. “If that woman didn’t do him in, I’ll find out who did. Shouldn’t be difficult. Someone would have noticed him being carted in. Not enough blood for him to have been killed here.”
The floor was quite clean, as was the body, just as Ajax’s had been.
I disagreed that the vigile captain would find ready witnesses who’d seen Rufus’s body carried up the stairs. Romans saw nothing they didn’t want to. Whoever did this must have come in when Cassia and I had gone to Marcianus’s—a small part of an hour had passed at most. He’d have had to be quick, silent, and secretive.
The basketmaker’s shop had been firmly shut when we’d returned, but the basketmaker might have witnessed the killer entering as he closed down for the night. My heart went cold. If he’d seen, and the killer realized it …
I wanted to press back downstairs and make certain he and his family were well, but the staircase was crammed with the curious. Voices echoed in a constant babble.
Martolia slipped away from me and collapsed before the remains of Rufus’s body, hugging her knees to her chest, rocking as she cried. Chryseis had been panicked by Rufus’s murder, but Martolia grieved.
I stepped into the bedroom, lifted the covering from the bed, and draped it over Rufus. Hidden, he became innocuous lumps under cloth.
The vigile captain sent me a troubled glance as his men tried to herd the residents out and back downstairs. “Bad business. Very bad. And on my watch.”
“This isn’t the first such murder,” I said in a low voice.
The guard captain’s eyes opened wide, revealing dark brown depths. “You mean someone else on the Aventine’s been chopped to bits?”
“No.” I spoke quietly to the captain and Avitus. “Another gladiator, in the Subura. I found him in pieces, like Rufus.”
Avitus’s mouth dropped open, revealing young and whole teeth. “You mean someone is killing gladiators? For what purpose?”
They’d die just fine in the arena, he meant. “I don’t know,” I had to say. “My lanista is very worried.”
“Isis help us,” the captain exclaimed. “That means there’s a madman loose in Rome.”
I could argue that plenty of madmen existed in Rome, but I understood his meaning. One killing could be explained by someone who hated Ajax personally. Two meant a grudge against gladiators in general. Or, alarmingly, it could mean the person would extend his pleasure at killing to the general population.
“He needs to be stopped,” I said.
“Obviously.” The watch captain snorted. “What are you doing here, Avitus? This isn’t your patch.”
Exactly the question I’d pondered.
Avitus flushed. He was young, slim, strong, and easily flustered. “Not my patch for patrolling, no. I live nearby. Next insula over. It’s my night off.”
