I recalled the building I’d gazed upon when I’d stood on Chryseis’s balcony earlier. I wondered if Avitus had spied me there and had come to discover what I was up to.
I fixed a stern gaze on him. “You didn’t see anyone carting the body here, did you?”
“No.” Avitus raised his hands. “Was home, sleeping most of the day. I came over when I heard the noise. And sawyou.” He pointed at me. “You’re good at finding trouble, Leonidas.”
Avitus had been present at another death in the Subura earlier this year and a suspect for it.
“Trouble is good at finding me.” I turned to the watch captain. “What will you do now?”
He sighed and rubbed his head, which was thick with dark curls. “Interview everyone in this building, discover if they saw anything. Do you think the wife will want his body? If she isn’t found guilty of murder.”
I doubted it. I did not imagine Chryseis as the grieving widow putting up a long inscription to a beloved husband.
“I’ll take him back to the ludus,” I said.
Relief flickered in the captain’s eyes though he strove to hide it. “Good of you. I’m Marcus Vatia, captain of the Aventine vigiles.”
He was a stocky Roman, hard with muscle, his face one of a man who brooked no nonsense.
“You pray to Isis,” I observed, recalling his exclamation on seeing the body.
“Why not? She’s the most powerful goddess of them all. Faced the underworld, defeated evil, raised the dead,andis a good mother. I want her on my side.”
The room had finally emptied, the last vigiles planting themselves on the stairs to prevent spectators from returning. The residents, realizing they’d see no more, drifted home, but not silently. They babbled to each other about Rufus, Chryseis, and the murder, embellishments to the stories beginning to take shape.
I noted the girl from across the hall didn’t retreat there but took the stairs up to the apartments at the very top of the insula. Curious.
The one person I did not see was Cassia.
A soft noise sounded across the hall, in the other apartment, and I moved there swiftly.
This set of rooms was identical to Chryseis’s. Other than the table and a few plates and a jug in the corner, I saw nothing more.
The bedchamber beyond contained several pallets pushed together, filling the tiny room. The family must huddle together on them like dogs, using each other for warmth.
No one was there now, except Cassia. She’d pulled one pallet from the wall, half piling it on the next one, as she examined the floor closely.
“His body was kept in here,” she announced as I entered.
Vatia and Avitus had followed. Vatia pushed past me and gazed where Cassia pointed. “Blood,” he announced. “Not much. Dried.”
Cassia addressed her words to me. “I suspect Rufus was carried here, already dead and … dismembered … and kept in this room until the building quieted. Then was arranged in Chryseis’s apartment.”
I stilled. “How long in here?”
“I don’t know. Nonus Marcianus might be able to discover this.”
I worked through what she meant, my words coming slowly. “Then he wasn’t brought upstairs in the short time we were gone.”
“No,” Cassia said. “I suspect Rufus was already here when we arrived looking for Chryseis.”
“Which means the killer was in this room, while we were …”
“Searching her apartment, yes.” Cassia spoke calmly, but her face was ashen, her eyes wide.
“A pity you didn’t nab the fellow,” Vatia said, but he cleared his throat uncomfortably.
“A pity?” Avitus demanded in surprise. “They were lucky they weren’t for the knife themselves. A man who can fell a gladiator won’t be easy to bring down.” His declaration faded as Vatia frowned at him. “Sir.”
