When I inquired after Chryseis, the vigile who’d admitted me to the house shuddered. “That woman Captain Vatia brought in last night? Beautiful as a goddess, heart of a basilisk?”
“Is she still here?” I demanded.
“Word came not long ago that we had to release her. Thank all the gods.” The vigile shrugged. “She lit out without a farewell, though we gave her the best bed and fed her dinner. Ungrateful bitch. She went home, I’d guess.”
I thanked the young man for his information and departed the house.
Chryseis’s insula was noisy with neighbors shouting to one another, or families arguing behind closed doors, and children shrieking or laughing. The basketmaker, his wife, and daughter sat in their places, eyes on their tasks. The coppersmith hammered away, bent over his anvil. Nothing at all might have happened here last night.
The basketmaker’s family did not glance up as I peered in. Either they did not notice me or they wanted nothing further to do with me.
I climbed the staircase I’d gone up and down so many times last night until I reached the landing on the fifth floor. The door to the apartment where the girl had lived was firmly shut, and I heard nothing from above.
Chryseis’s door was open. I paused on the threshold.
Open crates filled the front room, piled with Chryseis’s belongings. She charged out from the back room followed by a thin young man with overly long curling hair, his arms full of fabric.
“I told you to put them inthere,” Chryseis snapped at him. She caught sight of me and came to an abrupt halt. “What doyouwant? Haven’t you caused me enough trouble already?”
“Who is he, love?” The young man scrutinized me curiously. He had a narrow face, long limbs, and dark eyes that held no guile.
“Another gladiator,” Chryseis snarled. “I’m done with gladiators. Go away, Leonidas.”
“Leonidas, eh?” The young man dumped his load of cloth into an open crate and good-naturedly took me in. “I’ve heard of you. I’m Daphnus. Chryseis’s husband.”
Chapter 12
“Husband?” I stared, dumbfounded, then turned to Chryseis. “I thought Rufus was your husband.”
“Was,”Chryseis said decidedly. “He’s dead now. After today, my husband will be Daphnus.”
Daphnus sent me a grin. “Fortuna smiles upon me.”
Chryseis stamped past him for the bedroom. I stepped closer to Daphnus and asked in a quiet voice, “Are you certain you want to marry her?”
His grin widened. “Why not? She’s rich, she’s beautiful … My father thinks I’m good for nothing, but now I’ll be worth more than he is.” He let out a happy cackle.
“How long have you known her?”
“Six months,” Daphnus answered without hesitation. “Met her at a chariot race, like any good student of theArs Amatoria.” He beamed at me as though I understood what he meant. “She kept telling me she’d divorce old Rufus someday but that she liked having a handsome gladiator on her arm. Served as a bodyguard for her too. But now he’s gone, poor fellow.”
“Did you kill him?” I remained solidly in front of the door so he could not run, but the question amused him.
“I? Strike down a large gladiator? I am more apt to write an elegy for the man than fight him. If I’d tried to engage him, I’d be a pool of nothing on the bottom floor of this building.” He chortled.
“Where were you yesterday?” I persisted.
“While the foul deed was being done? It was rather awful, Chryseis told me. Scared her senseless.” Daphnus touched his lower lip. “Let me think. I spent the morning quarreling with my father, as per usual. He has a fine house on the Viminal, where he pretends he is a patrician. He is not, of course. He’s a freedman, but he has much money, courtesy of the man for whom he used to be a slave. Ran the man’s silk cloth import business for him, and now my dear pater has his own. I am a useless blot on his life, apparently, and have been cut from my inheritance. We argue about this regularly. My mother, bless her, has been gone these last dozen years, or she’d have something to say about how my father treats me.Shehad something to say about everything. After my father and I decided we’d never speak to each other again—as we do every day—I went to the baths. Later, I met Chryseis in the hole that I call my home, and we … well, you know. She ran off when she was finished with me, which was at sunset. Then I hear, via my one servant, who is a useless blot onmylife, that Chryseis had been arrested—for the murder of Rufus. But happily released, and now we can be together forever.”
Daphnus wound down from this speech with a contented sigh.
If he told the truth, then Chryseis had gone to him late in the afternoon, after she’d spoken to me. She’d been returning from his flat, wherever it was, when she’d walked in and seen Rufus dead.
“Not if you don’t get in here and help me,” Chryseis yelled from the bedroom. She appeared in the doorway, having heard every word. “Begone from my insula, Leonidas, before I summon the cohorts to drag you out.”
“Did you kill Rufus?” I asked her abruptly.
Her scowl deepened. “Of course I didn’t. I wanted to be rid of the lout, yes, but I had simpler ways to dispose of him. He was only a gladiator. Easy to have the marriage legally ended in the courts. I can afford it.”
