Cassia heaved a sigh. “I know we do. These murders make no sense. A madman, I conclude, as Nero has, but one very calculating and precise. I can think of no compelling reason for a person to kill either Ajax or Rufus.”
“We can’t know why,” I said. “We should concentrate on finding out who. Why doesn’t matter.”
“But knowing the why can lead us to the who. Is he—or she—finished? Or are all gladiators in danger? Is the killer enraged at gladiators? Or fascinated by them? Is he trying to show power over fighting men who could easily kill anyone they face, and yet are killed themselves?”
Such things were beyond me. Cassia was the sort who pondered questions like a philosopher.
She continued, “Why were they given a fine meal beforehand? To relax their diligence? Or is it a ritual of some sort?”
“Gladiators are given a feast the night before the games. Thecena libera.” I’d never been able to eat much at them, not wanting to dull my senses with meat and wine.
“Interesting.” Cassia opened the tablet in front of her and wrote with quick strokes. “It could very well be a ritual. A gladiator’s blood is meant to heal, as you told me. They might be collecting such blood to heal a loved one, or for good luck. We never find blood with the corpses. Perhaps they gave Ajax and Rufus a good meal beforehand as a sort of apology.”
I was not convinced. “If so, why cut the bodies to pieces, dress them, and leave them for others to find? No, this person is cruel, and crazed.”
Cassia released another breath. “I am simply trying out ideas. I still would like a look at Chryseis’s warehouse.”
I would as well. I did not want Cassia to come with me, but she was already bundling up a few tablets into her bag. I knew she’d find her way there with or without my permission, so as usual, I took her with me so I could keep my eyes upon her.
The rain had ended and the day had warmed slightly, but it was dank as we crossed the wet stones and moved through the crowded Forum Romanum and along the Vicus Tuscus to the Forum Bovarium. Beyond the cattle market, along the river, lay the Emporium and its vast warehouses.
Boats pulled in and out from the banks of the Tiber as we walked along it, disgorging wares brought up the river from Ostia Antica, shipped there from ports all over the world.
The Porticus Aemilia drew my eye as it always did when I ventured this far down the river. It could not help but draw anyone’s eye, as the huge warehouse was one of the largest of such structures in all of Rome.
Fifty barrel vaults ran down its length, with four vaulted levels stair-stepping crosswise up the riverbank. The warehouse had been fashioned entirely of concrete, the ceilings formed by constructing wooden supports inside the walls and the concrete poured over the frame. When the concrete dried and the supports were pulled away, the vaulted ceilings stood.
The master builder I’d worked for had brought me here when I’d been an ungainly lad, explaining the techniques as proudly as if he’d built the Porticus himself.
More warehouses flanked the area, including one that was under construction, workers laying bricks that would eventually be covered with concrete. I wanted to linger and watch, but we needed to find Chryseis’s storehouse.
Cassia discovered it by heading for the nearest well and asking a woman who drew water there where it was.
She returned to me, triumphant. “There.” She pointed to a smaller warehouse resting on the bank of the Tiber south of where we stood. “Chryseis owns the entire building, but she rents out half of it and uses the other half for her own wares.”
Impressed with Cassia’s knowledge, I led the way along the river. The area was chaotic, wagons moving from docks to warehouses, small ships and barges being emptied and loaded by shouting teams of men. While deliveries were forbidden to be made within the walls of Rome in the daylight hours, plenty of goods moved to and fro outside them, many to be stored in the warehouses before they were distributed later that night.
Chryseis’s warehouse lay near a quieter dock, with no barges tethered there. In fact, the entire area was too silent for my taste. The building we headed for had been built near the tall hill formed by discarded and broken pottery. It loomed high, a strange mound made of used amphorae.
“People have been adding to this pile for the last seventy or more years,” I told Cassia as she regarded the hill in wonder. Very likely her previous excursions to Rome hadn’t included the Emporium and the area around it.
Cassia stared at the hill of broken pots until I turned her away to Chryseis’s warehouse.
The building was a miniature of the Porticus Aemilia. Two barrel vaults led back into the hill, one side of the warehouse open to the river. Men worked in one of the vaults, unloading a wagon. They barely noted us as we walked into the other side of the warehouse, which was mostly empty.
Crates, boxes, and baskets stood on the back walls, with shelves holding smaller items. Amphorae were embedded into the dirt floor, their buried pointed ends keeping them upright.
The air was damp, smelling of mud, river, and rain-soaked concrete walls. Chryseis herself was not there—I was not expecting her to be—but she’d left no guard to keep others out. I wondered if even thieves were afraid to steal from her.
“Leonidas?” A familiar voice sounded at my back. “Itisyou. Well met, well met, indeed. Perhaps you can help me?”
Chapter 13
Cassia brightened, and I turned to behold thearchitectus, Gnaeus Gallus.
“Why are you here?” I asked, unsure how to greet him.
Gallus regarded me good-naturedly. He was small and thin, his dark hair thick but graying. He wore a fine linen tunic, and as he had the first time I’d met him, let his loosely draped toga drag on the floor.
