She was humoring me. I also realized that while I’d labored, my stomach had settled, and I was eating and drinking without discomfort. Marcianus’s tinctures worked miracles.
I’d begun the next letter when a banging on the door gave me the excuse to toss down the stylus. I rubbed my hand, which hadn’t cramped like this since the days I’d first begun to use a sword, and went down the stairs to open the door at the bottom.
Merope pushed past me without greeting, scampering up the stairs to find Cassia. She had been out almost as late as I had, and dancing, yet she raced upward on light feet while I plodded heavily behind her.
“The vigiles arrested the basketmaker,” Merope said breathlessly when she reached the apartment. “The one who lives downstairs from Chryseis. They were waiting for him when he returned home last night and nabbed him. Martolia saw it happen.” Merope’s usual smiles were gone, her brows drawn in anger. “That woman killed Rufus, I know it, even if she didn’t strike the blow herself. We can’t let someone else pay for her crimes.”
I wasn’t certain the basketmaker was innocent and Chryseis guilty—the man was hiding something—but I agreed he shouldn’t be condemned out of hand.
Cassia was already on her feet, reaching for her cloak. “Yes, we must go. The poor man.”
“Wait.” I stepped in front of the doorway as the two women rushed for it. “Merope, go home. Cassia and I will find the basketmaker.” I pictured Merope in her grief and anger trying to drag the basketmaker to freedom and only being arrested with him.
Merope scowled, but Cassia said, “It is best. Do you know where they took him?”
“Watch house on the Aventine, Martolia told me. She danced at a house nearby last night and when she was walking home, she saw the vigile captain take the basketmaker away.”
I’d wondered why Merope had come alone with Gaius the night before. Likely the sisters each took different jobs so they could make more money in one night.
Cassia clasped her shoulder. “We will find him and help him,” she promised.
Merope quieted, but only a trifle. “I don’t understand why Chryseis isn’t locked in the Tullianum.”
She’d been released on my conviction that she hadn’t murdered Rufus. “Because she had no reason to kill him,” I said.
Merope turned her frown on me. “Of course she did. Spite and vengeance on me and Martolia.Shedid it, mark my words, not that silly idiot you were trying to seduce last night. Severina fell asleep,” Merope told Cassia with a snort of laughter. “Such were the charms of Leonidas the Spartan.”
Severina had been trying to seduceme, but I decided not to argue. I stood aside and gestured Merope out the door. Cassia wound her cloak around herself and stepped past me to descend the stairs. Whatever she’d thought of Merope’s last declaration was lost in the folds of wool.
We headed toward the Aventine. Rome was at its height of activity, and the markets were thronged. Soon people would drift home to eat their midday meal and head to the baths, but at the moment, the crowds were thick.
It was the middle of Parentalia now, and the occasional small procession of a family honoring their ancestors snaked through, blank death masks on the faces of the family members. Cassia and I would honor our deceased parents, and I would add Xerxes, who’d been as close as a brother, with a small feast on Feralia, the festival’s final day.
Merope slipped away from us at the Basilica Julia, making nimbly for the Tiber and a bridge to take her home. I hoped she’d stay there.
I led Cassia through the masses around the cattle market and on past the Circus Maximus, where races would be held at the beginning of the next month in honor of Mars.
We reached the fountain of the three fishes on the Aventine. A right turn would lead us to Marcianus’s, but we went left to find the house of the vigiles, which lay near Chryseis’s insula.
As it was midday, only an idle guard sat in the lower room of the house. When I strode inside without knocking, he nearly fell off his stool. He was up quickly, however, a sharp sword pointed at my chest.
“Where is Vatia?” I demanded.
“Asleep,” the guard growled. He was a different man from the guard I’d spoken to when I’d come to inquire about Chryseis, and less affable. “Out. I don’t care if you are Leonidas the Spartan. I’ll not let you wake him.”
“Where is the man you brought in last night? The basketmaker?”
The guard lowered his sword in confusion. “What do you want withhim? We had to bring the whole family. His wife kicked up a big fuss.”
“Where is he?” I leaned to the man, putting plenty of menace into my words.
The guard backed a step, but perplexity overrode his fear. “You can’t talk to them. They don’t even speak a sensible language.”
A weary male voice rolled from above as I moved in on the guard. “It’s all right. We have him in the cellar, Leonidas. Won’t say a word in any language at all.”
Vatia clattered down the stairs, his tunic rumpled and his face unshaved but his boots in place. “Truth to tell, I’d be glad to be rid of the man, so if you can make him talk we can either turn him loose or send him to the cohorts.”
He reached the ground floor, combing fingers through his thick hair as though trying to force it into some sort of order, and unbolted a door at the back of the room. Vatia waved at the guard to lead us down a narrow set of stone steps, he bringing up the rear.
