I suppressed a shudder as I descended, Cassia close behind me. I didn’t like underground spaces, having spent too much time first in prison and then in cells deep inside amphitheatres, waiting for my turn to battle on the sand. Not good memories.
The cellar was larger than the house above us, but that did not make me feel any better. A wide central hall ran its length with cells on either side, complete with the stink of sewage and unbathed prisoners.
The basketmaker and his wife and daughter had been crammed together into a cell at the far end of the corridor. The guard unlocked the door, holding his sword ready, but the three inside were not about to rush him and try to make their escape.
The wife glared at us, though the daughter huddled in the corner, and the basketmaker sat dejectedly on the floor, staring at nothing. When the wife spied Cassia, she stiffened.
Cassia stepped around me and began speaking before Vatia or the guard could force the prisoners to their feet. Rapid and fluent Aeolian Greek flowed from her lips. The basketmaker jerked his head up, eyes rounding as he recognized her.
“What’s she saying?” Vatia asked me in bewilderment.
I shrugged. “I don’t speak Greek.”
Neither did the guard, obviously, who watched Cassia with a blank expression.
When Cassia finished, the basketmaker began to weep. Broken sentences tumbled from his mouth, his hands moving shakily. The daughter drew into an even tighter ball, hiding her face in her knees.
The wife, on the other hand, sprang to her feet and started shouting in Aeolian, first at her husband, then at Cassia, then her husband again.
Vatia strode forward. He carried no sword but balled his big fists, which could easily break bones.
“What is he telling you?” he demanded of Cassia.
Cassia turned to him, shrinking slightly in on herself, a stance she took when she wanted to appease another. “He says …”
The wife lunged desperately at Cassia, but Vatia seized the woman by the tunic and jerked her back.
Cassia tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear and continued, “The basketmaker says he is ashamed. He saw a man go into the insula, who he now realizes was the killer. He thought nothing of it—men visit tenants of the insula all the time. The basketmaker is cut up inside for not understanding that the man was a murderer, and realizes that if he’d stopped him, he might have saved the life of another.”
The wife hung silently in Vatia’s grip, her mouth dropping open. Cassia did not look at her, keeping her gaze on Vatia.
“Oh, yes?” Vatia growled. “Why didn’t he say so when we came for him? Or why didn’tshe?” He shook the woman.
“She didn’t know,” Cassia said quickly. “She wasn’t certain what her husband saw.” Cassia asked the basketmaker a question, and he replied without hesitation, tears in his eyes. “He did not know how to explain, and he was confused,” Cassia told Vatia. “He doesn’t understand much Latin.”
The daughter now peered fearfully from her knees. The wife continued to stare at Cassia, lips parted. I shook my head at her ever so slightly, and the woman snapped her mouth closed.
“Will he swear that on his ancestors?” Vatia asked in irritation. “I’m not giving the cohorts a man who weeps and can’t answer their questions. They’ll torture him and throw him out. If he can describe the man he saw …”
I read sympathy in Vatia. A man with a wife and daughter who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time would not drive him to cruelty. He’d prefer a real culprit with the wordmurdererbranded on his forehead, carrying the exact evidence to convict him, to stop by the vigiles’ house to give himself up. I sensed that Vatia preferred fighting fires to arresting people.
Cassia again spoke to the basketmaker. I knew the man was far more involved than what Cassia had told Vatia, but he’d be safe as long as Vatia didn’t understand him. If the wife and daughter remained silent, all might be well.
“He describes a large man, broad of shoulder,” Cassia said after she’d finished her chat. “With a large nose and wiry black hair, quite a lot of it. This man entered the insula alone before the eleventh hour, but the basketmaker doesn’t remember seeing him come out. He was busy in the back of the shop. As he says, many come and go from the insula.”
“What about them?” Vatia jerked his chin at the wife and daughter. “What did they see?”
“Nothing at all. They were quite focused on their tasks, as it was a very busy day.”
Vatia heaved a sigh that came from the bottom of his boots. “Any number of men might have large noses and a full head of hair, but at least it’s something.”
“Others have described this man,” I put in. “He is very likely the killer of both Ajax and Rufus.”
As Vatia gave a signal to his guard to lead the three prisoners out, I suddenly wondered if the basketmaker, or Volteius the armorer, or his apprentice Albus, would recognize the big man if he’d shaved off his memorable head of hair. Would he then resemble Severina’s lead bodyguard?
“I believe you,” Vatia said, cutting through my pondering. “But searching every street for a man with a pile of hair and a big nose will be tedious. My commander may tell me to leave it. The dead men were only …”
He broke off uncomfortably, stopping short of sayingThey were only gladiators.
