“Regulus could easily have slipped out,” I told Aemil. “He knew how.”
“I know he did!” Aemil’s bellow betrayed fear behind his anger. “Where would he go, Leonidas? You knew him better than anyone.”
Which was hardly at all. “Was he locked in his cell?”
Aemil’s eyes flared with rage, the different colors of them blazing. “Of course he was. I took his lock picks too. The one you threw away from him and the other three I found tucked under his mattress.”
“Even a wooden stick could have helped him,” I said. “He’s good at locks.”
“I should have put a cobra outside,” Aemil snarled. “Find him, Leonidas. Before he becomes a pile of gladiator parts. He can’t fight for me like that. He’s my best, and I’ve already promised him to the games at the equinox. The fee is too much to lose.”
Aemil blustered about the money, but I knew this was to cover his terrible worry of finding another of the men he’d trained, fed, clothed, and cared for as the victim of a brutal murderer.
“Do any of the other gladiators know where he might have gone?”
“Hmm, I never thought to ask a one of them.” Aemil glared at me, his sarcasm cutting. “None have any idea, useless pillocks. He never confided in anyone but you.”
Regulus had rarely told me anything personal about himself. We’d become drinking comrades, turning to each other because it was better than drinking alone. I’d destroyed that comradeship when I’d refused to release him to death during our last bout.
Had Regulus sought that death by stepping squarely into danger? Or, more likely, did he think so much of himself that he believed he could best the killer? Find him when I could not?
I strode past Aemil to Regulus’s cell. The last of Xerxes’s drawings were cheerful reminders of his sense of humor and brought a distracted pain to my heart.
Regulus lived simply, as all gladiators did. His cell contained a bed, a stool, spare tunics, and a small box of his belongings. Inside that, I found a rope belt, a rough-carved statue of a god I couldn’t identify, and a smaller box. Opening this, I lifted out a gold earring, delicate and masterfully crafted. Only one, and it would have been costly.
“Lady must have given him that,” Aemil said, gazing over my shoulder. “Or he stole it from her.”
I studied the earring. Three gold hoops, wire-thin, hung from a clasp, with tiny chips of emeralds decorating each tier. I knew where I’d seen a similar style, and recently.
I clenched the earring in my hand and marched to the practice area. “Bring all the men out here,” I told Aemil.
He bristled at my command but went back into the cells and barked orders. Most of the gladiators were already in the training yard and drifted my way in curiosity.
“Regulus’s woman gave this to him.” I dangled the earring once all were assembled, the gold and emeralds flashing spangles of light. “Can anyone tell me who that woman is?”
Most shrugged, neither knowing nor caring. Praxus, his arm in a sling, bent to peer at it. “Woman in a villa on a hill.”
“Domitiana?” I asked sharply. She’d worn earrings like these the night she’d hosted me and Herakles at her supper. Regulus had confessed he’d been to her, but I had to be sure he’d gone there again tonight.
“No.” The sharp answer came from Herakles. “Domitiana likes only me.”
Guffaws sounded behind him. “Oh, she loves you, barbarian,” one gladiator laughed. “She’d never stray.”
Herakles swung on him, and the man backed a step. “She knows what I do to bitches who cross me.”
“Shut your gob, Herakles,” Aemil growled at him. “You’ll not touch a highborn woman, because I won’t save you when they drag you to your crucifixion.”
“Not Domitiana.” Praxus’s scoffing tones broke through as Herakles subsided to a glower. “Not at that villa. On a hill in the city.”
“Which hill?” I stepped to Praxus, meeting his unnervingly light blue eyes. “The Caelian?”
He nodded with certainty. “That is what Regulus said.”
My headache increased as my blood pounded. Was Severina the killer after all? Why then, had she decided to spare me last night?
“How do you know this, Praxus?” Aemil demanded. “And why didn’t you speak up before?”
Praxus pulled at one of his ears. “I hear all talking. They think I am the stupid oaf from the north and don’t understand. And you didn’t ask before. You just shoutedWhere is Regulus? Tell me now.I don’t know where he is. But I know he likes this woman on the Caelian who gives him gifts.”
