I stood transfixed, staring down at what remained of Ajax.
In my career, I’d witnessed gruesome deaths. Part of the games involved executions, where criminals were sent off in creative ways. Professional gladiators could be hacked to pieces in their fights, and animal hunters mauled by the wild beasts they stalked. Bodies and parts of bodies were dragged from the arena all day long, blood drying on the sand.
There was not much blood here, and the pieces had been laid tidily like bones in a charnel house.
I should have been accustomed to the many ways a person could become a body. But for some reason, the food I’d had for lunch roiled in my stomach. I turned away and retched it onto the stones.
* * *
I remainedin the lane a long time, my arm heavily on the wall, until the oil lamp flickered out, its fuel spent.
Ajax was dead. Not only dead but carefully dismembered. Someone had then brought him to this place and laid him out. No blood coated the stones, which told me he’d not been killed or cut up here.
Why? And why bring himhere? If a person wanted to cover up a crime, they’d throw the body into the river or cart him a long way into the countryside and bury him. Not leave him neatly in the Subura for an unlucky person to stumble over him.
I stood up, an ache pounding behind my eyes. No one passing glanced into the alley, none wondered why I waited here. Safer to keep one’s gaze forward and notice nothing.
What to do? If I called out, drew attention, someone would run for the vigiles. I knew one of the vigiles for this district, a lad called Avitus. He might aid me.
No, he would have to report this to his watch captain. I’d be questioned. Aemil would be as well. Perhaps all the gladiators, including the new man, Praxus, would be suspects—the magistrates might claim the men wanted to eliminate an opponent they’d never beat. Or Aemil might be forced to close the ludus, the gladiators dispersed to other schools. One or more could be executed, the magistrates needing someone to pay for the crime. Gladiators might be famous and lauded, but their lives were forfeit in the end.
Trash lay in the lane, discarded and broken pottery vessels and a cloth so dirty and tattered even the rag men didn’t want it.
I snatched up the cloth and draped it the best I could over Ajax’s body. I moved shards of pottery with my foot, building up a pile that would hide him from the street.
Only when I was satisfied that nothing could be seen in the darkness did I quit the lane. I strode back into the lupinarius to return the lamp and then I set off for the ludus.
My journey this time was quicker, as the streets were more deserted. Most people were indoors for safety, though the wine bars and dining shops overflowed. The delivery wagons hadn’t yet descended on the city for the night, but they would soon.
Septimius was still at his post. “Back already, Leonidas?” he began, but he trailed off when he noted my grim expression.
“I need to see Aemil. Let me in.”
Septimius did so without argument, peering at me in curiosity.
Aemil was taking his evening meal in his office with Marcianus. He’d shoved aside ledgers and tablets to make space for the bowls of greens, savory meat, beans, and apricots.
“I found Ajax,” I said without preliminary. “He’s in the Subura.”
Marcianus froze in the act of lifting an apricot to his mouth, honey dripping across his fingers. Aemil scowled.
“Is he? In what brothel? I’ll drag him out—afterI’ve finished my supper.”
“He’s dead,” I said. “I found his body.” I turned and started out of the room. “You’ll need a cart.”
* * *
Aemil spewedcolorful language both in street Latin and whatever Gallic dialect he used as he stooped over Ajax’s body, the light from Marcianus’s lamp flickering across the scene.
I’d pulled the cloth from Ajax and then positioned myself at the end of the lane to hide what we did from the main street. Again, any passers-by simply scuttled on, not wanting to know.
“You are right that he was killed elsewhere,” Marcianus said softly. “No blood at all. He was washed as well. I’d say the greaves and helmet were put on after death, but I’d have to examine him to be certain.”
Aemil continued his cursing, lending nothing to the discussion.
Marcianus spoke in clear, calm tones, as he always did, even when dealing with the most serious wounds or while easing the pain of gladiators as they died. His face, however, held shock, which mine must have done when I’d burst in on his meal.
Aemil at last rose, a grimness in his eyes I’d never seen before. Aemil was a hard man, but I realized he tempered a ruthlessness he chose not to unleash.
