Silvanus fell silent. Regulus breathed heavily from the other bunk, only a few feet from mine.
After a long moment, the bulk that was Silvanus turned and stalked out of the cell. He slammed the door and scraped bolts across it from the other side.
I’d seen, in the flicker of the lamp, that the door was simple, two wooden cross pieces over vertical boards. The room was shored up with bricks rather than stone, unfinished. It could have been meant as a storage room, or maybe whoever had originally built this house had put in his own cells for disobedient slaves.
“The door is flimsy,” I said to Regulus. “You are good at opening doors.”
“Yes, when I can move,” he snapped.
My feet were now free of the paralyzing poison, but that didn’t help me when I couldn’t shift my legs. Feeling had returned to my hands, and my wrists tingled.
“Did you eat or drink anything before you were carried down here?” I asked.
“Of course I did. Severina showered me with food and drink. I was dizzy and drunk after I climbed out of her bed, which is why I couldn’t fight that lout, Silvanus. I’ve been down here ever since.”
His food or wine must have been laced, not with poison, but with some kind of soporific. Once Regulus was staggering with that, in addition to his lethargy after lying with Severina, Silvanus had struck with the poison, coated on the tines of the comb, possibly snake venom. Again, Marcianus would know.
I’d taken no food and only a little wine with Vestalis earlier. Maybe both poisons together kept the men immobilized and unable to fight when Silvanus killed them.
“Was any of the food gilded?” I asked.
“What? Yes—the cakes and some of the fruit. Stupid waste of gold. Why?”
I did not answer. Ajax had eaten his last meal here then, prepared by the same cook, Rufus as well. Rufus must have accepted Severina’s invitation, wanting to be with a rich woman who’d actually bestow the luxury on him that Chryseis would not. Or possibly Silvanus had lured him to dine with her, promising payment.
I wondered if Severina knew what had happened to them, and Regulus. Possibly not. She was not the most observant of women of anything outside her own world. I also wondered why my food had not been doctored or gilded, why I’d been allowed to leave freely. But Vestalis had enjoyed speaking with me, so he’d said. Perhaps he’d instructed Silvanus to spare me.
I could feel much of my arms again. Once I regained my strength, I would rip the door from its hinges if I had to and find my way out.
Before more sensation returned, the door scraped open again. Silvanus stepped inside, the stooped Vestalis shuffling behind him.
“This is the other?” Vestalis asked.
“Yes, lord.” Silvanus flashed the lamp briefly at Regulus, who glared back at him. I couldn’t see much of Regulus, just a gladiator in the dark.
Vestalis spat on Regulus. Regulus rumbled his fury but remained immobilized.
“No,” I said. “This is Regulus. He’s never been to Pannonia.”
Vestalis swung to me, his dark eyes widening in surprise. “Leonidas? Why is he here?” Vestalis demanded of Silvanus. “I said he wasn’t to be touched. He is an honorable man.”
Regulus snorted his derision, but Silvanus’s face didn’t move. “He came to stop us carrying out what we need to do,” Silvanus said. “Your ancestors will only be appeased when the murderers of your ladies have been slain.”
“Then we must do it soon,” Vestalis said. “We only have a few days.”
“A few days for what?” Regulus demanded, but I thought I knew.
“Feralia,” I said. “The final day of Parentalia. By the end of the festival, they want the deaths to be avenged. As their gift to his wife and daughter.”
The way Rufus’s and Ajax’s bodies had been cut up and displayed made more sense now, in a way. They were offerings positioned in the same fashion a person might put together a plate of oranges and walnuts, neatly stacked for the ancestors’ enjoyment.
Tears glittered on Vestalis’s cheeks. “It shall be so.”
“Regulus was not one of the men who killed them.” I strove to keep my voice steady. Vestalis should understand this—he was acquainted with Herakles—but he seemed to have moved beyond reason. “Silvanus made a mistake. He made a mistake with Rufus too. Rufus was Roman-born, not of the Quadi.”
Vestalis’s brow knit in confusion. “Is this true?” he asked Silvanus.
“It was not a mistake,” Silvanus returned quickly. “If I killed only the two Quadi, the deaths might be traced to your door. But if random gladiators die, no one will suspect anything of you. They believe it is a madman who hates gladiators, maybe another gladiator himself. You retain your honor and gain your vengeance.”
