“We take him back.” Aemil, the same height as I was, glared straight into my eyes. “Discover who did this, Leonidas, and bring him to me.”
I hesitated. I had no business hunting murderers, especially one as mad as whoever had done this to Ajax, but I nodded. I did not like that a killer wandered Rome who could bring down a fighter as skilled as Ajax.
“And find the rest of my be-damned gladiators,” Aemil snarled.
He marched past us to the street, leaving Marcianus and me to place Ajax’s body into the cart, covering him again with the tattered cloth plus another Marcianus had brought.
“He’s been dead at least a day,” Marcianus said to me. “By the feel of his limbs. Again, I can be more certain when I look at him.”
“He was at a lupinarius down the street last night, so the woman who runs it said.”
“Well, that narrows things down.” Marcianus turned to Aemil, who waited at the mouth of the passageway. “Are you sure you want him at the ludus, Aemil?”
Aemil’s scowl grew harsher. “Where else would we take him?”
“My office? I have more instruments there and can examine him more thoroughly.”
“What good will that do?” Aemil snapped.
Marcianus met his belligerence with his usual clear-headedness. “I might ascertain how he was killed and what was used to cut him apart. Whether he was in this garb when he died, or someone dressed his corpse. All useful information.”
Aemil only growled and spun away.
“Marcia still lives with you,” I said in a low voice. Marcia was a young woman Marcianus had taken in out of pity, and who had since become his assistant. “She shouldn’t see this.”
“Marcia is resilient and is a very efficient helper,” Marcianus said, unbothered. “She can also be discreet.”
Meaning she wouldn’t scream and run for a cohort when she beheld a dismembered corpse.
Marcianus went on. “My house is also closer, and we won’t have to cross the river or go through a gate.” Guards could stop us at either place and inquire about our business, or worse, look under the cloth.
Aemil grunted. “Fine. We’ll go.”
He conceded to heft one side of the hand cart while I took the other. We followed Marcianus as he stepped lightly down the street in the direction of the Aventine.
* * *
We reachedMarcianus’s small house where he ran his practice without mishap. Once we’d carried the wrapped parts of Ajax’s body to his back room, Marcianus instructed me and Aemil to go away.
“Nothing more you can do,” he said briskly. “I will let you know how I get on.”
Aemil gave another of his grunts and walked out.
Marcia, as Marcianus had predicted, while she blenched when she saw what was under the tarp, proceeded to lay out Marcianus’s tools on a side table and fill a basin with water from a jar without a word. In her plain ankle-length tunic, her hair scraped into a bun, she looked like a young housemaid rather than the brothel girl she’d been.
I could think of nothing to say to either her or Marcianus, so I left them and strode after Aemil.
“You ruined my supper.” Aemil barely slowed his steps as I caught up to him, then he suddenly halted. Beside us, a fountain with three bronze fish spewed water into a bowl in a quiet trickle. “Hercules defend us, Leonidas. Who would do such a thing?”
I studied the corroded green bronze of one fish’s mouth. “Someone who hates gladiators?”
“Well, I hate magistrates.” Aemil glanced behind him through the darkness to the light in Marcianus’s window. “But I wouldn’t murder one, chop him up, and dress him in a toga.”
“Someone who hated Ajax in particular,” I suggested, for something to say.
“Well, find him. Use that slave of yours who writes everything down. And find Rufus and Herakles. And Regulus. He’s now beetled off too.”
“I watched him leave. He said he had permission.”
