Cassia came awake with a cry as I grappled with the man. He was stocky and strong, but I was practiced and had his back against the wall before he could grunt. He punched me in the gut, trying to wind me, and I responded with a jab of my hand to his throat.
The man gurgled, then with a sudden wrench that surprised me, broke free of my hold. He hurtled, not to the window and freedom, but around the table to the shelves, barely lit by the moonlight. He lifted and dumped out one of Cassia’s boxes of scrolls, kicking through the papyri before he grabbed a second box.
I was on him as he lifted it. He tried to hit me with the box, but I evaded the blow, letting the momentum carry him past me. I seized the back of his neck and slammed him into a closed shutter. He dropped the box, which broke open, scattering tablets at my feet.
By the gurgling sound of his breath, I’d broken his nose. He moaned in pain, and I shoved him out the open door onto the balcony.
My plan had been to simply drop him off the balcony’s edge, letting him take his chances landing in the street. Once we were outside, however, he managed to twist himself free of me once more. He sprinted to the ledge and heaved himself over, catching himself with his hands at the last minute to lessen the height of his jump.
He let go before I reached the edge, his boots hitting the stones of the lane below. The intruder shuffled away, hand over his face, droplets of blood spattering in the moonlight like dark rain.
I retreated into the apartment and set the removed shutter back into place, my hands shaking from the abrupt end to the fight.
Cassia had lit a lamp. Its flicker showed a smear of blood on our shutter, which I irritably rubbed away with the cloth that had covered our basket of bread. Cassia was on the floor, gathering up the strewn scrolls and tablets. One scroll had been stomped on by the intruder’s boot, squashing it unmercifully.
I lifted the damaged scroll and smoothed it the best I could before handing it to Cassia. She regarded it mournfully and placed it into the box next to its fellows.
The lids had broken off a few of the tablets, but I could affix those again with strips of leather through each box’s hinges. Cassia sighed as she matched tablet pieces, laying them out across the table.
“At least I stopped him before he took anything,” I said.
Cassia continued to sort the tablets. “He was not after the scrolls or my notes.”
Despite the meagerness of our apartment, we actually had several things worth stealing—a bronze hand studded with stones that had been a gift from Priscus, my first client, and fine gold earrings for Cassia, also a gift from Priscus. The hand was displayed on a shelf, and Cassia kept her earrings in a little bag under her pillow. The intruder had gone for neither of those things.
“You think he was after the ring,” I said.
“He must have been.” Cassia slid the last tablet into place and began to stack each matched pair. “He reasoned we’d hidden it in one of these boxes on the shelf. It would be logical to assume so.”
A man who did not know Cassia would believe the boxes held our household treasures. To Cassia the writings were treasure, and she kept them in well-made crates. Our dishes and lamps sat out on another shelf, no need to hide them away.
“But the ring is not there?” I asked.
Her eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “It is well hidden.”
I believed her. Cassia had the knack of keeping our funds safe. I’d learned of one hiding place under a patch of floor near my bed after we moved in, but I’d come to realize she had several stashes all over the apartment. I could be sitting on a thousand aurei-worth of coins and never be the wiser.
“Very few knew the ring was here,” I said. “Marcianus. Gallus. Vibius.”
Marcianus would never dream of breaking into our house and stealing a ring, no matter what it was worth. Gallus too seemed more interested in architecture and construction than wealth. He wanted to make a name for himself, for praise, not material gain.
Vibius, on the other hand …
“I told Vibius where we lived,” I confessed. “Or at least where I went to the baths. He could have concluded we had an apartment in the area and found the right one by asking about.”
Cassia wrapped her arms across her chest, as though suddenly cold. “Was it Vibius who broke in?”
“No.” I sank to my stool, the blood-pounding energy of the fight finally ebbing. “Vibius is tall and thin, and this man was shorter, heavier.”
“Vibius could have hired a man to rob us.”
“True, though I’m not certain anyone can trust a thief to deliver a ring so heavy with gold. He’d keep it for himself.”
“You can ask Vibius when you next see him.” Cassia sent me a brief flash of a smile before she returned to fussing over her tablets.
“I will.”
If Vibius did not appear at the site when next he was due, it would shout his guilt. Even if he did risk turning up, most men had difficulty lying to me.
