Maybe he was simply a thief. He’d stolen the ring, lost it in the field, and now wanted it back.
“I don’t have it,” I said.
My stunned stillness let him catch his breath. “Take me to where you hid it.”
I was amazed at his brazenness. I could kill him as we stood, with one jerk against his throat, and yet he made demands.
“I don’t have the ring,” I repeated, hardening my voice. “It is gone.”
His eyes widened. “You sold it? You stupid lout. Gladiator dung. Go back to the arena and die—”
The last word wheezed into nothing as I thrust my arm over his windpipe again.
“It is in a safe place.”
I wasn’t certain why I told him this, but I was growing curious at his adamancy. This was no son of a patrician or powerful family of old. He was a pleb or possibly a freedman like myself, and maybe not even a Roman citizen, though his Latin was fluent enough.
“Is it?” The young man sagged in relief, though the words barely escaped his cut-off throat. “Take me there. I need it.”
“Why?”
“For the play,” the young man said in some impatience. “Why else?”
The answer mystified me. A jumble of questions rose in my head, but I held them back, knowing exactly who could pry information from him.
I eased my iron grip from the young man’s throat but caught him around the back of the neck with my large hand and propelled him in front of me like a puppet.
As soon as he thought I was taking him to the ring, the young man ceased resisting and trotted along with me. I did not release him, forcing him on toward the empty Forum Romanum and through it to the Quirinal on the other side.
No one questioned why I was pushing a man through the city in my unrelenting grip. The few I passed stared but those on the lower slopes of the Quirinal had already learned to leave me be. If I wanted to drag someone home, a scowl on my face, I must have my reasons.
Not until I’d wrenched open the door next to the wine shop, did the young man protest.
“What is this place? Your gladiator’s hovel?”
The wine merchant leaned out over his counter, indignation on his face. I waved him back and pushed my quarry inside, bolting the door behind us.
Cassia rose in astonishment as I shoved the young man in before me. He halted in equal confusion, presented with a small but neat room and the small but neat woman who kept my life in order.
“Leonidas?” The name held all the questions Cassia wanted to ask me.
“He’s after the ring,” I said tersely. “He says it’s for the play, whatever that means.”
Cassia gazed at my captive in frank curiosity. “Are you an actor?”
“Yes.” His head came up as he answered with pride.
I wondered at his boasting. Actors lived at the very bottom of the social scale in Rome. Even gladiators were one step above them.
“What is your name?” Cassia continued. “And your troupe?”
“I am called Laurentius,” he replied, rather grandly. “My family is a troupe unto ourselves—there are eight of us. We are tragedians.”
Though I’d seldom gone to the theatre, Xerxes and I had sometimes attended performances, sitting in the top seats with the other slaves, sharing roasted nuts or whatever snacks the vendors outside sold us. I preferred the comedies, finding the tragedies overly long and full of cruelty.
Xerxes the next day would make everyone on the ludus training ground laugh by performing a mock tragic soliloquy. He’d strut around in great exaggeration until Aemil smacked him with a wooden sword and ordered him back to work. But even Aemil had chuckled.
In my sparse theatergoing, I’d never seen this lad. Tragedies and comedies might be played on the same day, but different troupes would act in each. As far as I could remember, I’d never noticed Laurentius.
