Under Cassia’s steady gaze, Laurentius began to lose his supreme confidence. After a few moments, his legs gave out and he collapsed to my stool, staring at his hands in his lap.
“I was promised the part if I had the ring.”
“Part?” Cassia prompted.
“Of the king.” Laurentius drew himself up again. “I am to play a forgotten king of Rome, descended from the mighty Tarquins. Feared at first and then revered.” His voice rang, then returned to normal registers. “A larger part than I’ve had before, though I’ve been on the stage since I was three. It is time I was allowed to do more.”
I exchanged a glance with Cassia. Was the answer to Nero’s fears this simple? A play to be staged in a Roman theatre, entertainment for all?
“What has the ring to do with it?” I asked abruptly.
Laurentius’s expression became dismal. “He—the man who has commissioned this play—wants me to wear the ring during the performance. He says it will lend authenticity, help me channel the true lost king.” He shrugged. “Anything to help me remember my lines. But you picked up the ring and didn’t give it to me.”
I wanted to pick him up and shake him. His vague, wandering tale was irritating.
Cassia, with her great patience, leaned to him to pick at the threads of his story.
“Who was supposed to retrieve the ring?” she asked. “Obviously, Leonidas was the wrong person.”
“The other assistant to the architectus,” Laurentius answered without hesitation. “The ring would be left in the field, and he would bring it to us.”
“Vibius?” I started. “Why?”
Laurentius shrugged. “I don’t know. He’d get a fee for delivering the ring is all I know.”
“Let me see if I understand,” Cassia said. “A man commissioned your troupe to do a play about a forgotten Roman king. This man had a ring that he wishes you to wear on stage. He caused the ring to be left on the building site, with Vibius chosen to retrieve it and bring it to your family, for a reward.”
Laurentius nodded, pleased. “That is exactly right.”
The explanation added far many more questions than it answered. I shifted with impatience, but Cassia held up a hand to prevent me grabbing Laurentius again.
“Who commissioned the play?” Cassia asked him.
“No idea.” Laurentius’s tone suggested that he didn’t much care. “My father deals with his go-between, a man called Secundus. I’m just thrilled they gave me the part.”
Cassia moved back to the table, taking up a tablet and stylus. “When will this play take place?”
“Soon, I should think. We usually perform outside the walls in whatever field we can rent, but our man might be powerful enough to have it in a larger venue. Maybe even in the theatre of Balbus.” He named a smaller theatre near that of Pompey and close to the Saepta Julia.
“Who wrote it?” Cassia went on. “Is it something by Seneca? Or Terrence?”
“No, no.” Laurentius shook his head. “It’s being it written for us. For our family, do you see?”
Cassia nodded, but it was clear that, like me, she did not see. A mysterious but powerful man commissioning a play to be written and performed by a backstreet theatre troupe was odd in itself. The fact that he’d insisted Laurentius wear a specific ring to thrust himself into the part was odder. Even more suspicious was the roundabout way the man wanted to give Laurentius the ring. Why not simply go to his home and hand it to him, or to his father?
Because, came the answer into my head, this hidden man didn’t want any connection with the ring to come back to him. Having it found in a field by the Tiber would also lend what Cassia would call verisimilitude to the tale of it belonging to an old king.
Why Vibius was chosen to retrieve it was mystifying, but it explained his unhappiness that I’d found the ring instead. He’d also let me believe he knew nothing about what it was.
Laurentius, a simple lad, obviously saw nothing wrong in any of this. He was only excited that he’d be playing the lead role in this drama.
Cassia made notes, her hand moving quickly. “Now that we have given away the ring, will the play not be performed?”
Laurentius deflated. “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask my father. Secundus said the playwright was very insistent about the ring. Can you get it back?”
“No.” Cassia said the word with finality. “It is gone. Perhaps your man can have another one made?”
“He didn’t have it made—I don’t think.” Laurentius scrunched his forehead. “It was a family heirloom or something, he said. I suppose my father will need to make one up and not tell him we lost it. But it had an inscription and words on a crest, or so Secundus said. It would have to say the exact thing.” He spoke the last glumly.
