Cassia had stripped down to her thin tunic by the time I peered around the door of their changing room. Duilia had already disrobed entirely, her back to me, sublimely uncaring of who saw her naked body.
I signaled to Cassia that I was leaving. She nodded, understanding. Her curiosity was high, but she was wise enough to say nothing.
A cool breeze blew through the hall of the bathhouse as I left them to it. Though this complex was small, the ceilings were high and decorated with paintings of dancing satyrs and unclad nymphs. Arched windows sent in the right amount of air to keep the rooms from growing too hot and stuffy. A clever architectus had introduced luxury into this small space, in a crammed corner of the Carinae.
I strolled into the street as though I’d left the baths to find more sustenance after my meager breakfast. The Carinae was busy this morning, with men calling out from their open shops, women haggling over wares in the crowded street.
I arrived at the door I’d learned of a few months ago. Easing the key from the pouch I carried and putting my back to the street, I soon had it unlocked. I waited until I was hidden behind clumps of those hunting for a bargain before I opened the door just wide enough to admit me.
Quickly shutting the door and locking it again, I waited in the dark, making certain no one followed me in. My breath was loud in the sudden quiet, the sounds of the street dimming behind stone walls.
When no murderer charged in after me, I turned and started down a damp tunnel, hoping I could find my way. If not, I might wander in here for the rest of my life, alone and dying in the darkness.
Cassia and I had mapped out these tunnels, which had been created long ago for sewer maintenance. I’d made marks on the walls at her instruction, but I was here without a lantern. However, we’d left other guides. As I brushed my fingertips along the slimy stones, I found a cord she’d had me fix there. The rough twine comforted me almost as much as her presence would have.
We’d left pieces of cord, in designs Cassia had devised, to indicate the corners where we should turn. In this way, touching the patterns Cassia had made, I found my way to another door that led to daylight once more.
In relief, I opened this a crack, checking my surroundings before I stole out into yet another crowd. I’d emerged onto the Campus Flaminius, near the Theatre of Marcellus and a bridge to the Insula, the island in the middle of the Tiber.
I followed the stream of people across the bridge, through the tiny and squalid streets of the island, and crossed the second bridge to the Transtiberim.
From there it was only a short walk to the gates of my old ludus.
Chapter 13
“Let me in,” I told the hard-faced Septimius, the man who guarded the entrance this morning.
Septimius brightened. He opened his mouth to exclaim my name, but I clamped a hand to his shoulder.
“Tell no one I am here,” I ordered.
Septimius raised his thick brows, but only shrugged off my hand and opened the gate.
Aemilianus, the lanista who owned this gladiator school, came at me immediately. He always knew when anyone entered his demesne.
“Where is he?” I asked Aemil before he reached me.
The large training ground encircled by buildings was full of gladiators, most striking at posts with wooden swords. A few gladiators had paired up to go at each other, those with nets and spears facing those with swords and small shields.
“Good morning to you,” Aemil growled. “Never time for politeness, is there? He’s with Regulus.”
That stopped me. “Regulus? What for?”
Aemil sent me an impatient look. “What do you think for? He’s a comely lad.”
“But it’s time to train,” I said, my slow brain not putting things together.
Aemil snorted a laugh. “Regulus is primus palus, which makes him think he can do as he likes. I give him a bit of rope sometimes.”
As Aemil had done with me. I turned from him without answering and made for the arched line of cells. My errand was too important to wait for Regulus to finish a dalliance.
Regulus slept in the cubicle that used to be mine. An iron grill, which Aemil could lock when he wished, separated it from the breezeway that connected the practice yard with the eating hall.
The cells for the most prominent gladiators were a bit larger than those of the others. Aemil also allowed them to keep a few personal possessions in a box he provided at that gladiator’s expense. Otherwise, it was just a cell.
I found Regulus and Laurentius on Regulus’s bunk, drowsing together, Regulus’s muscle-hardened limbs contrasting Laurentius’s slimmer ones. Regulus lifted his head when I charged in, his habitual scowl in place.
Laurentius, on the other hand, offered me a sleepy smile. “Leonidas.”
