Regulus blinked in surprise, also not expecting my swiftness. There was a reason he’d been secundus while I’d been primus.
No words came to me, only a rage so deep I could only wonder. All I knew is that the idea of Regulus anywhere near Cassia brought up a red fury that erased all my reason.
Regulus stared at me over my hand, and then he began to laugh. It was a choking, hoarse laugh, since I cut off most of his air.
“That’s the way of things, is it?” he gasped.
“Let him go.” Aemil’s hard command sliced down the passageway.
Aemil stood in the opening to the training ground, his glare palpable through the twenty feet that separated us. He wasn’t about to let me take out his most expensive fighter.
I eased my grip and stepped back. I expected Regulus to attack me in return, but he only rubbed his throat and sauntered into his cell.
“Go away, Leonidas,” he said.
Aemil’s stance made it clear he wanted me gone as well. Laurentius, troubled, remained on Regulus’s bunk. Regulus pulled a tunic over his naked body, as though preparing to join the training.
I strode down the passageway to meet Aemil at the end. “See that no harm comes to him,” I said in a low voice. “Please.”
“I am tiring of your refugees, Leonidas.” I’d brought Aemil men to hide before. “But I can probably make some use of him. He’s an actor, is he?” Aemil scrunched up his face in the traditional Roman contempt for players. “I suppose he can sing or recite to us to keep us entertained, if nothing else.”
“As long as the others leave him alone. I’d like to send him back unhurt to his family.”
“Regulus has claimed him,” Aemil reminded me. “No one else will touch him. Now, go—you’re disrupting training. Unless you want to stay and assist?”
His tone turned hopeful. Aemil wanted more than anything for me to return to the ludus and become his assistant trainer, but I’d chosen a different life.
Aemil gave up, not really believing I’d agree. I heard his roar as he began to chivy the gladiators in training, and I made for the gate. Septimius let me out, bidding me a cheery farewell.
The island was more crowded than before when I made my way back across the Tiber, then I hunted for the door from which I’d emerged. I slipped inside this and followed Cassia’s signs back to the Carinae and emerged onto the street.
I immediately stepped into the doorway of the shop next to the tunnel’s door, pretending I’d been there all along. The shopkeeper, who sold bowls of many sizes, sent me an unfriendly look. I tossed him an as and took one of the bowls before I left him.
By the time I reached the baths, bowl under my arm, Cassia and Duilia had dressed again, emerging from the women’s changing room. Cassia smelled of water and scented oils.
Duilia fixed her inquiring gaze on me, but I said nothing as I led them onward to the lanes of the Subura and Duilia’s home.
When we entered the small apartment, Laurentius’s parents were arguing. The other members of the large family were absent, perhaps hiding in the next room from the drama.
“If we explain—” Duilius was saying.
“If we live that long,” Camille shouted at him. “You and Laurentius are proud fools, which helps no one if you both are dead. He might be lying at the bottom of the Tiber, food for the fishes.”
“No.” Duilius’s voice was full of anguish. “He would not—”
“Father.” Duilia’s word broke through the noise.
Both husband and wife swung to us, eyes wide. Camille’s face was flushed, her hair straggling from its careful knot.
“Laurentius is safe,” Duilia said. “At least, that is what Leonidas says.”
“He is,” I stated flatly. I set the bowl down on their one table, intending to forget it there. “I have hidden him, and he is well. But he must remain there for now.”
“You know that someone meant to kill him,” Camille said. “Was it Secundus?”
“We are not certain,” Cassia answered.
“He will cancel the play now,” Duilius said in a mournful tone. “If we can’t produce my son …”
