“You fool.” Camille planted her fists on her hips. “It is because of your pride that we are in this mess. Either someone doesn’t want us to work for this playwright, or Secundus himself wants us to keep quiet about the play. A king returning to Rome? It’s a treasonous thought. Too much intrigue for the likes of us.”
“Secundus is not a killer,” Duilius insisted. “He is portly and old, like me. He will simply hire another troupe for his playwright.”
“He might,” Cassia agreed before his wife or daughter could respond. “But I believe it would be prudent if you took a trip to the seaside.”
“In the rain?” Duilius began, but Camille spoke over him.
“An excellent idea. We were strolling players before. We will be so again.”
“What about Laurentius?” Duilia directed her question to me.
“I’ll send him to you when it is safe,” I promised.
“Where in Hades are we to go?” Duilius demanded. “Acting troupes in other cities don’t like newcomers muscling in, and the consuls don’t always want us either.”
“To the Villa Caralis,” Cassia said without hesitation. “In the hills above Cumae.”
All paused to stare at her. “A villa?” Camille demanded. “We’ll never gain entrance there.”
“Go to Cumae and ask for a man called Jovianus,” Cassia directed. “He is the majordomo of the villa, and a friend of my father’s. Talk to him of Cassia, daughter of the scribe to Gaius Petinus. He will introduce you to the retired senator who owns the villa and have you perform for him. You can stay there for a time.”
I listened with as much interest as Duilius and his wife and daughter. Cassia rarely spoke of her former life. She’d grown up on a large estate in Campania, and her father had been well-respected for his learning, but she had not given me many more details.
Duilia went to her mother, sliding her arm around her shoulders. “We should do this. Cassia and Leonidas will protect Laurentius.”
Duilius heaved a long sigh. “Very well. The rent is coming due here at the end of the month anyway. Let’s be off to Cumae in the rain.”
Duilia nodded her thanks at us and led her mother, who was wilting now, off to sit on the bench on the far side of the room. Duilius watched them go, shaking his head.
“I regret the day I was talked into this play,” Duilius said. “But it seemed such a good commission.” He sent us a hopeful glance, as though willing us to tell him he’d been right, Secundus could be trusted, the play would go forward, and all would be well.
“Where could I find Secundus if I wanted him?” I asked Duilius.
Duilius shrugged. “He came to us. Laurentius first saw him at the Theatre of Pompey. Laurentius wasn’t performing, you understand, simply watching a spectacle. Secundus approached him.”
Standing at the massive Theatre of Pompey on any given day and watching the crowd would not help me find the man. “What does Secundus look like?”
Another shrug. “As old as me. Gray hair. Thick-bellied.”
No different than any number of men in Rome.
Cassia broke in to ask, “What rank is he? Patrician, equestrian …?”
Duilius’s brow furrowed. “Not certain.”
That was odd. Ranks were usually obvious, revealed through clothing and the number of servants a man had following him, or the lack of them. By law, a man or woman could not dress outside their rank—a freedman was forbidden a toga, for instance, even if he’d grown insanely wealthy.
Then again, a man who hid the identity of the person hiring Duilius and his family might well have worn a disguise himself.
“Make a start for Cumae,” I ordered them. “Send no word to us. Just go.”
All three regarded me in resignation, but it was Camille who answered. “It shall be done.”
I had the feeling that in that household, when Camille pronounced it, there was no argument.
Cassia walked briskly beside me as we left the Subura. The morning’s crowds were thinning, the main business of the day finished.
We moved without speaking, the Subura and the Argiletum not the place for discussing Laurentius and his family.
