The door creaked open a long time later, and lamplight trickled to me from the passageway. The vigile who ran this house, a man called Scaevola, filled the doorway. He was a head and a half shorter than me, but very wide, his torso bulked with muscle.
I’d seen him often since Cassia and I had moved to the lower slopes of the Quirinal, a gruff man who chivied his vigiles with a loud voice. His men seemed to respect him rather than fear him, and all scuttled to obey when he roared.
“Up, Leonidas,” he barked at me.
I rose, this time mindful of the ceiling. I folded my arms into my hunched torso and waited, not threatening Scaevola but not abasing myself either.
He made a curt gesture for me to follow him out. No explanation, no prediction that I’d end up in the Tullianum or back in the games. He marched away with a stride that seemed angry, expecting that I’d come behind him.
I noted that no vigiles had accompanied their leader. Scaevola and I made our lone way down the narrow corridor to the ascending stairs, the cellar around us deathly silent.
We emerged through a thick door at the top of the staircase to the ground floor. I saw that the house’s one window was still dark, dawn nowhere in sight. A single lamp flickered on a table in the middle of the room, and chill seeped through the windows’ ill-fitting shutters.
A man stepped out of the shadows. I recognized his slight build, pristine tunic and cloak, and perfectly made shoes, as well as his dark hair and thin face set in perpetual disdain.
Hesiodos, the man who was the go-between for our mysterious benefactor, regarded me with irritation. He’d likely been dragged out of his bed at this indecent hour, and his expression said he’d not soon forgive me for it.
“You will come with me,” was Hesiodos’s only greeting.
I glanced inquiringly at Scaevola, who shrugged, his thick brows shadowing his eyes in a scowl.
“All suspicion has been dropped from you, Leonidas,” Scaevola told me.
Hesiodos shifted impatiently, but I nodded to Scaevola. I was grateful to him for letting me go, though I guessed he’d have simply shoved the responsibility of me onto the cohorts if Hesiodos hadn’t turned up.
Hesiodos made for the door and out, moving swiftly, as though not wanting to soil his feet any further in the vigiles’ grubby house. I followed without a word, avid to leave for different reasons.
The world was dark, very little light leaking from the houses around us. Hesiodos set a rapid pace, which was wise. The delivery wagons would have finished their rounds hours ago, deserting the city to make their way back to the docks or to wherever the drovers stowed their carts. The early-rising slaves were not yet abroad to run errands for their masters, and so, rarely for Rome, all was still.
This between-time was the haunt of predators who could bring down even a strong man for the small amount in his purse. Said man might either stumble home with a few bruises or be found in a dark lane with his throat cut.
I kept protectively close to Hesiodos, my senses tuned to the darkness. I’d learned to fight by sound, as the helmet I’d worn in the arena had cut out most of my sight. I’d become sensitive to a footstep, a brush of air, or the whisper of an arm rising, ready to strike.
I’d never much liked Hesiodos, but I kept a sharp watch over him. Who knew how our odd benefactor would retaliate if I let him die? Also Hesiodos, in spite of his bad temper, had hurried to the vigiles’s house to release me, and I was thankful for that. Cassia must have sent for him, which meant the popina’s landlord had obeyed me and told her what had happened.
Though I heard plenty of slinking footsteps as we climbed the hill, we made it to the wine shop without mishap. The wine shop’s window had been boarded up for the night, but the door next to it opened as we approached. A faintly glowing lamp showed the cloaked form of Cassia, the light wavering as her hand shook.
She should not stand in the doorway, was my first thought. Those who followed might take a chance to push her back into the house, rob the place, and escape over the roof after they’d done whatever they could to Cassia.
Following hard upon this worry was enormous relief at seeing her. A lightness came over me, one so intense that I wondered if lack of water during the last few hours had made me dizzy.
I took Cassia by the arm and propelled her up the stairs. She came willingly, her step light, the lamp’s flame never faltering. Hesiodos followed us inside, drawing the new bolt I’d recently installed across the door.
When I reached the apartment above, Cassia set down the light and turned to us with a relieved smile.
“Thank you, Hesiodos. Leonidas is free?”
“The charge of theft was dropped.” Hesiodos’s dry voice held annoyance. “Why was it made in the first place?” he asked me.
“A misunderstanding.” I decided not to mention Nero’s visit to the popina, unsure whether the princeps would want many to know about it. Nero must have reached home long before this, shedding his plain cloak for a fine linen tunic and soft bedding.
“Your benefactor would not be pleased that you were heedless enough to get yourself arrested,” Hesiodos informed me. “Promise you will keep to your place from now on, and I will not report this incident.”
Curious. Hesiodos had apparently used his own influence to have me released, not our benefactor’s. Or maybe Hesiodos had simply stated the man’s or woman’s name, and Scaevola had instantly capitulated. I saw Cassia’s flicker of curiosity as she noted this interesting fact.
Hesiodos tilted his head back so he could look down his nose at me. He derided most Romans, believing his Greek heritage far superior, never mind he’d arrived in this land as a slave. Freed now, he enjoyed relaying how much contempt he had for men like me.
“Refrain from trouble, Leonidas,” Hesiodos repeated then made for the door, ready to depart.
