They all looked away, however, at the flare of rage burning in Nero’s eyes, one that could topple regimes. The ring flashed on his finger, as though the old kings tried to rise again through him.
I tamped down my superstitious thoughts. “Cassia is putting together ideas.”
“Good,” Nero said the word with emphasis. “She is clever, and you are determined. You will find all parties involved and bring them to me.”
“It might help us find out more about the ring if we had it with us,” I ventured.
Nero’s displeasure deepened. “No. It is too dangerous a thing to have out of my sight. Besides …” His eyes took on a strange glint as he studied it. “I’ve grown to like it.” He flicked his gaze to me, it hardening once more. “You have until Cerealia to discover all, as I commanded you. Four more days. Ha!”
With that bellow, Nero slammed the dice cup to the table. He turned over the tesserae to reveal he’d rolled all ones. The losing throw.
Nero hurled the cup at my head. I ducked, and the cup clanged to the counter before it shattered on the floor. He swept his arm across the table to let the dice and coins fly every which way.
“Stupid game. I’m off to find softer company.”
His glare told me I should not accompany him. I followed him out anyway, after scooping up coins and giving them to the landlord for the wine Nero hadn’t paid for. The landlord accepted the money gratefully but was still nervous.
Outside, the praetorian guards emerged from the shadows, including Servius, who sent me a terse nod.
“He’s been very mysterious about this meeting with you tonight,” Servius said to me as the others jogged after the striding Nero. “Is it important we know about it?”
“Not all of it,” I replied with caution. “But if you can find out who murdered a young man at a building site in the Emporium ten years ago, it would help.”
Servius’s eyes narrowed, and I saw him filing the information away in his head like Cassia filed a scroll into its designated box.
“I will see what I can do,” Servius said. “If you discover anything, seek me out.”
I nodded, promising nothing.
It had occurred to me, and did so again as I watched Servius hasten after the rest of the guard surrounding Nero, that the men who would most know what went on in the streets or empty building sites were the vigiles.
The urban cohorts arrested criminals, but the vigiles, always scouring for fires and any unrest, kept a close watch on what happened where. Though they mostly worked at night, they knew the neighborhoods intimately as well as everyone who lived in them.
Once the guards and Nero were out of sight, I turned my steps to the house where Scaevola had held me captive a few nights ago.
I approached the house with some trepidation, not liking the memory of being shut into its underground room. When I rounded the corner, however, I found the place in an uproar.
Men poured from the house, Scaevola bellowing commands like a centurion herding a group of raw recruits. I understood better when I saw the men dive into a shed and start handing out buckets, those clutching them racing for the nearest fountain. They’d spied a fire.
“Where?” I seized Scaevola when he didn’t answer. “Where?”
He shook me off. “Up the Quirinal. Grab a bucket or get out of the way.”
Icy fear poured through my heart. I pictured our narrow lane lined with wooden shops and our apartment above them.
I snatched up the next vessel that came out of the shed, a large pot likely made for holding stews. I tucked it under my arm and joined the stream of vigiles making for the fountains.
Some of the men had seized long poles which would pull down houses in the path of the fire to try to form a break. Hopefully those inside would be able to escape first.
Water splashed over my arm as I thrust the pot under a stream at the fountain at the end of our street. Cassia came to this four-mouthed fountain every day to fetch us clean water, but the familiar landmark was transformed by the darkness and my panic.
I sprinted up the hill after the vigiles. Our turnoff was near the base of the Quirinal, homes and shops becoming finer on the streets above ours. At the top of this hill was the Porta Collina, a gate in the old wall. Just inside that was the place where any errant Vestal Virgin would be buried alive.
When the stampeding vigiles raced past our turning without pausing, my body unclenched, but not entirely. Even if the fire was not in our street, it could so easily reach it.
I saw the flurry of a gray cloak as I passed our lane, noting Cassia hastening out to see what was happening. The wiry wine merchant was with her, his tall wife shrinking behind them both.
We charged along the Vicus Longus, which angled up the hill. Several lanes above ours, I smelled the smoke, and in the next one, I saw flames.
