“How do you know?” I asked before Cassia could, curiosity overcoming my disquiet.
“Wear on the hands, arms, and legs,” Marcianus answered. “Extensive wear, not the same as on gladiators who have done daily exercise. This lad carried heavy burdens, which had already bowed his legs and back a bit, as young as he was. He’d broken a toe at some point, which did not heal properly.” He pointed out what would have been the fourth toe on the right foot. “This caused him to limp slightly, making more wear on that leg. He was most likely a worker on that building site, constructing whatever warehouse was going in at that time.”
“A middle-class man or a senator’s son would have straighter limbs and possibly a better healed injury,” Cassia concluded.
“Exactly.” Marcianus beamed his approval at her.
My twinge of uneasiness came back to me. Marcianus had learned how to understand these things by dissecting dead gladiators.
“Can you also tell us his name and where he came from?” I asked in a dry tone.
“Very amusing, Leonidas. He was Latin, probably. At least not from Gaul and the north. Their limbs tend to be longer. Those of us from around the Mare Nostrum are smaller and more wiry.”
I’d been born in Rome and was plenty large, but Aemil had always told me I must have some Gaul in me.
“What will you do with him?” Cassia asked.
Marcianus patted a leg bone with a fond gesture. “I might keep him. He could teach me much.”
Cassia’s eyes widened. Even she, with her curiosity about all things, was troubled by this declaration. “Is that allowed?”
Marcianus lifted his slim shoulders in a shrug. “Depends on who he turns out to be. I imagine he was a slave, a worker on whatever building was being constructed. No pyre with honors for him, poor fellow.”
“Someone went to much trouble to make certain he was found,” I reminded him. “That person might want to honor him.”
“Unless.” Marcianus held up his forefinger. “That person wasn’t pointing at this body specifically but at something else going on at the building site. Corruption? Smuggling? Anyone in on the plot murdered and buried? I wonder if you’ll find other bodies there if you look.”
Cassia shuddered. “Gruesome. Poor Gnaeus Gallus.”
Gallus had dreamed of building a great structure. If Marcianus was correct, his dream could become a nightmare.
“I hope you find no more dead men,” Marcianus said. “But if you do, I will be pleased to have a look at them.”
Marcianus was a healer with almost magical ability, but his fascination with the human body went beyond my understanding.
I found no words to answer. Cassia assured him we would bring him any bodies we uncovered, and we departed.
“He talks to it,” Marcia told us when we made for the outer door. “But as long as he doesn’t try to take it bed, I will not chide him.”
Marcianus’s curiosity was solely intellectual, so there was no fear of that. I wondered, though, when Marcia had begun to chide Marcianus, and if he enjoyed it.
Cassia and I stepped into the soft April afternoon. It was an hour or so before sunset, and I decided to visit the house of the vigiles here on the Aventine.
I’d met the captain of this house, a man called Vatia, a few months ago, when gladiators had gone missing from Aemil’s ludus. He seemed a sensible man.
When I asked for Vatia at the house, I was told that he had just risen, but I could wait for him if I wished.
The vigiles’ house was small and crowded, with men readying themselves for their watch, so Cassia and I waited outside. We hugged the wall, keeping out of the way of the crowds who hurried home for the night. Women called to each other either in greeting or ongoing argument. Children ran about, both those doing errands for their families and those who lived on the streets. Either were notorious pickpockets, and I kept Cassia close to me.
“Are you Leonidas the Spartan?” one lad asked, wide-eyed.
When I gave him a grave nod, the boy let out a whoop, leapt off the ground, and raced off.
Cassia smiled after him. “I wonder how Sergius fares,” she said.
Sergius was a boy I’d spirited away from Rome when Cassia and I feared he’d be arrested for murder. I’d taken him to the home of Xerxes’s widow, knowing she’d care for him.
“We will visit soon, and find out,” I assured her.
