Our benefactor, according to Hesiodos, did not want us leaving Rome, but I hadn’t planned to inform anyone if we departed the city for a few days. The quiet of Marcella’s farm would be peaceful—apart from her bellowing children.
Xerxes’s children. They looked much like him and had his carefree humor. Xerxes had fallen hard in love with Marcella, taking her as wife in all but name, in spite of Aemil’s irritation with him.
“Leonidas?” Marcus Vatia, a small but sturdy man with coal black hair, emerged from the house, regarding me in some trepidation. “Have you found another dead gladiator?”
“No,” I said tersely. “A slave, possibly. Ten years dead, near the Emporium.”
Vatia’s thick brows climbed. “The Emporium? You mean someone has come forward about that at last?”
Chapter 20
Cassis and I both stared at Vatia, dumbfounded.
“What do you mean?” I demanded. “Did you know about this?”
Now Vatia appeared surprised. “Come in here and cease shouting in the doorway. I want us to be clear.”
He swung away and led us inside through his milling men then up a flight of stairs to the private rooms of the house. We entered a cubicle that held a table and a bed—his office and sleeping chamber in one.
Cassia flattened herself against a wall when she entered the room, but I saw a tablet and stylus emerge from the folds of her robe.
Vatia took charge before I could speak. “How do you know the body you found was ten years buried?”
“The medicus told me.” I gathered my thoughts then told Vatia exactly what had happened, only leaving out Vibius and his part in all this, as well as Laurentius and his family. Neither needed the vigiles or cohorts harassing them.
I didn’t spare Cloelius’s name, though. “Tertius Cloelius Crispus owned the land at the time or just before. Though I don’t know if he ever bothered to visit that patch of mud in the Emporium, he does use baths on the Aventine.”
I’d assumed Cloelius’s purpose at the baths was to annoy Vibius, but he might have used it as an excuse to be in the area, to keep an eye on the building site.
Vatia listened with flattering attentiveness. “I was not captain of this house ten years ago,” he said. “I’d just joined the vigiles after my retirement from the army and was assigned here. But I recall a night when a man came to report a murder at the Emporium. My old captain sent us out to explore, but we never found anything. You say the body was under a foundation stone the entire time?”
“Maybe buried deep when he was killed, and the blocks put over him later. The builders might have not realized.” I fixed Vatia with a keen stare. “Who was the man who reported it?”
To my disappointment, Vatia shook his head. “I don’t know. He spoke to the captain only. I was new, so I had to do much fetching and carrying, and I only heard the story secondhand. The captain is now dead, by the way, so no use asking him.”
“Any others from that time who might remember?” I asked.
Vatia shrugged. “No idea. I’ll inquire. You seem to stumble across dead bodies often, Leonidas. I’d sacrifice to Isis if I were you, and halt this bad luck.”
I didn’t so much stumble over them as was pointed to them, but Vatia might have the right of it. I did not supplicate to any god, as I’d seen too much in the arena to believe they cared, but it might not be a bad idea to have at least one of them on my side.
“I work for Gnaeus Gallus, who is building on that site,” I told Vatia. “I said I’d make sure no ghost harms his work.”
“Might be too late for that,” Vatia said encouragingly. “The body still there? I should have a look at it.”
“It’s with the medicus,” I said. “Near the sign of the three fishes. I don’t think it will tell you much. Marcianus says he was murdered, and I believe him.”
“Hard luck if he was.” Vatia touched his chest with his fingers, and I wondered if that was a sign calling upon Isis to watch over him. “I will let you know if I find out anything.” He glanced at Cassia. “So your slave can write it down.” I could not say if he found her amusing or irritating.
“Cassia writing things down has saved my life more than once,” I informed him. “Thank you for your help.”
Vatia bade us a good evening and seated himself at his table, ready to start his long night of work. I ushered Cassia out into the narrow hall.
“Cease stumbling over bodies, Leonidas,” Vatia called after me in his growling way. “I don’t want one of them to be mine.”
When we left the vigiles’ house, I walked down the hill to the Emporium and around to the building site. Impulse led me there, but there was nothing new to see. The ground was unchanged from where we’d left it yesterday and neither the workers nor Gallus lingered this late.
I should trudge all the way to the base of the Esquiline to see if Gallus was well, but I was still exhausted from my night helping battle the fire.
