Gallus hummed a tune as he gazed across the site, as happy as I was. “I’m for the baths,” he told me. “Is it safe for me to go?”
“Only if it’s a very crowded one,” I said. “Or you take a friend who will watch out for you.”
Some of Gallus’s enthusiasm dimmed. “You do frighten me, Leonidas.”
“Only to keep you safe,” Cassia said in her calming tones.
“Yes. Well.” Gallus hefted his bag of tools and scrolls. “Perhaps you could see me to Livius’s other warehouse in the Emporium. He asked to discuss a few things with me. I assume I’ll be all right there?”
I assured him he would be. Livius surrounded himself with fighting men who would protect Gallus as well.
All five of us started off toward the Emporium. I expected Vibius and his wife to veer toward the Aventine and Vibius’s home, but they stuck with us until Gallus trotted off into the giant Porticus Aemilia in search of Livius. I waited until I saw several of Livius’s guards emerge from the shadows and surround him before I walked on.
“Did you know your brother-in-law once owned the land Gallus is building on?” I asked Vibius abruptly as we walked.
“Did he?” Vibius asked in true surprise.
“Our family owned many pieces of land throughout Rome,” Aelia said without agitation. “Sold off one by one, over the years. I knew we’d had some near the Emporium, but I wasn’t certain where. It was many years ago, now.”
“Ten years,” I said.
Cassia touched her bag, and I knew what she wanted me to tell her. “Cassia has the records, if you want to look at them,” I said.
“Yes, perhaps we should,” Aelia agreed. “But at my brother’s house. I want to find out what he knows about the land and what was on it. Shall we go there now?”
Vibius grimaced. “I do not know if I can stomach being a guest of Cloelius twice in one week.”
Aelia sent him an amused look. “Consider it a test of your courage and honor.”
“I’m not certain I need so much honor,” Vibius muttered, but Aelia had already turned away to begin the journey to the Esquiline Hill.
Cloelius was wandering his extensive garden when we arrived. He wore a hat against the sun and carried a pair of shears, but he was doing no actual gardening himself. Instead, he commanded the slaves who accompanied him to trim this and re-stake that.
By their expressions, the gardeners disagreed with his commands, though they had no choice but to obey. I imagined they’d re-prune and re-position things once he was inside.
Cloelius turned an unfriendly face to us when the majordomo admitted us into the hortus. “Aelia? Why have you dragged these people into my presence again? I don’t like gladiators in the house.”
Aelia met his gaze without cowering. “Cease pretending you know anything about gardening and let us speak in the tablinum.”
She marched that way, her palla fluttering in her wake. Cloelius rolled his eyes skyward. Without a word to the rest of us, he strode after his sister, his pruning shears swinging dangerously.
When we reached the house’s atrium, Cassia pressed her bag on me before fading into the shadows. She’d find the servants’ area and likely the chef she’d befriended on our last visit.
Another slave had relieved Cloelius of the shears before Vibius and I reached the tablinum. Cloelius glared at his sister as he plopped himself behind his desk, clearly displeased with her impromptu visit.
“What do you know about a death at one of our family properties in the Emporium?” Aelia was asking him.
I saw Cloelius start. “What are you talking about?” He waved a hand at Vibius and me. “Do not take me to task in front of … these.”
“My husband and his colleague,” Aelia informed him, her tones as imperious as his.
“Whatever you wish to call them. What property? We have so many.”
“We used to have so many.” Aelia reached for the bag I held, and I relinquished it to her without question.
Aelia upended the sack over the desk, letting Cassia’s scrolls cascade across it. She competently caught each one and stacked them neatly before proceeding to open the first one.
“How long will this take?” Cloelius demanded as Aelia began to read in silence. “I have many things to do.”
