I made my way down through the Figlinae, where smoke flowed from the intensely hot kilns of the potters. The open doors into their shops and factories showed men with potters’ wheels between their knees, spinning lumps of clay into cups, bowls, and plates.
As a lad, I’d watched in fascination as a local potter fashioned thin-bodied vases and cups, his fingers shaping the vessels as if by magic. I’d studied my broad hands and concluded such a calling wasn’t for me.
I dodged people through this district and came to the Subura, which thronged with those buying supplies and running errands.
I was immersed in the colors and smells of Rome, from spices and peppers from the eastern end of the world, to bright cloth woven in Egypt, to the stench of animals in pens behind houses. Dogs wound their way through, searching for scraps, as did more agile cats.
The Subura was the shortest way home, and I hastened through it, scowling at anyone who even came close to me. Vibius had better be sensible enough to take Cassia a different way, such as across the top of the hills and down through the Porta Collina to the Quirinal. He could not protect her as well as I could.
I quickened my pace along the Argiletum and finally I jogged northward up the Quirinal, my sandals hitting the packed stones beneath me.
When I approached the wine shop, I heard, to my relief, the quiet patter of feet behind me. By now I knew her footsteps and everything inside me unclenched.
The more hesitant tramp of boots with her must belong to Vibius. I unlocked the door to our staircase, ready to pull Cassia inside the instant she reached me.
Something heavy blocked the entrance on the other side, but it took a moment before I realized this. I ceased shoving impatiently and peered around the door I’d wedged partway open to see what stopped it.
On the floor, wedged between door and the foot of the staircase, was the very dead body of the landlord from our local popina.
Chapter 21
I stared down at him, dumbfounded. A knife’s hilt protruded from the landlord’s chest, the very knife Cassia used to slice fruit we shared for our meals.
In the next moment, the harsh voice of Scaevola, the vigile captain, sprang up behind me.
“Hades, Leonidas, what did you do?”
I tried to tell him I’d done nothing, but the words lodged in my throat. I could not deny that the knife belonged to me, but I had no idea how it came to be in the popina landlord’s chest.
“We have to take you.” Scaevola sounded almost apologetic. He had a few vigiles with him along with two urban cohorts who patrolled the area.
Vibius had halted at the end of the lane, his mouth open. A flurry of robes and footsteps signaled Cassia’s flight back down the hill, she running without pause.
“Stop her!” Scaevola shouted.
Vibius watched Cassia go in bewilderment then hastily jumped aside as the vigiles barreled after her.
She must be off to fetch Hesiodos, so the man could free me from custody once more. I wondered if he’d agree to do it this time.
Scaevola realized her purpose as well and turned his glare me. “Did he break in?” He jerked a thumb at the dead landlord. “Maybe attack your slave?”
He was handing me an excuse for killing him—a man defending himself from an intruder or robber was different from one committing cold-blooded murder.
“I wasn’t here,” I said. “I don’t know why he’s there.” I gestured at the landlord, wondering why the devil he’d come here to be killed.
Scaevola grasped me with a beefy hand. The cohorts—both large men—flanked me, they and the vigiles blocking me in. I couldn’t fight all of them without breaking limbs, and then I’d simply be caught by more cohorts who would hunt me down.
I let Scaevola lead me away. “Find a praetorian guard called Servius,” I said to Vibius as I passed him. “In case they catch Cassia.”
If Cassia could not locate Hesiodos, Servius might be able to intervene for me. Maybe Nero would try to save the gladiator who held his interest.
Scaevola and his men marched me unceremoniously down the hill and to the house of the vigiles. I could only be thankful the cohorts didn’t haul me off to the Tullianum, but they seemed relieved to deposit me with Scaevola and depart. I was also relieved that they didn’t take the bag of Cassia’s scrolls I still carried. I should have handed them to Vibius, but he’d dashed while I was still forming the thought.
I braced myself for another night in the cell downstairs, but before Scaevola could convey me there, Hesiodos appeared. He was breathless and angry—the first time I’d ever seen him anything but haughtily placid.
“We indicated the last time that you are not to detain the gladiator,” Hesiodos stated in a hard voice. By we I imagined he meant himself and my benefactor.
Scaevola regarded him with vast impatience. “A dead man was found in the doorway of Leonidas’s home. Stabbed with his own knife.”
