A pity, because the ring was a fine one. Not to decorate my beefy hand but maybe for her slender one. If it was too big, she could hang it from a chain around her neck.
I knew the idea of adorning Cassia in gold was ludicrous. The slaves she interacted with would resent her for it, or a cohort might try to arrest her before she could explain how she came by something so valuable. Worst of all, thieves would do anything to pry the ring from her, including murder her.
The best place for the ring was at a gold merchant’s. He’d sell it to a wealthy patriarch, Cassia would put the money into the household accounts, and that would be the end of it.
When I entered our apartment, Cassia glanced up at me in surprise. She sat at the table, surrounded by scrolls both open and rolled, tablets, a pot of ink and a pen, various styluses, and a few thin clay slabs. A hunk of bread and a bowl of soup lay near her, but the food appeared to be far less important than the written words.
Every scroll remained neatly in its place as she rose from the table, none daring to roll away. “I did not expect you so early,” Cassia said, trying to hide her concern. “Has something happened?”
By something, she meant Gallus dismissing me. This was the first job I’d taken in weeks. I’d turned down several bodyguard requests which would have precluded me starting work for Gallus this morning.
“We finished for the day,” I said.
Cassia’s stiff shoulders relaxed as she moved tablets from my side of the table. She produced another bowl, into which she ladled more soup from a pot and set next to it most of a round loaf of bread. Cassia never ate much at one time—I assumed her thoughts sped too fast to be dragged down by a mundane meal.
Once I’d sat down to the lukewarm soup and the bread, Cassia returned to her stool and made a note on a wax tablet, probably the time I’d arrived and the fact that Gallus had sent us home.
“Gallus must be pleased,” Cassia said. “He has been chafing to build something grand. Livius is kind to let him.”
I nodded as I dunked bread into my soup of beans and greens, shoving the dripping crust into my mouth.
Gallus had visited us several times since I’d agreed to work for him, and he and Cassia had conversed at length about the project. Cassia had read Vitruvius’s writings, and she and Gallus had held lively discussions about them.
I swallowed noisily and laid down my bread, my hungry stomach assuaged for now.
“I did find something half-buried at the site.” I reached into the pouch at my belt—which I’d hung on to firmly on my walk home—and pulled out the ring. “Gallus said I could keep it.”
Interested, Cassia reached for the circle of gold. She lifted it to the light coming through our balcony doors, and as Gallus had, studied the faint inscription inside. As she did so, her face changed, curiosity turning to alarm.
She rose slowly to her feet, every line of her tense. “Where did you find this, Leonidas? The exact place. It is very important.”
Chapter 4
I met Cassia’s intense gaze with a puzzled one of my own. “At the site, as I said. Near the river. It looks old.”
“It is old. Or at least …” Cassia sat down, turning the ring around in her fingers and examining the remains of the crest. “Some goldsmiths make rings to appear as though they are ancient and sell them to unsuspecting customers. This was buried you said?”
“Or dropped,” I said, my curiosity rising. “Pressed into the ground by many feet. It was next to Chryseis’s warehouse.” Chryseis was a hard businesswoman we’d had dealings with earlier this year. “Another building had been on the site—we found the foundation stones. Maybe the ring was lost when that was still standing.”
Cassia brushed her fingertip across the markings on the inside of the ring. “Then the building was quite ancient. Or this is an excellent forgery.”
“That isn’t Latin,” I stated, slightly proud I knew it not to be.
“No.” Cassia’s voice was soft. “It’s Etruscan.”
“Etruscan?” I repeated. Etruria was a province north of here, but I hadn’t been aware they wrote with different letters than we did. “Not Greek?”
Cassia shook her head. “Etruscans used a variant of the Greek of western colonists for writing, which is a bit different from Aeolian or Ionic Greek. See.” She pushed the ring closer to me. “These are straight marks, similar to our Italic letters. But these are not Latin words.”
“Can you read them?”
“A little.” Cassia turned the ring this way and that, as though it might help her puzzle out what it said. “I will have to consult some texts …”
She trailed off, but I could see her thoughts begin to whirl. Cassia loved a challenge, the chance to increase her knowledge.
I returned to my meal, happy to leave the trinket with her. She could do with it whatever she pleased.
Once I finished eating, I had the entire afternoon ahead of me. I’d taken to walking the hills before retiring to the baths, learning the city I’d known only vaguely when I’d lived at the ludus. Now I roamed the Campus Martius, climbed the Quirinal, Viminal, and Caelian hills, and tramped up the Esquiline for glimpses of lavish gardens—horti—that surrounded villas of the wealthiest men. Aqueducts fed these horti, the water diverted to them before the rest was poured into the city’s fountains.
