Fortunately, few stirred in the Subura’s lanes at the early hours, the inhabitants sleeping off a night of drink and debauchery. They did this every morning, Saturnalia or no.
The Oppian was a spur of hill directly across from the Palatine, with a marshy valley between the two. Through a gap between buildings at the top of the Oppian, I could view the sprawl of Nero’s Domus Transitoria, still under construction on the opposite hill.
Drusus dwelled in a villa with a vast garden at the summit of the Oppian Hill, not far from the home of Sextus Livius, one of the wealthiest men in Rome.
I doubted Drusus ever spoke to Livius, who was a freedman. Livius ranked far below the patrician Drusus, no matter that Livius’s natural father had been a patrician senator himself and a military hero. Livius had been born a slave, and that cut him out of Drusus’s circles. I don’t think Livius minded much.
The domus Cassia gave me directions to had a colonnaded line of shops on its street wall, most of which were closed for the long holiday. Only a pastry maker was open, serving passers-by sweet treats for their Saturnalia celebrations.
The entrance to Drusus’s house lay in a deep alcove that led back from the shops, a shady place for clients to wait on warm days. Clients were there now, sitting on benches that Drusus was wealthy enough to supply.
I hesitated in the alcove, while the gazes of impatient men who owed allegiance to Drusus turned to me. Men in togas, youths in cloaks, and one large man who wore a freedman’s tunic, his arms bare in defiance of the cold weather. This last watched me with a hard face and deep suspicion.
The freedman must be a bodyguard, but he stood apart from the rest of the clients, as though not wanting to reveal which one employed him.
One of the large double doors stood open for air, but there was no sign of a door slave or the lictors I’d seen with Drusus at the games. I wondered if his sour disposition alone kept his toadies out.
I passed them all and went straight to the open door.
“He’s with a woman,” one of the younger men said in some disgust as I paused on the threshold. “We’ve been waiting for hours.”
“None of your concern,” one of the two toga-clad men snapped. “He will send for you when he is ready.”
I tried to picture the soft-bellied Drusus, with his pinched-up face, lost the throes of passion and could not. I had to pity the woman.
I felt certain Drusus would see me if he learned I’d recovered his money. I stepped into the house’s atrium, which was massive, with a large rectangular space in the ceiling open to the sky. The impluvium, the pool that caught rainwater, rippled quietly beneath the skylight.
A door in the rear of the atrium slammed open, and the man I assumed was the majordomo stormed out. He scowled at me, knowing I did not belong there.
Before he could shout for servants to throw me out, I removed the pouch from my cloak and shook it slightly, so that the coins inside clinked.
“Ennius Drusus employed me to retrieve this,” I said. “He will want it.”
The majordomo halted, his surprised gaze going to the pouch. “You found what was stolen?”
“I did.” I tucked the bag back under my cloak. “I will hand it to no one but the senator.” I couldn’t take the chance that the majordomo wasn’t corrupt enough to hide the money and claim I’d never found it or even stole it myself.
The majordomo’s mouth pinched. I watched him debate whether to tell Drusus and pass the problem to him or explain to his master why he let me walk out of the house with the gold.
“Wait here,” the majordomo commanded.
He crossed the atrium to a set of large folding doors that led to the tablinum—the office of the paterfamilias—and tapped quietly on it.
“Sir,” he called softly but urgently. “It’s that gladiator.”
I heard a grunt of annoyance from beyond. Not long later, the folding door slid open, but it wasn’t Drusus who appeared on the threshold.
A dark-haired young woman in sumptuous silks and shimmering gold jewelry glided out of the doorway. She smiled at me with red-painted lips, her eyes lined with kohl.
She was quite beautiful and also sensual, smelling of spicy perfume, but not so much that it was cloying. She was a professional entertainer, I surmised, but whether dancer, musician, actress, or courtesan, I couldn’t say.
She deepened her smile when she saw my interest but wafted through the atrium to the front door without a word. The gold chains on her neck and wrists clicked softly as she floated from the house.
Drusus stood in front of a desk inside his tablinum, his feet planted apart. He wore closed shoes for the colder weather, the tight laces of them gilded.
Drusus cleared his throat. I and the majordomo, who’d also been enthralled by the woman, jerked our attention to him.
I doubted we’d interrupted them in the middle of copulation. The woman’s layered garments had been neatly in place, her hair sleek in its coiffure, nothing hastily scraped together. Drusus’s linen tunic was fastened firmly at both shoulders with gold fibulae, the fabric unwrinkled.
