“She is a dancer, not that it is any of your affair,” Drusus said tightly. “She amuses me when the business of the day grows tedious.”
The woman hadn’t been dancing either, as she hadn’t been out of breath or her hair mussed from that.
However, if Drusus wanted to make his clients wait while he had a chat with a dancer, then that was his choice. His clients despised him for it, but if they needed Drusus’s support, either financially or by his influence, they’d put up with his behavior.
The majordomo bowed to his master. “The gladiator claims he has found your money.”
Drusus immediately stepped down from the raised floor of the tablinum. “Where is it? Give it to me.”
I wordlessly removed the pouch from my cloak and held it out to him.
Drusus snatched it, wrenching open the drawstrings and thrusting his hand inside, lips moving as he counted the coins.
“It is all here,” he said, shooting me a glance that held some surprise. “Where is the thief?”
No thanks, no offer of reward. I stifled my irritation.
“He got away from us.”
Drusus glared. “You are a skilled gladiator, supposedly the best in the world. How did you not catch him?”
I relayed the tale Cassia had come up with—that we’d chased the bandit out of Rome and into the hills to the west, where I’d lost his trail. I left it vague whether he’d dropped the money while he’d fled or I’d wrested it from him first.
“You could hire guards to search for him,” I suggested.
As Cassia predicted, Drusus shook his head. “Waste of time,” he muttered. “Go tell your princeps you failed.”
I noticed he said your princeps. Not our.
I waited a moment longer, giving him a chance to offer me payment, as most high-placed men would for rendering him a service.
Drusus turned his back on me, clenching the money pouch, and stepped up into the tablinum, ignoring us both. The majordomo quickly closed the folding doors, shutting me out.
“The senator thanks you for returning his money,” the majordomo said. “Go now.” He gestured to the lighted square of the open front doorway.
The majordomo wasn’t going to hand me the reward either.
As I ducked out of the house, I wondered how Drusus gained loyalty from his clients. Was he more generous to them? He obviously could afford to carry twenty aurei about with him and hire a dancer to amuse him when his duties grew too dull.
Perhaps Drusus believed Nero would reward me, or else he saw no reason to give coin to someone as lowly as a gladiator.
No matter what the case, I would have no payment today for my time and trouble.
I noted that the large freedman had gone, as had another toga-clad gentleman. Perhaps the big man had been guarding him, and the highborn man had decided not to bother waiting on Drusus’s pleasure.
I hated to return to Cassia empty-handed. She’d be disappointed in the lack of reward and also because I had little to tell her about Drusus.
Clouds had gathered while I’d been inside, and a thin spate of rain misted my skin as I emerged from the alcove. I paused in the street outside the pastry shop, the scent from the warm cakes tempting. I’d take something home for Cassia to enjoy, I decided, once I solved the mystery of Drusus.
After a few moments of pondering, while the pastry maker eyed me from behind his counter, I turned and headed up the street past Drusus’s home, making for the domus of the wealthy Sextus Livius.
I was fortunate to find Livius at home.
He came out to the atrium to greet me once the door slave had gone to inform him of my presence, one of his usual guards shadowing him.
“Leonidas,” Livius boomed. “What a welcome surprise.”
Sextus Livius was a man about ten years my senior, with a slim body, thick dark hair that curled, and dark eyes. He wore a simple tunic of thin linen and gold wristlets that could buy Cassia and I bread for a year.
