Cassia would have a much better life with such a man than she would being stuck with a former gladiator, living hand to mouth on what I could earn.
My chest burned strangely when I mused upon this, but I knew I was right.
These troubling thoughts fled when Junius strode back into the garden and moved swiftly to our table.
“Ah.” Livius laid down his knife and hunk of bread he’d dipped into honey. “What did you find out, Junius?”
“That his servants are packing trunks so Drusus can remove himself from the city,” Junius said without preliminary. “They are going to his villa at Baiae. So said his door slave.” He named a town popular with the elite along the blue bay near Neapolis.
“Is that why he gathered the money?” Livius mused. “To take with him to his villa? Perhaps to pay someone there?”
“He’d be a fool if he did,” Junius answered. “Unless he travels with fifty armed men, someone will rob him blind, maybe even murder him, before he’s twenty paces down the Via Appia.”
“Unless he has already made the payment,” I said, rising.
“His clients all went home,” Junius said. “I didn’t see any carrying a box or bag with them. But they’d hide it, wouldn’t they?”
“What are the names of his clients?” I asked. “The big man was a bodyguard for someone. Which one?”
“If you mean that huge freedman, I’ve seen him a couple times this week. I don’t know him. Don’t want to. From what I’ve heard, he’s worked for some of the worst men in Rome.”
“Who is he working for now?” I asked.
Junius shrugged. “Not sure. Most of Drusus’s clients don’t have much money to hire a bodyguard, or else they wouldn’t trudge up to his house every day. The two you described in togas are Verinius Marius, who has hair like a brown fringe, and Gaius Fulvias, who has thin legs but fat arms. They both owe their careers to Drusus.”
Gaius Fulvias was the one who’d admonished the younger man for disparaging Drusus’s proclivities. Verinius Marius had vanished with the bodyguard—more interesting to me.
Junius continued. “The three younger are aediles, from old patrician families but poor ones. They hope Drusus will help them up the ladder. They’d do anything for him.”
Including take funds from Drusus to do something dire, as Cassia feared? Drusus was fleeing, which meant that dire thing was about to happen—maybe already had.
“Is there any way to stop Drusus leaving Rome?” I demanded.
Livius, who’d come to his feet beside me, shook his head. “He’s a senator, a prominent one. Unless he’s committed a crime, he’ll not be kept at the gate. Leaving the city with his own money isn’t illegal.”
Junius’s lips quirked into a little smile, one that would terrify an enemy. “We could always slow him down. A few carts in his way, a caravan lingering at the gates …”
“You can arrange that?” I asked him in surprise.
“I have ceased being amazed at what Junius and his colleagues can get up to,” Livius answered with a laugh. “I am only pleased he is loyal to me. What do you want to do, Leonidas? Stop Drusus and question him?”
Drusus would never reveal his secrets to me, no matter how much I threatened. He hadn’t been afraid of me, and he hadn’t shown any fear of Nero.
“I need to go home. Tell Cassia.”
Livius did not question me. “I will come with you. Perhaps I can be of some service.”
“You’ve already done much,” I began.
“Even so. Junius, try to keep Drusus in the city. If you cannot, then do not get yourself arrested attempting to hinder him. I have the feeling the damage, whatever it is, has already been done. Shall we go, Leonidas?”
Livius readily walked upstairs with me to our small apartment above the wineshop, leaving the guard who’d accompanied us to lean menacingly near the street door.
Cassia smiled at Livius when he entered, making my chest tighten again. She quickly poured wine for him, apologizing for its quality before Livius drank.
“I will send you more,” Livius promised, though he imbibed our wine without a qualm. “You must always tell me whenever you run out, so that I can top you up.”
Cassia made a noncommittal answer. Livius likely offered in friendship, but Cassia and I both knew that taking favors from a wealthy man had its risks.
