Chapter 8
The medicus at Nero’s domus bandaged me, but I decided I’d seek Marcianus to finish patching me up. Nero’s medicus wrinkled his well-bred nose at having to touch a gladiator, but I trusted Marcianus to heal me competently and cheerfully.
A search was made for the dancing girl, which resulted in nothing. Her bodyguard, likewise, had disappeared from the front gate.
I was glad. I did not like the idea of an assassin lurking in Rome but neither did I want to see the beautiful woman face a gruesome death.
“She’ll be far beyond the city walls by now,” Cassia said as we walked home, Livius’s guard Albanus trailing us.
Albanus had pounded at the gates when the Praetorians had responded to the commotion within, unhappy he couldn’t rush inside to protect us. Not for our sakes, I guessed—he didn’t want to have to explain to Livius why we’d been murdered in Nero’s home.
“Gone with all that gold,” I finished. “I wonder if Drusus escaped.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Cassia said tiredly.
She drooped under the weight of her bag, but I had to tug it away from her before she’d relinquish it. She protested because of my injury, but I pointed out that I had two arms, and a slight cut would not stop me. If the blade had been poisoned, I’d have been felled by now.
Cassia was not happy with my reasoning but she finally let me carry the bag.
Livius was still at our apartment, to my surprise—I’d thought he’d have better things to do than wait for us. Cassia explained what happened, and Livius agreed that the assassin and her guard had likely escaped. With so much money, they could go far.
Livius sensed Cassia’s exhaustion, and he departed, wishing us a joyous Saturnalia. Albanus followed him closely down the street while I watched from our balcony, then they were gone.
Cassia had sunk to her stool by the time I went back inside, and I poured us wine. I gulped mine, hoping Livius would remember his promise to renew our supply.
“A reward was out of the question, I suppose,” Cassia said glumly when I sat down across from her.
“No one has remembered to pay us for this job, I agree.” I’d ceased expecting them to.
“The princeps might eventually pay us for our services.” Cassia opened her tablet and reached for a stylus to make her notes for the afternoon. “But who knows how long that will be?”
I couldn’t say. I finished my wine, left Cassia bent over her writings, and departed to seek Marcianus.
I found him at the Circus Gai, patching up Regulus, who’d taken a hit to his thigh, though he’d won his bout this afternoon. Another gladiator with his arm in a sling, his bare torso heavily abraded, leaned against the wall, his face wan.
“Thought you weren’t fighting.” Regulus jerked his chin at my bandage, while Marcianus’s brows rose in consternation.
“What happened to you?” Marcianus put one last stitch in Regulus’s leg, while Regulus gritted his teeth, then he dropped the needle and turned to me.
“Assassin threw a knife at the princeps,” I said. “I decided to stop it with my shoulder.”
Both Marcianus and Regulus looked gratifyingly amazed. The other injured gladiator glanced my way, momentarily distracted from his pain.
“A tale I look forward to hearing.” Marcianus carefully unwound the soiled bandage, tutted at the way the wound had been left to gape, and fetched his needle.
“Leonidas will have such a big head, he’ll be able to stop dozens of swords with it,” Regulus stated.
The other gladiator barked a laugh.
I remained silent as Marcianus stitched the wound, keeping myself from grunting when he stabbed the needled repeatedly through my flesh. He smeared an ointment on the cut then replaced my bandage with a blood-free one.
Instead of regaling them with the story when Marcianus finished, and I asked where I could find Aemil.
Aemil barely glanced at me when I entered the spolarium, the place where they dragged the dead. He’d lost one of his newer gladiators, and he was out of temper.
“He was promising, very promising.” Aemil wore a scowl, his fingers twitching as though he wanted to ball his scarred hands and punch something. “I spent months training him, and money, too much money. It will be a long time before I recoup it.”
He avoided meeting my gaze, but I saw the moisture in his mismatched eyes.
