Today he sported a beard that snaked across his pink chin. His curling brown hair had a red cast, but whether it spoke of his ancestry or a subtle dye, I was never certain.
He sat on his cushioned chair, arms folded over a silk tunic and folds of purple toga. He’d donned shin guards reminiscent of what I’d worn as a secutor, but these were of thinly beaten gold that would never protect against a sword thrust.
His attending slave stood at his shoulder, though the man’s nervous glance told me he’d rather be anywhere else at the moment.
Nero was in a sulk. He’d delayed the games after the parade, as Regulus had predicted, to Aemil’s great annoyance and the crowd’s restless displeasure.
The senator, Ennius Fabricius Drusus, whose seat was just beyond the thin wall that separated the princeps from the Roman masses, also sat with arms folded. Praetorian guards surrounded him, watching him carefully.
Nero rose to his feet when he saw me coming, fury darkening his ruddy face.
“Leonidas will find what was stolen,” he snapped at Drusus.
Drusus had a body that had once been trim and tight but had succumbed to softer living. His bulbous head held a fringe of graying hair around his ears and pink cheeks that had been closely shaved this morning. Thick gold rings flashed on his fingers, and he wore armbands of matching gold. Any thief who’d come close to him had left those alone.
Drusus struggled up and faced Nero testily. “What mockery is this? He’s a gladiator.”
Nero’s eyes tightened. Drusus was a hairsbreadth from being made a spectacle of in the games today, possibly forced to battle an enraged bear. Prudence was keeping Nero from having him immediately arrested in such a public place, but Nero’s quick temper often got the better of prudence.
“Leonidas is a freedman and works for me,” the princeps said icily. “Tell him what you are missing, and he will retrieve it for you.”
Nero’s claim that I worked for him was not quite accurate, but I saw no benefit in correcting him. I owed my allegiance to a benefactor I’d never met and whose name I didn’t know. Nero hired me on occasion, or at least commanded my assistance, as he did now.
“It is not missing,” Drusus declared. “It was stolen. I saw the thief. I want him put to death. Immediately.”
Nero sent me a weary look, as though asking me to share his exasperation. “Leonidas will find your money and bring me the thief, for the justice due him.”
Drusus opened his mouth, likely to express doubt about Nero’s version of justice, but the Praetorian guard Servius shifted his stance slightly, and Drusus popped his mouth shut again.
“Leonidas is quite clever, for a gladiator,” Nero said. “You will tell him and his slave what happened. Where is she?” He fixed his gaze on me. “Where is Cassia?”
As though the name summoned her, I felt a breath of air by my side and the calming presence that was Cassia.
Nero relaxed visibly when he saw her. Cassia bowed as low as she could within the confines of the stands and the press of guards around us. She kept her head down, a fold of cloak across her nose and mouth, but the tension crackling through Nero’s box lessened.
“This is Cassia, a scribe,” Nero said to Drusus. “You will tell her all. Elsewhere. I will watch the games now.”
Drusus scowled at the dismissal, but another glance at the Praetorian guards kept him from arguing.
He turned away, saying nothing to me or Cassia, or Nero for that matter, and stamped past seats that had been quickly vacated by other senators during the confrontation. He dove through a dark hole in the wall that led to the stairs, a few guards following him, and was gone.
Nero flicked manicured fingers at us to follow him. Then he clapped his hands and raised them, a signal for the games to finally begin.
As the crowd cheered, he rose to his feet and cried out:
“Io, Saturnalia!”
The masses in the arena screamed it back at him. Below us, Aemil, in evident relief, waved at the first team of gladiators to make a start.
Amidst the noise, Cassia and I left the box and made our way down the stairs to seek Drusus.
The fact that Drusus hadn’t simply gone home in disgust told me that what he’d lost was valuable enough for him to let me try to find it.
He waited impatiently outside the arena with his lictors—men who followed wealthy or highborn men about, each carrying a symbolic bundle of staves over one shoulder. Lictors indicated a man’s status and also acted as bodyguards if necessary.
The two with Drusus eyed me in trepidation, as though regretting that they’d not practiced enough in the gymnasiums at the baths.
Cassia, still deferential, removed a wax tablet and stylus from her cloak and opened it, ready to take down whatever Drusus told us. Her quiet efficiency seemed to reassure the man somewhat, though he did not lose his scowl.
