She heaved a sigh and kept pacing.
“Will you please sit?” Catullus demanded. “You’re distracting me.”
She opened her mouth to shoot a sharp reply, but at that moment, one of Catullus’s slaves entered the atrium, Taurus at his back. Crispina’s heart leaped.
“Sir, this man said he was here to see the lady?” The slave glanced at Crispina before focusing on Catullus.
“Yes, that’s right,” Catullus said. “That will be all.”
The slave nodded and departed. Crispina hurried to Taurus. “Thank you so much for meeting me here. I realize this must all seem very strange. And I know you took a risk by heeding my request.”
“I’m still confused why you wanted to see me, mistress…I mean…” He stumbled over the form of address.
Crispina waved a hand, not caring what he called her. “I wanted to know about your former master, Epidius Verus. He’s running against Aelius in the tribune election. I need to know if he has any weakness that might be exploited.”
Taurus lowered his gaze. “I don’t know anything about politics.”
His voice was too careful, too measured, and Crispina knew he was keeping something back. “Why did Verus want to sell you so abruptly?” she pressed. “It struck me as unusual at the time.”
He shifted his weight, passing a hand over the back of his neck, but said nothing.
“I know you know something,” Crispina said. “Please, it could be the difference between victory and defeat for Aelius.”
“I…” He shook his head, and his freckled cheeks reddened. “Forgive me, but I vowed never to speak of it.”
Crispina reached out to grasp his hand. His fingers jerked under her touch, but he didn’t pull away. “I regret it, but I must ask you to break that vow. Anything you know could be of critical importance to this election and to Aelius.”
Taurus ran a hand through his reddish hair. “I do owe you both a great debt,” he said quietly. “You reunited me with Cassandra, and allowed me to watch my daughter grow up.” Emotion roughened his voice.
Crispina squeezed his hand. “It was the right thing to do.”
He met her gaze. His brown eyes were steady, resolved. “For the sake of what I owe you, I’ll tell you.”
Behind them, Catullus rose from his seat and came over, his eyes alight with interest. “I hope it’s sordid. This could make a good poem.”
“Let him talk,” Crispina snapped. Everything hinged on this. If the information Taurus knew was damaging enough, then Crispina could use it to ensure Aelius’s victory.
Taurus glanced between them. “I accidentally opened a letter to my former master. I didn’t know it was supposed to be private, and my master didn’t know I could read. I hardly even understood it, but when my master realized I’d read it, he flew into a rage. I started to understand what the letter was about. It was from a builder, discussing the type of marble to be used for a temple my master was in charge of building.”
Crispina glanced at Catullus. So far, this did not seem promising in terms of sordidness or likelihood to influence the election. “Why would he have been building a temple?”
Catullus chimed in. “I believe Epidius Verus was an aedile last year, so he would have been involved in the maintenance and construction of temples.”
Taurus nodded. “Yes. What I understand is that he was taking money from the treasury to pay builders. But he had some sort of arrangement with the builder to use bad marble. The stone was taken from the top layers of a quarry, which I gather is much cheaper to procure. But it’s pitted with holes, which the builders patched with wax or plaster, so no one can tell.”
The pieces were coming together in Crispina’s mind. “So he paid the builder for cheap marble, and then pocketed the difference from the treasury?”
“I believe so, mistress,” Taurus said.
Catullus let out a low whistle. “Sneaky louse.”
Crispina’s heart beat faster. “So he’s trying to cover up fraud and embezzlement of public funds. In addition to dishonoring the gods with a shoddily built temple. No wonder he wanted to get you out of the way, Taurus.”
Taurus’s lips tightened. “I swore not to speak of it. But he didn’t care.”
She turned to Catullus. “Do you think this is enough?”
He raised his eyebrows. “The punishment for theft is a penalty of twice the amount stolen. And given that it was a temple, it’ll look like he stiffed the gods themselves. He’d be lucky to get exiled, if people don’t bludgeon him in the street.”
