Page 16 of Brother at Arms

I matched his gaze, studying the nose someone had broken for him. I was certain he’d never been a gladiator—he did not have the inflated confidence of a man who’d had to survive in the arena. He likely was a legionnaire, used to staring across battlefields at enemies who’d be no match for Roman-trained soldiers.

Cassia, who’d pulled a fold of her cloak across her face, came to me. “We must go in,” she said in an exaggeratedly worried tone. “We will be beaten if we do not bring back what he needs.”

The guard flicked a gaze at her, regarding us both with scorn, before he stepped aside to let us pass.

I didn’t thank him, and led Cassia up the steps and into the foyer.

We entered a marble-tiled atrium, studded with marble columns that supported the vaulted roof. Skylights illuminated the marble-floored interior, which consisted of a square, empty space with benches placed against the walls and open doorways that led to various rooms in the building.

A wiry man hurried out from one of these, his cheek twitching in disappointment when he saw only a gladiator and a female slave.

“I want to speak to Cassius Tatius,” I announced.

“He is busy,” the wiry man said. He too had been a fighting man of some kind in his younger days, I could tell, possibly a legionnaire or urban cohort. “Tell me what you want and go.”

Cassia had faded behind me, never presuming to speak without permission. I was not as good at acting as Cassia, but I hit upon a name that might change the man’s mind.

“I am on an errand for Sextus Livius,” I said, trying to sound pompous. “I can only ask Cassius Tatius.”

I sent a silent prayer to any god listening that Livius would forgive me for the deception. Sextus Livius was one of the wealthiest men in Rome—possibly the wealthiest—and he considered me a friend for the favor I’d done his father. I wasn’t certain how far the friendship went, beyond him sending us good wine, and I’d apologize to him as soon as I could.

As expected, the wiry man abruptly became much more respectful, the tic in his left cheek fading. “Livius sent you? We did not know. Please, come this way.”

Cassia drifted to one of the benches and stood beside it, as though she’d wait dutifully for me to finish, but I gestured her to follow us.

“I need her,” I told the man, who stopped in surprise when she obeyed. “She will note down the transaction.”

His wrinkled brow smoothed. “Ah, a scribe. Yes, yes. Come, come.”

I followed him through an arch to a cluttered room that was the complete opposite of the sparse atrium. Small boxes that likely held parchment records were stacked floor-to-ceiling on one wall, and plenty of wax tablets in their cases had been piled on tables and in corners.

A very thin man reposed on a couch behind a long table that was equally covered with scrolls and tablets. Gold leaf shimmered on the couch’s frame, its legs carved into the claws of a fantastic beast. Cushions of lush silk were strewn across the sofa, the merchant using the sumptuous cloth even to pillow his backside.

I expected a silk merchant to be corpulent, able to feast on the rich foods his profits brought him. Instead, this man was austere, his tunic plain, the white toga draped over one arm of the couch made of ordinary wool.

Tatius’s face was long, his nose too large for it. He had dark eyes that peered up at me in both irritation and suspicion.

“Sextus Livius?” he demanded. “He has his own merchants to import cloth for him. What does he want of me?”

I hesitated, but Cassia could not help me. She remained near the doorway, mute.

“He is interested in a silk merchant called Julius Herminius,” I ventured.

Tatius’s expression changed from mildly annoyed to outraged in an instant. “Herminius? Do not speak of that toad to me. What does Sextus Livius want him for? If Livius thinks to deal with him, he should flee in the other direction, immediately.”

Chapter 5

I hid my start at the man’s response. “I do not know. I have only heard the name. What has this Herminius done?”

Tatius leapt to his feet, sending scrolls rolling across the tabletop. “He is a swindler and a thief. Ask Herminius what happened to the shipment my agent was to receive in Ancyra, after I paid to have it transported all the way across Parthia. Vanished it did, to turn up in one of his warehouses. No one knows why, and I have yet to be compensated.”

“Herminius kept it?” I asked in surprise. If he did, it was blatant theft, subject to dire punishment. I briefly wondered if the manager called Fulvius, who was determined to ruin Lucius, had diverted the shipment, or if Lucius himself had before fleeing to Rome.

“Sold it on for a good profit, didn’t he?” Spittle flecked Tatius’s lips. “Herminius claimed he accepted the shipment from his agent in good faith and had no idea it was mine. I’ll be paid when he collects all the moneys from the various customers who purchased it, he says. A percentage only, because he went to the trouble of warehousing it, delivering it to and paying the weavers … Which means, once he has taken all the expenses, I will have nothing.”

Tatius smacked the top of the desk, scrolls and tablets dancing. The assistant who’d admitted us did not move to right things but nodded along, as angry as his master.

“How can Herminius have taken a whole shipment?” I asked. “Someone must have noticed.”