Page 26 of Brother at Arms

“Your master is looking for a man called Xerxes,” I said. “I can tell him about that.”

The belligerent man took a step forward. “We know where Xerxes is,” he said in his thick accent. “At the ludus across the Tiber.”

“No, he is not,” I countered. “But I will talk only with your master.”

“He isn’t here,” the man said with growing hostility.

“Someone is sending you out to beat on gladiators and gate guards until you find Xerxes,” I said. “I want to meet him.”

The tough studied me for a moment longer, then turned abruptly, gesturing for me to follow.

The door guard stood aside for me to pass. The look he gave me as I did so held warning. I acknowledged it with a minute nod then walked into the shadowy interior.

The ruffian led me to the arched opening I’d glanced into when I was last here, as I’d followed the assistant, Aulus, out of the building. At the time, I’d made out nothing of what was inside.

It was still dark in the room now, with one small skylight high above to cut the gloom. The second man lit several oil lamps, revealing an office similar to Tatius’s but more disarrayed.

Dust lay thickly on the boxes piled about the room, though semicircular clean spaces on the top of a few showed where they’d been used as makeshift seating.

“Our master, Herminius, is in Florentia,” the first man informed me. Only he and the second man—one of the pair I’d tossed into the pool—were present. I saw no sign of the other two. I wondered if the one whose wrist I’d broken had found a medicus to set it.

“What does he want with Xerxes?” I asked. I stood like a rock near the entrance to the room, so I could duck out quickly if I needed to.

The first man rested his backside on one of the crates, confirming where the dust-free patches had come from.

“Where is Xerxes?” he asked with the same air of command.

I noted uneasiness behind his belligerence. I’d faced plenty of opponents who’d come to me full of snarling determination but had been truly panicked beneath. This man showed the same signs—holding my gaze but twitching his fingers, fixing his brows in a scowl but the corners of his lips trembling.

“Xerxes is dead,” I declared. “He was a gladiator, and he died in the games.”

My mouth was stiff when I said the words. The loss still cut me.

The man’s eyes widened slightly. “What games? When was this?”

“At the Saturnalian Games, two and a half years ago.”

The second man let out a sharp gasp, which made the first man send him a brief glare.

“I do not believe you,” the first man said.

“I can take you to his grave.” I didn’t want this man anywhere near where Xerxes’s ashes lay, but I could think of no other way to convince him. “We put up a stone to him.”

The man I’d thrown into the pool regarded me in open dismay. “A stone?”

“Our collegius paid for it.”

Collegia pooled money from its members for funerals and provided a small amount for any wives or children left behind. Every profession had a collegius, from builders to silk merchants to gladiators.

The fact that we’d erected a stone seemed to finally convince the two men that Xerxes was no more. Stones were expensive, and no one would commission one without good cause.

The second man sank to the floor with a grunt, putting his back to the wall. “Mithras save us.”

“Save you from what?” I asked. “Why are you so interested in Xerxes? Why is Herminius?” I studied the two, who both had gone nearly green in the bad light. “Or does Herminius know anything about Xerxes at all?”

“You are certain he is dead?” the first man asked from his perch on the box.

“Very certain. I saw his body.” I flinched, not liking that memory.