Page 69 of Brother at Arms

Arsakes, who’d been snoring on my bunk, came awake. He started up instinctively, then groaned, pressed a hand to his side, and sank back down.

Cassia glanced up in concern. “Leonidas, are you all right? What has happened? Where is Lucius?”

“With Marcianus.” I answered the last question first then gave her a truncated version of our encounter with Mihrdat, not wishing to explain fully in front of Arsakes and Hadrianus.

Arsakes grunted. “He’s a dangerous man, is Mihrdat. Rich beyond anyone’s dreams, but he became so through ruthlessness. You are lucky he doesn’t believe you a threat.”

“You work with him,” I said bluntly. “You use him to ship your silks.”

“I never go near him,” Arsakes said. “I hire an agent to pick up the stuff at the oases, then give it to one of Mihrdat’s men to ship to Rome. The man called Xerxes pays Mihrdat for it, and I am safely far away. Until now, when I decided to come find out why Xerxes was threatening me.”

“Because the false Xerxes’s connection to Mihrdat ceased,” I said. “So Mihrdat told us.”

“Mihrdat likely broke it himself,” Cassia put in. “If he thought his enterprise with the new Xerxes had grown less profitable or more risky, I believe he is the type of man who’d cut it off without a qualm. The new Xerxes sees his fruitful business vanish, and tries to get money out of you, Arsakes, to keep himself afloat.”

“Conniving bastard,” Arsakes muttered. “Why did Mihrdat try to kill us, then? To discourage Leonidas from asking questions?”

“I don’t think it was one of Mihrdat’s men who attacked you,” I said. “You were fighting him before I reached the office, and I’d only just come from seeing Mihrdat. He didn’t fight like one of Mihrdat’s toughs, anyway. They had a different way of pinning me and Lucius, and the man fighting you wore a Roman tunic, not silk leggings.”

Hadrianus was frowning as though he had opinions about the attack. He knew things, and I hoped Cassia could unlock what was in his head.

“I’m off to the ludus,” I said. “Regulus knows more about Xerxes’s last bout than I do, and maybe one of the others saw something as well.”

I was going to find the man who’d killed my friend. The friend who’d shoved aside a lucrative business to save an awkward and frightened youth when that youth’s life had been threatened.

That was the difference between Xerxes and Lucius, I decided. As much as Xerxes had joked, teased, and played pranks, he’d cared.

He’d cared enough about a young Leonidas to keep him safe from a dangerous man. He’d cared enough about Marcella and his children to be faithful to her, to spend every moment he could with her, and to give her all he had.

Someone had ended the life of a generous man, a kindhearted father and husband, and a devoted friend.

I would find that someone, and I’d finish him.

Cassia cut through my roiling thoughts. “Walk back with Hadrianus,” she instructed me. “He must return to Samorix before the seventh hour.”

We’d just make it. I gave her a curt nod and sent Arsakes a stern look. I needed my bed back and a good sleep. I sought sleep whenever life became too complicated, my escape from troubled thoughts, and I’d been denied anything but restless nights lately. Marcianus had been adamant that Arsakes stay still for a time, though, and so I must wait.

I sent Hadrianus down the stairs, and we emerged into the street. When we reached the lower slope, where we could walk side by side, I turned to him.

“If you saw the man who bought the poison from Samorix three Saturnalias ago, would you recognize him? Could you point him out?”

Hadrianus nodded without hesitation.

“Would you be willing to?”

Hadrianus waited a beat, then nodded again.

“Then Cassia or I will send for you if we need to.”

He nodded once more, then we continued in silence, cutting across the Campus Martius and down to the river. We crossed to the Transtiberim, where Hadrianus left me, making for the narrow lane that housed Samorix’s shop.

I trudged northward to the ludus, entering the gate just as training broke for the afternoon.

“Regulus.” I hailed him as he handed his wooden practice sword to Agapios, the equipment slave, and ambled toward the colonnade that led to the cells.

Regulus snatched a towel from another of the lackeys and waited for me to approach.

“Did you come to give us pointers, oh great Leonidas?” he asked, holding the ends of the cloth he’d draped around his neck. “Training is over for the day. Pity.”