Page 74 of Brother at Arms

I didn’t hold out much hope she’d remember. I was asking her to recall a brief incident that occurred more than two years ago, and she’d been more interested in taking a treat to her son.

“There was a man,” Julia said, frowning. “I thought it odd, because it was all ladies trying to get near Xerxes. This fellow pushed through us, nearly shoving me over, probably in a hurry to find his seat. I remember because I almost dropped the pastry, and I so wanted to give it to my boy.”

I held in my hopes with difficulty. “What did this man look like?”

Julia blinked. “I don’t know. He was struggling through a pack of women, not looking at us. A Roman, not a foreigner. I think.”

It was too much to expect. She’d corroborated Agapios’s memory, at least. I’d have to question Agapios again or have Cassia do it. She was skilled at dredging out recollections people had thought they’d long forgotten.

“There was one thing.” Julia’s face lit with sudden recollection. “I’ve just remembered. His face twitched, and twitched hard, as though he couldn’t help himself. I don’t recall the color of his hair or what he wore, but I do remember that. His entire left cheek rode up and down. Gruesome, it was.”

I stilled in sudden rage then swung away from her, my feet carrying me rapidly out of the passageway to the cleaner air of the street. I heard Julia calling after me, but I couldn’t stop to acknowledge her or thank her.

I knew what man she meant and exactly where I could put my hands on him.

Chapter 24

I never recalled how I got down the Esquiline. The lanes were thronged, but I wove through them mindlessly. I landed on the Clivus Suburanus and hastened toward the Forum, shouldering people out of my way.

The crowds were thickest near the basilicas, but finally, I managed to make my way to the Vicus Tuscus and the offices near the Horrea Agrippina.

All was quiet when I entered the building, a sharp contrast to the streets outside. Even the large man who guarded the place was absent. Herminius’s cubicle was dark and silent, as was the one where the merchant called Cassius Tatius worked.

I burst into Tatius’s empty office, wishing I had a way to light a lamp. A skylight dimly illuminated the place, but I needed to explore every inch of it.

I opened a box on the cluttered desk, spilling out scrolls, tablets, and scraps of papyrus. I wasn’t certain what I searched for, and if I could read what I sought if I found it, but I wanted anything I could take to a magistrate.

A sound interrupted me. I didn’t really think this building would be abandoned during the busiest part of a workday—Aulus, Tatius’s assistant, must have stepped out briefly on an errand.

A man stilled in the doorway, the left side of his face twitching.

“Aulus,” I greeted him. “Or do you like to be called Xerxes?”

I assumed he’d run. He’d flee into the bright afternoon, and I’d never see him again, losing him among the multitudes of Rome. Instead, he reached into his tunic and unsheathed a knife.

I came around the desk at him, ready to break the hand that held the flimsy knife. As I rushed him, he drew back his arm and let the knife fly in a perfect arc to thunk into my shoulder.

The knife was small, biting like an insect’s sting. I pulled it out with a snarl of rage and leapt at him.

Aulus did try to run then. I caught him in the doorway, our momentum carrying us out to grapple on the smooth marble of the atrium.

He wrestled free of me to land a few punches on my injured shoulder. I lifted him and slammed him against one of the Carrara marble pillars, quarried by someone like Hadrianus.

I recognized now that it had been Aulus I’d fought in Herminius’s office, after Aulus had killed Gotarz and half-gutted Arsakes. He was handy with knives, this man. While much smaller than me, he was agile and skilled, his blows effective.

He managed a few more hits on my wounded shoulder, but I could fight dirty too. I released my hold but kicked his legs out from under him, and he splayed face downward on the floor.

I seized the back of his tunic, ready to haul him up and drag him to a magistrate, one of whom would even now be dealing out justice in the Forum Romanum. I’d see him in the Tullianum before the end of the day.

As I pulled him upright, my knees buckled. I noticed then that my feet were numb, the sensation sneaking up my calves to weaken my legs. I stumbled back, dazed, my arms falling to my sides, as Xerxes must have done that faraway day when he’d met his end.

Even my rage did not let me remain upright. I fell, but I dragged Aulus down with me.

“You killed him.” My voice was so guttural I didn’t recognize it as my own. “You murdered Xerxes so you could keep making money on your gods-poxed silk trade.”

An assistant to a prominent merchant would be well-placed to oversee such a project. I’d suspected Cassius Tatius himself, or Herminius, or Herminius’s manager who hated Lucius, but a quiet clerk with access to records could easily receive shipments and divert them elsewhere to collect and sell on himself. The shipment Tatius blamed Herminius for stealing might, in fact, have been purloined by Aulus.

Aulus must have begun worrying when Cassia and I turned up asking about Herminius, and again when Arsakes had taken over Herminius’s office and started searching for the false Xerxes. Little had Arsakes known that the man was right next door.