bit like a Gaul. They gave me the choice of execution or the games. I chose the games, knowing I was a good fighter. A few days ago, I was given the rudis.” And Cassia, and a place to live, by a person unknown to me.
“That is a very short summation of a life.” Priscus eyed me in curiosity. “Did you commit the murder?”
Chapter 7
“No.” The word was harsh, and I closed my mouth.
Another had done the crime I’d been accused of but I did not know who, and I had been in no position to find out. I’d often wondered if the murderer was still out there or if he’d died in the dangerous world we inhabited.
“Who are your people?” Priscus asked me, his interest continuing.
I shrugged. “I was abandoned as a lad of five. I learned to live on my own.”
“Then how do you know you were a citizen?”
“There’s a record of my birth.” I hadn’t seen it, and couldn’t have read it if I had, but I’d been told this by the man I’d worked for. He’d had to check before he took me on as his apprentice.
“Hmm.” Priscus halted his horse, and I came alert, looking about for whatever had startled him. “We should stop for a time,” he said, noting my tension. “The others are growing tired.”
I sensed Priscus could have ridden straight on without stopping. Despite his declaration of his aging, he was healthy and strong. I realized he was resting for his retainers’ sake, a fact that told me much about him.
I remained next to Priscus as he dismounted and did not let him out of my sight, not even when he left the road to relieve himself. Especially not then. A man is at his most vulnerable when he’s giving up his water.
The journey continued in this way—we’d ride for a stretch, then rest while Priscus’s servants tended his horse and the mules. When we halted for a meal, the retainers nibbled on bread, and Priscus had his valet serve them watered-down wine.
I did not see much of Cassia, who stayed close to the two female servants of the group. She proved her word that she’d keep herself safe, never straying from the middle of the caravan.
We traversed the twenty miles to Ostia in easy stages and arrived at the port at the twelfth hour, just before the gates closed.
Other men I’d guarded to Ostia put up at inns, sometimes taking over half of one for their party, but Priscus led us to a large apartment block that surrounded a wide green space with fountains. These were not typical insulae, but a two-storied complex that held dwellings as large as a middle-class man’s domus in Rome. The door guard of one of these units gave a shout when Priscus dismounted, and half a dozen servants streamed from within to collect the horse and mules and escort Priscus inside.
Priscus owned this entire building, I learned—another he’d inherited from his wife. I was offered my own cubicle in the spacious two-floored apartment set aside for his use, but I decided to sleep in front of the door to Priscus’s room. Any would-be assassin who broke in, or had been hiding inside already, would need to step over me to reach him.
Priscus ate a simple meal alone and soon turned in for the night. I spread blankets before his large bedroom near the atrium and reclined on them, my back to the door.
Cassia appeared out of the darkness after the slaves extinguished the few lamps. She began to straighten my blankets, pretending she’d come to look after me.
“He is paying much money for the cargo he’s retrieving,” Cassia said in a low voice as she worked. She leaned close, her breath brushing my ear. “So much that he will not leave the collection of the goods to others. But he won’t say what the shipment is, not even to his servants. Celnus and Kephalos don’t know. This annoys them, rather.”
Gold, spices, silk. Such things could double a man’s fortune, but only if he brought them safely to the markets. Priscus was wise not to leave the transport in another’s hands—a portion of it might vanish by the time it reached his warehouse in Rome.
Another thought occurred to me. Priscus might be buying items he was not licensed to import, such as spices or cloth meant only for the imperial family.
“Do they know where the goods are coming from?” I asked.
“No, but the suspicion is it’s