says.”
She might have been a fly buzzing about the room for all Cassia paid attention. Cassia directed her words to me. “If Floriana is dead, are her women released by her will? Or owned by someone else?”
“Floriana freed all of us a few years ago.” Lucia also spoke to me as though I were alone in the room. “She’d been a slave herself but was freed by her husband, or a man she called her husband. Fat lot of good he was. He’s somewhere in Etruria. He probably doesn’t even know she’s dead.”
“Someone will inform him,” Cassia said. “He’ll come to wrap up her business, or send a retainer to do it.”
“None of this matters. I need to leave.” Lucia turned to Cassia. “Fetch the coin.”
Cassia glanced at me for confirmation, and I gave her a nod. “Enough so she can journey … somewhere.”
I had no idea where in the empire Lucia would be safe. If Floriana’s murder had been on impulse—a robber chancing upon her in the fog—Lucia might be fine a few miles out of the city. But if Floriana been killed by important men, fearing she and her women knew things they should not, Lucia might be hunted with persistence. I would have to warn Marcianus to hide Marcia.
Cassia went without hurry to a spot near my bed, hunkering down to move one of the stones in the floor. She drew from a recess below it the clinking bag Kephalos had handed her. Lucia watched with interest, as did I. I’d no idea where Cassia had hidden the money.
Cassia carried the bag to the table, scooped out a handful of coins, and carefully lined them up. The inevitable tablet came out, she making marks as she sorted the coins into stacks.
“What are you doing?” Lucia demanded of her. “Are you a moneylender now? Just give them to me.”
She lunged at the table, but I caught Lucia’s arms in a firm grip. “Let her. She’ll know how much you’ll need.”
Lucia gaped at me but subsided.
“If you need to hide from bad men, I know where you can do so,” Cassia said. “It is a distance from here, but you should be safe enough.”
“Leonidas can escort me.”
Cassia was already shaking her head. “Too many will recognize him and know you are his paramour. Also, you will have to change into a plainer dress. I have one you can wear.”
Cassia turned to a large wooden box that had not been in the apartment earlier this afternoon. She rummaged through it and emerged with a simple stolla which she shook out. The plain linen was a sharp contrast to Lucia’s worn but garish finery. This was a respectable woman’s garb.
Without a qualm, Lucia slid from her gown, her bare flesh covered only by a strip of cloth about her hips. Cassia averted her eyes from Lucia’s body but helped her put on the stolla, settling it on her shoulders. A brown cloak came next out of the box, also plain and a bit worn.
Cassia always dressed so neatly I was surprised she’d purchased a threadbare palla, but I saw that it disguised Lucia well. Cassia bound Lucia’s dyed red hair into a small knot, easily hidden when Cassia arranged the folds of the palla over Lucia’s head.
Cassia stood back to admire her work. Lucia now looked like any other lower-class woman heading out to fetch water or run an errand for her mistress.
“There is a house along the Via Appia, at the base of Mount Albanus, near the lake,” Cassia said. “It is called the Domus Ceres. They will take you in, give you sanctuary. Tell them I sent you.”
“What sort of house?” Lucia asked in suspicion.
“One that will protect you. You can stay there until it is safe to return to Rome.”
“How will I know when that will be?”
“Leonidas will send word.” Cassia pulled a few hard rolls from the basket plus a napkin folded around dried figs. She dropped them into a smaller basket and shoved it all at Lucia. “You should hurry.”
Lucia sent me an inquiring look, and I nodded in agreement. As much as I would miss being with Lucia, Floriana’s death alarmed me more than I’d admitted. Lucia was right to flee.
I walked Lucia down the stairs but did not open the door when we reached the bottom. The fewer people who associated the woman in drab clothing with me, the better.
“Godspeed,” I whispered, pressing a brief kiss to her lips. “I will burn an offering