killers are stalking me in the streets, you are in danger with me.”
“Not necessarily.” She was maddeningly calm. “As I say, no one notices a slave. Besides, I can keep a lookout in case he tries again.”
I knew, as I took up a cloak against the continuing rain, that I would not be a master who rigidly controlled his servants. The chances of Cassia listening to me and obeying were less than a raw new gladiator winning his first bout against a primus palus.
I put into action my second idea of a person to ask about Floriana’s murder. I led Cassia across the Forum Romana, less crowded now that afternoon had come, and to the Palatine.
A man didn’t simply walk up the Palatine Hill and demand access to the domus of Nero, but I had no intention of going inside today. I halted outside the gate and asked the men on guard if Severus Tullius was on duty.
Cassia proved correct that no one noticed a slave, particularly a female who kept herself covered with her head bowed. The guards’ eyes were on me, as was that of the boy sent running to inquire.
I was in luck and Tullius was there. He emerged cheerfully from the palace, brushing past the guards with a nod, and out the gate to meet us.
Tullius and I strolled together among the hill’s greenery in the gently falling rain. Cassia walked several paces behind us, a fold of her palla over her nose and mouth to shut out the damp.
I asked my question. Tullius’s face creased in confusion, and he took ten or so strides in silence.
“Why are you interested in the death of a freedwoman?” he asked. “A whore at that?”
“Because I don’t want to be accused of her murder.”
Tullius became still more puzzled. “Why should you be? No one would listen. You are a hero—you survived the games with your courage and skill. No Roman will let you fall.”
“They might if enemies accuse me personally of the crime,” I said.
Tullius’s face smoothed with understanding. “Too true, my friend. Every man has enemies, even me. A few of my fellow guards would gladly push me from the edge of this hill if it meant they were promoted ahead of me. As would a few of my cousins, to get to the money my mother left me. She was more well off than she let on, probably to keep the family from touching her for coin.” Tullius grinned briefly, then rubbed his nose, scattering droplets of rain. “I heard of the murder you speak of, but I don’t know much about it. Let me inquire, and then I will take you to the very spot. A magistrate will have written it down, embellished it into a loquacious report, and sent it to the princeps in hope he will be noticed.”
I held up a hand. “Don’t if it will bring you trouble.”
“I cannot fathom how it would. I’ll nose into boring documents no one wants to read and send you word. I might come myself, when I’m off duty.” Tullius sketched me a salute. “I’ll be the toast of my barracks, to say I’m friends with Leonidas the Spartan.”
Tullius arrived at our apartment that evening, late in the eleventh hour, before the sun set. He could take us, he said, to where Floriana had been struck down.
We walked quickly, Cassia behind us. I would rather she stay indoors, as the darkening streets were dangerous even for a Praetorian Guard and a former gladiator, but I hadn’t bothered to give her the order. I knew she’d only follow, and I’d rather have her next to me, where I could protect her, than hurrying after us in the twilight.
I assumed Tullius would take us to a place in the Subura, near Floriana’s house, but he led us north and west and around the Capitoline and the Theatre of Marcellus to the Porticus of Octavia.
The porticus, a memorial to Augustus’s sister, was a columned place offering shelter from the heat, rain, or Rome’s crowds. Tullius continued around the porticus to a path that ran alongside the Tiber and the bridge to the Insula. I’d taken this route when I’d run to fetch Marcianus from my ludus the day Floriana had been poisoned. The stench of the river grew stronger as we approached, carried by a breeze that scuttled the rain clouds.
Tullius halted in a spot where the path was overgrown, hidden from both the bridge and the buildings by a