Blood of a Gladiator - Ashley Gardner Page 0,65

run?” I demanded.

Marcia pushed at the iron bar of my arm and glared at me. “Nothing. I don’t know anything about it.”

Cassia regarded her with cool interest. “When Marcianus questioned you the morning he treated Floriana, you said there had been only lentils and bread taken in the house. You knew of no salad.”

“That’s what I’m saying now.” Marcia lifted her chin, but her belligerence couldn’t quite hide her fear.

“Before, you were only puzzled,” Cassia went on relentlessly. “Now you are afraid. What happened to change your mind?”

“I don’t care what she says.” Marcia’s voice rose. “I didn’t know anything, and I won’t be taken to a magistrate for it.”

“What who says?” I asked.

Marcia pedaled her feet, kicking me, but it was like being kicked by a fly.

For a moment, I thought Marcia might answer me, but a male voice cut through the crowd who’d gathered outside the door to watch the show. “Leonidas, what are you doing? Put her down at once.”

Only Nonus Marcianus could chivvy a gladiator into obeying his every command. I gently set Marcia on her feet, and she wrenched herself from me and hurried to Marcianus.

“Do you mean Lucia?” Cassia asked her.

“No,” Marcia said loudly. “I don’t mean her at all.”

I knew she did, as did Cassia, and by his expression, Marcianus.

“Lucia came to speak to you, didn’t she?” Cassia asked. “Did she tell you what to say if you were questioned?”

Marcia closed her lips tightly and folded her arms. Marcianus put himself between her and me.

“Leave her be, Leonidas. She has suffered enough.”

I thumped the doorframe in frustration, sending a flake of red paint from the lintel drifting down to rest on my tunic.

“Whatever Lucia told you, tell Marcianus,” I said to Marcia. “He can decide whether I need to know.”

Marcianus scowled at me. “She is an innocent girl, and helped me save Floriana’s life. She’d not have done that if she’d put Floriana into that state in the first place.”

“We don’t believe she did,” Cassia said. “She is being loyal to Lucia.” She switched her gaze to Marcia. “It is important we speak to her. Do you know where she is?”

“No.” The answer held a ring of triumph. “I have no idea where Lucia ran off to.”

Cassia pinned Marcia with her scrutinizing stare, then nodded and adjusted her cloak. “Thank you. We will leave you alone now.”

She strode past me out the door, as though expecting that I’d follow. If Marcianus hadn’t been so angry with me for frightening Marcia, I suspect he might have laughed.

“I believe she told the truth.” Cassia spoke with conviction as we made our way along the crowded street toward the Circus Maximus. “About not knowing where Lucia is, I mean.”

“Marcia saw her, though,” I growled.

“If she confesses to Nonus Marcianus, he might tell us.”

“Possibly not. He’s protective of her.” I admired him for that, but at the moment, his loyalty exasperated me.

“Yes, but Marcianus likes you. If he wants to keep you from being arrested, he will tell us. In the meantime, it would be best if you found Lucia yourself.”

I studied the streams of people walking down the hill to the valley of the Circus Maximus. We passed a bathhouse with a continuous flow of men and women entering, ready to spend their afternoon washing and relaxing.

“How do I search for one woman in all this?” I swept my arm across the view. “Especially a woman who does not want to be found.”

“You have known her for some years, haven’t you?” Cassia asked in a reasonable tone. “Where would she hide?”

I had no idea. I tramped along, my large body breaking a path in the crowd, Cassia following in the wake I created.

Or, perhaps I did know. Lucia had rarely left Floriana’s, but she’d spoken of walking in the gardens of the Baths of Agrippa. There, she’d wrap herself in her palla and stroll anonymously among the pruned trees and shrubbery.

“There is one place,” I admitted. “She spoke about it to me.”

“It is a start. Shall we go there now?”

I doubted Lucia would be in the gardens simply because I wanted her to be. She’d need to eat and find a place to sleep every night—attendants herded people out of the bath complex at the end of the day, so she would not be camping there.

But, as Cassia indicated, it would be a place to begin instead of walking up and down the streets of the city, checking every cloaked woman until I found her.

I took