Blood of a Gladiator - Ashley Gardner Page 0,89

that Sextus Livius was the speculator who’d bought Floriana’s house.

He went on. “I had a message from Gnaeus Gallus, the architectus, that you wished to speak to me.”

I lifted my brows. “I sent no message.”

“I believe your slave conveyed the message through him.” Livius reached behind him, and one of his guards slid a thin scroll into his hand. The scroll was tiny, only a few inches long when he opened it. I saw words on it in neat writing. “I thought it best to come to you myself.”

“I already know you purchased the house Floriana worked in. That you make many such purchases.”

“Yes.” Livius regarded me with dark eyes that reminded me of another’s I’d seen. I suddenly realized whose.

My expression must have betrayed me, because Livius nodded. “Is there a place we may speak?”

Without a word, I gestured him to follow. I led the way back to our apartment, balancing the water jar on my shoulder.

“The guards will not fit,” I said as I opened the door from the street. “I can give you my word you won’t be harmed.”

“They will come if I shout.” Livius indicated I should precede him up the stairs.

I entered the apartment and set the jar in its corner, my tunic damp from the water slopping over. Cassia hurried in from the balcony—she’d obviously not taken to her bed as ordered.

“Oh, good. You found him.” She smiled at me, pleased. “I sent a message to Sextus Livius while you slept on the Palatine.”

The three guards had remained downstairs. I’d left the doors open in case they wanted to rush in to Livius’s defense.

I brushed droplets of water from my tunic and faced him. “Priscus is your father. Isn’t he?”

Chapter 26

Livius regarded me in surprise. “Your message said you knew this.”

Cassia would have written the message, which she’d given Gallus to deliver. How she’d discovered Livius’s identity, I did not know, but now it was clear what she’d been trying to whisper to me since we’d left Priscus’s domus.

I remembered her telling me the story that Priscus had set free one of the boys in his household because he’d seen good in the lad. Priscus had placed him with a family through an intermediary, according to Kephalos and Celnus.

The deed was more understandable if the boy had been Priscus’s own son, perhaps by a mistress. Priscus had spoken of his wife with so much love that I suspected the liaison had happened before his marriage.

“He allowed you to be adopted,” I said. “So you’d have a chance.”

“He was incredibly kind.” Livius spoke with reverence. “I was indeed adopted by a man—Julius Livius—who raised me as his own. When he went to his ancestors, I inherited his wealth and his estates throughout the empire, making me one of the richest men in Rome.”

Ideas fell together. I wasn’t certain I was right, but as Cassia would not speak, I did.

“Powerful enough to threaten the princeps if Priscus is touched?”

Livius regarded me quietly with a hint of a smile. “You knew this?”

“I guessed it.”

He nodded, the calm with which he acknowledged his complicity showing he was powerful indeed.

“I can call on the assistance of many people from all tiers, plebeian to patrician.” Livius’s smile was self-deprecating. “I never had ambition for such power when I was younger—it arose as a consequence of my inheritance, and I learned to use opportunities. I have no wish to remove the princeps or establish another in his place. I only wish to keep alive the one man who is important to me. A truly good man, who should live out his life in peace.”

When Livius finished this speech, he glanced from me to Cassia. “This is secret knowledge, my friends. It can go no further.”

If it did, I sensed, Cassia and I would be the first to pay. That was his unspoken promise.

“We will keep your confidence,” I said. “I too would like to see Priscus left in peace. He is a good man.”

Livius’s expression turned wry. “Priscus is a bit … unworldly. I will do all in my capacity to protect him.”

“As will I.” I had a thought. “Did you return the money to Priscus? The casket of gold the pirates managed to capture?”

Livius acknowledged this with a nod. “My men were there that day, lurking in watch, ready to intervene if necessary. But there was no need. You were as good as your reputation indicates. My men alerted the Ostian authorities that the men were brigands, and were there