Page 40 of Brother at Arms

“We can discover whether poison was sold and to whom during or before those particular Saturnalian games,” Marcianus said. “And find out if any of those people who purchased it wanted Xerxes to die.”

This seemed a daunting task to me, but Cassia brightened.

“And we can discover whether Xerxes really was smuggling silk, or if someone had been using his name all along,” she finished.

Marcianus’s eyes widened. “Smuggling? Xerxes? I hadn’t heard this.”

I had to explain the entire story again, from Arsakes’s attacks on me to his insistence that Xerxes had been his intermediary for the silk he shipped illicitly to Rome.

“Do you believe these men?” Marcianus asked me.

“I’m not certain,” I admitted. “Xerxes never seemed to have any money—he managed to get out of paying every time we went to a popina. But he did keep Marcella and his offspring fed. He might even have been paying Aemil to let him spend so much time with her and his family.”

“It would be a serious charge if Xerxes had anything to do with smuggling.” Marcianus sobered. “The silk trade is held with tight reins. I can imagine these Parthians are worried that their enterprise might be brought to light.”

“I’ve already heard much about corruption in the silk trade,” I said. “In the last few days, I’ve learned of a merchant who blatantly stole another’s shipment of silk, and one shipment that was confiscated by Seneca to cover a merchant’s debt to him.”

Marcianus nodded darkly. “Seneca has his fingers in many pies. Clever men often overreach themselves, and Nero is already impatient with him. Seneca tried to retire to the country, but Nero won’t have it. Wants him where Nero can keep his eye on him, I suppose.”

I wasn’t interested in Nero’s worries about his former tutor at the moment. “You haven’t explained how we will find out whether you are right about poison, or if Xerxes’s death was only a misfortune.”

“Oh, that is simple.” Marcianus straightened from his slump against the table. “We will speak to the apothecaries who mix some of my medicines. If anyone knows who buys poison in Rome, it will be one of them.”

I wasn’t certain where a person found medicines in Rome, as Aemil had always paid Marcianus to supply them for the ludus. I assumed Marcianus mixed them himself, now with Marcia’s assistance.

“The simple ones, yes,” Marcianus explained as he took up his cloak. “Herbs and oils that are easily obtained. But what we are looking for is special.”

As we left the house, Marcia approached it with a large basket filled with greens and a loaf of bread. She eyed us narrowly.

“Off on an errand,” Marcianus told her breezily. “I won’t be long. If Aculia brings her children, give them a few anise seeds to chew on and tell her I’ll return shortly. She has seven in her brood and brings them in once a month,” he explained to us. “I wash out their eyes. Poor things are always getting sores.”

He walked on with Cassia, but Marcia stepped into my path. “Keep him safe,” she admonished me.

I nodded. “I always look out for him.”

“He is careless.” Marcia leaned toward me. “I will hold you to blame if he is hurt.”

Marcia skewered me with a severe gaze before she condescended to step around me and continue into the house.

My long stride let me quickly catch up to Marcianus and Cassia, who were chatting in Greek as they walked down the slope toward the river.

Marcianus took us over the rickety Pons Sublicius to the Transtiberim. There we left sunny avenues for shadowy, narrow streets and a world I didn’t know.

Chapter 13

Marcianus strolled confidently along a narrow street that made me put Cassia in front of me and behind Marcianus, the most protected position. The Transtiberim could hold grand villas facing the river or the darkest slums, and this was one of the slums.

Shops open to the street offered everything from bright green vegetables to secondhand cloth and tunics to loads of old and used bowls, jugs, and amphorae. I saw Cassia glance at the pottery with interest, and she stopped altogether at a stall displaying tablets whose wax was gone, leather straps broken.

I nudged her on. “Later.”

“So easy to repair,” she said. “I always need more.”

“Later,” I repeated. “We will return and shop another day.”

Cassia nodded in all seriousness.

I spied the way a hefty man who leaned against a brick wall watched her, as though calculating her price. Cassia still wore the gold earrings, so he might have been tabulating what he could fetch from those as well. I’d have to insist on accompanying her back here to browse wares when she saw no reason not to come alone.