Page 45 of Brother at Arms

“Sir.”

Cassia’s voice slid into the mayhem. I willed her to stay silent, to make Nero forget she was in the room.

The whip ceased. I fell all the way to the floor, pain radiating across my back.

“Was it because we went to the street of the poisons?” Cassia asked him.

Nero was silent for a long moment. I watched his left foot pivot, the boot’s leather tightening as he focused his attention on Cassia.

“You admit you were there.”

“We were, sir,” Cassia said in a near whisper. “Only to seek information.”

“On how to murder your prince?” The words grated into the silence. I heard the faint snick of a knife being drawn, one of the Praetorian guards ready to slay at his master’s command.

“On a death in the past,” Cassia answered. “What could have caused it. Who could have.”

Cassia spoke rapidly, but, as when we’d been dragged to Nero before, she cut through his fury and made him curious.

“What death in the past?” His tone held suspicion.

It was rumored that Nero had poisoned his stepbrother, Britannicus, who should have been Claudius’s heir and had been a more favored man than Nero. Claudius too, had expired suddenly, with poison suspected.

Nero’s first wife had died when he’d turned his attentions to Poppaea, now his second wife. The princeps was no stranger to poisons and poisoners.

“The death of Leonidas’s friend,” Cassia explained. “A gladiator.”

“A gladiator?” The words rang with incredulity. “Who would poison a gladiator?”

“That is what we are trying to find out.”

“Hmm.” Nero’s boots twitched. “To fix a match, no doubt. A criminal offense. Who did this vile thing?”

“We do not yet know, sir. Hence, we sought the information.”

Nero repeated the humming through his nose before his boots turned back to me. They clasped his calves perfectly, showing expertise in boot making.

“You should have told me.” The folded whip touched my chin. “Look at me, Leonidas.”

I raised my face, my back smarting under my now-ruined tunic.

“You took Cassia into a dangerous place,” Nero said sternly. “Yes, I have those who watch where you go in the city. You never should have dragged her there with you.”

“That is my fault, sir,” Cassia said. “I would not obey when commanded to go home.” This was not unusual. Cassia never obeyed a person unless she happened to agree with them.

“You should have made her.” The whip pressed into my throat, and I couldn’t stop my gagging sounds. “You are supposed to protect her.”

“Yes,” I struggled to say.

The whip vanished, and I sucked in a grateful breath.

“It might be better for Cassia if she came to live with me,” Nero proclaimed.

I lay very still, while the floor seemed to press hard into me. My body felt suddenly hollow, an emptiness so great it superseded the stinging, raw skin on my back.

Nero could take Cassia from me, and I wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.

I could argue that she belonged to our benefactor, who’d already declared her not for sale, but this was Nero. He’d scour Rome until he discovered the benefactor’s identity and then have him or her arrested and executed in order to confiscate his property, which would include Cassia. Augustus had been notorious for such a thing before he’d become princeps.