Page 5 of Brother at Arms

“Upstairs.” I jabbed my finger at the ceiling then turned and marched out of the wine shop, herding Cassia before me.

“There is the matter of the wine,” the merchant’s wife informed me loudly. “Five denarii of it.”

“I will pay you, good woman,” Lucius said as he followed me. “Let me speak with Leonidas, then I will come down and settle up.”

The merchant’s wife did not appear happy to be addressed as good woman, but she only scowled as I ducked past her and into the street.

Cassia climbed the stairs ahead of me to our apartment, and I came directly behind her, putting myself between her and the newcomer. Once we entered, I stood aside to admit him then closed the door and planted myself in front of it.

Lucius glanced over our small space, taking in the bunk filling the back wall, where Cassia had neatly folded my blankets. Her pallet was tucked away on a shelf behind a curtain. The shutters were still open, admitting a warm breeze and the noise of the street below.

The table, flanked by two stools, a third in the corner for visitors, was covered with tablets, papyrus, ink bottles, and styluses. Cassia had apparently abandoned whatever she’d been studying to see what had caused the commotion in the shop.

Lucius regarded the accouterments in some surprise, but whether because he hadn’t thought either of us could write or because everything was stacked tidily, I couldn’t decide.

He switched his gaze to the shelf above our altar, which held the rudis, the wooden sword I’d been given the day I’d been freed. A flat bronze hand studded with semiprecious stones reposed next to it.

“This is exquisite,” Lucius said with respect, reaching up to touch the flat hand, its bronze green with time. “Who did you trick it out of?”

He flicked his attention over the rest of the apartment again, as though comparing our poor lodgings to the obviously expensive trinket.

“It was a gift,” I said stiffly. A man called Priscus had rewarded Cassia and me with it for saving his son, a fact this stranger didn’t need to know.

Cassia busied herself setting cups on the table and filling them with rich white wine from the shop below. She diluted the wine with water then slid one cup toward Lucius.

“Please, sir. Drink.” Cassia seated herself behind the table. She opened an unused tablet, took up a stylus, and began to write rapidly.

“Who are you?” Lucius asked her, diverted from the bronze hand. “A lovely lady who can read and write, who shares rooms with a gladiator?”

His voice was like Xerxes’s, as was the quirk of his brows and the hint of speculating smile. I’d laughed whenever Xerxes teased me about my conquests, but for some reason I wanted to punch Lucius’s smug face.

“This is Cassia.” My lips were so tight I could barely speak. “She is a scribe.”

Lucius’s brows climbed. A scribe? he mouthed then shrugged as though he’d allow me to explain her any way I wished.

“Why are you here?” I asked him. “Xerxes is dead.” My chest burned as I spoke the words, but this man was too glib, not grieving enough, in my opinion.

“I came to seek his help.” Lucius lifted the cup Cassia had offered and sank down to my stool. His cloak fluttered, revealing the blaring-red lining. “I had no idea he’d gone to Elysium. Or to Hades. I’m not sure where he believed he’d end up.”

“He was killed in the games,” I stated. “He lost focus on his opponent and paid the price.”

I was never certain exactly what had happened, because I didn’t witness the fight. I’d been having an injury tended to after my own bouts in the Circus Gai when I’d seen the men drag Xerxes past me.

I don’t remember exactly what I did after that. I recalled Aemil pulling me away from Xerxes’s body and shoving me toward the arena to fight my next match. After the games were over, he’d poured foul drink down my throat until I’d been insensible and then locked me into my cell.

“Ah, poor Manius.” Lucius swallowed wine then studied the liquid appreciatively. “A good vintage. Is it Falernian?”

“Alban,” Cassia answered. She kept her eyes demurely downcast, but she wrote firmly, betraying her disapproval.

She’d not given him the Caecuban, the exquisite vintage our wealthy friend Sextus Livius supplied us with. I could always tell what Cassia thought of whoever came through our door by which wine jug she reached for.

“Expensive wine, rare trinkets, your own scribe.” Lucius drained the cup and grinned at me. “How do you manage it, Leonidas? Maybe I ought to turn gladiator.”

“You would be cut down in your first bout.” This assessment did not come from my anger at him, but from experience. He didn’t have the temperament or natural skill of Xerxes and would be useless in regulated combat.

“Probably.” Lucius shrugged good-naturedly. “Didn’t do Manius any good, did it, poor fellow? And made things worse for me. I counted on his help.”

Darkness at last crept into his eyes, driving away his sunny expression.