Page 4 of Brother at Arms

A man who could afford a silk cloak likely had enough money to satisfy Cassia. She charged only what she thought people could pay—a quadrans from a poor woman who’d mislaid her mistress’s bracelet, to a denarius from a wealthy Equestrian wanting to prove another man had cheated him.

“Where is he?” I demanded.

“Inside.” The wine merchant waved me to follow him.

I ducked under the low doorway that led behind his counter and entered the dim interior of his small shop, which was jammed with amphora and shelves of ceramic jars.

A man swung around from a conversation with the wine-merchant’s wife. He was tall, with black, springy hair, the swirl of his cloak revealing a lining of sumptuous red.

“Leonidas?” he asked, a grin on his face.

It was Xerxes.

I stumbled backward, catching my head on the low ceiling, and smashed through a full amphora on the way to the wine shop’s packed-earth floor.

Chapter 2

Wine flowed around me like blood, the amphora’s shards cutting into my arms and back. The wine merchant cursed. The merchant’s wife began shouting, not at me, but at the merchant for leaving the amphora in the way of my large body.

A broad hand came toward me, offering to help me stand.

I stared up into the face of my closest friend, dead almost three years.

His features blurred. When they settled again, I noted that this man’s skin was browner than Xerxes’s had been, as though he habitually baked himself in the sun. His lip bore a scar on the left side, an old one I’d never remembered Xerxes having.

The scar made his grin slightly lopsided, but I noted a watchfulness in his eyes that his smile couldn’t conceal.

I grasped the hand, which was strong but lacked the fighting power I remembered. Xerxes might reach to help a man to his feet and then toss him across the room, just to prove he could.

This man did not have that skill. It was his grip, more than anything else, that told me he was not Xerxes.

I released him as soon as I was steadily upright. The cool brush of his cloak across my arm revealed that the garment was indeed lined with silk, as the wine merchant had said.

“Who are you?” I croaked.

Before he could reply, a gasp sounded behind me. “What happened?” Cassia strode into the shop, taking in the shattered amphora and the wine-covered floor in dismay.

“Entirely my fault,” the man who was not Xerxes said cheerfully. “I came upon Leonidas too suddenly, and he must have thought he’d seen a dead man. Who are you, fair lady?”

No one answered him. I stepped in front of Cassia, shielding her from his sudden interest.

“How do you know me?” I asked, my voice hardening. “And know to seek me here?”

“Gate guard at the ludus across the river sent me. I discovered, Mercury defend us, that my brother was dead, and that Leonidas the Spartan would know all.” The man looked me up and down. “You’re no Spartan. I’d swear you are part Gaul.”

“Xerxes had no brothers,” I said stubbornly.

The man gave me a nod. “He did. Hurtful that he never spoke of me, but we’ve been separated for a decade and more. Hard to recall I had a brother myself, to be honest. His name wasn’t Xerxes then.”

Cassia spoke behind me. “What is yours?”

“Lucius Aelius,” the man proclaimed. “My brother was called Manius.”

Manius Aelius. I’d never known that. I’d met him only after he’d become Xerxes, and he’d never told me his original name.

“Why have you come?” Cassia asked as I stared mutely at Lucius. “If you haven’t seen your brother in many years, why seek him now?”

“Ah.” Lucius glanced about uncomfortably. “As to that, perhaps I can speak to Leonidas directly. I passed a tavern on my way up the hill …”