Page 43 of Brother at Arms

“Marcia is a freedwoman,” Marcianus said quickly. “And Cassia is not⁠—”

“Marcianus’s practice has grown,” I cut in. I did not want Samorix to know more about Cassia than he needed to.

Marcianus blinked at my interruption but fortunately closed his mouth.

Cassia did not notice the exchange. She emerged from the second box Hadrianus had opened, a scroll clutched to her chest, her face flushed with excitement.

“This one,” she informed Hadrianus. “It’s from Apollonius’s treatise on conics. Can he spare it?”

Hadrianus glanced at his master to confirm, and Samorix nodded distractedly. “Take it. I don’t care.”

Cassia tucked the scroll into her bag. “Thank you,” she said to Hadrianus.

Hadrianus was baffled by her, but I could have told him that Cassia felt much more comfortable talking to him instead of ducking her head and being deferential to Samorix.

Also, Samorix was a Gaul, and Cassia, as Samorix had stated in disparagement, was Greek. She believed Greeks to be superior to all other peoples, including Romans, but Gauls especially.

Marcianus thanked Samorix once more, and we departed.

We emerged onto the street, which was as crowded as when we’d gone inside. Midday was approaching, and men and women swarmed the lanes, running errands or seeking taverns where they’d settle in for a repast.

“What now?” I asked once we’d reached a relatively quiet area on the Aventine side of the Tiber. “If Samorix won’t tell us who purchased the poison, how will we find out?”

“Hadrianus,” Cassia said with confidence. She held her small bag close to her side, as though protecting the scroll like a priceless jewel.

“But my dear,” Marcianus protested. “The poor man cannot speak.”

“I imagine he has ways to communicate,” Cassia said. “He seemed intelligent to me, more so than his master.”

I’d also noticed Hadrianus’s quick gazes and the expressions he hid from Samorix. A man who’d survived the quarries would have found ways to keep himself alive. He now had a relatively easy job of fetching and carrying, though I hoped Samorix didn’t test any of his concoctions on him.

“The trouble is how to get him away from Samorix long enough to question him,” I said.

“Leave that to me,” Cassia answered, a smile hovering on her lips. “And thank you, Marcianus, for looking after my little library. I will take it home with me now.”

“We will return to Sextus Livius now,” I informed her.

Cassia’s stubbornness could put the ancient general Hannibal to shame. “I need time and silence to research these poisons and decide which one most likely hurried Xerxes to his death. I can’t take all my scrolls to Livius’s home, and I would not be left in peace to read there. Though I would like to return and examine his library at some point.”

“If you’ve tamed the Parthians, Leonidas, it should be safe enough,” Marcianus added.

I could only prevail against them both if I lifted Cassia over my shoulder and carried her back up the Oppian Hill.

I believed Arsakes desperate enough to find the false Xerxes to leave me be while I hunted, at least until he grew impatient with me. I weighed my worry about him with the fact that Cassia would be inundated with writing requests at Livius’s and gave her a curt nod of agreement.

I strode on with them to Marcianus’s, to fetch Cassia’s overly heavy bag of precious words.

Although Cassia was eager to make a start on her readings, she took care of practical things first, like having us buy our midday meal at the popina at the bottom of the hill. She also visited the baker, who handed over a round loaf of bread with his usual bad grace.

Not until I’d eaten my share of the stew and half the loaf, did Cassia spread out her tablets, sharpen a few styluses, and become absorbed in her writings.

She’d remain so for hours, I knew, so I prepared to visit the baths. I’d missed my peaceful soak when Arsakes and his friends had attacked me, and I wanted the quiet to think.

Today, no such mayhem happened. I did my exercises and let the attendant scrape me down, then I took care to use pools that weren’t deserted.

I walked home refreshed. I found Cassia still immersed in her scrolls, but as I closed the apartment’s upper door, footsteps sounded on the stairs behind me.

I knew those footsteps, though I hadn’t heard them in several months. Cassia recognized them as well and raised her head in alarm.