Page 49 of Brother at Arms

I had no idea what she was talking about, and I did not care. She could have all the gods-cursed money. I needed only meals to eat and a place to sleep every night.

“I planned to take you to the Basilica Julia and free you,” I said. “So that you’d no longer have to be encumbered with me.”

“Oh.” Cassia’s lips parted. She stared at me for some time before she drew a quick breath. “Then, we have come around to the beginning. If you freed me, you’d want me to go, and as I said, I live here now, and I am not leaving.”

“No, I would not want you to go.” My voice rose to a near shout.

We exchanged another long, silent gaze, my chest constricting.

Cassia at last gave me a nod and lifted her stylus in shaking fingers. “Then nothing has changed, and we no longer need to argue.”

I wasn’t aware we’d been arguing. I wanted her to stay, and she wanted to stay, no disagreement. But I wanted her to stay because she wished it, not because she was obligated.

I heaved a sigh and gave up trying to explain.

“I will borrow more scrolls from Marcianus,” Cassia said, as though we hadn’t been discussing our lives and our future. “To help me research the poisons Samorix told us about and decide which was most likely used. Marcianus might be able to remember if he noted anything odd about Xerxes if I press him. Discoloration of lips or skin, that sort of thing.”

“Does it matter?” I resumed my pacing. “Xerxes is gone. Nothing will bring him back.”

Cassia looked up in surprise. “Do you not want to know what truly happened to him?”

I shrugged, despondent. “Maybe it is best to let him rest.”

Continuing to recall that day would only bring me sorrow and make me relive my grief, which had gutted me.

“What about the person who’s had the audacity to impersonate him?” Cassia asked. “Don’t you want to find them?”

“Yes.” I swung toward her, my fists balling. I could take my anger out on whoever had used Xerxes’s name to make themselves rich. “Let us find him and explain why he should have left it alone.”

“Discovering exactly what poison was used will help me determine when it was most likely administered,” Cassia said. “That will, in turn, tell me who had the best opportunity to give it to Xerxes. If the person who dosed him was hired, knowing who he or she was can lead us to the mastermind of this endeavor.”

Cassia liked to work backward through a problem all the way to its beginning and could see the past as clearly as what was in front of her now. I was better at putting people against a wall and demanding information.

“I’m going back to the silk warehouses,” I said. “Someone there must know more than they are telling us. And I will question Arsakes—if I can lay hands on him—about his contact with the false Xerxes and find out how they communicated.”

“That would be helpful,” Cassia said with approval. “Will you also take the money I promised the banker? He will know what it is for.”

“You are giving him money?”

I stared at her in astonishment. Cassia was very careful with our funds, and her explanation that she was saving for her freedom made her confidence in the banker all the more surprising.

“Not giving it to him.” Cassia moved to my bunk and pried up a stone near it. She removed a bag, opening it to count the silver coins inside. “Investing it.”

She replaced the stone and handed me the bag.

I usually didn’t look into the pouches she gave me, having learned I’d have just enough to purchase whatever I needed that day. I was amazed she’d let me hand Samorix four sestertii, but she likely considered the information on the poisons plus a scroll worth that price.

The coins in this pouch were many more than she’d given Samorix. The bag held almost an aureus-worth.

“You want me to give this to the banker?” My amazement increased.

“It is what I promised him. Never worry, Leonidas. I have thought this over carefully and spoken to many about Fabius and his trustworthiness. We will receive the money back, with at least twenty percent more on top of it.”

I’d met men who’d invested in schemes like shipping, or in caravans moving across the eastern deserts, or speculations on grain harvests in Egypt. Mostly I met them in popinae, weeping over their cup because all their funds had disappeared. They’d had to sell everything they owned and came to the popina to drown their sorrows in cheap wine.

“Better to throw the coins onto the street,” I said. “Half of the ships that put out from Ostia sink or never return.”

Cassia sent me her patient look. “I am not investing in a ship. Shipping has only a small chance of any return at all, and those odds are too long for me. Nor am I giving it to some untrustworthy fellow who promises to double my funds—any man who promises that is lying. I have consulted with Sextus Livius and his man of business and found out all I could about the bankers in Rome. Fabius has the best reputation as a man of honor—as much honor as a banker can have.” She pressed my hand. “I am not making this decision lightly. As I mentioned, I have eight and a half more years to ensure we both live well once our contract has ended. This is but one part of that plan.”