The Left Hand of Calvus by L.A. Witt

Author:L.A. Witt [Witt, L.A.]
Language: nld
Format: epub
Tags: erotic MM, Romance MM
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

TEN

rusus comes and goes from the ludus. Sometimes

S A I “H F D “S O M C W

alone, sometimes with his bodyguards, but usually

while I’m sparring and can’t follow him without drawing

attention to myself. I keep an eye on the back gate, though, watching for him to leave on his own, and finally he does

while I’m between matches.

I slip out of the yard and follow him through the gate.

He looks back every few paces, checking beside and behind

him, but he doesn’t see me. There are enough people out

and about that I can easily duck between them and keep

myself hidden from his view. The streets are not so crowded

that I lose sight of Drusus, not so empty I stand out to him.

The streets fan away from the Forum and into the

market, and in the space of half a city block, the crowd goes from thin enough to camouflage me to thick and chaotic.

Drusus disappears, reappears, disappears again. I think I’ve lost him once, but a flicker of movement puts him back

where I can see him, and I continue following him.

A cart’s wheel gets stuck on one of the stepping

stones in the middle of the street, and the crowd is almost

impenetrably thick around where the cart is stopped like a

boulder in a river. People shove, shout, and it’s only with

some effort and cursing that I make it past.

104

I stop. Search the crowd. There are plenty of people in

gray, but not a gray hood. Not . . .

There.

He leads me through the marketplace to a rundown

building not unlike the ramshackle whorehouses over by

the amphitheatre.

He pauses on the doorstep and I duck just out of his

sight behind a butcher’s booth. Drusus looks this way, the

other way, this way again.

Then he disappears into the building.

I stay back in the shadows, casually watching people

come and go in the marketplace.

Shortly after Drusus goes into the building, another

hooded figure approaches from the other direction,

conspicuous in the desire to be inconspicuous. Slender,

feminine fingers hold the hood close to her face, and she

keeps her head down, standing out amongst those whose

heads are high and hoods are back.

Inching closer to the building where Drusus presumably

waits, she looks around, and the hood’s opening parts just

enough to reveal her face.

Verina.

I press my back to the stone wall and push out a breath.

So it’s true. Drusus is the man Calvus sent me to find. The

lover of the Lady Laurea.

Gods, now what do I do?

I don’t leave yet. Maybe I need more proof, maybe I’m

just not sure what to do next, but I can’t bring myself to

leave until . . . until they come back out? Until I’m more

certain? I’m not even sure, but for the time being I wander

amongst the crowd, feigning interest in various goods while

105

keeping an eye on the building Drusus and Verina will

eventually have to leave.

That’s when I see him.

Shrouded in a hood and shadows, lingering nearer to

the door than I am, he’s barely visible, but he’s poised like a predator. Watching. Waiting.

So I watch him. And I wait.

The hooded man doesn’t move.

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