The Ring that Caesar Wore by Ashley Gardner

Author:Ashley Gardner [Gardner, Ashley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JA / AG Publishing

Cassia walked briskly beside me as we left the Subura. The morning’s crowds were thinning, the main business of the day finished.

We moved without speaking, the Subura and the Argiletum not the place for discussing Laurentius and his family.

We cut around the back of the Forum Augusti, climbing the slope of the Quirinal a short way to our lane. It started to rain again as we reached the wine shop.

Not until we were safely upstairs inside our apartment, the door to the street bolted, did Cassia say a word.

“Is he at the ludus?” she asked as she removed her cloak and hung it neatly on its peg.

“Yes,” I answered.

Cassia’s smile warmed something deep inside me that had been cold too long. “Very wise of you to put him there.”

I discarded my cloak and wiped rain from my arms and close-cropped hair. Cassia frowned at the droplets of water on the floor but turned away as though she had grown used to living with a slovenly gladiator.

She had apparently purchased more foodstuffs at the popina or maybe from vendors at the baths. Cassia untied a cloth she’d carried under her cloak that was filled with dates and dried apricots, our lunch. I sat down, hungry.

“We will have to search for Secundus,” Cassia said as she arranged the food on clean plates. “Whoever he may be. A pity he gave them no other name.”

“Yes.” I popped a date into my mouth and savored its sweetness.

Secundus might be the man’s given name, or it could be a nickname. Most highborn and Equestrian families named their sons and daughters after their father—the daughters of Marcus Antonius, for example, had all been called Antonia. To keep similarly named children from being confused for one another, families bestowed nicknames.

Secundus might simply be a second son, with his older and younger brothers being Primus and Tertius. As names were handed down over the generations, the number meaning was often obscured, like with Octavian, the man who became Augustus.

Without a nomen, or a clan name, or Secundus’s true praenomen, we’d have difficulty tracking the man.

“I wonder if he has any ties to the Theatre of Pompey,” Cassia mused. “With a troupe who performs there, perhaps. Or, maybe he simply went seeking actors and thought Laurentius was a good mark.”

“Maybe he is the true playwright.” I spit out the date’s pit and reached for a handful of apricots, their golden hue bright against my palm. “Thinking to write a drama about the Etruscan kings of old but not wanting to admit the idea was his.”

“A misguided playwright, no matter who it is.” Cassia nibbled daintily at one apricot while I tossed the handful into my mouth. “A play that lauds Tarquinius and proclaims there is a new king in Rome would hardly go over well with Nero.”

“Someone might be using Secundus and the play to send a message to Nero,” I suggested as I chewed. “Or searching for a willing actor to become the returning king in truth, to overthrow Nero, as he fears.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.