“Forgive me, Dominus.” I wring my hands and keep my head bowed. “I have information. Information about your—”
“Silence!” he barks. “You will speak carefully, gladiator. You have information of what?”
I lift my chin until I’m looking him in the eye. “The man you’re looking for. I know where he is.”
Calvus doesn’t flinch. “I was told he’s dead.”
I shake my head. “He’s wounded, but no, he’s alive. And no one else knows where he is. Except me.”
“Tell me, then,” he snaps. “Out with it.”
I hold his gaze. “And what guarantee do I have that you’ll let me live once I’ve told you?”
Calvus straightens. “I beg your pardon?”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Once you know where he is, then you have no further use for me. What guarantee do I have that I’ll leave this place alive?”
He steps toward me. “You are treading on dangerous ground, gladiator.”
I close some of that remaining distance between us until he backs down just slightly. “And I have information you can get from me and no one else. Do you want to know where your wife’s lover is? Or do you want to kill me and run the risk of him going unpunished?”
He narrows his eyes. “I don’t think you understand what kind of game you’re playing here, gladiator.”
“Don’t I?” I incline my head and tighten my arms across my chest. Shrugging with one shoulder, I say, “I’m a slave. My life is worth only what another man is willing to pay for it, and you could kill me now with no consequence.” I pause. “Well, no consequence aside from the destruction of what’s left of your reputation. Or your own blood being spilled.” Another shrug. “Quite possibly both, unless I get what I want.”
“You’ll get nothing but a blade through your gut when the magistrate and your master learn you stole two hundred sestertii from them.”
“I stole nothing. You and I both know that.”
Calvus laughs sharply. “And you think any man would take the word of a slave over mine? You’re nothing more than—”
“I do, Calvus.” I fold my arms across my chest. “And for that matter, you should know that if I don’t leave this brothel safely, by dawn every man in Pompeii will know of your wife’s affair and of the documents you forged to send me into the ludus as an auctoratus. Along with the five hundred sestertii for Drusus.”
His eyes widen.
I barely keep from grinning triumphantly as I add, “Now who’s playing a dangerous game, Calvus?”
“What is it you want?” he asks through clenched teeth.
“The boy,” I say. “Kaeso.”
Calvus’s eyes widen farther. “Kaeso? What do you want with him?”
“That doesn’t concern you. Where is he?”
“You have no right to—”
“All I want is the boy,” I snarl. “The boy, and my life when I leave here, and your reputation might not suffer as it so deserves to.”
Calvus sniffs with amusement. “He’ll be on a wagon out of Pompeii by dawn if he’s not already.”
My heart drops. “What are you talking about?”
“I have no use for a bastard child,” he growls.
“You sold him?” I hiss. “Your own grandson?”
His lip curls into a snarl. “An illegitimate orphan has no place in the house of the Laurea.”
“Where do I find him?”
“Where do I find my wife’s lover?”
I narrow my eyes. “I don’t get what I’m looking for, your reputation is shit at dawn. Your choice.”
His cheek ripples and his lips thin into a straight line. “Tell me where to find the man who defiled my wife and caused her death.”
“Tell me where to find the boy. Without him, I give you nothing.”
He’s silent for a moment. Then he releases a sharp breath. “The trader’s name is Maharbaal. Moves between here and Carthage.”
“And is he still in Pompeii?”
“I don’t know. I sold him the boy and paid no mind to his plans beyond that.” He fidgets impatiently and glares at me. “Now where is my wife’s lover?”
I nod past him. Calvus’s brow furrows. Slowly, still eyeing me for as long as he can, he turns.
From the shadows behind Calvus, arms folded and expression blank, Drusus looks back at him.
Calvus pulls in a breath. “You . . .”
“Yes.” Drusus takes a step forward, letting the faint lamplight illuminate more of his face. “Me.”
“I should break your—” The nobleman stiffens when I press a blade against his back.
“You should stand there,” Drusus says, taking another step forward, “and close your mouth before I have my gladiator cut out your heart.”
Calvus laughs. “I own him, lanista. Not you.”
“And he’s put a dagger to your back at my command.” Drusus raises his eyebrows and lets the subtlest smirk play at his lips. “Seems to me I’m in charge right now.”
“What is it you want?” Calvus snaps. “I’ve told you where to find the boy.”
“You have,” Drusus says with a half-nod. “But my business with you isn’t complete.”
“Isn’t fucking my wife enough?”
“I never touched your wife.”
“Then what—”
“Look at my face,” Drusus says through his teeth. “Recognize me?”
“Of course I do,” Calvus says. “Everyone in Pompeii knows your flesh-mongering face, you—”
“No, Calvus Laurea.” Drusus steps forward. “Look closer.”
Calvus draws back slightly, as much as I let him. “You’re a lanista, what more do—”
“Oh, Jupiter’s balls, you fool. Look closer.” Drusus gestures at his own face. “You don’t recognize me? At all?” His eyes narrow. “You don’t recognize your own flesh and blood?”
Calvus sucks in a breath. “I don’t . . . you aren’t . . .”
“I am.”
The nobleman squares his shoulders. “That’s not possible. You are not my daughter.”
Leather creaks as Drusus shifts his arms on top of the breastplate. “I’m not your daughter, no. But I am the one you named Statia.”
“My daughter Statia is dead,” Calvus snarls.
“And I’m sure you’ve grieved her every day for the last eight years, haven’t you?” Drusus throws back. “Just as Mother did.”
“Your mother was as much a whore as you—”
Drusus throws a fist into his father’s face, and I just get the dagger out of the way before Calvus would have impaled himself on it.
“Don’t speak about my mother that way,” Drusus says through clenched teeth. “She never touched another man but you.”
Calvus dabs his nose and mouth, then glares at his son. He takes in a breath to speak, but Drusus doesn’t give him the chance.
“I’m going to ask you once, and only once.” Drusus’s voice is quiet, but dangerous. “Where. Is. My son?”
Calvus draws back, pressing into the blade in my hand like he’s forgotten it’s there at all. With a satisfying waver in his voice, he says, “I told you everything I know. I sold him to Maharbaal.”
“And where do I find this Maharbaal?”
Calvus squirms between his son and my dagger. “I told you! I don’t even know if he’s still in—”
“Kill him,” Drusus says flippantly.
I press the blade in harder.
“Wait!” Calvus tenses. “Wait. Please.”
Drusus nods toward me, and I take some pressure off the weapon.
Calvus exhales. “I had Ataiun make sure the boy would be taken away from Pompeii.”
Drusus’s jaw clenches and his eyebrows lower, but he doesn’t speak.
“Maharbaal said he’d be taken to Carthage,” Calvus says. “And sold there. That’s all I know, I swear it.”
Drusus locks eyes with his father. Long, silent heartbeats pass, and still he doesn’t move or speak. Finally, he whispers, “You sold your own grandson.”