Free Search the Seven Hills by Barbara Hambly Page A

undersecretary to carry the wax note-tablets and a page to run errands. Ignoring them as if they had been so many flies, he continued, “Look in on Lady Aurelia if you can, boy.”
    “I was going to come back a little later, if it would be all right.” Marcus gestured with his woven cane basket, which contained leeks, part of a squash, and a quarter of a skinned hare that was inclined to drip. “I’ve been shopping.”
    Quindarvis regarded it with wrinkled nose. “So I see. More of your philosophic principles, I suppose. Oh, that reminds me. That centurion of the guards, whatever his name is...”
    “Arrius.”
    “Just so. He left word with us that he wanted to see you; he has some Christians down at the prison.”
    “What?” squeaked Marcus. “When?”
    “Oh, his man was here this morning. They said they’d looked for you at your lodging....What would your father say about you turning police informer...?” He strode back toward the door to the atrium, Marcus and the string of slaves trotting at his heels.
    “The police are servants of the city and the emperor,” retorted Marcus quickly, stung at the imputation. “They represent order and peace. Does a man scorn his own faithful servants?”
    “No, but he doesn’t offer to help them clean out toilets, either.” Quindarvis brushed through the embroidered black curtains and into the atrium. Half-a-dozen clients sprang to their feet. “Get them out of here, tell them to drown themselves...”
    “Yes, sir,” murmured the Syrian underbutler.
    “Is my chair ready?”
    “Certainly, sir.”
    A hand touched Marcus’ shoulder. He turned, startled, and met the eyes of the Greek physician Nicanor, who drew him quietly into an alcove that contained the statues of the Varus clan’s ancestral gods. “May I have a word with you, sir?”
    Marcus glanced back at Quindarvis, who was dispensing an arrogant tongue-lashing to the frightened butler amid a crowd of eager clients. The praetor had clearly forgotten his existence.
    “The other slaves asked me to speak with you, sir,” said the Greek quietly. “You’re a friend of the family. Are you going down to the prison, to help that centurion who’s looking for Mistress Tertullia?”
    “Yes, I’m on my way there now,” said Marcus, suppressing his annoyance with Quindarvis for not having mentioned the matter to him earlier, and wondering if Arrius would have given up on him already in disgust.
    “Is it true that the centurion thinks there’s a Christian in the household?”
    Marcus blinked at him, startled afresh at the speed with which news traveled among the city’s slaves.
    “Because it isn’t true, sir.” Those dark, intelligent eyes grew intent, and Marcus saw suddenly at the back of them a lurking dread. “By Asclepius I swear it isn’t.” He gestured toward the group in the atrium, me fussing praetor and his little court. “Does he know what was said?”
    Marcus shook his head.
    “Then don’t speak of it to him, sir. Please.” Nicanor’s office had protected him from many of the indignities of a slave’s life—there was a stiffness to his voice that spoke of a man unused to pleading. But the curtain of the archway at his back moved; Marcus wondered how many of the others were listening. “If he thought such a thing, it’d be the rack for all of us, you know it would. He’s had poor Hylas locked up...”
    “Who?”
    “Hylas. Mistress Tertullia’s footman. The one she sent away with her packages. The poor man’s half sick with grief that he left her to begin with, and he’s in terror of what will be done to him.”
    “But it wasn’t his fault!” protested Marcus. “It wasn’t any of your fault.”
    Nicanor shrugged fatalistically. “The law says when a man is murdered, every slave in his household can be put to death as well for not preventing it. Even the questioning is more than many can stand.”
    Churaldin’s words returned to him, “You must know there’s only one way