The Arrogant Senator Ordered the Old Floor-Cleaner Banished from the Senate Archives—Not Knowing the “Clueless” Slave Had Secretly Recorded Every Assassination Plot in Rome for Ten Long Years.
To the noblemen of Rome, I was no more than a piece of furniture. Less, even. A finely carved cedar chair might draw a moment of admiration from a visiting magistrate, but I was merely the shadow that moved across the marble, the silent ghost holding a damp linen cloth.
My name is Elias, though in the grand halls of the Senate Annex, I was simply called “the mute.” Ten years ago, the overseer of the archives had bought me for three copper coins, believing a slave whose tongue was scarred and who never spoke a word would be the perfect, unobtrusive cleaner for the most sensitive rooms in the empire.
For ten long years, the Senators ignored the floor-cleaner. They held their clandestine meetings in the dim light of the flickering oil lamps, standing mere inches from my bowed head. They plotted against generals, hoarded grain while the lower city starved, and whispered the names of those who needed to be quietly removed from the Emperor’s favor. It was a bad move on their part—this “clueless” slave was a walking tape recorder of every assassination plot in Rome.
The marble floors of the archives were vast and eternally dusty. I spent my days on my hands and knees, scrubbing the mosaics. The work was meant to break a man’s spirit, but for me, it was a perfect disguise. I heard everything. I remembered everything.
Every night, when the grand iron gates of the archives were locked and the guards retreated to the outer courtyard to play dice, I would crawl into the narrow maintenance tunnels beneath the hypocaust heating system. There, hidden from the world, I kept my own archives. I used discarded scraps of wax and broken styluses thrown away by the official scribes. I etched every conversation, every bribe, every treasonous plot into those small wooden frames. I hid them behind the loose bricks of the heating vents. I had a record for every corrupt man who wore a purple-bordered toga.
But the most dangerous of them all was Senator Cassius.
Cassius was a man of immense wealth and even greater cruelty. He walked with a heavy, arrogant stride, his sandals slapping the marble like the crack of a whip. He was the architect of the recent grain shortages, quietly diverting ships to his private warehouses while blaming the frontier generals for the famine.
On the morning of the Festival of Ceres, the archive hall was unusually quiet. The golden sunlight poured through the high windows, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. I was polishing the base of a massive Doric column near the center of the room, keeping my head down, my rough wool tunic damp with sweat.
Cassius entered the hall accompanied by three younger, ambitious politicians. They did not lower their voices. Why would they? The only other person in the room was the deaf-mute floor-cleaner.
“The Praetorian Prefect, Valerius, is becoming a nuisance,” Cassius said, his voice echoing off the stone walls. He carelessly tossed a half-eaten fig onto the freshly cleaned floor, right beside my knee. “He has asked for an audit of the harbor records. If he sees the ledger from the seventh day of the month, our entire operation collapses.”
“Then we ensure he never sees it,” one of the younger men replied, nervously adjusting the fibula on his shoulder. “But Valerius is heavily guarded. A direct strike would bring the wrath of the entire Praetorian Guard upon the Senate.”
Cassius smiled. It was a cold, reptilian expression. “He attends the public baths at the ninth hour without his armor. A simple slip on the wet tiles. A trusted servant with a poisoned needle. It will look like his heart simply failed him. The servant is already paid. The deed will be done tomorrow.”
I kept scrubbing, my hands moving in steady, rhythmic circles. My heart pounded furiously against my ribs, but my face remained an empty, vacant mask. Prefect Valerius was one of the few honorable men left in Rome. He had once stopped his horse in the crowded Forum to ensure a blind veteran was not trampled by a merchant’s cart. He was a man of the people. And tomorrow, he was going to die.
I needed to warn him, but I was trapped. I could not speak, and even if I could, who would believe a ragged floor-cleaner over a powerful Senator?
Suddenly, Cassius stopped walking. He turned and looked down at me. For ten years, he had never truly looked at me. Now, his dark eyes narrowed with a sudden, unpredictable malice.
“This filth,” Cassius sneered, pointing a heavy, ringed finger at my bowed head. “Why is he still here? The smell of him is ruining the air in this room.”
“He is the cleaner, Senator,” the archivist nervously replied, stepping out from behind a row of scrolls. “He has maintained these floors for a decade. He hears nothing. He understands nothing.”
“I do not care,” Cassius snapped, stepping closer to me. “I am hosting the provincial governors in this annex in an hour. I will not have this beggar sullying the marble when they arrive. Throw him out into the streets. And check his rags. These archive rats are known to steal silver if you look away for a moment.”
“But Senator,” the archivist stammered, “he belongs to the building. He has nowhere else to go.”
“Did I ask for your counsel?” Cassius roared. He stepped forward and drove his leather sandal into my wooden bucket.
The heavy bucket tipped over, sending a wave of dirty, cold water washing over the polished floor and soaking through my thin tunic. I remained kneeling, staring at the puddle of water, gripping my damp cloth.
“Guards!” Cassius shouted toward the heavy bronze doors.
Two Praetorian guards, wearing crested helmets and carrying long iron-tipped spears, marched into the room. They looked confused, glancing from the spilled water to the angry Senator.
“Remove this creature,” Cassius ordered, waving his hand in disgust. “He is dismissed from the archives permanently. Confiscate his belongings and toss him out the rear gate into the mud where he belongs.”
The guards stepped forward. One of them grabbed me by the shoulder of my tunic, hauling me roughly to my feet. My knees ached from years of kneeling on stone, and I stumbled slightly, leaning against the cold marble of the column.
“Wait,” Cassius said softly, a cruel smile playing on his lips. “Before you throw him out, search him. I am missing a silver signet ring. I suspect this mindless thief has swallowed it or hidden it in his rags.”
It was a blatant, malicious lie. Cassius wore all his rings proudly on his fingers. He merely wanted the satisfaction of seeing me stripped and humiliated before he threw me away.
The guards began to pat down my sides. I stood perfectly still, my eyes fixed on the floor. I knew exactly what was tucked inside the deep, hidden fold of my tunic, resting against my chest.
It was not a silver ring.
It was a small, flat wax tablet. The very tablet I had retrieved from my hiding spot this morning—the one detailing a conversation Cassius had three days ago, arranging the bribery of the grain merchants. I had planned to slip it under the door of the Magistrate’s office tonight.
“What is this?” the guard muttered, feeling the hard square against my ribs.
Cassius’s eyes lit up with triumphant malice. “Ah! I knew it. A thief. Pull it out! Let us see what the rat has stolen from the Senate.”
The guard reached into my tunic and pulled out the wooden frame. He looked at it, puzzled. It wasn’t silver. It wasn’t gold. It was just a cheap, worn wax tablet, filled with tight, meticulously carved Roman script.
Cassius frowned, stepping closer. “A tablet? What use does a mute idiot have with a writing tablet? Give it here.”
Before the guard could hand it over, the heavy bronze doors of the archive groaned open once more. The room fell instantly silent.
Standing in the doorway, wearing the bright white toga of his office, was High Magistrate Quintus. Beside him, towering and broad-shouldered in his bronze armor, was Praetorian Prefect Valerius—the very man Cassius had just plotted to kill.
“Is there a disturbance in the archives, Senator Cassius?” Magistrate Quintus asked, his voice calm but carrying the weight of ultimate authority. “We could hear you shouting from the corridor.”
Cassius quickly smoothed his toga, forcing a polite, easy smile. “Magistrate Quintus. Prefect Valerius. No disturbance at all. Merely dismissing a thieving slave. We caught him hiding something in his garments.”
Valerius, the Prefect, stepped into the room. His sharp, battle-hardened eyes took in the scene: the spilled water, the aggressive guards, and me, an old man shivering in a wet tunic. Valerius frowned. He walked slowly toward the guard holding my wax tablet.
“A thieving slave?” Valerius asked quietly. He looked at the tablet in the guard’s hand. “What did he steal, Cassius? A piece of wood?”
“It is Senate property,” Cassius said quickly, a hint of nervous sweat suddenly appearing on his brow. “The idiot probably thought it was valuable. Hand it to me, guard. I will dispose of it.”
“No,” Valerius said, his voice suddenly hard. He reached out and took the tablet from the guard’s hand. “Let us see what a deaf-mute floor cleaner considers valuable enough to steal.”
Valerius looked down at the wax. He began to read the meticulously carved words.
The silence in the room stretched out, thin and fragile as glass.
I watched the Prefect’s face. I watched his eyes scan the first line, then the second. I saw the moment the realization hit him. I saw his jaw tighten, the muscles in his neck flexing as he read the exact dates, the exact amounts of silver, and the exact name of Senator Cassius, detailing a treasonous plot against the empire.
Valerius slowly looked up from the tablet. He did not look at Cassius.
He looked directly into my eyes.
CHAPTER 2
The silence in the grand archive hall was absolute. It was not the peaceful silence of an empty room, but the heavy, suffocating silence that falls over an arena just before the executioner lowers his blade.
Prefect Valerius did not blink. His dark, battle-hardened eyes remained locked onto mine. I was kneeling in a puddle of dirty water, shivering in my soaked linen tunic, clutching my damp rag. To the rest of the room, I looked like a pathetic, frightened animal. But in the Prefect’s steady gaze, I saw something else. I saw the sudden, chilling dawn of comprehension.
He was holding the wax tablet in his massive, scarred hand. The very tablet Cassius had just ordered the guards to rip from my tunic.
Senator Cassius let out a nervous, strained laugh. The sound echoed harshly against the high marble walls and the towering Doric columns. “Prefect Valerius, truly, you waste your time. It is nothing but the scratched nonsense of a madman. A beggar’s toy. Hand it to me, and I will have my personal slaves burn it with the evening trash.”
Cassius took a step forward, his hand outstretched, his heavy gold rings gleaming in the shafts of afternoon sunlight. He expected Valerius to simply hand it over. He expected the natural order of Rome to hold firm—a noble Senator commands, and the military obeys.
Valerius did not move his hand. He did not even look at Cassius. His eyes remained fixed on my face.
“Nonsense?” Valerius repeated. His voice was low, rough as crushed stone, carrying the unmistakable authority of a man who had commanded legions in the freezing mud of the northern frontiers. “Is that what you call this, Cassius?”
“The creature is deaf and mute!” Cassius insisted, his voice rising, a sharp edge of panic bleeding through his arrogant facade. He gestured aggressively toward me. “He has scrubbed these floors for ten years. He has the mind of a mule. Look at him! He doesn’t even know what a stylus is. He probably found that piece of wood in the gutter and hid it in his rags because it smelled of beeswax.”
Valerius finally tore his gaze away from me and looked down at the wax tablet again. He ran his thumb over the meticulously carved grooves.
I kept my head bowed, my shoulders hunched, playing the part of the terrified slave. But inside, my blood was singing. I had spent ten years watching the official scribes of the Senate. I had watched the way they held their instruments, the way they abbreviated names, the specific shorthand they used for sums of denarii and military ranks. I had practiced in the dark tunnels beneath the hypocaust system for thousands of hours until my script was indistinguishable from a master archivist’s.
“It is a fascinating piece of garbage,” Valerius said slowly, stepping away from Cassius and moving toward the center of the hall. High Magistrate Quintus, wrapped in his pristine white toga, watched with silent, calculating eyes.
“Fascinating,” Valerius continued, his voice echoing off the polished stone, “because this ‘garbage’ uses the exact official shorthand of the Imperial Treasury. It details a transfer of four thousand silver denarii.”
Cassius swallowed hard. I saw the thick muscles in his neck twitch. “A mere coincidence. Scribes throw away practice tablets all the time.”
“It details a transfer of four thousand silver denarii,” Valerius repeated, his voice growing colder, harder, “to a merchant vessel docked at Ostia. A vessel carrying grain that was supposed to feed the lower quarters, but was instead diverted to a private warehouse.”
“Prefect, you are reading meaning into random scratches!” Cassius took another step forward, his face turning an angry shade of red. He looked at the two Praetorian guards who were still standing near me, their spears held uncertainly. “Guards! Arrest this Prefect for insubordination! He is reading forged documents to slander a Senator of Rome!”
The guards did not move. Their loyalty was to the Emperor, and their immediate commander was Valerius. They stood perfectly still, their bronze breastplates catching the light, their eyes darting between the furious Senator and their calm commander.
“But the grain is not the most interesting part,” Valerius said, completely ignoring Cassius’s outburst. He stepped closer to High Magistrate Quintus, holding the tablet so the older man could see the script. “Tell me, Magistrate Quintus. You are a man of the law. Read the final three lines.”
Quintus adjusted his heavy toga and leaned forward. He squinted at the wax. For a moment, the only sound in the vast room was the dripping of water from my overturned bucket.
Quintus’s face, usually an unreadable mask of political neutrality, suddenly went slack. He looked up, his eyes wide with genuine shock. He looked at Cassius, then back at the tablet.
“By the gods,” Quintus whispered.
“Read it aloud, Magistrate,” Valerius commanded. It was not a request.
Quintus cleared his throat, his hands trembling slightly as he gestured to the tablet. “It says… ‘The Prefect Valerius becomes a nuisance. He attends the public baths at the ninth hour without his armor. A trusted servant with a poisoned needle. The deed will be done tomorrow.'”
The words hung in the air. The exact words Cassius had spoken to his young accomplices barely ten minutes ago.
Cassius’s face drained of all color. He looked like a man who had just stepped onto a rotting floorboard over a deep abyss. He looked frantically at the young politicians who had accompanied him, but they were already backing away, distancing themselves from a sinking ship.
“This is a forgery!” Cassius screamed, pointing a trembling finger at me. “It is a conspiracy! That… that rat is a spy! He was planted here by my political enemies! He is trying to frame me!”
“A spy?” Valerius asked softly. He walked slowly back toward me. The heavy tread of his boots sounded like a war drum in the silent hall. He stopped right in front of me, looking down at my shivering, soaked form.
“You say he is deaf and mute, Senator,” Valerius said without looking back at Cassius. “You say he has the mind of a mule.”
“He is pretending!” Cassius shouted, his voice cracking with desperation. “Torture him! Strip the flesh from his back, and you will hear him speak! He will confess who sent him!”
Valerius crouched down. He was a massive man, wearing the ceremonial armor of the Praetorian Guard, a deep purple cloak spilling over his shoulders. He was the embodiment of Roman martial power. Yet, as he knelt in the dirty water beside me, his movements were slow, almost careful.
He reached out and gently took my right hand.
I flinched, instinctively pulling away, playing the role of the abused slave. But his grip was firm, impossible to break. He turned my hand over, exposing my palm and fingers to the light.
My fingers were permanently stained with the dark residue of cheap lamp black and beeswax. On my index and middle fingers, there were thick, heavy calluses—not the calluses of a man who scrubs floors with a flat rag, but the precise, distinct calluses of a man who tightly grips a wooden stylus for hours every single night.
Valerius ran his thumb over the hardened skin of my fingers. He looked at the stains. Then, he looked into my eyes again.
He knew.
He didn’t just suspect; he knew exactly what I was. He knew that for ten years, the invisible floor-cleaner had been sitting in the shadows, listening to the arrogant masters of the world confess their sins.
“He did not steal this tablet, Senator,” Valerius said quietly, his voice carrying clearly across the room. He stood up, releasing my hand. “He wrote it.”
“Impossible!” Cassius roared. “He cannot read! He cannot write! He cannot even hear the words spoken in this room!”
Valerius turned to face Cassius, and the fury in the Prefect’s eyes was terrifying to behold. It was the cold, controlled rage of a soldier who has just discovered a traitor in his own camp.
“He heard every word,” Valerius said, stepping toward Cassius. “He heard you plot to steal the grain from the starving citizens of the Subura. He heard you arrange the bribes for the harbor master. And he heard you order the assassination of a Praetorian Prefect in the public baths.”
Cassius backed away, stumbling over the hem of his expensive toga. “Magistrate Quintus! You cannot accept the scratched wax of a slave as legal evidence in a Roman court! A slave cannot testify against a citizen!”
“He is not testifying,” Valerius said. “The tablet is the evidence. And it is extremely detailed.”
Valerius looked down at the tablet again, his brow furrowing. A new thought seemed to strike him. He looked at the precise, tight writing. He looked at the date carved neatly in the corner.
He looked back at me.
“This tablet…” Valerius muttered, almost to himself. “It details a conversation from three days ago. And the plot from today.”
Valerius walked back to me. He crouched down once more.
“You have scrubbed these floors for ten years,” Valerius said, his voice dropping to a whisper that only I could hear. “Ten years of standing invisible in the corners while the most powerful men in Rome thought they were alone.”
I kept my eyes on the wet marble, but my breathing hitched.
Valerius leaned closer. “A man who takes the terrible risk of writing down the treason of a Senator… does not do it only once.”
He stood up and looked around the massive, cavernous archive room. He looked at the towering shelves of scrolls, the heavy bronze statues, the intricate mosaic floor.
“Where are they?” Valerius demanded, his voice suddenly echoing with absolute command.
Cassius looked confused. “Where are what?”
Valerius ignored him. He pointed his finger directly at me. “Where are the rest of them, old man?”
I remained kneeling. My heart was a war drum in my chest. This was the moment. For ten years, I had waited in the dark, gathering the poison of these men, waiting for a righteous hand to wield it. Valerius was that hand.
Slowly, deliberately, I let the wet linen rag fall from my grasp.
I raised my head. I looked past the terrifying figure of the Prefect, past the shocked face of the Magistrate, and locked my eyes directly onto Senator Cassius. For the first time in a decade, I allowed my face to show expression. I allowed the cold, hard contempt I felt for this corrupt beast to show in my eyes.
Cassius saw it. He took a staggering step backward, his face turning the color of old ash. He realized, in that single terrifying moment, that the creature he had kicked and spat upon was fully aware, fully human, and fully capable of destroying him.
I slowly pushed myself up from the puddle. My joints popped and ached, but I stood as tall as my bent spine would allow.
I looked at Valerius. I nodded once.
Then, I turned and began to walk.
I did not walk toward the grand bronze doors. I walked toward the back of the archive hall, toward the darkest, most neglected corner of the room, behind a massive statue of the Goddess Minerva.
“Follow him,” Valerius ordered.
The two Praetorian guards fell into step behind me. Valerius and Quintus followed close behind. Cassius, trembling and sweating, was dragged along by a third guard who had just entered the room.
I reached the dark corner. The marble floor here was covered in a thick layer of undisturbed dust, except for one small, clean patch near the baseboard of the wall.
It was the bronze grate of a hypocaust heating vent.
I knelt down. My fingers, strong and callused, gripped the edge of the heavy bronze grate. With a sharp pull, I slid the grate aside, revealing the dark, narrow tunnel beneath the floorboards.
I reached my arm deep into the darkness.
“What is he doing?” Cassius whimpered, trying to pull away from the guard holding him. “Stop him! He has a weapon down there!”
I felt the familiar stack of wooden frames hidden behind the loose brick. I gripped a handful of them and pulled my arm out.
I laid them on the clean marble floor at Valerius’s feet.
Five wax tablets.
I reached in again. I pulled out ten more.
I reached in again.
I kept pulling them out, piling them on the floor. Tablets detailing stolen military funds. Tablets detailing forged wills of dead veterans. Tablets detailing the names of political rivals who had been quietly poisoned at banquets. Tablets naming not just Cassius, but half the Senate.
Dozens of tablets. Hundreds of tablets. A mountain of treason, built over a decade, carved by the steady hand of a slave they thought was blind, deaf, and dumb.
Valerius stared at the pile, his breath catching in his chest. High Magistrate Quintus fell to his knees, picking up a tablet at random, reading it, then dropping it in horror, only to pick up another.
“Gods of Rome,” Valerius whispered, looking at the massive hoard of evidence. He slowly raised his eyes from the tablets and looked at me.
Cassius was weeping now, thrashing against the guard. “Burn them! Burn the archives! You cannot read them!”
Valerius drew his heavy iron sword. The metallic ring echoed loudly in the dark corner. He pointed the tip of the blade directly at Cassius’s throat.
“Seal the doors,” Valerius commanded the guards, his voice ringing with absolute, terrifying authority. “Seal the building. No one leaves. No one enters.”
He looked back at the mountain of wax tablets, the life’s work of a forgotten floor cleaner.
“We are going to need more scribes,” the Prefect whispered.
CHAPTER 3
The sound of the grand bronze doors sealing shut echoed through the vast archive hall like the sealing of a tomb. The heavy iron crossbars, designed to protect Rome’s most vital records from riots and fires, fell into their stone grooves with a massive, final thud.
The afternoon sun was beginning to dip, casting long, sharp shadows behind the towering Doric columns. Dust motes danced in the fading light, settling over the mountain of wax tablets I had just pulled from the dark tunnel.
I stood by the hypocaust vent, my wet linen tunic clinging to my shivering skin. My knees throbbed from ten years of kneeling on the cold marble, but for the first time in a decade, my spine was completely straight.
Senator Cassius was no longer shouting. The heavy thud of the iron bars had broken something inside him. He was slumped against the base of a marble statue of Jupiter, his expensive purple-bordered toga wrinkled and stained with the dirty water from my overturned bucket. A Praetorian guard stood over him, the sharp iron tip of a heavy spear resting less than an inch from his throat.
High Magistrate Quintus was on his hands and knees. The elder statesman, usually a picture of perfect Roman dignity, looked like a frantic merchant sorting through a ruined shipment. He picked up one wooden frame after another, his eyes scanning my tight, precise script.
“The grain shipments from Alexandria,” Quintus whispered, dropping a tablet and grabbing another. “The diverted funds from the frontier legions in Gaul. The forged will of General Drusus…”
Quintus looked up, his face ashen. He looked at Praetorian Prefect Valerius, who stood perfectly still, watching me.
“Valerius,” the Magistrate choked out. “It is not just Cassius. This… this floor-cleaner has documented a web of rot that stretches into the highest tiers of the Senate. Half the men sitting in the Annex right now are named in these logs.”
Valerius did not look at the Magistrate. His dark, battle-scarred face remained locked on me. He sheathed his heavy iron sword with a sharp clack, but the tension in his broad shoulders did not lessen.
“Ten years,” Valerius said. His voice was low, rough, and dangerous. “Ten years of scrubbing the floors. Ten years of playing the fool. Who are you, old man?”
I looked at him. I opened my mouth.
My throat was a dry, cracked riverbed. The muscles in my jaw felt tight, rusted shut from a decade of forced silence. When I tried to push air past my vocal cords, all that came out was a broken, rattling hiss.
Cassius let out a desperate, manic laugh from the floor. “You see? He is a beast! A mute, mindless beast! You are holding the Senate hostage over the random scribbles of a madman!”
I ignored the Senator. I swallowed hard, forcing moisture down my throat. I remembered the cadence of human speech. I remembered how to shape the words. I took a deep breath of the dusty archive air, filling my lungs completely.
“My name…”
The sound was terrible. It was gravel grinding against iron. It was barely a whisper, but in the silence of the sealed hall, it carried to every corner.
Cassius stopped laughing instantly. His eyes went wide with pure terror.
Valerius stepped closer, his brow furrowed. “Speak clearly.”
“My name… is Elias,” I croaked. The syllables felt strange on my tongue. I coughed, a dry, racking sound, and tried again. My voice grew slightly stronger, though still rough as a rasp. “Before I was sold to the archives for three copper coins, I was a scribe in the legions. The Seventh Claudia.”
Valerius’s eyes widened slightly. The Seventh Claudia was a legendary legion, known for its brutal campaigns on the northern frontier.
“I kept the ledgers for the quartermaster,” I continued, leaning heavily against the marble wall. “Until a corrupt tribune sold our winter rations to a local warlord and blamed the missing grain on a fire. When I refused to alter the ledgers to cover his crime, he had me flogged, branded a thief, and sold into slavery. He ordered my tongue cut, but the camp surgeon was a friend… he only scarred it. Enough to make them believe I was silenced.”
I looked down at my rough, callused hands. “When I was brought to Rome, they saw the scars. They assumed I was deaf and dumb. I did not correct them. It was safer to be a piece of furniture.”
“So you became a spy,” Valerius said, his voice carrying a mix of awe and suspicion.
“Not a spy, Prefect,” I said, my voice gaining the steady rhythm of a man used to reciting records. “An archivist. These men—” I pointed a shaking finger at Cassius, “—they believe the empire belongs to them. They believe their whispered treasons in the dark vanish like smoke. But I am a man of the ledgers. I believe that every debt must be recorded. And every debt must be paid.”
Quintus stood up slowly, clutching a handful of the wax tablets to his chest. “Elias. If what you have written here is true… the Senate will tear itself apart. Cassius is a powerful man, but he is merely a branch. These tablets describe the roots.”
“They are true, Magistrate,” I said calmly. “Check the dates. Check the Imperial Treasury records against my logs. You will find that every missing coin matches.”
Cassius suddenly surged forward, ignoring the spear point at his throat. He threw himself toward the nearest bronze brazier, which was still filled with hot, glowing coals used to melt the official sealing wax.
“Burn them!” Cassius screamed, his face contorted in absolute panic. He grabbed a handful of the tablets from the top of the pile and lunged toward the fire.
He didn’t make it.
Valerius moved with the brutal, terrifying speed of a seasoned gladiator. He closed the distance in two massive strides, grabbed Cassius by the back of his purple-bordered toga, and hurled the Senator backward.
Cassius crashed hard onto the polished mosaic floor, the wax tablets scattering out of his grip. Before he could scramble back to his feet, Valerius planted his heavy, iron-studded military boot squarely onto the center of the Senator’s chest, pinning him to the ground.
“Do not test my patience, Cassius,” Valerius growled, leaning his weight onto his boot. Cassius gasped for air, his face turning red. “You are no longer a Senator in this room. You are a prisoner of the Praetorian Guard.”
Valerius looked at his men. “Bind his hands. If he moves toward the evidence again, break his legs.”
The guards immediately hauled Cassius up, ignoring his sputtered threats, and bound his wrists tightly behind his back with heavy leather straps. They shoved him roughly onto a wooden bench near the wall.
“Prefect,” Quintus said nervously, wiping sweat from his forehead with the edge of his toga. The older man was trembling. “We cannot stay in this room forever. The outer guards will notice the doors are sealed. Cassius’s allies are gathering in the Annex right now for the provincial meeting. When he does not emerge…”
“Let them gather,” Valerius said coldly. He knelt beside the mountain of tablets. “The more of them in one place, the easier it will be to arrest them.”
“Arrest them?” Quintus gasped. “Valerius, you cannot simply march into the Senate Annex and arrest thirty patricians! The city will riot! The noble families will call for your head!”
“I am the Prefect of the Guard,” Valerius stated, picking up a tablet. “My duty is to the Emperor and to Rome. Not to the parasites who bleed her dry.”
Valerius turned to me. “Elias. How are these organized? By date? By name?”
“By crime, Prefect,” I replied, my voice steadying. I walked slowly toward the pile, my wet sandals slapping the marble. I knelt beside him. “The tablets with the red wax bindings detail the theft of grain and military funds. The ones bound in black leather cord detail assassination plots and the poisoning of political rivals.”
I began to sort them, my hands moving with practiced efficiency. Ten years of hidden labor, finally brought into the light.
“And these?” Valerius asked, pointing to a small, separate stack wrapped in a piece of heavy, oiled canvas. They were pushed deeper into the hypocaust tunnel, almost out of reach.
My hands stopped moving. The archive hall suddenly felt very cold.
I looked at the canvas bundle. I had hoped to slip that bundle directly to the Emperor’s palace guards. I had never intended for a Magistrate or even a Prefect to see them first.
“Those,” I whispered, my raspy voice dropping to a low warning, “are the reason Senator Cassius wanted me thrown out today. He didn’t just want me gone because of the grain ledgers.”
Cassius, sitting bound on the wooden bench, suddenly went completely still. The angry, panicked flush left his face, replaced by a pale, sickly gray.
“Don’t,” Cassius whispered. It wasn’t an arrogant command. It was a plea. A desperate, pathetic plea.
Valerius noticed the shift in the Senator’s demeanor. His eyes narrowed. He reached out and pulled the heavy canvas bundle toward him.
“No!” Cassius screamed, thrashing against his leather bindings. “Valerius, listen to me! You can have the grain! You can have the treasury funds! I will confess to it all! But do not open that canvas! The moment you read those words, you are a dead man! We are all dead men!”
“Hold him still!” Valerius barked at the guards. He turned back to the bundle. He untied the thick knot of the canvas and folded the fabric back.
Inside were three wax tablets.
They were not standard Senate issue. They were large, heavy frames made of dark ebony wood, filled with a deep, blood-red wax. The seal of the Imperial Household was faintly pressed into the corner of the wooden frames.
“These were stolen from the Emperor’s private study,” Quintus breathed, leaning over Valerius’s shoulder. “Elias… how did you get these?”
“I did not steal them,” I said softly. “Senator Cassius’s men stole them. I merely copied what was written on them before they were destroyed in the furnaces.”
Valerius picked up the first ebony tablet. He held it up to the fading light of the high windows.
He read the first line.
I watched the Prefect’s face. I had seen this man remain perfectly calm while reading a plot about his own assassination. I had seen him remain completely stoic while discovering a conspiracy that robbed the entire Roman army.
But as Valerius read the red wax, his hands began to tremble. The heavy bronze plates of his armor rattled slightly in the quiet room.
He didn’t just look shocked. He looked horrified.
Valerius slowly lowered the tablet. He looked at Cassius, who was weeping silently on the bench, his head hung in absolute defeat.
“Quintus,” Valerius said. His voice didn’t sound like a commander anymore. It sounded like a man who had just watched the world end. “The grain… the assassinations… they were just a distraction. A way to fund the real operation.”
“What operation?” Quintus asked, his voice shaking. “Valerius, what does it say?”
Before Valerius could answer, a sound echoed through the vast, quiet hall.
It was a heavy, metallic clang.
Someone was striking the outside of the grand bronze doors with the hilt of a sword.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
“Open these doors!” a muffled voice roared from the outside corridor. It was not the voice of a standard guard. It was the harsh, clipped accent of the Emperor’s personal Praetorian Elite. “By order of the Imperial Palace, unbar these doors immediately!”
Quintus stepped back, his eyes darting between the doors and the Prefect. “The Elite Guard? Why are they here? Did someone summon them?”
Valerius looked down at the red wax tablet in his trembling hands. He looked at me, his eyes filled with a sudden, terrible understanding.
“They are not here to help us, Magistrate,” Valerius whispered, drawing his heavy iron sword once more. He stepped between the mountain of evidence and the grand bronze doors. “They are here to make sure this room burns to the ground.”
CHAPTER 4
The heavy bronze doors shuddered violently under the assault.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Every strike of the heavy iron sword-hilts against the outer metal sent a shockwave of sound echoing through the cavernous archive hall. Dust rained down from the high vaulted ceilings, coating the statues of the ancient gods in a fine, gray powder. The Emperor’s Elite Praetorians were at the gates, and they were not known for their patience.
High Magistrate Quintus backed away from the doors, his face drained of all blood. He tripped over the hem of his pristine white toga, scrambling backward until his spine hit the cold stone base of a Doric column. He clutched a handful of the wax tablets to his chest as if they were a shield, though wood and wax would do nothing against the steel of the Emperor’s guard.
“We are trapped,” Quintus whispered, his voice trembling. “Cassius’s allies have moved faster than we anticipated. They have bribed the Elite. They are going to purge this room, Valerius. They will slaughter us all and throw the evidence into the hypocaust furnaces.”
On the wooden bench, Senator Cassius began to laugh.
It was a wet, hysterical sound. Despite his bound hands and the bruised, dirty state of his purple-bordered toga, his arrogance had returned in a sudden, venomous rush. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the freshly cleaned marble floor.
“Did you truly believe you could defeat me with a pile of garbage?” Cassius sneered, his eyes wild and wide. “Did you think the Senate is ruled by laws, Prefect? It is ruled by gold. It is ruled by blood. And my allies have enough of both to buy the Emperor’s own shadows. When those doors open, Aurelius—the Captain of the Elite—will cut you down where you stand. And you, old man…”
Cassius turned his hateful gaze toward me. “I am going to watch them peel the skin from your bones before I burn your precious little library.”
Valerius did not look at the Senator. He stood squarely between the mountain of evidence and the shuddering bronze doors. He was a massive man, an immovable wall of bronze and muscle, but there were only three regular Praetorian guards in the room with us. Outside, an entire century of the Emperor’s heavy infantry was preparing to breach the seal.
Valerius tightened his grip on his heavy iron broadsword. He rolled his broad shoulders, settling into the familiar, grounded stance of a legionary preparing for a final, hopeless stand.
“Elias,” Valerius said. He did not turn his head. His voice was dangerously calm, carrying the stoic resignation of a commander on a doomed frontier. “Gather the red wax tablets. The ones bearing the Imperial seal. Take them back into the hypocaust tunnels. Crawl as far as you can beneath the Senate Annex. Do not come out until the smoke clears.”
“I cannot leave you, Prefect,” I replied, my voice still rough, scraping like a rusted hinge.
“That is an order, soldier of the Seventh,” Valerius barked, his tone leaving no room for argument. “If they burn this room, those imperial tablets must survive. Now go.”
CRACK.
The heavy iron crossbar on the doors began to splinter. The stone grooves holding the barricade groaned in protest. The Elite guards were using a wooden battering ram. Two more strikes, and the seal would break.
I looked at Valerius. I looked at his broad back, ready to absorb the first wave of blades to give me time to escape. He was a good man. A true Roman.
I did not move toward the tunnels.
Instead, I stepped forward. My wet sandals padded softly across the marble. I walked past the trembling Magistrate Quintus. I walked past the gloating, laughing Cassius. I walked right up to the massive back of Prefect Valerius, and I gently placed my scarred, ink-stained hand over his heavy armored forearm.
“Prefect,” I said softly. “Lower your sword.”
Valerius glanced down at my hand in absolute disbelief. “Are you mad, old man? They are about to breach the hall.”
“They are not here to burn the evidence, Valerius,” I said, looking up into his hardened eyes. “And they are not here to kill you. Lower your sword. If you meet Captain Aurelius with drawn steel, his men will kill you before he has a chance to speak.”
“Aurelius is corrupt!” Cassius screamed from the bench, straining against his leather bonds. “He answers to the patrician families! He answers to me!”
“Captain Aurelius answers only to the Emperor,” I said, my voice steadying, rising above the terrible noise of the battering ram. I looked back at Valerius. “I know this. Because I sent him.”
Valerius stared at me, his brow heavily furrowed. “You? A floor-cleaner? Sent the Captain of the Emperor’s Elite?”
CRACK.
The iron crossbar snapped. The massive bronze doors blew inward with a deafening roar, slamming against the stone walls and sending a cloud of ancient dust billowing into the afternoon light.
Through the haze of dust, they appeared.
Thirty men of the Imperial Elite. They wore blackened armor, their faces hidden behind heavy iron cheek-guards, their crimson cloaks sweeping the floor. They moved with terrifying, mechanical precision, their heavy pilum spears leveled directly at Valerius’s chest.
At the head of the formation stood Captain Aurelius. He did not wear a helmet. His face was a map of old battle scars, his eyes cold and utterly devoid of mercy. He held his gladius drawn, the polished steel glinting in the sunlight.
“Drop the weapon, Valerius!” Aurelius roared, his voice echoing off the high ceiling. “Drop it now, or you fall where you stand!”
Valerius hesitated for a fraction of a second. He looked at me. I gave him a single, slow nod.
With a heavy sigh, Valerius opened his hand. His iron broadsword clattered loudly onto the marble floor. The three regular guards in the room immediately dropped their spears, dropping to their knees in submission to the Elite.
Cassius erupted into a cheer of pure, unadulterated triumph.
“Aurelius!” the Senator screamed, struggling to stand up from the wooden bench, his face flushed with manic joy. “You arrived just in time! This Prefect has gone mad! He has taken me hostage! He and this filthy floor-slave have fabricated documents to overthrow the Senate! Kill them! Kill them both and burn those tablets!”
Captain Aurelius stepped into the room. His heavy boots crunched over the shattered remnants of the iron crossbar. He did not look at Cassius. His cold, dark eyes swept the room. They passed over the trembling Magistrate. They passed over the surrendered Prefect.
They landed on me.
“Are you Elias?” Aurelius asked. His voice was clipped, devoid of emotion.
“I am,” I replied, standing as tall as my aching spine would allow.
Aurelius reached inside his heavy crimson cloak.
Cassius laughed again. “Yes! Cut him down! Silence the beast!”
Aurelius did not pull out a dagger. He did not pull out a garrote.
He pulled out a single, small frame of ebony wood, filled with blood-red wax.
Magistrate Quintus gasped. Valerius went completely still.
It was the fourth Imperial tablet. The one that had been missing from my canvas bundle.
“A young stable boy arrived at the Palatine Hill two hours ago,” Aurelius said, his voice echoing in the dead silence of the hall. “He carried this tablet. He said an old mute floor-cleaner gave it to him, with instructions to place it only in the hands of the Emperor’s personal guard.”
I nodded slowly. “The stable boy is named Marcus. His father was a veteran. I knew he could be trusted with the truth.”
Aurelius looked down at the red wax. “This tablet details a conspiracy to poison the Emperor’s wine during the Festival of Ceres. It names the exact merchant who supplied the poison. It names the exact palace servant who was bribed to pour the cup.”
Aurelius finally turned his head. He looked directly at Senator Cassius.
“And it names you, Cassius,” Aurelius said softly, “as the architect of the treason.”
The manic joy instantly evaporated from Cassius’s face. The blood drained from his cheeks so fast he looked like a corpse. His jaw worked uselessly, trying to form words, but only a pathetic, whining sound emerged.
“That… that is a forgery,” Cassius stammered, his knees giving out, forcing him back down onto the wooden bench. “It is a lie. The slave is lying. Aurelius, we have an arrangement! My family pays you…”
“Your family pays for the illusion of power,” Aurelius interrupted, his voice dropping to a terrifying growl. “I serve Rome. And Rome is the Emperor.”
Aurelius raised his hand.
The thirty Elite guards moved as one. They bypassed Valerius completely. They marched directly toward the bench, their heavy boots shaking the floor.
“No!” Cassius shrieked, thrashing violently as four Elite guards grabbed him. “No! I am a Senator of Rome! You cannot touch me! I have immunity! I demand to see the Emperor!”
“The Emperor has already read the tablet,” Aurelius said coldly. He stepped up to the struggling Senator. With a swift, brutal motion, Aurelius reached down and grabbed the heavy gold signet ring on Cassius’s finger.
Cassius screamed as Aurelius yanked the ring free, tearing the skin of his knuckle.
“You are no longer a Senator,” Aurelius declared, holding the gold ring up to the light. He then grabbed the edge of Cassius’s expensive, purple-bordered toga. With a violent pull, he ripped the fabric, exposing the terrified, pale man beneath the silk and wool. “You are an enemy of the state.”
“Drag him to the Mamertine Prison,” Aurelius ordered his men. “Put him in the lowest cell. Let the rats keep him company until the executioner is ready for him.”
Cassius did not fight anymore. He went completely limp, sobbing openly, a broken, pathetic creature as the guards dragged him by his arms across the marble floor. The man who had terrorized the poor, starved the city, and ordered deaths with a casual flick of his wrist was now nothing more than garbage being dragged out of the grand halls he once thought he owned.
The heavy doors echoed again as Cassius was pulled into the corridor, his weeping fading into the distance.
The archive hall was suddenly very quiet.
Aurelius turned back to the center of the room. He looked at the massive mountain of wax tablets piled on the floor—the ten years of hidden truth I had carved in the dark.
“By the gods,” Aurelius muttered, his stoic facade finally cracking in genuine shock as he realized the sheer volume of the evidence. He looked at Prefect Valerius. “Is it all…?”
“Every corrupt deal, every stolen coin, every drop of innocent blood,” Valerius answered, picking up his broadsword and sheathing it. He stood taller now, the heavy weight of the siege lifted from his shoulders. “Elias recorded it all. The roots of the rot are entirely exposed.”
Aurelius looked at me. The coldness in his eyes was gone, replaced by a profound, heavy respect.
“You were a scribe of the Seventh Claudia,” Aurelius said.
“I was,” I replied. “Before my tongue was scarred and my name was stripped.”
Aurelius slowly unclasped the heavy iron fibula at his shoulder. He pulled the thick, crimson wool cloak of the Imperial Elite from his armor.
He walked toward me. I stood perfectly still in my wet, ragged linen tunic, shivering from the cold stone and the adrenaline leaving my blood.
Aurelius placed the heavy, warm crimson wool over my trembling shoulders. He fastened the iron clasp himself.
“The Emperor remembers the Seventh Claudia,” Aurelius said quietly. “And Rome remembers her loyal sons, even when they are forced to hide in the shadows. You are no longer a slave, Elias. The Emperor has decreed you a free citizen, with the rank of Chief Imperial Archivist, and the full pension of a legionary veteran.”
Magistrate Quintus, finally standing up from his corner, wiped his eyes. Valerius stepped forward and placed his heavy, armored hand on my shoulder, giving it a firm, brotherly squeeze.
For ten years, I had been completely invisible. I had been kicked, spat upon, and ignored. I had listened to the powerful men of the world laugh as they crushed the weak under their sandals. I had lived in the dirt and the dark, fueled only by the faint, impossible hope that one day, the truth would find the light.
I pulled the warm crimson wool tighter around my shoulders. I looked down at the mop and the overturned wooden bucket, lying abandoned in a puddle of dirty water.
I would never kneel on these stones again.
“Come, Elias,” Prefect Valerius said, gesturing toward the grand, open bronze doors. The afternoon sun was pouring through the archway, painting the marble in brilliant, warm gold. “We have a Senate to arrest, and Rome needs her archivist to read the charges.”
I nodded. I did not look back at the dark hypocaust vents. I walked toward the sunlight, leaving the bucket behind, because while water can clean the marble, only truth can wash the rot from the heart of Rome.
