With the assistance of Cassia, daughter of a Greek scribe who was bestowed upon him as his slave, Leonidas fights for justice in the back lanes of Imperial Rome.
Cassia has no idea how to cook and clean or mend and weave, but she is very good at finding things out and writing things down, able to work through a dozen mathematical problems by the time most people can think of a sentence. Knowing both intuitively and empirically that Leonidas is innocent of the murder, she resolves to help clear him of the crime.
It’s the least she can do for a man who has proved to be far less brutal than his reputation and who protects all who come within his sphere.
And if Leonidas loses, he faces a short, painful future back in the amphitheater, this time without hope of survival.
A novella of the Leonidas the Gladiator mysteries.
Ashley Gardner is a pseudonym for NYT bestselling author Jennifer Ashley. Ashley is the author of the USA Today bestselling Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries series and the Leonidas the Gladiator series. She also writes the Kat Holloway Victorian (Below Stairs) Mysteries as Jennifer Ashley.