blew whispers into his ear, she nibbled and sucked at his navel, she fondled and licked his nipples. She explored hidden places of his physique that he himself might not choose to, and she did it with bravado.
He responded clumsily with the vapor's leaden, ineffectual, distraction.
She toyed with his genitals with abandon and stroked his struggling member with delicacy. She knew inherently she had touched some remote part of his psyche and provoked some distant memory of a past liaison. She played with him and his memories in a manner which brought him a marvelously pleasing satisfaction. Yes, she was certainly professional.
But it was to be not to be for long -
The chamber door burst open with a tumult of voices. Both the steward and Suetonius's manservant tumbled into the chamber genuflecting and groveling profusely before him. Macro, the gladiator, stood with his back to the room with his gladius sword unsheathed at the ready, awaiting Suetonius's signal for action.
Surisca clutched up her garments to flee to a corner to cower at the sudden intrusion.
At the door stood a tall senior officer of the Praetorian Guard, the emperor's security police, plus several lesser officers. The Praetorian, spectacularly regaled in his muscular leathern breastplate, ceremonial swathes and tassels, plus a crested helmet with its heroic horse-hair brush typical of the Guard, stepped forward with military precision. He disdainfully brushed the gladiator aside. He snapped the honor-and-hail arm-salute at the bare-arsed Roman senior flustering messily on the divan before him.
'Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus? Equestrian knight and former private secretary to the Imperial Court? Hail!' the Praetorian declaimed.
Suetonius stumbled to his feet and clutched his private parts behind his tunic with as much dignity as his clouded state, unsteady gait, and distressed arousal could marshal.
Damn! he thought, things were just getting really interesting!
'I am he,' he mouthed in his best legal-argument voice trained in earlier years at the Bar of Rome. He had only the faintest nervous tremor in his vowels. 'All hail, Praetorian!'
'On the instruction of Imperator Caesar Publius Aelius Hadrian, I convey to you an Imperial Summons.'
The officer extended a small furled scroll at arm's length. It was bound in the scarlet silk tie and clay seal of the Imperial Administration which Suetonius instantly recognized from his own years earlier as Private Secretary to Hadrian.
Gathering his composure, he took the scroll and broke the seal to unfurl the small roll beneath. His mind had cleared swiftly and his nerves returned to a steadier flow as the inscrutable Praetorian stood at ease intently observing his responses. The officer would already know what he was about to learn, Suetonius imagined.
He read the epistle silently to himself, trying to ensure his hands weren't trembling. It began with the standard triumphalism.
'Imperator Caesar Trajan Hadrian Augustus, son of the divine Trajan Parthicus, grandson of the divine Nerva, pontifex maximus, tribunican power for the fifteenth time, thrice consul, pater patriae, on this 28th day of October of the thirteenth year of our rule, to Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, knight and scholar of Rome. Greetings — !'
'Greetings', Suetonius thought, so this was not to be something alarming. Without this word the document would inspire immediate fear in the sturdiest soul. It continued -
'It is our desire you attend our person immediately on receipt of this summons.'
That's all, 'attend our person immediately', finalized with the usual politesses.
The Praetorian unlaced his helmet, swept it under his arm, and snapped to attention.
'I am instructed to deliver you immediately into the presence of our lord and master, the Princeps, Imperator Caesar Hadrian. Immediately. Now. Praise be to Caesar!'
He pronounced his message with the same unemotional tone he probably used when announcing someone's transport to a giddily joyful wedding, or receipt of a glorious military commission, or summons to immediate execution.
'I have a horse at your disposal, and we are instructed to accompany you into Caesar's presence across the River. Now, sir. Praise be to Caesar!'
By this time Suetonius had recovered his wits and realized the fellow meant business. He signaled to his attendant to help him gather his belongings.
He waved wanly at Surisca hovering demurely in the corner and tossed a small gold coin in her direction from his belt-purse, a sum far beyond the negotiated price with the steward.
'I'll be back sometime soon, Surisca,' he whispered. He made a point of remembering her name.
Turning to the officer he blurted aloud, 'But how did you know where to find me?'
Suetonius simply had to ask. How would Praetorians locate someone enjoying the private pleasures of a bordello in an outback town late of a holiday afternoon?
'I am not instructed to converse, sir' said the officer. 'We must journey immediately.'
Suetonius dismissed his servant and the litter carriers into Macro's protection, disposed of the astounded Cadmus with further silver well above the negotiated prices, bundled his bulky toga into a satchel because it is far too bulky to ride a horse attired in one, and tossed the bag to one of the Praetorians to carry.
'Can you tell me anything, Centurion?' he asked the officer as his horse frisked under its new rider, '… anything at all?'
Suetonius used the most authoritarian patrician's vocal timbre he could muster. He was sure it would impact on a soldier's sense of rank and duty. Meanwhile he toyed with his equestrian knight's gold ring on one hand, the symbol of his lofty status in the pecking order of things. But the officer already knew his rank.
The centurion looked Suetonius over to assess the risks. He calculated his likely value as a person of influence at the Imperial Court, an impression to which Surisca's and the steward's coins had added persuasively. He leaned forward out of earshot of his companions.
'Sir, Antinous of Bithynia, Caesar's personal companion and Favorite, is dead.'
Suetonius sensed he instantly regretted telling him. Suetonius was thunderstruck.
Antinous dead! How? Why? Where? Of what? Healthy twenty-three year-olds at the peak of physical fitness do not die suddenly of good health.
With such questions spinning through his brain, Suetonius and the Guard escort cantered off into the dusk through the town's narrow lanes towards the Nile's shore.
CHAPTER 2
An unexplained death among the Court's inner circle is sobering, Suetonius mused while the Praetorians stabled their horses at a ferry jetty by the Nile's shore. Such deaths often had cryptic features. There might be more to it than immediately met the eye.
The historical biographer had noticed as they cantered through the stony back streets of Hermopolis how the celebrants of Isis were still making a great din with their rites. Shaven-headed priests in leopard skin mantles, linen-garbed acolytes, and simple householders or workers in rags were loudly shaking tambourines or sistra, beating drums, and chanting, dancing, or mourning with cheerful abandon. It seemed the first day of The Isia's three days of commemoration would proceed long into the night.
Brazier cauldrons were burning at lane intersections, with countless torches and lamps illuminating the colonnades of food stalls, taverns, traders booths, artisan's cubicles, fortune-teller's tables, and whore-house doorways which lined the town's lanes. These people certainly know how to party, Suetonius thought.
What was it, he wondered, that made the sadness of the death of their god Osiris such a cheerful event? The season's desultory deluge threatened harvest disaster for many whose land lay above the river's customary levels. This should induce fear and trembling, not joy.
After stabling their horses at the jetty the Praetorians commandeered a river ferry captain to cross to the east bank prior to the approaching sunset. Coins were exchanged along with sharp words and manhandled swords.
During the bumpy journey across the river beneath fading light Suetonius asked the ferry captain how long the celebrations would continue into the night. As a swarthy Egyptian in soiled skirt and leather headpiece with all manner of talismans hanging on his neck and arms and ears, the ferryman's Greek was basic. He could only respond
