XIV
'Will this day never end?' I peered at the ceiling above my bed and rubbed my face with both hands. 'My backside will ache tomorrow from all this riding. Up hill and down, through the woods and across the wastes.' I babbled, the way that weary men do when given a chance to rest in the course of a long day and they find themselves too overwrought to relax. It might have helped if I closed my eyes, but whenever I did I saw the horribly decayed face of Zeno staring at me from a gaping mouth of flame.
'Eco, could you pour me a cup of water from that ewer on the windowsill? Water!' I slapped my forehead. 'We still have to find someone who can dive down into the shallows around the boathouse to see what was dropped from the pier last night.' I sat up to accept the cup from Eco, and peered past his shoulder through the window. The sun was still up, but not for long. By the time I found Meto, assuming he was fit for the task, and trundled down to the water's edge, the shadows would be growing longer and the evening chill would have begun to settle. We needed bright sunlight piercing the water if we were to find something amid the rocks on the bottom. The task would have to wait.
I groaned and rubbed my eyes — then quickly snatched my hands away when the face of Zeno loomed up before me.
'Not enough time, Eco, not enough time. What's the point of all this scurrying about when we can never hope to get to the bottom of things before Crassus has his way? If only Olympias hadn't cast the head into the lake and then raced back to the villa alone, we would at least have had something to show Crassus — proof that we had found one of the slaves. But what would that have served? Crassus would see it as just another proof of Zeno's guilt — what better way for the gods to show their fury at a murderous slave than for Pluto himself to swallow the miscreant feet first?
'For all our work, all we have are questions, Eco. Who attacked me on the pier last night? What was Olympias up to today, and why was Dionysius following her? And what part does Iaia play in all this? She seems to have some agenda of her own, but towards what end, and why does she play her part behind a veil of secrecy and magic?'
I stretched my arms and legs and suddenly felt as heavy as lead. Eco dropped onto his bed, his face turned toward the wall. 'We shouldn't he here any longer,' I murmured. 'We have so little time. I still haven't spoken to Sergius Orata, the businessman. Or Dionysius, for that matter. If I could catch the philosopher off his guard…'
I closed my eyes — for just an instant, I thought. Around me it seemed that the room itself sighed wearily. Perched atop the villa with an east-facing terrace, it captured the heat of the morning and stored it all through the day, but now the walls began to give up their warmth. A coolness seeped in from the window and pervaded the air. The back of my body, pressed into the bed, felt deliciously warm, while my hands and feet were slighdy chilled. I could have used a light blanket, but I was too tired to bother. I lay on the bed, exhausted, alert to every sensation and yet beginning to doze.
The dream began in the bed on which I lay, except that I seemed to be at my house in Rome, for I lay on my side with Bethesda pressed against me, face to face. With my eyes closed I ran my hands over her warm thighs and up her belly, amazed that her flesh was still as firm and supple as when I first bought her in Alexandria. She purred catlike at my touch; her body writhed against mine and I felt myself grow achingly stiff between the legs. I moved to enter her, but she stiffened and pushed me away.
I opened my eyes and saw not Bethesda but Olympias looking back at me with aloof disdain. 'What do you think I am,' she whispered haughtily, 'a slave, that you could ever use me so?' She pushed herself up from the bed and stood naked, bathed in the soft glowing light from the terrace. Her hair was a golden aureole about her face; the full, sleek curves and the subtle hollows of her body formed a beauty that was almost unbearable to look at. I reached for her and she started back. I thought she mocked me, but suddenly she covered her face with her hands and ran weeping from the room, slamming the door behind her.
I rose from the bed and followed. I opened the door with a sudden foreboding, and felt a breath of hot air on my face. The door opened not into a hallway, but onto the shelf of rock above Lake Avernus. I could not tell whether it was day or night; everything was lit with a harsh, blood-red glow. On the edge of the rock a man sat in a low chair, draped in a crimson military cape. He leaned forward, his chin on his hand and his elbow on his knee, as if he watched the progress of a battle far below. I looked over his shoulder and saw that the whole of the lake was a vast pool of belching flames, filled from shore to shore with the writhing bodies of men, women, and children trapped waist-deep in the burning mud. Their mouths were wrenched open in agony, but the distance muffled their screaming so that it was like the roar of the sea or the sound of a crowd in an amphitheatre. They were too far away for their faces to be distinct, and yet among them I recognized the slave boy Meto and the young Apollonius.
Crassus looked over his shoulder. 'Roman justice,' he said with grim satisfaction, 'and there is nothing you can do about it.' He looked at me oddly, and I realized I was naked. I turned about to return to my room, but I could not find the door. In confusion I stepped too close to the edge. Part of the rock began to crumble and give way. Crassus seemed not to notice as I fell backward, desperately trying to scramble onto the rock even as it fell with me, plummeting into the empty void-
I woke in a cold sweat to see the boy Meto standing over me with a look of grave concern on his face. From across the room I heard the gentle sawing of Eco's snore. I blinked and wiped my hand across my forehead, surprised to find it beaded with sweat.
The sky beyond the terrace was dark blue, alive with the first stars of evening. The room was lit by a lamp which Meto carried in his small hand. 'They're waiting for you,' he finally said, raising his eyebrows uncertainly.
'Who? For what?' I blinked in confusion and watched the lamplight flicker across the ceiling.
'Everyone is there but you,' he said.
'Where?'
'In the dining room. They're waiting for you to begin the dinner. Though why they're in such a hurry I don't know,' he went on, as I shook my head to clear it and struggled to rise from the bed.
'Why do you say that?'
'Because it's a dinner hardly fit for slaves!'
A great gloom seemed to have settled over the dining room. Partly it came from the gravity of the occasion, for this was the last meal before the funeral; throughout the night and all the next day, until the funeral feast that would follow Lucius Licinius's cremation and interment, everyone in the household would fast. Tradition prescribed a meal of rigorous simplicity: common bread and bowls of plain lentils, watered wine and a grain porridge. As an innovation, Gelina's cook had included a few delicacies, all black in colour: black roe served on crusts of black bread, pickled eggs stained black, black olives, and fish poached in octopus ink. It was not a repast to spark clever conversation, even from Metrobius. Across the room Sergius Orata surveyed the prospect with a glum eye and filled himself up with pickled eggs, popping them whole into his mouth.
The gloominess had another source, which emanated from the couch beside Gelina. Tonight Marcus Crassus was in attendance, and his presence seemed to swallow up all spontaneity. His lieutenants Mummius and Fabius, reclining next to each other at his right hand, seemed unable to shake their taciturn military bearing, while, from their shifty glances and grim faces, it was evident that neither Metrobius nor Iaia felt at ease in the great man's presence. Olympias was understandably distracted; considering the shock she had received at Lake Avernus, I was surprised to see her in attendance. She dabbed at her food, bit her lips, and kept her eyes lowered. She wore a haunted expression that only enhanced her beauty by the muted glow of the lamps. Eco, I noticed, could not take his eyes from her.
Gelina was in a state of fretful agitation. She could not be still and was constantly waving at the slaves and then, when they scurried to her side, could not remember why she called them. Her expression shifted from haggard despair to a timorous smile for no apparent reason, and far from averting her eyes she looked from face to face around the room, fixing each of us with an intense, inscrutable gaze that was unnerving. Even Metrobius could not cope with her; he occasionally took her hand to squeeze it reassuringly, but avoided looking at her. His wit seemed to have run dry.
Crassus himself was preoccupied and aloof. Most of his conversation was reserved for Mummius and Fabius, with whom he exchanged curt observations on the state of his troops and the progress made towards completing the wooden amphitheatre by Lake Lucrinus. Otherwise he might have been dining alone for all the attention he paid to his guests. He ate heartily but was pensive and withdrawn.
