Roman court, a man who called himself sole consul was acting suspiciously like a dictator, and Cicero — Cicero! — had fallen apart during the most important speech of his life. These were grave omens, surely more meaningful and menacing than the usual run of omens, those dubious fires and strange cloud formations seen in the sky by professional mystics. But now I felt that the world was at last right side up again, and my feet were finally back on solid ground. The immediate, overwhelming problem of Milo had been taken care of) however messily. Things could only get better.
Even Bethesda looked especially beautiful that night. Perhaps some of this was the glow of the wine, or even the glow ofher warm cooking in my belly. Looking at her in the lamplight made me think of Diana. Where was Diana?
I would send Davus to go and find her, I thought, but Davus wasn't in the room either. I would go and find her myself.
I knocked on the wall outside her curtained door. There was no answer. I thought she must be asleep or not in the room at all, but as I pushed the curtain aside there was a shuffling noise. The room was dimly lit by a single lamp. Diana seemed to be in the act of throwing a coverlet off her bed. She slipped back onto the bed and sat against the wall. 'Papa, what are you doing here?'
'Daughter, only a few moments ago you were weeping for all that Eco and I suffered. Are you so unhappy to see me now?'
'Oh, Papa, it's not that.'
'Then what is it, Diana? You've seemed so unhappy, ever since I came back. I might almost think you weren't glad to see me at all.' I said it as a joke, but the look on her face gave me pause. 'What's the matter, Diana? Eco thinks it's because you want to get married and leave home, or don't want to get married and leave home…'
'Oh, Papa!' She turned her face away.
'Have you at least talked to your mother about it, whatever it is?'
She shook her head.
'Diana, I know I've been away, and since I came back I've been more preoccupied than I should be, but these are not normal times. I hope things will be better now. But your mother is always here, and I know she cares — '
'Mother would kill me!' Diana whispered hoarsely. 'Oh, she's the last person I can tell!'
This took me aback. Was the problem really as great as Diana imagined, or was it a trifle that a young girl had blown out of all proportion? As I wondered how to proceed, I walked around her bed and glimpsed the chamber pot. Though I looked away from it almost at once, the dim lamplight happened to fall on it in such a way that I saw its contents in an instant. 'Diana! Are you sick? Have you been throwing up?'
She realized what I had seen and tried, too late, to push the pot out of sight with her foot. At the same time I was startled by another sound behind me and turned to see Davus. How had he entered the room so quietly?
'Davus, what are you doing here? No one called you. Go away. This doesn't involve you.'
'Oh, yes,' said Diana. 'It does.'
'No, Diana-'
'But it does involve Davus, Papa. It does!' Then I realized the obvious. So did Bethesda, I imagine, who stood in the doorway wearing a look that could turn a man to stone.
XXXIII
I needed a drink.
More than that, I needed to get away from my house. I could take only so much of Diana weeping, Bethesda stamping her feet, the broken Minerva staring at me. I did not want to overhear the whisper of my slaves saying, 'What's to be done with her?' or 'What's to be done with him?' or 'I knew it all along!'
Where can a man go to forget his cares in the middle of the night?
I had not set foot in the place the poet Catullus called the Salacious Tavern in almost exactly four years, since the final day of another trial, that of Marcus Caelius. Eco and I found it easily enough, tramping through the warehouse district to the northwest of the Palatine Hill accompanied by his bodyguards (without Davus, of course) until we came to the upright pillar in the shape of a phallus, and the door lit up by a phallus-shaped lamp.
The place had not changed a bit. It reeked of smoke from cheap lamp oil and the fumes of cheap wine. The general roar was punctuated every now and again by the rattle of dice and the cries of winners and losers. The few women in the place were clearly for sale. Most of the men appeared to be in a good mood. Insofar as the clientele of the Salacious Tavern had any interest in politics, they were likely to be Clodian sympathizers.
While Eco and I looked for a bench to accommodate ourselves and our bodyguards, I overheard several snatches of conversation.
'Cicero might as well have had his tongue cut out — maybe that'll be next, if Pompey ever has the guts to make himself dictator and starts handing out some real justice!'
'The idea of Milo heading off for Massilia, where he'll stuff himself with mussels and wallow with Gaulish whores — what kind of punishment is that?'
'Did Antony's speech make any sense to you at all?'
'Only a little more than Cicero's!'
'I wept, I tell you, wept when his nephew talked about him dying alone and bleeding on the Appian Way. He was a great man — '
We finally found a place. A serving boy brought us wine at once. The vintage was as foul as the service was quick.
'Eco, what am I going to do with them?'
'A good question, Papa.'
'How did it happen?'
'I think you know how it's done, Papa.'
'You know what I mean!'
'Is she absolutely certain about… her condition?'
'She seems to be. So was Bethesda, after she questioned her.'
'When did it happen, Papa? The first time, I mean… assuming there was more than one occasion…'
'Do you remember the day the contio turned into a riot, and Belbo was killed, and the next day you and I decided to merge our households? You brought your bodyguards along with you, and gave me Davus to replace Belbo. Apparently, that very first night he was under my roof-'
'Oh, no!'
'Yes! What in Hades are you smiling at?'
'Am I? Well, it's just — at least, Davus wasn't my slave any longer when it happened, technically. Thank the gods for that. I'd given him to you, to be your personal bodyguard.'
'So you're saying none of this is your concern?'
'No, Papa, that's not what I meant. I'm concerned, of course. But deciding what to do with Davus is entirely up to you.'
'Thank you very much!'
The serving boy made a fortuitous appearance to refill our cups.
'He saved my life that day, you know,' I said. 'What's that?'
'The riot, the massacre in the Forum. When Milo and Caelius escaped dressed up like slaves. I came very close to being killed myself. It was Davus who plucked me out of the crowd. He's no coward, that's for sure.'
'I'll say. It takes a brave man to fiddle with his master's daughter right under his roof, and on his first day in the house. What could he have been thinking?'
'What was he thinking with, you mean. Not with his head! Diana claims it's not his fault, of course.'
'I think some of it must be his fault, Papa.'
'I know what she means, and so do you. She says that she was the one who… initiated the matter.'
'You make it sound like a legal contract! She may have 'initiated' it, but he was the one who should have refused. I told you Diana was starting to have an eye for young men. I told you it was time for her to marry.'
