a strong nose and chin, and flashing, even teeth. He was staring at Helena; she fixed her attention on counting the olive stones I had left after my repast.
Events were moving faster than I liked. They were out of control. With a thug like Balbinus that could have fatal results.
Behind Sergius were several other men from the Fourth. At least now I knew that Petro had been sent on a goat-grazing holiday I could forget that they might have sneaked here in some mood of disloyalty to him. They were defying Rubella; I could allow that.
What I would not accept was any kind of crackbrained exercise against orders, without planning or backup, and really without a full reconnaissance. I was determined to resist Martinus on this. Not that my common sense came to anything. The lads, as he called them (though they were large, fit and ugly apart from Sergius), had piled into the Oil Jug like schoolboys invading a pastry shop. I was groaning and trying to say goodbye to Helena, so it was Sergius who spotted the development. He hissed, and quickly snuffed our lamp.
I heard the noise he had noticed. Two pairs of feet walking briskly in concert, accompanied by the disturbing chinks of heavy chains. They came from the direction of the Circus. The feet stamped with a cheerful energy in thick-soled, businesslike boots.
The men those feet carried so purposefully were known to most of us. They were Tibullinus and Arica, the centurion and his sidekick from the Sixth – two upstanding officers whom we all believed were taking bribes. They were marching into Plato's like conquering hunters, carrying on their shoulders a long pole of spoils. Suspended from the pole in chains was a male figure I recognised.
`Oh gods!' murmured Martinus. `I forgot to tell him we're the Fourth. He's gone and taken his damned chitty to the Sixth.'
The trussed man was Igullius. He looked alive – but only just.
`Scatter!'
I heard my voice without expecting it. Somehow I made them all jump from the Oily jug before the two men from the Sixth came out again to look for us. We managed to whip out of sight around a corner just in time, and heard a commotion as a group from the brothel turned over the dump we had left. Helena had had the sense to bring the still-warm bowl from which I had eaten my food. Tibullinus must have thought Martinus and I had gone home much earlier. They gave up after a short time, and retreated back to Plato's.
We were still there, however. And naturally there was just one thought on the rash deputy's mind: `They've got Igullius. If they don't know our plans already, he'll soon squeal to them. We have no time. Balbinus will be leaving any minute.'
`Helena – '
Helena turned and banged the map we had drawn against my chest. Her voice was taut. `Don't apologise again. I don't want the last thing I remember to be you saying you were sorry. Oh don't explain. I know!' she raged. `You've lost your surprise; you have no support; no one knows if the man you want is even in the brothel – but you're going in!'
LX
I TOOK CHARGE.
I passed the map around quickly and told them to get in without fuss, then disperse through the building fast. Forget thieves. Forget hard men. Forget even Tibullinus and Arica. Say nothing and hit no one, unless there was no choice. Save Igullius if it were possible, but keep filtering through towards the top and the back and the farthermost rooms of the brothel until we found Balbinus Pius.
`What then?'
`Yell your head off for the rest of us.'
I like to keep plans simple. At least when this went wrong there would be only a minor body count. Only seven of us were going in.
We slipped inside in ones and twos. Paid the tally and winked at the doorkeeper.
`I'm Itia, and I'm here to see you enjoy yourselves.' `Thanks, Itia.'
`Are you being joined by friends tonight?' `Just a few.'
`Maybe we'll give you a discount then.'
I was right. The brothel side of the business was reserving its position. But I did not imagine our discount would take the form of help.
I had gone in first. I walked quickly but with a casual manner. I went straight past the ground-floor rooms, the cloak pegs and the washing facilities. There was a louder hum of masculinity than on previous times I had visited. From the big room where conspirators gathered came a full-throated wave of men drinking and talking. I did not look in. He would not be there, amongst the throng.
The place was already warm and hazy with lamp oil and taper smoke. Further on it seemed quiet. Once, something attracted attention. I stepped into a room and found normal commerce in action. The girl was in the saddle. I quipped, `Glad to see you're on top of things!' and whipped the door shut on them.
Reaching stairs I started climbing. At the landing I paused to listen. Behind me all sounded normal. No shouts of alarm. Martinus and the others must so far be undiscovered. It would not last.
Still no sign of Tibullinus and Arica. I opened more doors, more gently this time. I found either empty rooms or flesh trade of one kind or another. More kinds than I had ever heard of in fact, though I had no time to make detailed notes.
The brothel seemed busy, but not in flourishing party mode. No one stopped me. No one even challenged my presence. Balbinus would have guards, the Miller for instance. I would have to get past them; I had not even seen them yet.
The longer I was in there, the more urgent became my feeling that I needed to escape. I had come so far that if anything went wrong, fighting my way out would be impossible. I had been a spy scouting in hostile citadels many times before, but then I had stood some chance of disguising my identity. I was too well known here. Helena had been right. We were probably walking into a trap. My skin crawled as I began to feel the certainty that someone was fully expecting me.
There was a faint odour of incense in the air. I thought I recognised my location. I hit a wider corridor, where I remembered that the rooms were grander, though I felt no need to investigate now. I could hear music. I discerned light, and laughing voices. My stride increased. At the last moment memory failed me and without warning I crashed into the large room with the sunken entertainment area where Petro and I had reckoned orgies might be staged. I pulled. up short, facing the certainty that something grossly pornographic had either been enacted in the recent past or was about to take place. As the braziers wreathed, burning an exotic fuel, the atmosphere hit me in the gullet; the inescapable message was that nobody who entered here would want to plead he was too honest to participate.
Candelabra stood all around the upper seating bank. Garlands of roses and other musky flowers coiled and writhed from every surface. There was a small band of musicians idly tuning up a hand drum, panpipes, tambourines and a curled flute. The musicians wore pleasingly friendly expressions and diagonal wisps of seethrough drape. A smiling man in satyr's costume approached the full gear of hairy trousers, goat hooves, highly visible naked working parts. His face, with its paint and fragile smile, was a disturbing contrast to the prominent masculine attribute. He gestured a welcome to me with a dreamy air. In the centre of the floor four exquisite young girls, none of them older than fifteen, were performing warm-up stretches with a languid grace that spoke all too strongly of the nature of their act. They wore no clothes, even before their tableau commenced.
On the outer rim, men waited. Some tasted wine; others prodded at the serving staff or picked their teeth.
Opposite me stood the doorway that led to Lalage's rooms. There was another door. Either side of it were two long torches thrust into waist-high urns, blazing with a sweet odour of something akin to applewood. Before it lay an irregular, striped mat, the skin of some dead carnivore. To one side an extremely muscular man was chatting
