up a stripling who was holding a bronze ewer.
The music started. The audience stirred with a low ripple of lecherous anticipation. My eyes went automatically to the floor area. It was time to leave or be seduced. I had made my choice.
I walked around the edge of the room, as if searching for a space to sit. As I came to the door with the braziers I was keeping my eyes fixed on the slow and intricate patterns being wrought by the gleaming bodies of the quartet of girls. All around me were the heated faces of men looking shy while they fervently hoped we would soon reach that moment when a member of the acrobatic display would call for a volunteer from the audience.
It was certainly better than watching a grizzled Egyptian in a long nightgown performing `Where's my snake?'
I stared with the same eagerness as the rest of them, despite myself hoping to be shocked by the writhing hot properties. I was still staring as I leaned on the bronze ram's-head door handle and backed quickly through the door.
I closed it as I turned. It was solid and ornate, muffling the music instantly. Whatever I had entered was pitch-black. A short distance away I could hear a shuffling noise, joined at one point by a metallic clink. Could this be Igullius?
I slipped the door ajar again and reached out for one of the Dioscuri torches. The brief inflow of light from the entertainment room gave me a second's warning. I sensed movement. Spinning back, I flung the torch to the right. Then from the left came a noisy snake of heavy chain, thrown by an expert who lassoed me and then dragged it tight. My torch had crashed onto a mosaic floor. By its quaking light Tibullinus the centurion flung another chain across the room so Arica could help hold me.
I had one chance. My arms were pinioned with bruising force. I threw myself backwards, jerking the second chain so that Arica fell off balance as he was catching it. Pain seared my arms and my spine jarred badly. Arica dropped towards me. I had both feet up ready, and kicked into him with all my might.
Not hard enough. He yelled, but staggered upright. The bastard must have ribs like iron. As for me, I was on my back now, trapped in a mesh of links that Tibullinus was threshing tauntingly. Arica relieved his hurt feelings by stamping on my face. I managed to roll aside, but his great boot creamed down my scalp alongside one ear, tearing off skin and hair. They pulled me around the floor, knocking into the torch, though it failed to ignite me. There were enough restraints on me to subdue a maddened elephant. As I fought to resist, I roared out a name or two when I could, hoping help would come. I should have known better. My own name is Didius Falco and help for me is the last gift the Olympian gods toss down.
In the end my dead weight must have tired them. I lost track of the kicks I had received. They lashed me up and attached part of the cold knotwork to a pillar. Tibullinus produced his centurion's vinewood stick, and amused himself by describing in picturesque terms what he would do with it. I pretended to be a pervert and slavered eagerly. If he came near enough at least I could spit on him.
Again, no such luck. They knew there were others with me. They promised a feast of torture later, then left with an appearance of urgency. Not long afterwards the fallen torch spluttered and went out.
I was in despair, but worse followed. How long I lay in the dark with my arms going numb I cannot say. It must have been an hour or so. There had to be time for Helena Justina to rush to the Aventine and take action she thought appropriate. The person she sent here had to start searching for me, and Tibullinus had to find and overpower him. By the time the door opened, I had heard the musicians in the room outside drive themselves into a frenzy – matched no doubt by the girls and their customers. I had also wasted considerable effort calling out to the exhausted company after the noise died down. Whatever their perverted tastes, they had no interest in a shackled man.
Then the door cracked open. Tibullinus did not bother bringing light into the room. He flung his captive headlong, gave him a good kicking, chained him up, spoke his usual attractive oration, and marched out again.
`Brisk,' I said into the familiar darkness. `Though comforting in its warm predictability.'
My new companion groaned. Maybe he was suffering from being kicked. Maybe he was just happy to be sharing his captivity with me.
After a few moments he recovered himself sufficiently to break out into banter. `This is the last time.' His voice was hoarse. He forced himself to have a rest. `This is the last time, Falco.' I laid my head against the pillar behind me and sighed reflectively. `Next time you're in deadly danger, I'll stay at home and stroke the cat.'
`Thank you,' I said, inserting a quiet note of humility which I knew would drive him wild. `I'm touched at you coming to assist me – though it's not much use if you get yourself trussed up as well. But thank you, Lucius Petronius, my loyal friend.'
LXI
Something dangerous was happening to my arms. I mentioned it to Petro. He was not so tightly shackled as me, probably because he had been chained up only after being knocked downstairs, hammered, and hit into the middle of next week with a large vase. He had not had my opportunities for increasing the torque by wild acrobatics. He expressed kind concern for my predicament, followed by the logical question of what did I expect him to do about it?
More time passed.
`Petro, where are your men?'
`What men? When Helena Justina had finished berating me, I ran straight here.'
`Wonderful.'
`Anyway, how could I call for reinforcements? I'm not here. I've been sent to the country.'
`You didn't go.'
`You bet I didn't. Not once I heard you'd cajoled that fool Martinus into some disastrous scheme.'
`Well I'm glad you're here,' I told him warmly.
`Go to Hades,' he instructed, though in the tone of a friend. After a while I said, `I heard about the attempt to get you.' `Stupidity.'
`Balbinus is not stupid. He knows you're the one he should worry about.'
`You're right. I should have expected trouble.' Petronius agreed to discuss it. His personal danger had been preying on his mind, and there was no one else with whom he could share his thoughts.
His wife Silvia would have run amok in distress, and presumably Rubella thought imposing temporary exile showed sufficient sympathy. `The false fire alarm was a set-up, of course. Someone knew I was working late that night.'
`Any ideas?' I enquired, with caution.
`Someone in the team. Whoever set up Linus, presumably.' The merest change in his voice acknowledged at last that I had been right about the cohort containing a traitor.
`Know who it was?'
`I've had suspicions for some time. I haven't tackled the issue yet.'
There was a silence. He did not tell me the name of his suspect. Well that was fine. Nor did I tell him mine.
`So,' I exclaimed brightly. `Why were you working late? Reports?'
`No. While you and Martinus were playing hide-and-seek in a chop shop, some of us had work to do. Well, Rubella's idea of it. I've been caged up with the Temple of Saturn auditor – you know, the one who was working on the confiscation of the Balbinus estate.'
`Anything useful emerge?'
`Not unless you want to split your sides at the news that Plato's Academy is a lease Balbinus had laundered. This henhouse had been given away as part of his daughter's dowry. So its landlord is wimpy Florius.' We
