affirmatively. He was agreeing to something.
Antinous deeply bowed acknowledgement, withdrew slowly from the couch, but instead of duplicating the earlier stumbling obsequiousness of the other boys, he simply strode thoughtfully back to his own couch. It was now my turn to enquire.
'Well? How did you go? What was in the scroll?'
Antinous looked to me in an oddly remote way. It was an expression I had never seen in him previously. Then he brightened.
'Caesar has awarded me a scholarship to the Palatine College in Rome.' Distraction then returned to his features.
'Me too, Ant! Will your Father agree? He will, surely?'
Antinous paused for a moment to think about it and looked beyond me towards some distant horizon.
'Agree? I don't know. I'll have to see, Lys.'
'What else did Caesar say?'
I simply couldn't resist asking. Some other matter had transpired at the couch. Once again Antinous assumed his trance-like gaze.
'I don't know. I'll have to wait and see.'
CHAPTER 10
Lysias continued his testimony before his hearers. They were entranced by his tale.
'We bunked down that night in our assigned marquee on clean straw still dressed in our wine-splashed symposium garb. Antinous and I made sure we slept under separate cloaks so as not to generate gossip among the servants. Personally, I wanted to hug him close in anticipation of the remarkable times we would be having some day soon at the Palatine College in Rome.
Except for the peeps of pleasure emitted by Thaletas lying with his girl flautist, or the muffled moans from the councilor's son from Nicomedia with his militia officer, we fell to sleep quickly. It had been a long, exciting day.
I was awakened by whispered voices and accompanying shuffling. Without shifting from beneath my cloak facing away from the source of the disturbance, I sensed I heard Antinous rise in the darkness from his bedding accompanied by some other person.
Perhaps, I thought, Antinous was heading for the latrine to relieve himself, except he was heading in the wrong direction for that. After a moment or two I sluggishly turned to face the direction of the action only to witness his cloaked outline and another hooded figure disappearing into the night through the marquee flaps.
From the stature of the other person with his beard revealed fleetingly in the moonlight I realized the other person was Geta, Caesar's assistant.
I thought this was a curious turn of events, especially as I didn't expect Antinous to be especially interested in Geta. He wasn't his 'type', I'd gathered from conversations over the years. Not that Antinous's 'type' was ever clearly articulated. So I too quietly arose and, wrapping myself in my cloak, followed both figures a dozen paces distant out of the tent into the chill night air. Antinous and Geta were bustling speedily towards the Imperial Marquee and its gardened amphitheater.
Though darkness prevailed, the occasional bright moonlight and some sporadic torches lit the camp's paths. However no sentinels or duty-guards were apparent, which struck me as odd in an Imperial encampment.
Nevertheless I followed the two figures at sufficient distance not to be detected. I lingered in passing shadows and took refuge beside tent walls or the plinth of a statue. But both figures were businesslike in their speed towards the Marquee.
At the site of the evening's symposium where the couches and much of the paraphernalia of the celebration remained in place beneath the moon's gray pallor, the two figures halted to exchange words. Because of the concave of the arena before the draperies of the Imperial complex, I could catch reflected snatches of their voices.
I felt ashamed to be so sneakily eavesdropping on my dear friend in this manner, it was not our style of friendship. But I was intrigued by the situation and its clandestine nature. I wondered what, by Hades, was going on?
At the end of their journey two Horse Guards were slumped snoozing at their watch by the Marquee's entrance, which I was certain was a serious military offence deserving of penalty. They were slumped close to a single brazier casting barely enough light to illume a cupboard. Geta halted Antinous at the Marquee's entrance. Neither had noticed their follower, me, slipping furtively through the shadows.
'Wait here, Bithynian, until further notice,' Geta instructed in a hushed voice which resonated across the amphitheater. He then slapped each guard smartly around the head with his studded glove to waken them, and the three figures disappeared together into the Marquee's dark interior.
From where I had taken refuge I could readily observe Antinous standing silently by one of the stripped dining couches facing the tents. His tall slim figure was shrouded by his cloak wrapped around his body and swathed over his head against the chill. He was bathed in drifting silvery moonlight as clouds raced the autumn sky.
Several minutes elapsed. Standing in solitude patiently before the Marquee, Antinous was motionless. Slowly it dawned on me another figure had silently appeared from the dimness within the Marquee into the moonlight's haze at the entrance. Even in the dismal glow I could recognize by height, stature, comportment, and beard it was Caesar.
He too was swathed in a cloak to ward off the cool night air. He had no guards or other retinue. Moments elapsed as the two figures stood silently facing each other.
'You came, lad, after all?' Caesar eventually asked. He strolled towards my friend. 'I thought my invitation might frighten the heart out of you and deter you? You have courage, young man.'
The words reached me in muffled but adequately audible tones.
After a formal bow of deference, Antinous deliberated for some moments uncertain of what might be an appropriate response to the query. He shuffled where he stood.
Hadrian unfurled his cloak to reveal he was standing in a rough woolen legionnaire's sleeping tunic which hung loosely from his upper torso displaying the spare, campaign-hardened tissues of a professional soldier.
For a man somewhere in his forties, the emperor presented an image in the moonlight which did honor to his decades as a Commander of the Legions, the Imperator, the officer who shared in his troop's training, their engineering fieldwork, road building, stockade construction, crude diet, and other military disciplines. Despite the occasional mild cough, his bodily stature and sheer physical presence were strikingly worthy of the appellation Caesar.
'You asked that I should come, my lord,' Antinous responded politely. 'I did not think I had reason to be afraid. Should I be, sir?'
His voice was quite unthreatened by his circumstance. By Zeus, I had to admire his confidence!
'Afraid? Do you wish to be afraid, lad?' Caesar responded with a teasing grin. 'It was a personal request, my boy, a friendly invitation, not your Caesar's command. Yet I must admit I would have been disappointed by your absence,' Hadrian uttered candidly. 'I too know how an emperor can seem intimidating to a young fellow from my own predecessor Trajan's days.'
Antinous was unsure what to reply.
'If Caesar invites, surely it is a citizen's duty to respond?' he offered diplomatically. But then he dared to shift into a presumptive tone.
'Besides, if I hadn't come I wouldn't have had this opportunity to share in Caesar's company so intimately, my lord. Would I?'
I perceived Caesar was somewhat taken aback by this courteous response. Antinous continued in a similar vein.
'I cannot deny I am, to be honest, excited by this opportunity, my lord,' he added with a touch of studied bravado. They stood silently together for a few moments.
'Let me look at you in better light, lad. Come closer,' Hadrian summoned as he reached to back-flip Antinous's
