understand ruffians were seeking to kill them?'
'Yes. Quaestor Julianus is protecting them at the Companion's stables. They will rejoin your group at the assembly before dawn.'
'When do you think Caesar will demand our report on Antinous's death?' Clarus enquired. 'He told us it is to be by dawn today, no later.'
'I have no idea, Senator. He hasn't mentioned your investigation. Dawn is to be the Bithynian's memorial, plus the inauguration of the new city of Hadrianopolis. But everyone who's anyone is summoned to attend. It is likely to include the stalking wolves.'
'But Geta, how will we determine who are these wolves and the She Wolf?' Suetonius asked helplessly.
'Use your wits, Special Inspector. Caesar relies on your intuition and perceptiveness,' he said. 'We must identify and destroy the stalking wolves. We must uncover what actually happened to the young Bithynian.'
CHAPTER 30
Brazier cauldrons raised high on iron tripods cast shimmering flames into the night sky. They flickered and flared above the wide expanse of the Imperial Household's reception platform. Pre-dawn mists clung close to the earth snaking in thin, meandering drifts.
A dais draped in scarlet cloth was surmounted with the emperor's personal standard while gilded stools and chairs awaited the arrival of their Imperial occupants. Rows of Horse Guards and Praetorians in polished uniforms glinted beneath the flickering light.
Ghostly shapes swathed in black wools or silk shawls emerged from the darkness of the surrounding lanes and alleys preceded by lantern-bearers. The figures streamed in mourning's deep solemnity to their appointed stations around the platform. Few spoke except for an exchange of murmurs accompanied by a restrained nod here and there.
To one side stood a high palanquin with stalwart Egyptian bearers at respectful attention. The waspish Pachrates and his thickset associate Kenamun were arrayed in majestic leopard-skin mantles above their starched linens, and adorned with bracelets, chains, and jeweled ornaments. They brandished ornate scepters of office while methodically flicking insect whisks of bleached horsetails as they stood before the bier. A brace of Nubian temple guards stood watch nearby with glistening, long-bladed assegais shining beneath the brazier light.
The four-posted palanquin supported a sumptuous bed of white blooms exuding a potent scent. The pale figure of Antinous lay along the bier atop his white cloak, his arms crossed to each shoulder in the Egyptian style, in seeming relaxed repose.
He was dressed in his silvery parade-ground hunting uniform of leathers inlayed in white enameled decors. His white-crested Companions' helmet in the Attic style and silver cavalry mask won as a trophy at the Trojan Games of Athens, were stowed to one side. His gladius sword and dagger lay belted at his right hip as befits someone disposed to left-handed action. A finely-worked silver filigree corona wreathed blond coarse-chopped locks.
Suetonius noted there was no jewel on his hand, especially not the vivid lapis lazuli Abrasax ring gifted by Hadrian.
Only the unhealthy pallor of skin's complexion suggested Antinous was other than taking his ease. His powdery hue confirmed it was certain to be eternal. Six Egyptian canopic jars, three along each side sealed with sculpted stoppers in the shape of the goddess Isis, attended him in his eternal slumber.
Suetonius, Clarus, Strabon, and Surisca approached from Vestinus's chambers led by Companions' grooms holding torches high. Thais and Lysias followed close behind. Lysias was holding Thais's hand.
Both gasped at their first sight of the palanquin and its occupant.
Thais distractedly continued walking towards the funerary carriage but Lysias drew her back by one elbow and a gentle squeeze. Suetonius detected tears welling at the rim of her eyes, and perhaps Lysias's too. Neither had seen their friend since the memorable day prior to his death. The spectacle of his eternal repose unsettled them.
The Augusta, Vibia Sabina, with several female courtiers accompanied by Julia Balbilla and a brace of Horse Guards, approached from a laneway leading from The Dionysus moored offshore. The band of women moved collectively as a cabal of somber, shrouded black veils.
Sabina took her seat in a high-backed matron's chair on the dais with Balbilla standing a pace off nearby. Both demurely retained their head cover in such a public place.
Suetonius cast his eyes around this taciturn, brooding ensemble. He made mental notes of several of the attendees in the light of the recent testimonies. Here, he contemplated, were the governing elite of Rome with their assorted hangers-on, all arrayed in rank order in an improbable silence in the desert's deep dark several hundred miles distant from any real centre of civilization.
Governor Flavius Titianus and his consort Anna Perenna stood to one side on the official dais accompanied by a cohort of Alexandrian Praetorians. The consort's ashen face-paint and bleached powders with striking kohl outlines and scarlet highlights pierced the night's gloom. Centurion Quintus Urbicus, stood ahead of his troop to one side of the consort, his fish-scale armor, crested helmet, and weapons glinting beneath the flames.
Arrian, Vestinus, Alcibiades, Phlegon, Favorinus, the astrologer Aristobulus, and even the ever-elegant Lucius Commodus risen untypically early, arced around the other side. Each was garbed in the black cloth of formal Roman mourning. Fellow-travelers from the Senate, advisors, Legion commanders, administrators, and accompanying academics, poets, architects, writers, or artists were arranged in a scaled priority around the platform.
Tribune Macedo of the Praetorians and Decurion Scorilo of the Horse Guard stood ahead of a detachment of their respective corps. Scorilo's face markings, though similar to others of his Guard, now had a disturbing effect upon the biographer. Suetonius's recollection sifted through the manifold impressions of the interviews of the past forty-eight hours, and such facial inks now communicated ambivalence.
He also noted how Scorilo's right arm, which crossed his body to permit his weapon hand to lie in readiness upon his sword hilt at his left, disclosed an unexpected object of interest. The jewel upon the Bastarnae Celt's right index finger attracted the Special Inspector's eye immediately.
'Surisca, my dear,' he whispered, 'carefully look to Decurion Scorilo's right hand and describe the jewel you see. My eyes can't quite perceive its details. Be discreet. Describe it to me.'
Surisca provided an informed description of the ornament. Suetonius emitted a soft 'Aha, I see!' Its implication had relevance, he realized. Useful connections were falling into place speedily in his mind now, though their full implications were uncertain.
Salvius Julianus was accompanied by four lictors bearing their fasces symbol of justice, Rome's punishment axe embedded in a ring of thrashing rods. He arrived with four Companions' grooms bearing torches. They were late, and so hurried from the direction of the river. Julianus was nursing a bulky globular shape in his arm's crook beneath his cape.
He nodded a gesture of affirmation towards Suetonius as he approached. Suetonius responded with a smile of appreciation. The quaestor's efforts were gratefully received, especially as he had also brought with him a uniformed officer of the Alexandrian auxiliaries. This was the jetty clerk who monitored activity at the approaches to The Alexandros.
The fellow was obviously unnerved to be in the midst of such exalted company until his eyes settled and fixed upon the supine figure on the bier. Then they were wide in dismay.
When a time-caller announced the final hour to dawn of this third day of The Isia, the Imperial marquee's curtained enclosure hoist open and Hadrian's retinue stepped forward in single file from within.
Hadrian was wearing the robes of his office as Pontifex Maximus, the supreme high priest of the Romans. The voluminous white toga with its frontal and rear scarlet flashes and its priestly pallium draped dramatically around, all edged in gilt eagles, glistened beneath the torchlight. He tossed back his head cowl to reveal a slender wreath of leaves of gold surmounting his head.
Suetonius drew his eyes back to Scorilo. The object of interest adorning the decurion's right hand was no longer evident. It had been removed sometime during Hadrian's arrival and probably stored in the leather pouch at his belt. Suetonius made a mental note of this odd event.
