Saturnalia(18)
Then I remembered the dense, choking fumes in the first tent. Surely the woman Bella had been burning hemp and thorn apple and poppy gum to soften up her victims. I had been under the influence of these vision-inducing drugs when I sought out Furia. Thus did I comfort myself and salve my wounded pride.
Hermes came in as I was bandaging my hand.
“What happened?”
“I cut myself shaving. What took you so long? Lucius Caesar’s house isn’t that far away.”
“I got lost.” A patent lie, but I chose to ignore it. “Anyway, Julia’s at home and she sends you this.” He held out a folded papyrus, which I took.
“Fetch me something to eat, then get my bath things together.” He went off to the kitchen. He came back a few minutes later with a tray of bread and cheese. I munched on this dry fare, washed down with heavily watered wine, while I read Julia’s hastily scrawled letter.
Decius, it began, without any of the usual greetings and preliminaries, I rejoice to learn that you are in Rome, although this is not a good time for you to be in the city. I can only guess that your being here means trouble. Ah, my Julia, always the romantic. My father is with Octavius in Macedonia, but my grandmother is here, keeping close watch on me. I will find some pretext to meet with you soon. Stay out of trouble.
Thus ended Julia’s letter. Well, it had been written rather hurriedly. I remembered that there was a marriage tie between the Caesars and Caius Octavius. As I finished my frugal luncheon, I tried to unravel the connection. His wife was Atia, and now I remembered that Atia was the daughter of Julia the sister of Caius and Lucius Caesar by a nonentity named Atius. This Octavius was the birth father of our present First Citizen, a fact of which we were blissfully unaware at the time, and that is the extent of the First Citizen’s connection with the Julians, although he likes to pretend that the blood of the whole clan fills his veins.
From my house Hermes and I walked to a street near the Forum where one of my favorite bathhouses was situated. It was a fairly lavish establishment, although the baths of those days were nowhere near the size of the ones built recently by Agrippa and Maecenas, with their multiple thermae and exercise rooms, libraries, lecture halls, plantings, statuary, and mosaics. This one had a few decent sculptures looted from Corinth, skilled masseurs from Cyprus, and hot baths small enough for a dozen or so men to converse easily. Good conversation with one’s peers is half the pleasure of the baths, and it is difficult to be heard in the vast, echoing thermae of today, which will accommodate a hundred or more bathers at a time.
The bathhouse I used was patronized mainly by senators and members of the equestrian order and was therefore a good place to pick up on the latest doings of the government. Leaving my clothes in the atrium under Hermes’s less than watchful eye, I went as quickly as possible through the cold plunge, then into the caldarium to soak luxuriously in the hot water. As I entered the dark, steamy room I was disappointed to see that there were only two others in the bath; men I did not know.
I greeted them courteously and stepped into the deliciously hot water, then settled chin deep to soak. I had my back to the door and had been in place no more than a few minutes when my new companions looked up toward the entrance with alarm on their faces. I did not bother to look around as men filed in behind me and climbed into the bath, big, hard-faced men, covered with scars. They were arena bait of the worst sort. My two erstwhile companions hastily vacated their places. Soon six hulking brutes shared the water with me, and they left a space to my right. Another man lowered himself into that space, youngish, good-looking in a dissipated fashion, and decorated with only a few minor scars, some of which I had given him.
“Welcome back to Rome, Decius,” he said.
“Thank you, Clodius.” He had me cold. There was absolutely no way I could fight or escape, and it would be undignified to try. So much for my predicted long, long life.
“Be at ease, Decius. I’m a tribune designate and I have a great many important things on my mind just now. You are the least of my concerns for the moment. Don’t cross me and you have nothing to worry about.”
“I rejoice to hear it,” I said, meaning every word.
“I won’t even hold your friendship for that mad dog Milo against you as long as you don’t ally yourself with him against me.”
“I’m not looking for trouble, Clodius,” I said.
“Excellent. We understand one another then.” He seemed marginally more sane than usual, not that this was saying much. “As a matter of fact”—he was oddly hesitant—“there is a way we might patch things up between us, start off clean, so to speak.”