Saturnalia(64)

It was unusual for him to take the trouble to explain himself to me. But then, sending me off to a possibly disastrous war was an unusual circumstance. I choked back my dread and got back to the business at hand.

“They seemed uncommonly passive concerning the doings out on the Vatican. Granted Caesar has bigger things on his mind, but not the other two. A splashy prosecution is just the sort of thing you’d think men like Bestia and Varro would be looking for next year if they plan to stand for the praetorship, and there’s no reason to be aedile unless you want to be a praetor.”

He rubbed his chin absently. “Yes, it seems odd, but they probably have other plans for advancing themselves. There’s nothing we can do about it now. You can get back to your investigation, and try not to be too long about it.”

So on that unsatisfactory note I left Father’s house and began to make my way back toward my own. The celebrations were in full roar, but I had lost my taste for all the gaiety. Despondent, I trudged on toward the Subura.

It is difficult to explain how I knew I was being followed even in the midst of a raucous crowd, but I knew it nonetheless. I paused to turn around from time to time, which was easy when so many people were jostling me, but I saw no one who looked familiar or especially malevolent; but with so many in masks that would have been difficult in any case. But I had that sensation, and I’d had enough experience of danger in the streets of Rome to know that I had better not ignore my instincts.

In a jammed alleyway I darted through the open gate of an insula and into its courtyard, which was as jammed as the alley outside. People were dancing on the pavement and hanging out the windows that looked out over the courtyard from the central air shaft that towered, canyonlike, five stories overhead. Celebrators swayed precariously on the rickety balconies built, most of them in violation of the building codes, outside the windows. Everybody seemed to be roaring drunk and the wine jars were passed promiscuously about.

I took a fast drink from one of them as it flew past, ducked beneath the attempted embrace of a fat, laughing woman, and dashed through an open door. I found myself in a dark apartment where overexcited persons were embracing passionately amid the gloom. I pushed my way through sweaty bodies until I found an outside door and came out onto a street only slightly larger than the alley I had left. I chose a direction at random and followed the street until it turned into a steep stair. I took the stairs at a run, scattering people and pet dogs like grain before a threshing flail.

Celebrators whooped and laughed as I passed. Desperate fugitives are not all that rare during Saturnalia. Despite the general atmosphere of license, there are always a few humorless husbands who grow unreasonably upset upon discovering the wife and the nextdoor neighbor locked in a feverish grapple: and sometimes a slave oversteps the recognized boundaries and finds himself pursued down the street by the master, waving the kitchen cleaver and bawling for blood.

I paused, gasping, at a little square with a fountain in its center and a tiny shrine to Mercury at the corner where a street entered the square. I paused long enough to buy a couple of honey cakes from a vendor and I left them at the feet of the god, hoping that he would lend me speed and invisibility, two of his most salient qualities. I suspected that Mercury, like everybody else, had taken time off from official business, but it never hurts to try.

On such a hectic night it is easy to lose your way in Rome, but I soon had my bearings and was headed for the Subura once more. I slowed to a walk, certain that I had lost my followers. This did not mean I was out of danger. Having lost me, they might easily take a more direct route to my house and wait for me there. The logical course for me was to avoid my house and go put up with friends somewhere or else just stay in the streets and celebrate until daylight.

I was, however, still gripped by the strange mood of self-destruction that had sent me out to spy upon the witches, and playing it safe seemed to be a poor and spiritless way to proceed. Besides, it looked as if I was going to go campaigning in Gaul with Caesar, and the prospect of a horde of snarling Germans made Italian assassins seem a minor danger, relatively speaking.

My flight had gotten me turned around, and I found myself crossing the Forum. The dice games were still going on, and as near as I could tell the very same men were rolling the cubes and the knucklebones. Near the rostra, who should I find in the midst of his followers but the very man I most needed at that moment.

“Milo!” I called, waving over the heads of the reeling crowd. In that great multitude he heard and saw me instantly. That dazzling smile spread across his godlike face and he waved me over. I plowed through the mob, and the final cordon of Milo’s thugs parted to let me through.