“Senator! Did you have a pleasant voyage?” It was Flavia. She wore an expensive but relatively modest gown, and the elaborately dressed blond wig was back in place. She looked every inch the noble Roman lady, and it was hard to believe that I had seen so many more inches just two nights previously.
“It was a tolerable outing, no more than a shakedown cruise really.” “Did you see any pirates?”
“No, but we saw where they’d been. It was instructive.” She slid over to one side of the litter. “Please join me, Senator. I am sure that your labors have given you an appetite. An early dinner at my home will do you a world of good.” She caught my raised eyebrow and smiled. “My husband would like very much to talk with you.”
“Then if you will allow me to make a few arrangements here, I will be most honored.”
“Go right ahead. I like to watch sailors at their work.”
I told Hermes to haul our gear back to our quarters at the house of Silvanus and wait for me there. He didn’t like it but knew better than to argue. I left orders with my captains to be with their ships and crews at dawn, ready to sail at my orders. Out in the harbor, I could see Cleopatra’s gilded barge carrying her to the commercial wharf. I left word with Harmodias where I would be for the next few hours should I be needed.
Then I crawled into the litter beside Flavia, and she dropped the curtain. Immediately I was enveloped in a cloud of her perfume. I was not unaffected. Of course a man of my station should properly be repelled by a noble woman who wallows with the lowest dregs of society, but then I have never been very proper. And there is something undeniably exciting about such a concentration of raw, animal appetites and energies.
But, to my credit, I retained my distance. Bitter experience had taught me that many of my personal catastrophes had been brought about through my weakness for very bad women. And I had known some of the worst. Clodia, for instance. And then there was that German princess, Freda. She wasn’t really evil, just a savage like all her race, but fearsome for all that. I had encountered the younger Fulvia and a score of less famous but equally shameless women, and I had been involved with some of them and attracted by all. A bronze founder had once explained to me that glowing metal was beautiful, mysterious, and exciting; but one should never touch it with bare hands. It was sound advice.
She laid a warm hand on my arm. “Everyone says that you are a man of the world, Decius Caecilius. You are a friend of Caesar, and the old bores like Cato consider you degenerate.”
“I have been so complimented,” I admitted.
“Wonderful. The moralists are so tedious. I would appreciate it though if you would not bring up the subject of my nocturnal escapades when you speak with my husband.”
“Flavia, your pleasures are your own business and I will seek to advise neither you nor your husband, but he must be more than a bit obtuse if he does not know already.”
“Oh, he knows perfectly well how I amuse myself. It is something we have simply agreed not to discuss in the company of our peers. He has his own pastimes, and I do not interfere with them. It is a comfortable arrangement, don’t you think?”
“The world would be a happier place if other couples were so understanding,” I assured her. In truth, such liberal marital arrangements were not uncommon in Rome. Flavia was just more extreme than most in pursuit of gratification.
The house of Sergius Nobilior was only slightly less grand than that of Silvanus. Roman equites of that day, which is to say the wealthiest plebeian families, dominated banking, finance, and other businesses. Though most of them were perfectly happy to make money and stay out of the Senate, with its endless duties and burdensome military obligations, they formed a very influential power group and they dominated the Popular Assemblies. This was the class to which Sergius Nobilior belonged.
The man himself greeted me in his atrium.
“Senator! You do my house great honor. When we heard your ships had been sighted my wife swore that she would bring you back, and she usually catches her man.” He said this without seeming irony. “Please join us for some dinner. Living on ship’s food is tedious.”
“It wasn’t much of a voyage,” I told him, “but I gladly accept.” We went into the beautifully decorated triclinium and confined our talk to inconsequential things while we ate. There were no other guests, an uncommon thing in a wealthy man’s household, so I assumed he had some sort of business he wished to discuss privately. I therefore drank cautiously. So, I noted, did the two of them.
“Was your voyage productive?” he asked, as the fruit was brought out. So I told them about the island we had visited with its devastated village and its few stunned survivors.