"Tell us, my dear," Suetonius prompted, "what do you wish to say?"
It seemed Surisca had resiled abruptly from making a comment about Pachrates.
"Come on, my dear. Feel free to talk."
"I am mistaken, my lord, I confused the name with another. Please forgive me, master."
But Suetonius didn't think she was deceiving anyone in the chamber. They each realized she was hiding something of interest. Clarus interjected.
"Woman, if you have something to tell us, then tell us. Otherwise hold your tongue or do not speak," he commanded in his booming magisterial tone.
Clarus was likely to consider Surisca an uneducated foreigner of zero social status, plus a mere woman at that, who offended the proper pecking order of knowledge.
"We'll talk later," Suetonius said to Surisca with an evasive wink to ease the rebuff.
Lysias began to rise from his chair.
"Am I to be discharged, my lords, from further interview tonight?" he asked politely. Suetonius shook his head.
"No, Bithynian. We have barely begun. We must continue your interview to learn all we can about your deceased friend. Time presses upon us."
Clarus and Vestinus heaved sighs of regret. Suetonius continued.
"We have only two days to discover how and why Antinous has died. So be seated, lad. You still have not told us how Caesar came to be involved with you two fellows. We need to know. Yes, you have told us of your mutual thoughts about the erastes/eromenos custom, and of your personal friendship, but you haven't told us how you caught Caesar's eye. Explain it to us!"
Lysias drew himself back into his seat and fumbled distractedly with clothing items.
"It is an involved story, sirs. Two weeks after our hunting trek into the Pontines, Antinous and I competed in games at Polis in honor of Great Caesar's visit. We wrestled, we sprinted in armor, we cast javelin. Both Ant and I were victors in various games before Caesar's eyes.
Some days later we were summoned by Caesar's marshals to attend an Imperial Hunt being held at Councilor Arrian's estates outside Nicomedia. This was a very great honor, so we took to the opportunity with relish. I can recall that day and night well, yet we had several questions about our participation."
Lysias shifted once again into reminiscence mode and began his recollections.
"I wonder why there'll be only five or six of us?" Antinous asked me as our two ponies Tiny and Blaze ambled along a dusty road outside Nicomedia.
We were followed by our wagon stacked with provisions drawn by donkeys, and four walking servants, two spare colts in tow, plus the mule recently snared in the Pontine forests.
"Surely an Imperial Hunt would attract guys from all over the province, wouldn't it? Keen hunters would appear from everywhere," Antinous added. I too wondered about this.
"Maybe today's hunt is strictly for some special purpose? Lord Arrian said it was an occasion that should make us proud. Arrian seems to know all these things," I proposed. "Arrian and my family Elder said our palaestra wins before Caesar were the deciding factor. Caesar's assessment of the winners in their events was crucial. I beat you in the wrestle-bout as usual, Ant, and you won your javelin and armored sprint event outright, so maybe Caesar has summoned the key victors for a special celebration?"
"Yet not a single one of the other victors at the Polis games has been invited, Lys. Just we two, plus several others from across the province who didn't even compete in our games. There must be some other reason we don't yet know?"
We turned a corner of the trail where the landscape ahead opened out.
"Great Apollo, Lys! We're there! There it is!" I recall Antinous gasping.
Our party arrived at Arrian's countryside complex of stud farm, vineyards, and vegetable gardens around a palatial villa. It lies a few miles inland from the port of Nicomedia by the Sea of Marmara. The farm was the essential acreage necessary to provision Arrian's lifestyle.
But beyond the cultivated gardens and grazing paddocks lay a vast assembly of tents, pavilions, and marquees. It was the touring Imperial Household. It was the first time Ant and I had seen Caesar's famous portable palace. The massed array of tents was defended by troops bristling with armor and weapons which glistened in the morning sun. It was a spectacle of fluttering pennants, high vaulted marquees, and busy workers.
"It's Hadrian's travelling Palatine itself! Holy Zeus, Lys!" he yelped.
"I don't know what we did at the boy's games at Polis, but obviously Caesar thought we were worth seeing more of!" I found myself spluttering aloud to all.
Our party was greeted by a welcoming cohort of the Guard cavalry. We were escorted into the stockaded tent complex and ambled along its central avenue to its parade ground before a massive Imperial Marquee. It faced a long plain before the tents. This plain extended beyond the pavilions towards low hills.
The plain's rocky scrubland had been netted at the sides by attendants and slaves, with the nets extending into the far distance. It seemed the Hunt was to be held within a controlled funnel of netting, just as the huntsmen of Polis construct when trying to entrap a bear or boar to sell unhurt to dealers in animals for the arenas.
Without noticeable ceremony, Caesar Hadrian followed by Lord Arrian and other officials appeared from within the Marquee to greet our two parties. Both men were casually dressed in the long chiton tunics and loose himation swathes common to the Greek East, not the bulky Roman togas of the west of the Empire.
Hadrian seemed to be somewhat taller in this environment than he had seemed at the show-games the previous fortnight. While the youth of Polis were competing naked in the various events in their separate age and weighting grades, Antinous and I — along with all the other lads, youths, and men of the town — craned our necks to have a closer view of the Great Caesar, Hadrian, in our midst.
As you know, no women attend naked sports events, so this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the men of Polis to see their emperor at close hand. At that event Caesar's tall height and military bearing, coupled with his close-cropped beard topped by hair combed forward across his head, may have been camouflaged by his fulsome purple toga with its glittering embroideries of gilt eagles. But now, dressed in a simple Greek tunic, his tall height was evident beside the lesser stature of Arrian and other Greek notables.
To our eyes, Hadrian was lean for his age. He was in his forties somewhere, Ant and I determined, but in very good trim. His features still displayed something of the renowned good looks of his reputation as a playboy prior to becoming Princeps. His frame retained the muscle tone of the professional soldier he had been since his youth, as well as displaying several cicatrices earned at the business end of an enemy sharp. Yet his countenance had a quality whose precise years were difficult to estimate.
His attachment to his troops of the twenty-eight Legions around the Empire was said to be expressed by a lifestyle matching the austerities and hardships of a Legionnaire's training and diet. Whatever his legions could do, he could do. His daily regimen included the necessary exercises to ensure bodily condition, with marches in full pack, simple diet, and regularly assisting in digging stockade gutters or even latrine ditches. These shared disciplines endear him to the Legions. It earns their total allegiance.
Hadrian was nonchalantly chewing on a piece of fruit as we dismounted our ponies. He seemed genuinely pleased at our arrival. He and Arrian beamed at our group with broad grins whose informality jolted we youngsters while absolutely astonishing our stewards and slaves into rigidity. How are you supposed to respond when your emperor smiles at you?
"Welcome, fellow Bithynians," Arrian called to us. "You are well on time, friends."
Our entire group automatically fell to our right knees and bowed our heads. "Hail Caesar!" we proclaimed in muddy unison with a salute.