This is the kind of discussion from which I know I should flee but to which I am inexorably drawn, a moth to a candle. An inconsequential debate, not worth the time it takes to engage in it, but I am a fish mesmerized by the wriggling worm of another’s non-comprehension. Or a fisherman, determined to prevail over the thick-witted trout with a rod and line of impeccable, inescapable logic.
“Sir, surely you recognize me from our previous conversation.”
“I’ve got a terrible head for faces. One sestercius.” I was tempted to tell him the reverse was also true, but knew at once that stooping to vulgarisms would not have been helpful to my cause. Instead, I said, “Allow me to refresh your memory. I gave you two denarii for the whereabouts of tribune Cato not a quarter of an hour ago.”
“Sorry, we don’t give out the names of our clients.”
“I’m not asking for it now,” I said, my voice rising a modicum higher than I would have preferred. Exhaling, I calmed myself and planned my next move in this Game of Witless. “Here’s a proposition for you: I’ll guess where the tribune is; if I’m right, you let me in for free. If I’m wrong, I’ll pay you two sesterces.”
The old man looked offended. “Gambling is illegal,” he said, crossing his arms. I waited, staring him down. Finally, he said, “Go ahead then.”
“The laconicum,” I said triumphantly.
“Sorry, he’s in the calidarium. That will be two sesterces.”
“You said he was in the calidarium, but he wasn’t. He was in the laconicum.”
His almost bald brows raised ever so slightly. “I said I thought he was in the calidarium.”
“Aha! So you do remember me. My point is proved. Please let me pass.”
“Where is it written that you may leave the balnea Numa and return whenever you please without payment?” said the balneator. The guard yawned.
“Does the day drag so slowly for you, sir, that this is your only form of diversion?”
“I am easily entertained, sir. I might have been able to accommodate you earlier,” he said, interlacing his fingers while planting his elbows on his table, “but now, you understand, we are at capacity.”
“Not a soul has entered since we began this conversation!”
“True, but neither has anyone departed.”
“Take pity on a poor slave,” I said, reduced to begging. “I serve Marcus…well, a most vicious master, who takes no greater pleasure at the end of the day than to scrutinize every as of the accounts for which I am responsible.” Exasperation and mendacity-the contest was lost, if not to a better man, than at least to one with more persistence.
“You seem like a nice fellow; I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you: pay the two sesterces, which by your own rules you owe me fair and true. Then come back at a time of your choosing and I’ll let you pass, no charge whatsoever! What could be fairer than that?”
I reached into my purse and let two coins slide to the table from my open hand. “What could be fairer indeed. I salute you, sir, and would stay to discuss the finer points of your victory, but I am in rather a hurry. I’ll return for a written pass before I leave.”
“No need,” the old man called as I passed through the dressing rooms. “I never forget a patron.”
Once inside, I headed straight for the massage rooms. Livia’s safety is paramount, I told myself. That argument rang false, though with noble tones. Lady Cornelia had only one slave to guard them both. That reasoning was as ludicrous as it was unwise: what could I add to their party that would ameliorate their protection. Sympathy? I should have kept Malchus with me; he was both large and discreet.
I was not clear on what it was that I intended, only that I needed to see her once more before leaving this place. In the next few moments, instinct would serve me better than brains, not once, but twice. I was lucky: Livia was in the first enclosure. One could hardly call them rooms; they were roughly ten-foot square spaces formed by draperies which could be drawn open or left closed. The curtain between Livia’s and lady Cornelia’s rooms had been pulled back and tied tight against the far wall so that they might converse without obstruction. The medicus and the patrician’s daughter lay face down on raised, padded tables, naked except for towels covering their modesty. An exhilarated cacophony emanating from the enclosure just beyond gave ample and continuous evidence that massage was only one of many offerings on the balnea’s menu. Thank Aphrodite, the curtains, at least, were closed.
From where I stood, I was at least temporarily invisible: the men faced their clients, and both women had their heads turned in the direction of the athletic couple beyond. “Livia, darling,” lady Cornelia said, “for five sesterces more your masseur can make you moan like that. Shall I call for Buccio to fetch my purse?”
The muscled, bare-chested masseur with moonless midnight skin was pouring scented olive oil onto his hands. His shiny, curled hair lay so fine and tight upon his scalp it scarcely looked real. He could easily have been a warrior or a prince in his own land. He was young and smooth and exotic, and I didn’t much care for him at all. He must have had only a rudimentary understanding of Latin, for he showed no reaction to lady Cornelia’s suggestion. Unlike myself, whose breath found a high perch and refused to budge.
“You are kind, Cornelia, and unlike any highborn I have met. Oh, but that is heaven,” she said, interrupting herself as the African applied his skills to her feet. “But given the choice, and there were times when in my youth when I had none, I prefer more intimate surroundings. If you’ll allow me, it would be a privilege to say ‘no.’” Livia’s tone had slid from conversational to that voice with which all slaves are familiar, the flat, disassociated tone needed to withstand some memory better forgotten, but impossible to repress.
Exhale.
Lady Cornelia turned to her older friend, “No one is going to force you to do anything against your will here. I promise.” Young as she was, she was not naïve. She had heard the change in tone, and understood that, hard as she might try, she would never bridge the span that yawned between them with a massage or a game of trigon.
Livia pushed herself up on her elbows and said a most sincere, “Thank you.” They both recognized that even those two words, softly spoken, had the power to push them apart, each into their separate worlds.
Lady Cornelia thought for a moment, then said, “Shall I have father buy you, and set you free, then?”
“Don’t joke about such things.”
“I’m serious. More oil,” she instructed her own masseur. “My heels are like leather.”
Livia lay back down on her stomach, her right cheek on her hands. “Free.” The sound blew through her mouth with less weight than it deserved. “My mother fought for my freedom all her life.”
“Where is she now?”
“Dead, if the gods are kind. She was sent to the mines. I haven’t seen her or had word from her in twenty years.” Livia laughed, a short, mirthless sound. “Do you know what she told me: she said you could never be happy, you could never fully experience love unless you were free. Freedom was the only thing that mattered.”
“Then let me help you honor her memory by granting her most fervent wish.”
“I believed her, when I was a child. But now, I don’t know. Even if it were possible, Cornelia, to gain this prize, what would I sacrifice? You’ve seen what life is like outside the walls of your estate. Freedmen are judged almost as harshly as we are. The stigma never fades. I’m thirty-seven and no virgin. What kind of man would have me? How would I live? Without the protection and patronage of dominus, what citizen would pay to be treated by a female doctor?”