I was right on both counts. For what must have been the best part of half an hour, I could hear the clatter of dishes in the front part of the house, then laughter in the rear room where the cookery took place. (There was no proper kitchen in a place like this, because of the possibility of fire, but — as I knew from previous visits to the house — a room with a cooking brazier set on stone flags against the wall, where simple things, like the stew I’d had tonight, could be prepared.) From the merriment I guessed the slaves had done their tasks and were enjoying the remains of the altar sacrifice: by tradition the household staff can generally eat whatever food offerings the gods have not consumed themselves.
I began to wonder if the household ever went to bed, but one by one the voices died away and all the movements ceased. I sat up cautiously and — in the dark, since the page had taken my oil-lamp away — began to feel with my feet for my sandals which were underneath the bed. I had just located one of them and was about to lace it on, when I heard a muffled creaking from the door. I snatched my feet up — sandal and all — and lay quickly down again, pulling the bed-rug up about my ears.
Just in time — the page appeared again, holding the lighted taper high to peer at me. I could just discern his silhouette against the candle-glow outside, though I took care to keep my eyelids almost closed.
I closed them tighter as he came over to the bed. ‘Still fast asleep,’ he murmured to someone waiting in the hall.
‘Then I suppose it’s safe for us to go to bed ourselves.’ I recognized the doorman’s growling voice. ‘If there’s any hint of trouble, you know where I am.’
This was not an encouraging exchange to overhear, since I was still hoping to get out of here. I was no match for the slaves, if it came to struggling — Marcus likes his boys athletic as well as beautiful — and as for tangling with the bear! My blood ran slower at the very thought.
Still, I would deal with that problem when I came to it. In the meantime I was struggling to keep completely still. At last, after what felt a lifetime, the light retreated and the door was closed again. I heard the scuffle as the page rolled out his sleeping-mat. I dared not make a move till I was sure he was asleep, though I was increasingly impatient at the wait.
Every moment made it harder to get around the town: people shut up shops and houses after dark and the streets were shadowy and dangerous. Few people did much work by candlelight, so unless they were feasting or attending funerals, respectable families went to bed betimes and stayed there until dawn. The night was the province of the underworld, in every sense: thieves, beggars, paupers, prostitutes — and ghosts. I did not want to leave here any later than I must.
Finally I judged that it was safe to move. I still had one sandal halfway on my foot and with a little effort I found the other one. I was about to lace them up, when I had another thought. My hobnails would inevitably make a noise — I remembered the centurion clattering down the stairs — much safer to wait until I was outside. I picked my sandals up and resolved to carry them.
I did not attempt to leave the bedroom by the passage door. My expedition to the fuller’s pot had taught me that, by going the other way, I could get out through the master’s room — provided that I did not walk into anything — and emerge further down the hall, nearer to the atrium and the outer door. My eyes had got accustomed to the darkness now and I could make out the corner of the bed, the outline of the cupboard and the chest, by the faint glow of the brazier by the wall.
Gingerly, carrying my sandals by their straps, I edged towards the intermediate door. It opened at my touch and I was pleased to see that here in Marcus’s bedroom the shutters were not closed and a faint light was filtering from the street. I tiptoed over to the window-space and looked out of it. There was still a group of would-be purchasers around the wine-shop door, though most of them were honest slaves by now, clutching the amphorae that they’d filled — to carry home to whatever master might have sent them there. Slaves in cloaks and tunics! That was good for me. I could attempt to merge with them when I got out. Supposing that I ever managed that!
Very cautiously I crossed the room and opened the outer door into the hall. In the shadows I could see the humped shape of the slave, wrapped in a blanket outside my former room. He had his back to me, which was doubly fortunate, so I closed the master’s door behind me and stole silently out into the deserted atrium.
There was a single oil-lamp as the page said, and in the darkness its rays spread very wide, though it was placed before the altar and did not light the route which I would have to follow to gain the outer door. There were compensations — it was safer to confine my path to the darker areas — but several times I almost barged into a table or a chest, and once I overturned a little statue from its plinth and only just managed to catch it as it fell. I held my breath lest I’d disturbed the page, but he only sighed softly and rolled over in his sleep.
The servants had taken my cloak when I arrived and I did not know what they had done with it, though I was hopeful of finding it in the outer vestibule. So when I reached that area, I was busy peering round to see if I could see it anywhere — and almost walked into what was right in front of me.
The doorman was lying stretched out on the floor. He looked even bigger than he’d looked when standing up — his massive body seemed to take up all the space there was and he was blocking the entire entrance-way. He lay diagonally, as though the area was not long enough for him: his head (which was towards me) was resting on my rolled-up cloak and the bulk of him was wrapped up in an outsized blanket-cape. He was lying on what might have been a rug and he looked so comfortable that I wondered if he slept here every night.
Certainly he was sleeping now. He was snoring — not an imitation snore but a whistling snuffle which would be hard to feign — so I crept forwardly hopefully. But (and it was a considerable ‘but’) his feet were actually pressed against the outer door, so that — even if I could have somehow stepped across his sleeping form without disturbing him — any attempt to open it would wake him up at once. What’s more, I realized, peering at the hinge, it was designed to swing inwards, and there was no room for that. There was not the shadow of a chance of getting out this way.
As I stood there considering what to do, the bear began to stir. Perhaps he was somehow conscious of my presence, as I had been of his, but I did not tarry to find out. I slipped back to the shadows of the atrium and hid there in the darkest corner, trying not to shiver audibly.
There was a shuffling and a grunting and the bear appeared, but to my great relief he did not come into the room, simply stood in the doorway looking up and down — mostly at the passage opposite, where the page-boy was still asleep. I did my best to look like a piece of furniture but he hardly glanced in my direction anyway, simply wrapped his cape around him, grumbling, and went back to his post. I heard him lowering himself on to his mat, and shortly afterwards the snores began again.
After a moment I risked letting out a sigh. I’d been standing so motionless I hadn’t even breathed. Then, slowly — and even more cautiously than I’d come — I stole back the same way. The door of Marcus’s bedroom squeaked alarmingly as I pushed it open and I slipped into the little vestibule inside, ready to protest that I had come to use the pot. But nothing happened. The page-boy did not appear and after a few moments I felt safe to move again.
It was the open shutters that gave me the idea. I knew that the window-space looked out on to the street, Perhaps, with a little enterprise. .? I went to have a look.
The wine-shopkeeper was in the shadows locking up his shop. The last of his customers had evidently gone and he’d snuffed his candles out, though there was still a lot of noise and light from the direction of the hot-soup stall and more shouts and laughter from the taverna down the street. If I was really going to scramble out, I’d have to do it quickly, before everyone went home. I did not want to draw attention to myself: any late straggler on the street was liable to be suspected of nefarious intent and questioned by the watch. I leaned a little further through the window-space, trying to judge how far I’d have to jump.