“You are the first man to make me respond in a long time,” she told me. “Do you think you can do it again?”
I wondered where I could find a horse with a full intestine in a hurry. I wondered how I could get him up the stairs to her second-story bedroom. I wondered how I might get him to perform on cue.
“I can only try,” I told the Princess.
“Then do so at once.” She flung back the bedclothes.
My sense memory reacted to the sight of her body once again writhing in the moonlight streaming through the window. However, like the first time, I couldn‘t see her face. It was in the shadows.
No matter. It was her body I must satisfy. I set about doing so to the best of my ability.
“It’s not the same,” Princess Julia complained after a while.
“That’s what makes horse racing.” I redoubled my efforts.
I was redoubling them again when the door burst open. A platoon of centurions marched into the room. I was grabbed by the scruff of my butt and hurled to the floor. I lay there face down, a spear point playing dominoes with my spinal discs, a heavy boot grinding my neck into my Adam’s apple, while the commander of the soldiers read a decree from the Emperor Augustus himself.
“To the Roman Senate: This day I do denounce my daughter Julia as a shameless adulteress and lecher. I further denounce her for committing unnatural acts with members of both sexes and beasts both of the field and domesticated. I still further denounce her for carnal behavior with commoners and slaves. I even still further denounce her . . .”
The commander’s voice droned on interminably. The Emperor Augustus was a most specific and thorough man. His denunciation of his daughter was as spicy a document as I’ve ever heard. It concluded with a message to the Senate telling them that he was exiling Julia to the island of Pandataria, a barren rock off the coast of Greece, Where she would live out her days with only one woman servant for company.
The commander concluded and the guards marched off with Julia. “Hey, what about me?” I squeaked from my prone perch on the floor.
“My orders are to execute any man found with the Princess Julia immediately,” the commander told me. “You will be nailed to a wooden crosspiece and left to starve to death on the Capua-Rome highway where all may see the fate of those who defy the Lex Julia.”
Two husky centurions hauled me to my feet, picked me up by the elbows and hustled me out of the house. We marched a long way. Finally we reached a spot on the outskirts of Rome. Here they set me down while they erected the wooden crosspiece decreed. Then two of them held my arms wide and two others lifted me to the crossbar. A fifth centurion approached with what looked like a hammer in his hand. His lips were clenched and as he came closer I saw that there were nails held between his teeth.
I was about to be crucified!
I'm not the type! I couldn’t help thinking. I'm not the type at all!
Chapter Four
“ALLAY-OOP!”
One instant, arms spread wide, wrists tingling in anticipation of hammer-and-nails, I was facing up none too happily to my recent Messiah Complex. The next I was flying through the air, my toga swirling around me like a jet stream, my arms still spread wide in an effort to keep my balance as I soared towards two “catcher” acrobats.
They rolled expertly with my weight, bouncing to the floor and shifting so that I was tossed into a somersault and propelled into the air again. Two other members of their troupe caught me a second time, flipped me head-over-heels, then straightened up so that we landed on our feet, facing the audience. I followed their lead, responding to the applause with a long, low, sweeping bow.
It gave me a chance to case the house. Only it wasn’t exactly a house. We were outdoors, and most of the on-lookers were wearing outer garments over their togas and guzzling wine freely against the cold. Behind them the skyline seemed to be the same as the one I’d been looking at before my near crucifixion. Likewise their garb seemed to be Roman.
The immediate area was enclosed. It was a large area with a high stone wall marking its perimeter. Between myself and the wall were a complex of beautifully landscaped gardens, rich with the colors of autumn flowers, dazzling with the turning leaves of fruit trees. Imposing pieces of marble sculpture were arranged around the garden, some of them god figures, others animal figures, a few spouting water from the damnedest places. Closer at hand were several rows of stone benches on which the audience was seated.
Behind me, rising above the stone platform on which I was taking my bows, an imposing marble staircase rose to the patio of a majestic Roman villa built on a hillside. Now the next act, a troupe of performing dogs, appeared at the top of the steps. My fellow acrobats stopped bowing and moved off the stage. I followed their example.
As soon as we were out of the limelight, one of them turned on me. His manner was authoritative and I guessed that he was the head of the team. “Where did you come from?” he demanded.
“Out of the nowhere into the here,” I told him blithely, cryptically.
“What’s the big idea of lousing up our act?” He responded to my lightheartedness by getting nastier.
“I sort of thought I enhanced it.”
“Enhanced it!” He was indignant. “You were clumsy and your timing was off and you’re not even properly dressed!”
“Won’t anyone have any patience with a beginner?” I sighed.
“Amateurs are ruining the business,” he countered. “And I’d just like to know how you managed to pop up right in the middle of our routine.”
“That,” I told him frostily, “is a trade secret.”
I left him staring after me, puzzled and angry.
I walked to the right of the stone benches, keeping to the shadows of a grove of trees. It was night and lanterns had been strung around the gardens, but here it was relatively dark. I sat down on a bench to the rear of the others and off to one side and tried to get my bearings. Resurrection wasn’t my bag, and I was having a rough time adjusting.
It got rougher. Despite my trying to lose myself in the scenery, one pair of eyes had latched onto me and followed. Now their owner approached.
“Your pardon, acrobat—” His manner was the haughty one of an aristocrat addressing a paid performer. “—but you look familiar. Can you tell me where we’ve met before?”
I took a long time answering. The speaker was Ovid. There could be no doubt of that. And yet—
The poet was not the same man. Instead of the slender youth I’d met before, I found myself staring at a rather rotund man in his mid-thirties. The face had grown plump and showed signs of wear and tear. The curly hair was starting to turn gray at the temples.
“You are Ovid, the poet?” I asked cautiously.
“Yes.” He said it as if he was used to being recognized. “Have I seen you perform before? Is that why you look so familiar?”
“No. I believe we have met before.” I was still feeling my way.
“But where?” His tone was annoyed.
“In Rome.”
“Here? But when?”
“I’m not sure,” I told him truthfully.
“Are you from Rome?” He was determined to play Twenty Questions.
“Not originally.”
“Then where are you from?”
“Carthage.” I stayed with my previous story.
“Carthage? I’ve never been there,” he mused. “And I don’t know anyone from Carthage-—except slaves, of course. Are you a runaway slave?” he asked suspiciously.
“No.”
“Wait a minute!” Ovid snapped his fingers. “I met a man from Carthage once. A long time ago. But you can’t be him. He’s dead.”