I was on my knees like that with my hands on top of my head because I was still waiting for Alexander’s descending sword to lop off my head. But I didn’t bother trying to explain. Somehow I had the feeling that the centurion wouldn’t dig. I did what he asked. I fell in line with the others.
The line was made up of naked men. That explained why my own sudden, naked appearance in their midst had gone unnoticed. I was right in style—-except for two things. The first was the fact that all of the male bodies except mine had been heavily anointed with scented oils. The second was my gilded gonads. The goldenness stood out like a sore thumb.
However, at first it went unnoticed. The men standing on either side of me were too occupied with their own gripes to pay any attention to my special attributes. “If anybody’d told me I’d end up a bloody faggot actor, I never would have joined the Praetorian Guard,” the man on my left grumbled.
“You can bet it was different when Claudius was emperor,” the man on my right agreed. “Soldiers were soldiers then!”
“Now Nero’s turning us all into chorus boys,” the first man griped.
“The Empire’s falling to pieces, and what does he do?” the second wanted to know. “He keeps half the army at home so he can stage his damn fool Greek pageant.”
“It’s all Poppaea’s fault. She encourages him.”
“Yeah. Rome hasn’t been the same since he knocked off his first wife and married her.”
Nero? Poppaea? Rome? I was beginning to get my bearings. Papa Baapuh’s time machine had whisked me out from under the Greek sword in the nick of time. And now, unless I was very much mistaken, I was in Rome in the time of Nero. I fished for confirmation.
“Have either of you two fellows noticed any big fires in Rome lately?” I asked innocently.
They looked at me blankly. “Not unless you mean the kind of fires Poppaea’s always stirring up,” the one on my left replied. “Two years of being married to Nero, and she makes no secret of wanting a man to quench her fires!”
That told me what I wanted to know. Nero had married Poppaea in 62 A.D. after murdering his mother and his first wife. If that was two years ago as the soldier said, then the year I found myself in must be 64 A.D. That was the year of the conflagration which destroyed Rome. But it evidently hadn’t taken place yet. I was mulling over what this might mean to me when the centurion ordered the line of men to attention.
Nero had arrived. Poppaea was with him. They started at the far end of the line and walked slowly down it. Every so often they would stop and discuss the genital qualifications of one of the men. Occasionally, Nero would order the centurion to make a note that a particular man’s talents were to be put to use. From what I could gather, Nero himself was producing and directing some sort of spectacular Greek pageant and this was a casting call for the orgy scene.
Coming down the line, Nero looked like an oversized bowling ball topped with a maraschino cherry. He was almost as fat as he was tall and his cheeks and nose had the ketchupy color that comes from consistent overindulgence of food and strong drink. He was a young man, still in his twenties, but he’d let himself go to corpulent seed.
Poppaea, his wife, formerly his mistress, was an attractive contrast. About an inch taller than Nero, she was one of those blonde Italian girls with the kind of fair complexion that testifies to the nomadic drift from North to South. She was well-stacked, and her Teutonic face was pretty without being beautiful. As she walked down the line of naked men, her expression seemed a mixture of sensual interest and aggressiveness. It implied that perhaps she might enjoy slashing her way down the line with a scythe.
Both she and Nero did a double take when they reached me. Nero was the first to raise his eyes. “You!” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Steve Victor.”
“Stand at attention when you address Caesar!” the centurion barked.
I stood at attention. All of me. Poppaea gasped.
“How is it that you have painted yourself so?” Nero demanded.
“Just a personal fetish,” I said helplessly.
“Well, I like it,” Nero decided. “It fits right in with the concept of splendor I wish this pageant to convey. I am pleased with your originality.”
“Caesar is pleased. Thank Caesar!” the centurion snapped.
“Thanks, Caesar,” I said.
“Bow, dog!” the centurion snarled.
I bowed.
“Why is your body not oiled like the others?” Poppaea asked.
“No matter.” Nero saved me from improvising an explanation. “He will oil it for all future rehearsals and for the performance. Now, Victor, can you use that weapon you have so ingeniously gilded?”
“As far as I know it’s in working order,” I assured him.
“Good. I shall stage the orgy scene so that you will be its focal point. It will make for an artistic arrangement.”
“A star is born,” I muttered to myself.
“What?”
“Nothing, Caesar. Thank you, Caesar.”
He beamed approval. Poppaea beamed lust. The two of them continued down the line.
When they reached the end, the centurion dismissed us. I trailed along after the other naked men from the large hall where the audition had been held to one equally large beyond it. This hall was lined with benches. On the benches each of the men had left a pile of his clothing. One of them was in for a surprise because there was now one more man than there were piles of clothes—and I was determined not to end up odd man out.
I helped myself to one of the stacks, dressed quickly, and followed the first few men outside before the theft could be detected. Not knowing what else to do, or where else to go, I continued trailing after the small group as they ambled through the nighttime streets of Rome. Eventually they came to a barracks and I followed them inside.
I was in luck. Part of the legion housed in the barracks was off on a campaign, and so there were plenty of spare bunks. I picked one on the other side of the room from those that were occupied, slipped out of the uniform I’d stolen, and got under one rough blanket. More men drifted into the barracks for the next hour or so. Then it became very quiet. Only the sounds of sleep breathing and an occasional snore broke the silence. I took advantage of my relative solitude to raise Putnam on my wrist radio.
“Steve,” he greeted me. “This is a surprise. I thought you’d been eaten by a dinosaur or something.”
“I’ve been busy,” I told him. “I’ve been knocking around with Alexander the Great and mulling over Gordian Knots.”
“Too busy playing with puzzles to call up and say hello.” Putnam sounded hurt. “Didn’t it even occur to you that I might be worried about you?”
“Putnam,” I reminded him, “you’re not my mother.”
“I worry just the same.”
“I’m touched. But if you’re so worried, why the hell don’t you get on the ball and bring me back home? Or are you too busy playing kitchy-koo with Ti Nih to be bothered?”
“Now that’s not fair, Steve. Ti Nih’s just as concerned as I am. You’d be surprised how often it takes our minds off what we’re doing.”
“As one grows older, the flesh grows weaker. And you’re not as young as you used to be, Putnam,” I reminded him nastily. “But let’s get back to my problem. I take it that Papa Baapuh fixed the doohickey that blew out.”
“If he hadn’t, you wouldn’t be where you are -- wherever that is.”
“Well, if it’s fixed, then why am I still here? Why can’t he just jump me forward again right away? Why can’t he keep doing that until he brings me all the way back?”
“We don’t have enough power, Steve. It takes time to generate. After all, his equipment is pretty primitive. Besides, you know how temperamental Papa Baapuh is. Most of the time he spends meditating with the lamas. He has to be handled with kid gloves to put in as much work on the time machine as he does. So you’ll just have to be patient.”