'Interesting – her only speaking Aramaic, and you not knowing a word of that language.'
Maximus grinned. 'Oh, brother, I could tell – that is what she was trying to say in her funny lingo.'
When there was no response, Maximus dropped his trousers and undergarment to his ankles. Lifting his tunic, he took the next seat to Calgacus in the communal lavatory.
The brothel really was upmarket – it had running water. Maximus leant forward and picked up the sponge on a stick from the trough in front of him. He fidgeted with it. 'Sure, but I have almost got used to the Roman habit of having company when you shit.'
'I cannot tell you how happy that makes me,' Calgacus replied.
Although they were the only two in the privy, Maximus looked all round in an unconscious parody of shiftiness. Reassured that there was no one else there, he bent over to Calgacus and spoke quietly. 'Did you see your man?'
'Aye.'
'And…?'
'It was good.'
Maximus replaced the sponge. 'I still say it is a mistake of the Dominus to involve one of the factiones from the theatre.' He held up his hand to forestall an interruption from Calgacus that did not come. 'I grant you, the theatre gangs have the organization to get the numbers out. They are always up for trouble. There is never a riot in any city in the imperium and them not behind it – although why they usually get so worked up about some mincing dancers who have probably been taking it up the arse since they could crawl I cannot see. No, your problem is that they are too well known. Everyone knows who is the head of each factio. It makes an easy trail. The frumentarii find your man. He leads them to you. Then you lead them to Ballista. And then I am next to the pair of you in the palace cellars with someone dancing on my bollocks.'
'Aye, all life is a risk.'
'Until just now, only you, me and Ballista knew the plan. Not even Demetrius knew. Now, half the idlers in Ephesus must know.' He picked up the sponge again. 'And if we were going to a factio,' Maximus continued, 'it should have been me that talked to the head man.'
There was a horrible grating, wheezing sound. Calgacus was laughing. 'Wonderful, a half-witted Hibernian with the end of his nose missing – what could be more inconspicuous?'
Maximus bridled. 'And what about you, you old fucker? An ugly old Caledonian with a face that could turn milk at a hundred paces, fucking great dome of a head.'
'I wore a hat,' Calgacus said simply. 'Anyway, when do I get to leave the proconsul's palace? Next to no one in Ephesus knows me. My man has been well paid. How did you get on?'
With an instantaneous change of mood that even the briefest acquaintance revealed as quite customary, Maximus grinned again. 'As you would expect from a man of my qualities – wonderful. Five wild boys from Isauria. They would cut their own mothers' throats for a few coins. And, the best of it is, they sail with the evening breeze tomorrow.'
'If they are they still alive and the frumentarii have not got them.'
'Brother, your cup is always half empty.'
'Maybe so, but as we may well not be able to tomorrow – you know, us being dead or on the rack – tonight I am going to have a few drinks and a lively-looking girl.'
They both got up and began to clean themselves with two of the sponges.
'Poor girl, but sure, you have the right of it. And tomorrow is Saturnalia. Back when I was a gladiator, I always enjoyed myself the night before a fight.' Maximus tossed his sponge back into the trough of running water. 'I think I am ready for another – that plump little Syrian. It is good of you to offer to pay.'
'I did not.'
As they adjusted their clothing, Maximus spoke softly again. 'Just so it is fixed in my mind, when do we start?'
'How many times do you have to be told? When they bring Aulus Valerius Festus, the Christian with equestrian status, into the arena.'
XXI
It was the seventeenth day of December, the first day of the festival of the Saturnalia. It was the best of days for the slaves of Ephesus, but the free men were not going to be left out. The afternoon before, they had exchanged small presents: perhaps a jar of wine, a hare or a plump bird, maybe the traditional candles and clay dolls; sometimes, among the less well to do, just a garland of wild flowers. That morning many groups of friends and colleagues had thrown dice to determine which of their number would be their King of the Saturnalia, the one whose every command, no matter how ridiculous or embarrassing, must be obeyed. Most, slave as well as free, hoped to dine on suckling pig that evening. And that was just the start. There were seven days of hard drinking and partying to be done. But the crowd gathered in the stadium for the spectacles, for the munera, did not seem particularly happy.
Up in the presiding magistrate's box, standing behind the right shoulder of his kyrios, Demetrius hardly noticed the mood of the crowd. He wished he had been given a day's leave, like Maximus and Calgacus. He loathed everything about the munera. The beast fights in the morning, the spectacular executions at noon, the sweaty, overfed gladiators huffing and puffing in the afternoon: he despised them all. It was difficult to number the reasons for his dislike. The munera were not Hellenic. The stadium had been built for something worthy, for athletics, for free citizens to run, perfect in their nakedness, competing for honour. Now, its very structure altered, it hosted slaves and criminals, worse than the savage animals, screaming, bleeding, pleading for their lives. The munera were not a thing of Hellas. They were a disgusting import; one of the very worst things that had come with the disaster of Roman rule. The munera were not only barbaric, they appealed to the basest appetites of the sordid hoi polloi. Again and again, they chanted, 'Blood on the sand,' as if no Hellene had ever made offerings before an altar dedicated to Pity.
Of course, there was something far worse than all this. Worst of all, the munera were a dangerous threat to every individual spectator. The excitement, the power of the spectacle, was hard to keep out. An unguarded moment, and in it slipped by the eyes and ears and, there, insidiously in the soul of a man, its raw emotion undermined self-control, attempted to overthrow the very rationality that made a man what he was: a man, not a beast.
A loud jeering from the crowd brought Demetrius back to his surroundings. Near the magistrate's box, a King of the Saturnalia had ordered one of his group to strip and sing. The elected man stood unhappily naked in the keen north wind. His tormentor, face blackened, threadbare imitation of royal robes flapping, hopped around him, miming the castration of the victim with a ceremonial scythe. The singer's barbaric Greek, an up-country accent from Cappadocia or Isauria, was drowned by boos and catcalls. It crossed Demetrius' mind to wonder what this King did when it was not Saturnalia. There was something very familiar about the capering figure under the tawdry get-up.
Demetrius' thoughts wandered anxiously down a well-trodden path. It was over a month since he had been nearly trapped in the lair of the Etruscan; forty days, to be precise. Demetrius wondered if he had got away with it. If the men hammering at the door had been policemen sent by the local eirenarch Corvus or, worse, imperial frumentarii, they would have tracked him down by now – if the old man had talked. Demetrius had not been back. Surely the magician would not have confessed to the treasonous question? But even now he might be in prison, cunning torturers probing him as his aged body lay tormented on the rack. Demetrius felt sick with fear. The terrible risks he had run. And what had he learned? P-E-R-F-I… Perfidia. But whose treachery would bring down the emperor Valerian? A traitor at court? The natural perfidy of easterners such as Shapur? Demetrius had risked so much, to find out so little. Sometimes he disgusted himself.
A chorus of disapproval swelled up from the stands. It was led by a group on the far side of the arena. 'Bears! We want bears! Cruel, cruel bears!' The rhythmic chants and clapping indicated that they were one of the theatre factions. They and the rest of the crowd had reason to be disappointed. It was lunchtime. The morning's venationes had been very uninspiring. A few deer and wild asses had been hunted, and a couple of bulls had fought. The only fanged animals despatched had been three mangy-looking leopards. There had been little fight in them. They had come from no further than the nearby province of Cilicia. Some ostriches were the only animals to have been transported from overseas. Even though they had stood stock still, as if drugged, the bow-armed bestiarii had managed to miss them several times.