I slipped the key in, twisted it this way and that to negotiate the hole, then tried to imagine in my mind's eye what the hook needed to catch against. Up or down? Farther in or farther out? A jiggle or a twist? I tried various motions, then finally removed the key and started over. Again, I had no luck. My patience nearing an end, I pulled out and tried once more. This time, I seemed to locate a divergent keyhole. The key entered in a different direction. The hook caught on something. I held my breath, turned the key and pulled toward me. The lock gave a satisfying click. The door opened.
Behind me, I heard Androcles release a pent-up breath. I looked over my shoulder and nodded toward the stairs. "Stand watch on the landing," I whispered. "If anyone starts up, come quietly and let me know. Can you do that?"
He nodded and tiptoed toward the stairs.
I stepped inside and pulled the door not quite shut behind me. The room was even darker than the hallway. I found my way to the window at the southwest corner, which was covered with heavy winter drapes, made of a fabric far superior, I wagered, to anything to be found in the other apartments. I pulled them apart and opened the shutters. Above the rooftops, as Aemilia had said, I could see the sacred temples atop the Capitoline Hill. Mopsus stood across the street, leaning against a wall, his arms crossed, idly kicking his heels against the ground. He looked up at the sound of the shutters opening. I waved. He uncrossed his arms and started to wave back, then caught himself. He peered up and down the street, hardening his posture and trying to look formidable. I shook my head. If I had specifically asked him to look like an errant slave bent on getting into mischief, he could not have delivered a better performance.
I turned around and surveyed the room. It was sparsely furnished with a low sleeping couch and a little trunk against one wall. Perhaps it was nothing more than a love nest, after all. Lovers' needs were simple.
Atop the trunk there was a simple oil lamp, a vessel containing spare oil, and a small round mirror. I peered inside the lamp and the vessel and poured oil back and forth between them until I was satisfied that they contained nothing else. The mirror was of solid silver and had no secret parts. I glanced at my reflection. I saw a bearded man with furrowed brow but clear eyes, not yet entirely gray and youthful-looking for his years, a sign of the gods' favor. The fact that it was Aemilia's mirror made me uneasy. I put it aside.
The trunk was not locked. Inside I found a few pieces of clothing- a man's loincloth and tunic, a cloak that might have been worn by either sex. There was also a spare coverlet for the bed. At the very bottom, there was a small dagger. That was all.
The trunk appeared to contain nothing of significance. But remembering that Numerius Pompeius had carried confidential reports in his shoe, I looked at each item again. Satisfied that the dagger had no secret compartments, I used it to cut open the stitches of each garment. I had brought my own knife for the purpose, but this one looked sharper. I found nothing.
I examined the empty trunk. I used the dagger to undo the hinges and cut into the leather. I turned it over and rapped on the bottom, listening for the hollow echo of a hidden compartment. The trunk was nothing more than an ordinary trunk.
I turned my attention to the bed.
It was a fine piece of furniture- like the drapes, surely finer than anything to be found in the humble apartments down the hall or on the floors below. The frame was made entirely of ebony with ornately carved legs. Against the wall, an ebony sideboard inlaid with ivory ran the length of the frame from head to foot. Aemilia would have lain on the inner side, next to the board and the wall; Numerius would have lain on the outside, as men typically do. I once explained to Bethesda that this arrangement was so because the man protects the woman in sleep. She laughed and said it was because men needed to get up and pass water more often during the night.
But I imagined the lovers had done little sleeping in this bed. They would have met here in the day; it seemed doubtful that Aemilia could have escaped her parents' vigilance after dark. It was a bed for the waking hours, a bed for loving, not sleeping. The bed where their baby was made.
The thick mattress was covered with a linen sheet, haphazardly tucked at the corners. A woolen coverlet was thrown over it. Several pillows were scattered about. The bed had a rumpled, used look. Both Numerius and Aemilia were no doubt used to having their beds made by a slave, and either did not know how to do it themselves or did not care to. Keeping house was not how they spent their time in this room.
I pulled off the coverlet and cut open the stitches. There was nothing hidden inside.
I pulled off the linen sheet. It was too sheer to conceal anything. It gave off a faint odor. I held it to my nose and smelled jasmine, spikenard, the scent of warm bodies. For an instant I imagined it wrapped around Aemilia, clinging to her. I imagined the two of them lying side by side, with only the sheet to cover them. I shook my head to clear it.
The pillows and the mattress were the most likely places to conceal something. I pulled them off the bed and saw several pieces of parchment hidden beneath the mattress, atop the webbing of straps strung between the sideposts. If they were Aemilia's Greek love poems, copied out in her own hand, I had no desire to read them. But how could I determine what they were unless I examined them?
I looked at the first poem. The handwriting was self-consciously fancy, painfully childish. The words were not.
When I look at you I can no longer speak.
My tongue is broken. A thin flame runs under my skin.
I see nothing. My ears roar. Sweat pours down me.
A trembling seizes me all over.
I am greener than grass. I feel close to dying.
Somehow this can be endured, when I look at you…
Sappho, of course. What love-smitten teenage girl could resist the poet of Lesbos?
I forced myself to read the other poems, one by one. The words made my face flush hotly.
Finally, having read them all, I examined the pieces of parchment front and back. I walked to the window and held each one to the light, looking for signs of invisible lemon ink or perforations that could be a code, but saw nothing of the sort. The love poems were only that, bits of Sappho and my old friend Catullus copied out by a daydreaming girl to pass the hours between visits to her lover. Incriminating, to be sure, but only if shown to her parents.
Standing at the window, from the corner of my eye I noticed Mopsus down on the street corner. He waved at me. I glowered, shook my head, and refused to look back at him. I had specifically told him not to wave, which would only attract attention to us both. When I ignored him, he only seemed to wave more frantically. I determined to thrash him with my tongue when I was done. I stepped away from the window.
Beneath the bed I noticed a wide shallow bowl. I moved the bowl to the floor in the middle of the room. I knelt and dropped the poems into it. I reached into my tunic for the flint box I had brought for the purpose, and concentrated so hard on striking a spark that I didn't hear Androcles's footsteps in the hall outside. I gave a start when he pushed open the door and stuck his head inside.
"Master! There's a man coming up the stairs!"
I suddenly understood why Mopsus waved so frantically. I looked back to Androcles. "Come inside then, quickly!" I whispered.
Androcles slipped inside, then turned to shut the door. He was too late. The door caught on something. Androcles pushed hard, but to no avail. A man's foot was thrust into the breach. Androcles gave a little squeal of panic.
Fingers wrapped around the edge of the door. Androcles threw his whole body against it, but he was no match for the man on the other side. The door relentlessly began to open.