It was the night before the games, and Solonius had invited Batiatus and Lucretia to a lavish party at his home to mark the coming contest. As the lanista and his wife entered the villa, its ostentation immediately apparent in the excessively elaborate wall friezes and the over-use of gold leaf to enhance everything from the abundance of statuary to the exposed breasts of the female slaves, they were assailed by music that was too strident, and a succession of tables groaning too heavily with heaped platters of food to be considered anything other than capriciously wasteful. Additionally, in Batiatus’s opinion, the zeal with which slaves thrust goblets into their hands and insisted on keeping them topped up with wine that tasted of bull’s piss bordered on the insolent, thus rankling him further-so much so, in fact that by the time Batiatus spotted their host, through a bacchanalian display of over-endowed female performers fingering their cunts with such enthusiasm that he felt certain they were about to produce floods of gold coins from between their swollen labia, he was scowling with ill-temper.
Solonius saw him advancing through the crush of sweating, cavorting bodies and raised his hands in greeting.
“Good to lay eyes, old friend!” he cried.
“A welcome sight indeed,” Batiatus replied with rather less enthusiasm.
“Made more so by vision of ravishing wife. You look radiant this evening, Lucretia,” Solonius said, his gaze crawling like an insect over Lucretia’s creamy decolletage. “All around reduced to drabness by comparison.”
As soon as he was within touching distance, his hand, bedecked with jewelry, flashed out like a striking snake and grabbed Lucretia’s wrist. He lowered his head, his over-pampered golden locks tumbling forward, and planted unpleasantly wet lips on the back of her hand. She forced a smile.
“Your attention as focused as ever, dear Solonius,” she murmured.
“The task not an onerous one,” he replied, as though she was suggesting that it was. “Would that the gods could fix eternal gaze on your beauty.”
Nostrils flaring, Batiatus muttered, “Perhaps Lucretia would care to pull hers away and rest it upon nourishment?”
Solonius glanced at him, uncomprehending.
Batiatus swept a hand toward the laden tables.
“I refer to spread of excellent feast of course,” he said tightly.
Lucretia nodded.
“I confess eagerness for it.” She looked down pointedly at her hand, which Solonius was still gripping in both of his. “If good Solonius would release grip …”
“With great reluctance,” Solonius said, his fingers springing apart.
Lucretia smiled prettily and tried to resist the urge to snatch her hand away and wiped Solonius’s spittle on the tunic of a passing slave. Touching Batiatus’s sleeve lightly, she excused herself and drifted away. Solonius watched her go with an avaricious expression.
“You appear thin of sustenance yourself, Solonius,” Batiatus said coldly.
Solonius blinked, and then laughed.
“Merely light with excitement at prospect of tomorrow’s games.”
“Do Crassus and Hieronymus present themselves this evening?”
Solonius nodded. “Brutilius as well. Come, let us join them.”
He led the way through the shrieking throng, many of whom, thanks to the enthusiastic ministrations of the slaves, were already drunk. The journey was a slow one, hampered by numerous delays, which irked Batiatus greatly. Solonius was intercepted so many times by guests wishing to compliment him on his wonderful hospitality that Batiatus began to think they would never reach their destination. One woman, whom Batiatus did not recognize, but whose jewelry alone was advertisement enough of her wealth and status, all but fell into Solonius’s arms with a howl of laughter, before groping with more enthusiasm than skill at his cock and planting a slobbering kiss on his lips.
“You do us great honor, sweet Solonius,” she slurred, hand still clawing at the lanista’s nether regions. “We will be forever in debt.”
“The honor is mine,” Solonius assured her, gently removing her hand and kissing it before urging her tactfully back into the throng. She turned and staggered away as though oblivious of the rebuff.
“Who was that creature so free with hand?” Batiatus asked, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
“The wife of Brutilius,” Solonius replied.
Batiatus arched an eyebrow.
“He has my condolences,” he murmured.
Hieronymus, Crassus and Brutilius were in one of the chambers branching off from the atrium, standing in the shadow of a thick column, as though attempting to distance themselves from the wild revelry around them. They were talking with a trio of younger men, all of whom were laughing at something that Brutilius was saying.
However, it was not the group of men who first drew Batiatus’s attention, but the woman standing against the wall. It was Athenais, who Batiatus had not seen since the evening of the party which had been held in his own villa to welcome Hieronymus and Crassus to Capua. Back then the bruises on the Greek woman’s thighs had unsettled him-and he found himself equally unsettled on this occasion too. Athenais’s creamy skin, previously so flawless, was once again marked with patches of bruised flesh, this time not only on her thighs, but also on her wrists, as though she had been gripped with some force. She also had marks around her exquisite, swan-like throat-the unmistakeable purple-red imprints of fingers. Batiatus was frankly appalled. He was no saint, but to see a woman so graceful and so perfect-slave or not- reduced to this battered and brow-beaten state, turned his stomach.
Realizing she was being stared at, Athenais’s blue eyes flickered to meet his. Instantly Batiatus was struck by the stark fear and misery displayed there. Instinctively his lips turned upward into a smile of reassurance and he gave a small nod. Athenais did not respond, her gaze skittering away in a manner that reminded him of a timid animal retreating into its burrow. Releasing a long breath, Batiatus suddenly became aware that someone, standing beyond Athenais, was regarding him with the same level of intensity that he was staring at the Greek woman. More than that even, he had the impression that he was being regarded with candid indifference-or perhaps even open hostility. He shifted his gaze, and was not surprised to see Mantilus standing against the wall, framed-and, in fact, almost wreathed within-the dark folds of a richly elaborate Persian drape that hung behind him.
The rat forever seeks out the darkest places, Batiatus thought, staring hard at Hieronymus’s attendant in the hope of unsettling him enough to make him turn his head, thus betraying the fact that, as Spartacus had theorized, he was not blind, despite the absence of color in his eyes. However, if Mantilus had been staring at Batiatus before, he was not doing so now. Instead he was looking straight ahead, unblinking, his body as still as a statue. Batiatus stared at him for several seconds more, and then Solonius, in front of him, turned back, a questioning look on his face. Batiatus acknowledged him with a nod and moved forward to join the group by the pillar.
“… sword snapped clean in half and he tumbled to sand like performer seeking to rouse merriment of crowd,” Brutilius was saying loudly, his face red and wine slopping from the goblet he was holding as he guffawed loudly at his own tale.
The three younger men began to laugh along with him-and then one of them caught sight of Batiatus, and his eyes widened. Immediately he threw his colleagues a warning glance so obvious it was almost pitiful, and then turned back to the approaching lanistae.
“Our friend Solonius returns with noble Batiatus,” he declared, with a distinct lack of subtlety. “Welcome to you!”
Brutilius had been in the process of raising his goblet to his lips and tipping wine into his throat, but at the young man’s words he jerked, as if at the touch of a cold hand on the back of his neck, and then immediately began to choke and splutter.