I changed into a plain linen wraparound kilt. The steam from the heated pools was making it hard to breathe. I left Ligur sitting on the bench beneath my clothes and walked through another arch into the main building. The exercise room was on the right.
It was a spacious palaestra. Three large windows on the north, with views to the frigidarium, and three on the south, with unfortunate views to the market square. A few ex-gladiator types were trying to attract the attention of the women outside, flexing muscles and raising their kilts a little higher than was necessary.
Some were getting massaged, some getting their hair plucked here instead of in the baths themselves. The hell with fashion. My chest hair wasn’t in anyone’s way. Besides, there were too many hairy asses strutting around for anyone to pay attention to me.
I’d brought a handball, started throwing it at one of the walls. The sounds from the bath area filtered through the doorway, making it harder to concentrate.
“Sausage-fresh sausages with basil!”
“-all night long. She just wouldn’t stop! I thought my back would-”
“Perfume from the East-perfume from the East! Only two sestertii!”
“-and watch as this amazing performer will thrill you with her ability to fold herself into this tiny little box-”
“Quit splashing, you buffoon!”
“And I said-you won’t believe it-and I said-”
“Ouch! Goddamn it, that’s not a hair!”
I threw the ball and caught it on the return. A throaty chuckle made me feel even less dressed.
I turned to the window. Sulpicia was leaning on it with both arms, staring at me-and my kilt. I felt myself flush.
“Hello-Doctor. How do you like the baths?”
I threw again, missing the rebound. It hit a fat man with a furry back, who shot a venomous look in my direction. I picked it up, careful not to bend over toward Sulpicia.
“I haven’t been inside yet.”
“The water is special. Not the building, so much. You’ll see. Everything’s at just the right temperature.” Everything except me.
“Where’s Vitellius?” I asked abruptly.
She laughed. “He’s in the big bath. He never exercises.”
Her eyes crawled all over me. I felt like a slave at an auction. Measured, weighed, assessed.
I retrieved the ball from where I’d dropped it yet again. “I’ll go find him.”
“I’m sure he’s getting rubbed down. He likes his oil. I’d do it for him, but…” She shrugged. “Proper ladies don’t bathe with men.” She winked. “Unless they have private baths.”
I smiled weakly, took the ball, and retreated to the dressing room. I’d had enough exercise playing with Sulpicia. I told Ligur to follow me with the oil and strigil, then beckoned to a young boy in the corner.
“I need someone to watch my belongings. What’s your name?”
“Aeron, sir.”
“You’re hired. And Aeron … if you notice anything unusual that happens in this room, I’ll give you two sestertii.”
“Yes, sir!”
He reminded me of Hefin. I winced. Not here, not now. I’d gotten fat enough on the guilt diet. I tightened up my stomach muscles and moved on.
I turned left, to the artificially heated section on the west side. The water was plain, still, and cold, straight from the ground and heated by man. These pools weren’t as popular as the Great Bath, since it wasn’t Sulis’s water, and no one knew who its mother was.
The usual assortment of flesh displayed itself. Propped against alcoves, slumbering on the paved stone, a shoal of beached tunny on a stretch of yellow sand. I poured some oil on my skin, stepped into the tepidarium, and did some requisite splashing while I looked around.
Public baths were always hailed as the great leveler. The rich could rub elbows with the poor, and the poor could rub something else, if you paid them well enough. Baths were cleaner than whorehouses, and there were plenty of dark corners you could get to know each other better in.
Dandies with a ring on every finger strutted by in tight, wet kilts, advertising the daily special. Middle-aged merchants entertained whores in the caldarium, too fat to do anything but pant over the smell and sight of wet, jiggling skin.
Then there were the artistic entertainments. A poet croaked a turgid epic in a dull monotone while a younger version in the opposite corner recited naughty lyrics, punctuated by the snores of an old man who obviously didn’t find them naughty enough.
No lyre player today, but a juggler was doing tricks with a discus. When it landed on a muscular specimen in the caldarium, he proved his feet were faster than his hands. Various sellers of cakes, candies, sausages, and snacks wandered by, each item less appetizing than the one before it. I bought a mint breath freshener from a freckled man who obviously never tried his own product.
I climbed out of the caldarium disappointed. A typical day in a typical Roman bath. Nothing of particular interest.
Ligur gave me a vigorous strigiling, and I headed for the cold plunge. I was holding my breath, preparing for the shock of the water, when I recognized an eager voice behind me.
“It’s Arcturus, isn’t it?”
I exhaled and turned to see Octavio, who was clearly delighted to see me, because he raised his voice several levels and shouted: “Wonderful to have you, Arcturus! And how is the governor?”
“The same as he was yesterday, Octavio. Nice baths you have here.”
“Oh, but you haven’t seen the best of them yet. You must go to the Great Bath.” His voice went up again. “A doctor of your skill will appreciate the waters.”
My sarcastic smile bounced off of him and made a plunking sound in the pool. People were looking at us. So much for anonymity.
“Thanks. I will.”
Before he could advertise a free corn removal by the governor’s medicus, I jumped into the frigidarium. I stayed in as long as I could, which was exactly as long as Octavio lingered before someone told him something about a clog in the drain, and he went running.
Ligur met me with a soft towel while I dripped on the soft yellow stone. I looked out the frigidarium windows to the waters of the Sacred Spring, undulating like a Babylonian belly dancer. They were hiding something. Maybe I’d find out what in the Great Bath.
When I walked into the hall, I finally understood why so many people limped, hobbled, and crawled to Aquae Sulis. The misery outside was lessened just a little on the faces of the men waist deep in the pool.
A green-blue haze rose from the steaming water, dissipating by the time it reached the soaring yellow vaults and high windows. Statues-good ones-lined the aisles, reminding you of what you looked like when you were nineteen, and whispering words of encouragement that you could look like that again. Seats for slaves and companions lodged in commodious niches, and warm, secluded alcoves allowed for private conversations and secret assignations.
The whole room was big, even by Roman standards, and it filled itself with light and air, balancing the heat of the water. I sniffed. The smell was brisk, unmistakably of the earth, with a pleasant volcanic tang that reminded me of Baiae-but cleaner somehow, softer. The water droplets beaded like sweat on my arm hair and soothed my skin as they wetted it.
On the eastern end, more pools of the water tapered into two separate, smaller chambers, each one less warm than the previous. The entire complex was designed to give the greatest pleasure to all your senses. Even the noise was subdued, as if it melted away with the steam. I was starting to like the place when another voice I knew and didn’t like reminded me why I was there.