"Damnation!" muttered Barnabas as he rushed by me, grabbing my
arm.
We followed in the rabbit's wake, past a giant tub full of shouting and laughing bathers. One of the arm-twisters had fallen on the wet floor and kept slipping as he tried to get up. We angled past him and ran through another door into the innermost room, where the air was thick with steam from the hot pool. Confusion reigned as a tumult of splashing and a chorus of shouts echoed through the dimly lit room.
"Block the door! He'll try to slip back out!"
"Poison!"
"Don't let him throw the pyxis into the pool!" "Did someone say 'poison in the pool'?"
"Poison? Let me out!"
There was a great deal of running and slipping and colliding as the arm-twisters tried to find Licinius. Some of them stepped into the piping-hot pool with hisses of discomfort and poked about.
"He must be here!" said Barnabas. "The door's blocked and there's no other way out."
"Of course there is," I said, pointing to a dark corner. "The door to the furnace room."
Barnabas groaned and ran to pull the door open. Sweltering air poured out from the dark passage beyond. Barnabas took a few hesitant steps, tripped against something and let out a gasp. "Hades! A corpse!"
There was something in the darkness at his feet, but not a corpse, unless corpses have two heads and writhe about.
"Get lost!" moaned one of the heads.
"Go find your own!" wheezed the other.
Barnabas gave a start. "What-?"
"It's woolly-bottom and the bald sap!" I said.
This meant nothing to Barnabas, but he caught on quickly enough. "Did someone else pass this way?"
"Yes," gasped one of the voices. "The idiot stepped on my hand! He'll have passed through the furnace room and be out in the alley by now. So – if you don't-mind -"
Barnabas groaned.
The writhing figures on the floor thrashed, gasped and bleated in ecstasy.
I pulled Barnabas back into the bathing room and shut the door behind us. Now the farce had everything, including a climax.
PART
Nox
Chapter Sixteen
Chrysis fretted all the way back to Clodia's house. She insisted
i that I come along to explain what had happened. I think she was afraid to break the bad news to her mistress alone. The litter bearers turned down the little cul-de-sac, with the bodyguards and Belbo following behind, and deposited us in front of the house. Belbo and I waited on the red and black tiled doorstep, looking up at the towering cypress trees on either side while Chrysis rapped on the door and then clutched my hand to draw me inside. Belbo followed.
"What do you mean, she's not here?" I heard her say to the slave who opened the door.
"She's gone off," said the old man. "I don't know where."
"For what? For how long?"
He shrugged. "Nobody tells me anything. But-" "Surely she didn't decide to go down to the Senian baths herself," mumbled Chrysis, nipping at a fingernail. "No, she would have seen me. Unless we passed each other on the way. Oh, Attis!" Chrysis made a little yelp of frustration. "Wait here," she called to me as she disappeared down a hallway. "Or in the garden," she added, waving vaguely toward the center of the house.
While Belbo stayed in the foyer, I walked through the atrium beyond, down a wide hallway, through a colonnaded archway and finally down a short flight of steps into the open air and sunlight. The garden was square, surrounded by a covered portico. There was a low platform at the opposite end, which appeared to be a stage, for behind it was a wall painted with a jumbled cityscape, like a theatrical backdrop. In front of the platform there was a small lawn with room for several rows of chairs. At each of the four corners of the garden were cypress trees taller than the roof. In the center of the garden was a small fountain with a statue of a naked Adonis. Bronze fish beneath his feet emptied water into the pool from their gaping mouths. I walked closer to have a look at the mosaics that lined the bottom. Beneath the splashing water the images of dolphins and octopi quivered against a shimmering field of blue.
The Adonis was captured in the act of kneeling-knees bent, upraised palms extended, his face turned upward with a radiant expression. It was obvious to whom he was showing obeisance, for on the stairway which I had just descended, atop a high pedestal looking out over the whole garden, was an enormous bronze statue of Venus, even more magnificent and more opulently detailed than the one which decorated Clodia's horti on the Tiber. The goddess was naked above the waist; the folds of cloth gathered about her hips seemed frozen in the act of fluttering to the ground. The curves of her body were sumptuous, and the painted bronze gave the illusion of pliant flesh, but the size of the statue was out of scale, disconcertingly large, more intimidating than beautiful. Her hands were captured in gestures of eloquent tenderness, more motherly than erotic, but this was at odds with her face, which was strangely impassive, severe in its beauty. Her unblinking lapis lazuli eyes stared down at me.
As I stood before the fountain, studying the Venus from Adonis's point of view, I began to notice the echoing sounds of chanting and music from somewhere nearby, rising and falling and obscured by the splashing of the fountain, but now growing abruptly louder and faster. I heard the piping of flutes, the rattling of tambourines and the jangling of bells, along with a strange ululation that was nothing like normal singing. I thought I heard words, but the splashing fountain kept me from making them out. The music grew louder, the tempo accelerated. I stared at the face of Venus. The longer I looked into her lapis lazuli eyes the more it seemed as if the statue might actually move or speak. She blinked-or I blinked-and I felt a sudden tremor of apprehension. I was not alone.
But it was not the goddess who had joined me. The voice behind me was decidedly masculine. "They're at it again!"
I turned around to see a man on the low stage, dressed in a toga. He had been naked the last time I saw him.
"Every year it's the same." Clodius shrugged and made a face. "If
I were Clodia, I'd complain, but I suppose my dear sister is too fascinated by the galli to want to stop their fun. And it is only once a year." "What's only once a year?"
"The Great Mother festival, of course. The Temple of Cybele is just over there," Clodius said, pointing behind him. "The House of the Galli is right beside it. For days before the festival they practice, practice, practice. It all sounds hopelessly wild and discordant to a Roman ear, doesn't it? And the singing-hardly better than screaming. But then, I'd scream too if they'd cut my balls off." He hopped off the stage onto the lawn and sauntered toward me. "You know, it's absurd, but I've forgotten your name."
"Gordianus."
"Oh yes. Clodia's new man, the one to get the goods on Marcus Caelius. Been busy?" "Busy enough."
"Clodia's not here at the moment. Some errand or other. The door slave should have told you. He's getting old."
"He did say something, actually. But Chrysis suggested I wait here."
"I see. Oh, that's right, today was to be the little drama down at the Senian baths. How did it go?"
"That's why I came. To tell Clodia."
He stared at me with green eyes uncannily like those of his sister. "And? What happened?" When I hesitated, he scowled, which made his face impossible to read. Was he feigning boyish petulance, or showing genuine anger? The scowl did nothing to spoil his good looks; it merely rearranged them. "Oh, I see," he said. "You're here to report to Clodia, not to me. She said you were the loyal type. Rare enough in Rome these days. But my sister and I have no secrets from each other. No secrets at all. And I should hope you have nothing to hide from me, Gordianus. I've certainly hidden nothing from you." He gave me a knowing look. When I said nothing, he laughed. "That's a joke. About what I was wearing the day we met." He shook his head. "She also said that you have no sense of humor."