A Body In The Bath House

LVIII

all the best performers are no longer young. Only those with experience of life, of joy and grief, can wring the heart. They have to know what they are promising. They have to see what you have lost and what you yearn for. How much you need consoling, what your soul seeks to conceal. A great mature male actor shows that although the girls scream after the ingenues, they are nothing yet. A great female dancer, in her prime, encapsulates humanity. Her sexual power attracts all the more because in popular thought only young girls with perfect limbs and pretty features are exciting; to prove that nonsense is a thrill for both men and women. Hope lives.

Perella revealed almost nothing physically. Her dress seemed entirely modest. Her severe hairstyle emphasised the bones of her pale face. She wore no jewellery- no tacky anklets, no twinkling metal disks sewn in her garments. When she entered that dire den, her casual poise almost insulted the audience. They thrived on it. Her matter-of fact floating walk asked no favours. Only the respect with which her musicians waited for her gave a hint. They knew her quality. She let them play first. A double flute, eerie with melancholia; a drum; a tambourine; a small harp in the pudgy, be ringed hands of an incongruously fat harpist. No cliched castanets. She played no instrument herself.

At what point in her past history she had been taken up to dally with spies, I dared not contemplate. They must have approached her because she was so good. She would be able to venture anywhere. She had neither fear nor grand airs; she was dancing here as honestly as she must ever do. The only fault for her palace employers would be that she was so good, she would always attract attention.

She began. The musicians watched and responded to her; she tempered her movements perfectly to their tunes. They loved that. Their enjoyment fuelled the excitement. Perella danced at first with such restraint of motion it seemed nearly derisive. Then each fine angle of her outstretched arms and each slight turn of the neck became a perfect gesture. When she burst forth abruptly into frantic drumming of her feet, whirling and darting in the confined spaces available, gasps turned to stricken silence. Men tried to fall back to give her room. She came and went, within the free area, flattering each group with their moment of attention. The music raced. It was clear now that Perella was in fact clad alluringly we could glimpse white leather trunks and breast-band under sheer veils of Coan silk. What she did with her supple body was more vital than the body itself. What she said through her dance and the authority with which she said it- mattered most.

She came nearer. The entranced crowd parted for her. The smiling musicians slipped to their feet lightly, tracing her progress through the room so they neither lost sight of her nor left her insecure and unattended. Her hair came loose, a deliberate part of the act no doubt, so she swirled it free with a deep toss of her head. This was no slim and devious New Carthage beauty with a tumbling sheen of oiled, inky locks, but a mature woman. She might be a grandmother. She was aware of her maturity and challenging us to notice too. She was the queen of the room because she had lived more than most of us. If her joints creaked, nobody would know it. And unlike the crude offers purveyed by younger artists, Perella was giving us because she had nothing else to give the erotic, ecstatic, uplifting, imaginative glory of hope and possibility.

The musicians strove to a high climax, their instruments at breaking point. Perella twirled to an exhausted halt, right in front of me. Applause burst all around us. A hubbub rose; men called feverishly for drink to help them forget they had been overcome. Congratulatory grins surrounded the dancer, though she was left alone respectfully.

She saw who I was. Perhaps she had stopped here deliberately. "Falco!"

Helena teetered dangerously on the bench edge; I could not leap down and seize the dancer, I had to hold on to Helena. A Roman does not allow the well-bred mother of his children to tumble face first on a disgusting tavern floor. Helena probably relied on that; she kept me with her on purpose. "Perella."

"I have a message for your sister," she said.

"Don't try anything! Following my sister is a mistake, Perella '

"I'm not after your sister."

"I saw you at her house-'

"Anacrites sent me there. He realised he went too far. He sent me to apologise."

"Apologise!"

"A stupid move," she admitted. "That was him, not me." That was him dead then, I thought.

"And what are you doing here?" I demanded accusingly.

"Earning my fare home. You know the bureau: mean with expenses."

"You're still following my sister."

"I don't give two sleeve-pins for your bloody sister-'

A draft hit us. The noise dimmed for a moment as men sank their noses into beakers thirstily. The crowd in the outer door had moved to allow somebody admittance. It was someone whose manner always made men move aside for her. My sister walked in.

A woman screamed.

Helena was off that bench like a centipede fleeing the spade edge. Fighting through the press, she came to the curtained anteroom. It looked dark but we could see flailing limbs. A foul hole in which to deflower a fool.

Helena reached the couple first. She had slipped between the drinkers where my wider shoulders jammed. While I was discouraging those whose beakers I had jogged, Helena Justina broke in on Blandus as he attempted to rape the screaming Hyspale. I saw Helena tear down the hide curtain, heard her yell at him. I called out. Somewhere behind me, I was aware of her brothers shouting. Other men turned to watch the scene, impeding me more. As I battled on, Helena took hold of the inevitable amphora used to imply fancy decor; she heaved it up, swung it and crashed it down on Blandus.

He was tough. Now he was furious too. He threw himself off Hyspale and turned on Helena. He had grabbed her by the arms. I was desperate. Helena Justina was brought up to wear white, think clean thoughts, encounter nothing more exciting that a little light poetry read to her in a nice accent. Since she came to me I had taught her good sense on the streets and where to kick intruders so it hurt but she was no match for Blandus. Raging, publicly thwarted, still aroused, he went for her. She struggled. I struggled to reach them. Someone else got there ahead of me.

Perella.

I'll have no rape at my events!" she cried to Blandus. "It gives me a bad name." I choked quietly.

He was lucky. She did not knife him. Instead, she high-kicked one powerful dancer's foot in a fine arc straight to his privates. When he doubled up, she grabbed him, twirled him around bodily and showed him just how bendable his neck could be. Her strong hands reached down and did something horrible, once more to his nether regions. She thumped his ears, pulled his nose and finally sent him flying into the barroom. Blandus had suffered enough, but he landed in a space right beside the mosaicist, Philocles Junior. Now that was bad luck. Philocles had reached the point in his evening where he was ready to revive old family feuds…

"Juno, I'm getting too old for all this," Perella gasped.

"Not as old as your caseload," I taunted. "Marcellinus was crooked, but long out of it. There was a time an emperor might well have had him removed quietly. It would have saved money and curbed his corrupt influence on the King but that was another world, Perella. Other emperors, with different priorities. So is Anacrites still following up correspondence that's ten years out of date? Pointless, Perella!"

"I just do what I'm ordered." Perella did look sick. For a skilled operator to be despatched on stupid missions by an inefficient clown like Anacrites must hurt.

Helena was rescuing our nursemaid. As Hyspale sobbed hysterically, I flung my arms around Helena. She was too busy to need it, but I had not recovered from seeing her in Blandus' clutches.

A glimmer of silk slid by. I looked up and saw Perella had sashayed through the bar. She came face to face with Maia. She said something. Maia obviously scoffed at it.

A violent flurry indicated new trouble. Verovolcus and his search party had worked their way to the Nemesis. Perella looked quickly at me. Instinctively I jerked my head. She needed no second warning. She was off through the crowd, who let her pass with gruff courtesy; then they closed in excitedly, hoping she would dance another set. Verovolcus had missed his chance. By the time he realised, Perella was hidden from view.

I would be livid tomorrow that I let her escape. Tough.