Time To Depart

LX
I TOOK CHARGE.

I passed the map around quickly and told them to get in without fuss, then disperse through the building fast. Forget thieves. Forget hard men. Forget even Tibullinus and Arica. Say nothing and hit no one, unless there was no choice. Save Igullius if it were possible, but keep filtering through towards the top and the back and the farthermost rooms of the brothel until we found Balbinus Pius.

`What then?'

`Yell your head off for the rest of us.'

I like to keep plans simple. At least when this went wrong there would be only a minor body count. Only seven of us were going in.

We slipped inside in ones and twos. Paid the tally and winked at the doorkeeper.

`I'm Itia, and I'm here to see you enjoy yourselves.' `Thanks, Itia.'

`Are you being joined by friends tonight?' `Just a few.'

`Maybe we'll give you a discount then.'

I was right. The brothel side of the business was reserving its position. But I did not imagine our discount would take the form of help.

I had gone in first. I walked quickly but with a casual manner. I went straight past the ground-floor rooms, the cloak pegs and the washing facilities. There was a louder hum of masculinity than on previous times I had visited. From the big room where conspirators gathered came a full-throated wave of men drinking and talking. I did not look in. He would not be there, amongst the throng.

The place was already warm and hazy with lamp oil and taper smoke. Further on it seemed quiet. Once, something attracted attention. I stepped into a room and found normal commerce in action. The girl was in the saddle. I quipped, `Glad to see you're on top of things!' and whipped the door shut on them.

Reaching stairs I started climbing. At the landing I paused to listen. Behind me all sounded normal. No shouts of alarm. Martinus and the others must so far be undiscovered. It would not last.

Still no sign of Tibullinus and Arica. I opened more doors, more gently this time. I found either empty rooms or flesh trade of one kind or another. More kinds than I had ever heard of in fact, though I had no time to make detailed notes.

The brothel seemed busy, but not in flourishing party mode. No one stopped me. No one even challenged my presence. Balbinus would have guards, the Miller for instance. I would have to get past them; I had not even seen them yet.

The longer I was in there, the more urgent became my feeling that I needed to escape. I had come so far that if anything went wrong, fighting my way out would be impossible. I had been a spy scouting in hostile citadels many times before, but then I had stood some chance of disguising my identity. I was too well known here. Helena had been right. We were probably walking into a trap. My skin crawled as I began to feel the certainty that someone was fully expecting me.

There was a faint odour of incense in the air. I thought I recognised my location. I hit a wider corridor, where I remembered that the rooms were grander, though I felt no need to investigate now. I could hear music. I discerned light, and laughing voices. My stride increased. At the last moment memory failed me and without warning I crashed into the large room with the sunken entertainment area where Petro and I had reckoned orgies might be staged. I pulled. up short, facing the certainty that something grossly pornographic had either been enacted in the recent past or was about to take place. As the braziers wreathed, burning an exotic fuel, the atmosphere hit me in the gullet; the inescapable message was that nobody who entered here would want to plead he was too honest to participate.

Candelabra stood all around the upper seating bank. Garlands of roses and other musky flowers coiled and writhed from every surface. There was a small band of musicians idly tuning up a hand drum, panpipes, tambourines and a curled flute. The musicians wore pleasingly friendly expressions and diagonal wisps of seethrough drape. A smiling man in satyr's costume approached the full gear of hairy trousers, goat hooves, highly visible naked working parts. His face, with its paint and fragile smile, was a disturbing contrast to the prominent masculine attribute. He gestured a welcome to me with a dreamy air. In the centre of the floor four exquisite young girls, none of them older than fifteen, were performing warm-up stretches with a languid grace that spoke all too strongly of the nature of their act. They wore no clothes, even before their tableau commenced.

On the outer rim, men waited. Some tasted wine; others prodded at the serving staff or picked their teeth.

Opposite me stood the doorway that led to Lalage's rooms. There was another door. Either side of it were two long torches thrust into waist-high urns, blazing with a sweet odour of something akin to applewood. Before it lay an irregular, striped mat, the skin of some dead carnivore. To one side an extremely muscular man was chatting up a stripling who was holding a bronze ewer.

The music started. The audience stirred with a low ripple of lecherous anticipation. My eyes went automatically to the floor area. It was time to leave or be seduced. I had made my choice.

I walked around the edge of the room, as if searching for a space to sit. As I came to the door with the braziers I was keeping my eyes fixed on the slow and intricate patterns being wrought by the gleaming bodies of the quartet of girls. All around me were the heated faces of men looking shy while they fervently hoped we would soon reach that moment when a member of the acrobatic display would call for a volunteer from the audience.

It was certainly better than watching a grizzled Egyptian in a long nightgown performing `Where's my snake?'

I stared with the same eagerness as the rest of them, despite myself hoping to be shocked by the writhing hot properties. I was still staring as I leaned on the bronze ram's-head door handle and backed quickly through the door.

I closed it as I turned. It was solid and ornate, muffling the music instantly. Whatever I had entered was pitch-black. A short distance away I could hear a shuffling noise, joined at one point by a metallic clink. Could this be Igullius?

I slipped the door ajar again and reached out for one of the Dioscuri torches. The brief inflow of light from the entertainment room gave me a second's warning. I sensed movement. Spinning back, I flung the torch to the right. Then from the left came a noisy snake of heavy chain, thrown by an expert who lassoed me and then dragged it tight. My torch had crashed onto a mosaic floor. By its quaking light Tibullinus the centurion flung another chain across the room so Arica could help hold me.

I had one chance. My arms were pinioned with bruising force. I threw myself backwards, jerking the second chain so that Arica fell off balance as he was catching it. Pain seared my arms and my spine jarred badly. Arica dropped towards me. I had both feet up ready, and kicked into him with all my might.

Not hard enough. He yelled, but staggered upright. The bastard must have ribs like iron. As for me, I was on my back now, trapped in a mesh of links that Tibullinus was threshing tauntingly. Arica relieved his hurt feelings by stamping on my face. I managed to roll aside, but his great boot creamed down my scalp alongside one ear, tearing off skin and hair. They pulled me around the floor, knocking into the torch, though it failed to ignite me. There were enough restraints on me to subdue a maddened elephant. As I fought to resist, I roared out a name or two when I could, hoping help would come. I should have known better. My own name is Didius Falco and help for me is the last gift the Olympian gods toss down.

In the end my dead weight must have tired them. I lost track of the kicks I had received. They lashed me up and attached part of the cold knotwork to a pillar. Tibullinus produced his centurion's vinewood stick, and amused himself by describing in picturesque terms what he would do with it. I pretended to be a pervert and slavered eagerly. If he came near enough at least I could spit on him.

Again, no such luck. They knew there were others with me. They promised a feast of torture later, then left with an appearance of urgency. Not long afterwards the fallen torch spluttered and went out.

I was in despair, but worse followed. How long I lay in the dark with my arms going numb I cannot say. It must have been an hour or so. There had to be time for Helena Justina to rush to the Aventine and take action she thought appropriate. The person she sent here had to start searching for me, and Tibullinus had to find and overpower him. By the time the door opened, I had heard the musicians in the room outside drive themselves into a frenzy – matched no doubt by the girls and their customers. I had also wasted considerable effort calling out to the exhausted company after the noise died down. Whatever their perverted tastes, they had no interest in a shackled man.

Then the door cracked open. Tibullinus did not bother bringing light into the room. He flung his captive headlong, gave him a good kicking, chained him up, spoke his usual attractive oration, and marched out again.

`Brisk,' I said into the familiar darkness. `Though comforting in its warm predictability.'

My new companion groaned. Maybe he was suffering from being kicked. Maybe he was just happy to be sharing his captivity with me.

After a few moments he recovered himself sufficiently to break out into banter. `This is the last time.' His voice was hoarse. He forced himself to have a rest. `This is the last time, Falco.' I laid my head against the pillar behind me and sighed reflectively. `Next time you're in deadly danger, I'll stay at home and stroke the cat.'

`Thank you,' I said, inserting a quiet note of humility which I knew would drive him wild. `I'm touched at you coming to assist me – though it's not much use if you get yourself trussed up as well. But thank you, Lucius Petronius, my loyal friend.'