Even if that route did not take me to the forum, I told myself, at least there would be someone I could ask, and once I had collected Promptillius I could quickly make my way back to the mansio and bed. Of course, I had some qualms about the reception I might receive, both from the owners of the voices ahead and from the soldiers at the mansio gate, but anything was preferable to walking on alone down these dark, sinister and unfamiliar streets. A massive building loomed up to my right. I recognised the public baths I’d heard about, though they were now closed and shuttered for the night. It seemed a shell of hollow emptiness. The walls threw menacing shadows, patches of deeper blackness in the darkened street. I hurried past. I hardly dared admit, even to myself, how welcome the prospect of the military inn — light and warmth and a nice straw mattress safely under guard — had suddenly become.
I heard a noise behind me — a rustle, followed by a creak. I whirled round, but there was nothing there. In the end I hurried on, growing more uneasy with every step I took. Several times again I thought I heard a stealthy footfall at my back, but when I turned my head there was only the darkness and the shadowed street, though once I did catch a hasty scuttling sound and what sounded like the stealthy scrape of steel, as if someone nearby had drawn a sword.
This was more menacing than any visible pursuer would have been, and I found myself walking more quickly all the time until I was nearly at a run, but the footsteps seemed to be even closer now and I was almost completely out of breath. I was relieved to see a human form ahead — a trader with a burning torch, whipping and cursing at his donkey, which had stopped dead in the middle of the narrow street and was clearly disinclined to move, although it was blocking up the passageway. I halted, of necessity — and I heard the following footsteps falter too. Taking advantage of the momentary respite, I dodged past the swearing donkey man and his four-legged obstacle, and hurried round the corner out of sight.
I had turned into what was obviously a more major thoroughfare and I hid there in a shadowed doorway for what seemed an age, panting, leaning on the wall and listening to the thudding of my heart. I kept a sharp eye on the way I’d come as well. However, no one came down the alley after me and after a few moments I began to feel rather foolish for giving way to fear. For the first time I stepped into the roadway where I now found myself and began to look about me trying to take rational stock of my surroundings.
Everything seemed to be quite normal here. An ordinary street, paved and guttered, and grooved by passing wheels, fronted by shuttered workshops, town houses, flats and temple entrances, like any major street in any Roman town.
There were lights here too — oil lamps and tapers in the window spaces of the apartments overhead, and two great lighted torches flaming on the wall outside a tavern opposite, making two pools of brightness on the paving stones, and illuminating the faces of a group of youngish men who now lurched, laughing and arguing, from the door. Wealthy Silurians, from the look of them. They were drunk and noisy and belligerent, and I had no doubt that these were the authors of the shouts which I had heard from several blocks away.
Boisterous revellers bursting from a tavern are not companions I would generally choose, especially as three had clearly imbibed far too much cheap wine, but after the eerie silence of the streets tonight that torchlight drew me as it would a moth, and their rough oaths and guffaws were like sweet music, better than the plaint of any Roman lute.
I hurried in the direction of the light, intending to ask these noisy newcomers which way the forum lay. As I approached them it became clear what they were arguing about.
‘And I tell you, that myrmillo was a fix. There’s no way he could have dodged the net and trident for so long and then all at once gone over like a stone and dropped his dagger on the floor like that, so that his opponent had him pinned down helplessly. And the way the arena judges looked the other way, it was preposterous! Pity they weren’t fighting to the death. I thought they might have done today, but no — only a flogging for the useless ones, as usual. I’d cheerfully have given the signal to have them cut his throat.’ The speaker was a stout red-haired young man, and obviously well-to-do — even in this light I could see that he was dressed in an expensive woollen cloak secured with an elaborate jewelled clasp. He spoke with the careful diction of the drunk.
The smaller of his two companions laughed. He was a thin, pale, dark-haired youth with a fawning expression and what looked like a rash of spots round his mouth. Certainly there was no hint of beard — the boy might have been fifteen or so, at most, but he obviously hoped to sound like a sophisticate. He said in a tone of exaggerated boredom, ‘Well, what do you expect? The whole contest was only got up at the last moment, in honour of that Roman magistrate. I can’t imagine he was very thrilled. The preliminary show — the comic mock-fighters and the wooden sword brigade — were better entertainment than the troop itself. Then only four proper fights before the light got bad. And did you see the introductory parade? Pathetic costumes — scarcely a plume or precious stone in sight. And as for the heralds and the trumpeters! Wherever did the patron get these people from? I only hope that civic feast he’s hosting now is better organised.’
The other two ignored him. ‘Now listen here, Aurissimus,’ said the stoutest member of the trio, seizing the young man who had spoken first and pushing him against the doorpost. ‘Don’t think you’re going to get away with this. I know you and your wretched arguments and I’m not having it. We had a fair wager, and it stands, whatever you thought about the fight. You backed the confounded heavies and I backed the lights, and I’ve got more than a thousand witnesses that my net man won.’
His victim struggled, but with the obstinacy only to be found in wine, he was protesting still. ‘Only because the fish-helmet fell down at his feet deliberately. I don’t call that a contest, I call that a cursed sham. Be reasonable. I tell you what. Double or quits the next time. What do you say to that?’
‘We had a bet, confound you. Pay up, or I’ll have to beat it out of you.’
‘How can I reach my purse, if you don’t let me go?’ the other muttered thickly, and then, as his companion grudgingly released him, ‘They don’t nickname you Cupidus, the grasping one, for nothing, do they?’ He gave his neck a rueful rub.
‘At least I don’t earn my name for having flapping ears, listening to all the gossip in town,’ Cupidus said, jeering in return. ‘You owe me three denarii, Big-ears! Pay up, or we shall see if you are a better fighter than your fish man was!’
Aurissimus ‘Big-ears’ was still arguing. ‘By rights I owe you nothing, except a hiding in the street.’
Cupidus clenched both his fists at this, and I was beginning to think that I was going to witness another contest of my own, when suddenly the third man noticed me. He tugged at his companions. All argument was forgotten instantly, and the three men turned as one to stare at me.
‘Well, well,’ said Cupidus, and with a sneering swagger he took a step towards me. ‘What have we got here? A stranger? Where have you sprung from? What are you doing here, alone and after dark?’ His tone was mocking. ‘Come to buy my friends and me a drink, have you?’