He had broken a rule of his own tonight, a rule of very long standing. He had gone to her home in the dark after the wedding party broke up. Had been absolutely certain Bonosus would be elsewhere, that after the raillery of the celebration and the bawdy mood it induced, the Senator's well-known, if discreetly managed, habits would assert themselves and he'd spend the night at the smaller home he maintained for his private use.
Not so. Inexplicably not so. Scortius had seen lights blazing in the iron-barred upper windows over the street at the mansion of Senator Bonosus. A shivering servant relighting wind-snuffed torches in the walls had descended from his ladder and volunteered, for a small sum, the information that the master was indeed home, closeted with his wife and son
Scortius had kept a shrouding cloak over his face until his footsteps had led him away into the narrow lanes of the City. A woman called from a recessed doorway as he passed: "Let me warm you, soldier! Come with me! It isn't a night to lie alone."
It wasn't, Jad knew. He felt old. Partly the wind and cold: his left arm, broken years ago, one of so many injuries, ached when the wind was bitter. The humiliating infirmity of an aged man, he thought, hating it. Like one of those hobbling, crutch-wielding old soldiers allowed a stool by the fire in a military tavern, sitting there all night, boring the unwary with a ten-times-told story of some minor campaign of thirty years before, back when great and glorious Apius was Jad's dearly beloved Emperor and things hadn't descended to the sad state of today and could an old soldier not be given something to wet his throat?
He could become like that, Scortius thought sourly. Toothless and unshaven at a booth in The Spina telling about the magnificent race day once, long ago, during the reign of Valerius II, when he had…
He caught himself massaging the arm and stopped, swearing aloud. It ached, though, it really did. They didn't run the chariots in winter, or he'd have had a problem handling a quadriga in the turns. Crescens of the Greens hadn't looked this afternoon as if anything ached in him at all, though he must have had his injuries over the years. Every rider did. The Greens" principal driver was obviously ready for his second season in the Hippodrome. Confident, even arrogant-which was as it should be.
The Greens also had some new horses up from the south, courtesy of a high-ranking military partisan; Astorgus's sources said two or three were exceptional. Scortius knew they did have one outstanding new right-sider, a trace horse the Blues had dealt them in a transaction Scortius had encouraged Astorgus to make. You gave up some things to gain something else, in this case a driver. But if he was right about the horse and bout Crescens, the Greens" standard-bearer would have quickly claimed he stallion for his own team and be that much more formidable.
Scortius wasn't worried. He even enjoyed the idea of someone think he could challenge him. It stirred fires within him, the ones that needed stoking after so many years in ascendancy. A formidable Crescens was good for him, good for the Hippodrome. It was easy enough to see that But he wasn't easy tonight. Nothing to do with horses, or his arm, really.
It isn't a night to lie alone.
Of course it wasn't, but sometimes lovemaking-bought in a doorway or otherwise-wasn't the real need either. There were notes lying on a table in his home from women who would be exquisitely happy to relieve him of the burden of being by himself tonight, even now, even so late. That wasn't what he wanted, though for a long time it had been.
The woman he'd gone trudging uphill in the cutting wind to see was… closeted with her husband, the servant had said. Whatever that meant.
He swore again, fiercely. Why wasn't the accursed Master of the Senate off playing his night games with this season's boy? What was wrong with Bonosus, in Jad's name?
It was at this point, walking alone (a little reckless, but one didn't normally bring companions when attending upon one's mistress at night, intending to climb her wall), that he'd thought of going to the stables. He wasn't far from the compound. They'd be warm; the smells and night sounds of horses would be those he'd known and loved all his life. He might even find someone awake in the kitchens to offer a last cup of wine and a quiet bite of food.
He didn't want wine or food. Or even the presence of his beloved horses now. What he wanted was denied to him, and the degree of frustration he felt was what-perhaps more than anything-was disturbing him. It felt childish. His mouth twitched at the irony. Did he feel old or young or both? Past time to make up one's mind, wasn't it? He considered, decided: he wanted to be a boy again, simple as a boy, or failing that, he wanted to be in a room alone with Thenai's.
He saw the white moon when it rose. Was passing a chapel of the Sleepless Ones just then, walking east, could hear the chanting inside Could have gone in, a few moments out of the cold, praying among holy men, but the god and his son at this immediate moment didn't offer any answers either.
Perhaps they would have, had he been a better, more pious man, but he wasn't and they didn't and that was that. He saw a quick blue flicker of flame further down the street-a reminder of the half-world's presence among men, never far away in the City-and he came, in that moment, to a sudden, unexpected decision.
There was another wall he could climb.
If he was awake and abroad and this restless perhaps he could put the mood to use. On the thought, not allowing himself time to hesitate, he turned and set off along a lane angled to the street.
He walked briskly, kept to shadows, became motionless in a doorway when he saw a party of drunken, singing soldiers stumble out of a tavern. He remained where he was a moment and watched a massive litter appear from blackness at the other end of the street and then turn down the steep road they took, heading towards the harbour. He considered this for a moment, and then shrugged. There were always stories unfolding in the night. People died, were born, found love or grief.
He went the other way, uphill again, rubbing his arm at intervals, until he came again to the street and then the house where he'd spent much of the afternoon and evening in celebration of a wedding.
The house the Greens provided for their best dancer was handsome and well maintained, in an extremely good neighbourhood. It had a wide portico, and a well-proportioned solarium and balcony overlooking the street. He had been in this home before today, as it happened, and even upstairs-visiting earlier inhabitants. Sometimes those living here placed their own bedroom at the front, using the solarium as an extension, a place from which to watch the life below. Sometimes the front chamber was a sitting room, with the bedroom at the back, over the courtyard.
Without much to rely upon but instinct, he decided that Shirin of the Greens would not be the sort who placed herself over the street. She spent enough of her days and nights looking out on people from a stage. She'd be sleeping above the courtyard, he decided. Unfortunately the houses were set so closely together here that there was no way to get to the courtyards from the front.
He looked up and down the empty street. Torches burned fitfully on walls; some had been extinguished by the wind. He looked up, and sighed. In silence, having done this sort of thing many times before, he moved to the end of the portico, mounted the stone railing and, reaching above his head with both hands, gripped and then pulled himself straight upwards in one smooth motion onto the porch roof.