He crept up the rotting stairway, intending to hide on the roof. When he reached the topmost story a better opportunity presented itself. Peering through the tattered rag that served as a door, he saw that the apartment had suffered a fire; the walls were charred and the roof was half open to the sky. There wasn’t a stick of furniture in the place, but propped against the wall, scabby legs sticking out before her, sat an old crone. Her head lolled to one side, a wine jug lay in her lap.
“You come to see me, darlin’?” she croaked. “Cost you two coppers, ’at’s all.”
It was the work of a moment to strangle her. Then Ganymede hunkered down by the window to wait.
The search party had blundered down one dark alley after another in the neighborhood of the Circus until, at last, even Pliny was ready to give up. The night air was sultry, heavy with threatening rain. Sweat pooled in the hollows of Pliny’s eyes, trickled down his neck.
“Where in Hades are we?” he demanded of no one in particular.
“As it happens,” replied Martial, “we are not very far from the house of some poet friends of mine. There’s always a party going on. Come along, enjoy some bad wine, good company, and better verses than Statius ever wrote. Your centurion can see you home when you’ve had enough.”
“The last thing in the world I want to do right now is go to a soiree,” said Pliny testily. “ Mehercule, I should have been home two hours ago. Calpurnia will be worrying herself sick.”
But the poet persisted and, at last, Pliny yielded. “But only for half an hour.”
Valens and his men repaired to a tavern down the street to wait.
Answering to Martial’s knock, the door was opened by a tipsy young man, naked to the waist, whose long hair tumbled over his face. The room behind him was dark and smoky with incense; flutes shrilled a wild melody, castanets clattered, dancers whirled in a candlelit haze.
“This isn’t a poetry reading, this is a bacchanal!” Pliny sputtered. But Martial applied a firm hand to his back and propelled him inside.
“You there, boy, fill a goblet for my friend and me,” Martial shouted to a slave over the commotion of voices. The poet tossed his off at a gulp. “Come meet my friends.” He plunged into the crowd of revelers, holding tight to Pliny’s elbow lest he escape. “Mind where you step.” Tangled like crabs in a sack, bodies sprawled and writhed upon cushions-men, women, boys, creatures of ambiguous sex, sleek and oiled cinaedi in gaudy pantomime masks, and battle-scarred gladiators all together. A miasma of perfume, sweat, and the ranker smells of love engulfed them.
“Fancy seeing you here, old man!” An elderly senator, whose private life was said to be beyond reproach, tugged at Pliny’s cloak, grinning foolishly from the floor while a naked girl tousled his white hairs.
Martial led the way through a succession of rooms until the sounds of laughter and clapping hands drew them to a small garden at the rear of the house, where torches flared amid deep shadows.
“Ho, Nepos, is that you?” cried Martial. “And Cerialis? And Priscus, too?”
The three poets occupied a bench while a clutch of admirers lay on the grass at their feet. “Glycera, Telesphorus, Hyacinthus, Thais, Thalia,” Martial seemed to know them all.
“Who’s your friend?”
“This is Gaius, a lover of poetry.” Mercifully, Martial omitted the rest of Pliny’s name. “Goblet empty already, Gaius? Here, someone fill him up.”
“I’d rather he fill me up!” cackled an aging prostitute, asprawl on the ground in a pose that left nothing to the imagination.
“What, your ancient cunnus, Ligeia?” Martial shot back. “I don’t know why you even bother to depilate it anymore-seems to me rather like plucking the beard of a dead lion!” The revelers howled with laughter.
“Bastard!” Ligeia showed him the digitus infamis.
“Look, my friend has come here to listen to poetry, not to be propositioned by aging lupae. Here, make room for him on the bench and pass the wine jug. Nepos, give us one of your epigrams.”
After Nepos, they all in turn recited-wicked, cutting, scabrous verses. In the midst of the hilarity, Pliny observed a beautiful youth with hair like molten gold sit down beside Martial and put his arm around him. They kissed long and deeply. The celebrated Diadumenus, no doubt.
Meanwhile the jug went round and round, and Pliny kept finding his cup in need of refilling. Then he heard a new voice reciting-it was his own.
“Bawdy verse! Why, you old lecher!” Martial cried in delight. “Is that what’s on your mind when you’re looking so damned dignified?” “I smile, I laugh like other men.” Pliny was instantly defensive. “Of course you do!” Martial thumped him on the back. “I mean they’re nothing really, mere trifles.”
“You’re too modest! Put a laurel wreath on his head, someone- you’re one of us! You know, I always suspected there was a real poet inside there somewhere.”
At that moment Flaccus, yet another poet friend, joined the circle. He was out of breath. “Have you heard the news?” he said to Martial. “Papinius Statius is dead! The old boy croaked in the middle of dinner this evening.”
“Dead? Statius!” Martial kissed Flaccus, he kissed Diadumenus, he kissed Pliny. He threw his arms in the air and shouted to the heavens, “Tonight I am the happiest man on earth! Diadumenus has come back to me and Statius is dead! By the balls of Priapus, now comes my turn! I will be court poet now!”
His comrades joined in a chorus of “Hear, hear!” and “No one deserves it more than you.” And Pliny found himself as merry as any of them, although he did seem vaguely to recall that he had always liked Statius.
The jug continued to go round and, as the hour grew late, amorous pairs in various combinations of sexes were seen creeping off into the shadows.
Martial roused Pliny, who had fallen into a doze, with a jab in the ribs. “There’s a pretty youth over there,” he whispered. “Buttocks like firm pears, balls plucked and smooth as a baby’s.” He’s looking this way. Go on, my friend.” Pliny, in alarm, stood up on wobbly legs. “No, sorry, married man, don’t you know. Look, got to be going.” Martial pulled him back onto the bench. “It’s not like cheating on your wife.” “Never cared much for boy-love, to tell you the truth.”
Martial looked at his friend in amazement. “Really? Why ever not? Well, have a bit of the other, then. Ye gods, man, get down off your high horse!”
This virtuous prig, Martial thought. Would it make it easier to betray his patron if he first dirtied him a little? He signaled to a girl who wore long earrings and nothing else. She swayed toward them, moving her hips to the rhythm of the flutes and cymbals.
Pliny struggled, but his legs would not obey him.
The girl knelt at Pliny’s feet and looked up with liquid eyes. Her tongue darted out over her lips. Pliny trembled in every limb. He filled his hands with her thick, scented hair and drew her closer. He swelled, he grew. The music pounded in his head. The torches guttered and flared. He was a man, dammit, and it had been too long!
“Home to bed, sir?” Out on the street, Valens leered at the acting vice prefect. Enjoyable was it, sir? The poetry, I mean?” Pliny’s clothes were disarranged and drenched with scent, a laurel wreath was cocked over one eye, and he steadied himself with one hand against the house wall.
“What time d’you make it, Centurion?” He tried desperately to sound in command of himself.
Valens squinted at the stars. “Dawn in about two hours, I’d say, sir.”
With an inward groan, Pliny launched himself down the middle of the deserted street. Valens and his men, themselves rather the worse for drink, fell in on either side.