"She invited me into her litter. 'To go where?' I said. 'Home. I'm expecting a man to bring me some news,' she said. I suppose she meant you? 'I don't want to go there if there'll be someone else,' I told her. She paused for a long time, looking at me. Finally she said, 'Metella can stay here with her cousins a while longer. You and I will go to the horti.'
"That was a mistake, of course. On a warm day like this, with all the naked toads jumping about in the water and leering at her while Lesbia leered back at them. Did she flirt with them merely to hurt me? Or do I flatter myself? At least Chrysis wasn't there to fetch the comeliest toad into her tent, which is their usual game. She invited me to her upcoming party. She was very polite. 'You must have some new poems you can read for us, something inspired by your travels.' As if I was an acquaintance she could call on to entertain her admirers. But do you know what?" He smiled grimly. "It so happens that I do have a new poem, and I will be reading it at her party. Something to fit the theme of the Great Mother festival. I suppose you'll be there."
"Me? I haven't been invited. Strange, isn't it, considering that I'm her new lover and all."
"Don't needle me, Finder. I've been pricked enough for one day. At sundown she decided it was time to leave the horti, just when I'd made up my mind to say what I needed to say to her. She had to pick up Metella, she said, and she was expecting her brother tonight. 'You're welcome to come along,' she said-as if I could stomach being with both of them at once. I told her I'd walk back into town by myself."
"But you ended up outside her door again."
"Like a moth to a flame, except that this flame freezes instead of burns."
The serving slave suddenly appeared and at Catullus's insistence poured fresh wine into our cups. I sampled it and was tempted to spit it out, but Catullus drank without complaint.
"So, what exactly happened at the baths today?" he said. "At the horti, when I told Lesbia I'd been at the Senian baths, she was suddenly all ears, pressing me for everything I'd seen of that ridiculous chase. She knew what it was about, didn't she? But she was as tight-lipped as you."
No wonder Clodia hadn't bothered to wake me when she came in, I thought. From Catullus and then from Barnabas she had probably heard more than enough details about the botched capture of Licinius and the pyxis. Or had she been too eager to be with her brother to bother with the hireling's report?
"You know about charges pending against Marcus Caelius?" I said.
"It's all I've heard about since I got back to Rome. They say he's up to his neck in it this time."
"Your Lesbia and Lesbius have a hand in the prosecution. Not officially, but they're eager to gather evidence against him on a particular charge of attempted murder."
"So I've heard. Is that what she's hired you for?"
"Yes."
"Then it's come to that, between her and Caelius. I've loved them both. The glittering Venus of Roman society, the petulant Adonis. Who could be surprised when the two of them decided to love each other and turn the country bumpkin from Verona out of their beds? Those two together, without me – that was more than I could stand." The wine was beginning to slur his speech. "It was better when her husband was still alive. Good old Quintus Metellus Celer, the stodgy goat. She was faithful to me then! But after Celer died, she became her own woman, and everyone else's woman as well. Even that was better than having her choose a favorite and shut me out altogether. But then she picked Caelius and I became just another of her multitude of used-up lovers. This tavern is full of the wretches. I could point out a dozen men who've had her. I thought a year away would dull the pain. But the wound still bleeds, and I still crave the knife that cut me."
"She doesn't love Caelius anymore," I said. "He rejected her, as far as I can tell. She's bitter. She's determined to see him destroyed, obsessed with it, if that's any comfort to you."
"Comfort? To know that another man truly got inside her, made her care enough to feel pain when he turned away, made her ache enough to want to destroy him? Me she dismissed with a flick of her wrist-no more scraps for the dog! Caelius deserts her and she goes crazy. Where's the comfort in that?"
"The desire for destruction is mutual, at least according to Lesbia. That's what the incident at the baths was about. Caelius's friend Licinius was there to deliver poison to some ofher slaves, because Caelius thought he could bribe them to murder their mistress."
"Murder Clodia?" Catullus was startled enough, or drunk enough to forget the pseudonym. "No, Caelius would never do that. I don't believe it."
"She claims he tested the poison on a slave first, and watched the man die before his eyes."
"I can believe that. Caelius could kill a slave without a twinge of guilt. But I can't believe that he would use the same poison on her."
"Not even out of desperation? The charges against him are serious. He'll be ruined for life if he's found guilty. Humiliated, forgotten, exiled from Rome."
"Exiled from Rome-I know that loneliness." Catullus stared into his cup.
"To save himself, don't you believe that Caelius would destroy your Lesbia?"
"Destroy Lesbia? No, not her. Never." "Perhaps he never loved her quite as you did."
"None of them ever loved her as I did." Catullus stared bleakly into the crowd, then stiffened. "Hades!" he whispered. "Look who just came in."
I squinted through the haze at three newcomers who stood near the entrance, searching the room for a place to sit. "Marcus Caelius himself," I said. "Accompanied, if I'm not mistaken, by his friends Asicius and Licinius."
Caelius saw Catullus. His face registered simple surprise, followed by a lightning flash of emotion. Then a mask fell into place, which lifted for only an instant to show his confusion when he saw me. He hesitated, then gestured for his companions to follow as he approached us.
"Catullus!" he said, flashing a sardonic grin. "How long have you been back?"
"A few days."
"And you haven't come to call on me? My feelings are hurt."
"Actually, I did drop by your place," said Catullus. "Your old place. The neighbors said Clodius had kicked you out and put the building up for sale. They said I'd find you back at your father's hovel on the Quirinal
Hill."
"You should drop by." Caelius's smile never wavered.
"The Quirinal is a little out of my usual orbit. Besides, I shouldn't think that your father's house would be a suitable place for entertaining guests in your accustomed style."
"I don't know what you mean."
"The wine, the singing, the whores, the inventive sleeping arrangements. I can't see your papa approving."
"All that's behind me now," said Caelius.
"At least until after your trial. Then you may have to leave every-thing behind whether you want to or not."
The mask almost cracked. "I mean to say that I've seen fit to put aside some of the more boisterous habits of my youth, and to sever some of my more questionable associations. Perhaps you were right not to come calling on me after all, Catullus. One does have to hold to certain standards when inviting a guest into the house of one's father. It was thoughtful of you to spare me the embarrassment of shutting the door in your face."
There was a long pause, during which Catullus swirled the dregs in his cup and watched them spin, pursing his lips thoughtfully. "I think," he finally said, in a hard, low voice that made me hold my breath, "that for you to insult me in that way, Marcus Caelius-"
Caelius stiffened, as did his friends.
"For you to have insulted me in that fashion," Catullus went on, "by which I mean building an argument out of complicated sentences by logical steps-well, what I think about that, Marcus Caelius, is that you haven't drunk enough wine tonight!"