in a minute. Flavius, you come with me.”
“Can’t we wait till he’s finished,” Betto whined.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but no, there’s no time. Drusus, can you see if there’s a back way out of here? And Valens, you wait for us right here. By right here, I mean nowhere near the massage rooms. Is that clear?”
“Can he talk to us like that?” Valens asked.
The Mighty Malchus said, “He can if I say he can. Do what he says. If there’s trouble, then I’m senior legionary in command. Is that clear?”
Betto said, “Better you than me.”
We separated, and Betto and I crossed the calidarium. It was both hot and humid in this domed room, about twenty-five feet in diameter, its circular walls painted deep blue below the midpoint, rusty red above. To the left, steam rose from a sunken soaking tub in which two women lounged and perspired, eyes closed, backs against the edge, arms stretched along the rim in watery crucifixion. A cold water fountain bubbled in the center of the room to refresh those who required respite from the fires warming both floor and walls. From the heat radiating up through my thin sandals, my feet knew we must be very near the furnace room. To the right, a semi-circle of wooden benches hugged the wall, offering the only non-heated surface. Taking refuge there were two older men deep in conversation and one young woman, curled up like a cat, naked and asleep at the far end. I averted my eyes from another young man who was disentangling himself from his bearded lover, only to be assaulted by the sight that lay directly ahead.
The view beyond the archway into the torch-lit, semi-circular apse that was the smaller laconicum, or sweat room, rooted my sandals to the floor and caused me to lay hold of the edge of the fountain with counterfeit insouciance. The tribune Gaius Cato sat, or rather sprawled in the dim, flickering light, his hairless, gelatinous form enveloping half the only bench in the room. He was the center of a living frieze, a lounging symmetry of debauchery. A young woman and a younger boy tended to the man’s sloping breasts (the balneator had not exaggerated), one on either side of his shining corpulence. Rivulets of perspiration, brave explorers, circumnavigated the hemisphere of his gut. A third woman, kneeling with her back to us, her head bobbing between his thighs, held his midsection at bay with a straining forearm. Food was heaped everywhere, but nowhere more than in the tribune’s own hands. They swung slowly, methodically between tables behind the bench to deposit their loads beyond the pink fish lips and into the waiting abyss beyond. Driblets and crumbs of excess fell from his mouth and down his body, a sleet of food and wine.
“I told you we should have waited,” Betto muttered.
“What’s that?” the tribune called in a nasal whine, bits of nut tart falling from his mouth to land in the hair of the oblivious woman laboring between his splayed thighs. “If you have business, don’t just stand there, approach!”
“I’d rather not,” Betto whispered.
Forcing myself to release my grip on the fountain, I walked to the border between the calidarium and the laconicum. Truly I could not have moved any closer without grave risk of becoming an inadvertent participant in the tribune’s afternoon indulgence. “Sir, forgive the intrusion. I come representing my master, Marcus Crassus.” Sweat was beginning to bead on my forehead and twin drops tickled as they ran a slow race down my flanks.
“I’ve been expecting you. Give it here.” Sausage fingers waggled, summoning me forward. I reached into my tunic, removed the box and leaned between the two women to pass it into the tribune’s outstretched hand. For the moment, everyone stopped their ministrations to watch the tribune struggle to unwrap the entwined clasp.
“Ach! My fingers are too fat and greasy. Crispina, petal, would you mind?”
“Of course not, husband.” Long years of experience in maintaining decorum prevented me from abrupt reaction when the woman to my left detached herself and stood, her naked hip brushing against my tunic. Waves of body odor and perfume—cedar oil and vanilla—rose with her; almost overwhelming as they roiled in the room’s heated air. I stood my ground and managed to keep eye contact with her husband as she applied deft fingers to the unwinding of the thin ribbon that wrapped back and forth across the two brass pins that held the hinged box