Arena by John Jakes Page A

who’d fetched me to witness the ceremonies appeared on a stair. He beckoned.
    The reek of my sickness was powerful in the corridor. The eunuch never showed that he noticed.
    He led me from the Temple into a dark garden. He bade me wait and hurried away.
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    He returned with a basin and towel with which I washed. Then he conducted me to the entrance of a modest house. Lamps glowed in the windows. The sight of lights restored my sense of balance. What I had witnessed seemed remote and unreal.
    At the entrance to the house the priest departed. I entered the atrium alone. A Thracian girl, barefoot but demurely clad, emerged from the shadows to conduct me to the peristyle. Other lamps on taborets gleamed there. Golden fish swam lazily in a lily pool. On a couch Locusta reclined, fully dressed and composed. Had I not known what she’d recently been doing, she would have seemed an ordinary Roman matron, only lovelier.
    She rose and glided to meet me on slippered feet. I noticed with a start that the pupils of the Thracian girl were a blind milky white. Shadows gathering in the peristyle’s corners became sinister.
    “My lady,” I said stiffly, “you do me honor by inviting me to your house.”
    “It’s a modest place,” she replied with a graceful bow. Her stole was pale ivory silk. Through it the mature curves of her thighs and round, peaked breasts shone gray. “But there is considerable wealth attached to the role of chief priestess of Cybele. I prefer to put that wealth to work in various trading investments, rather than waste it on ostentation. Come, sit.”
    I obeyed, feeling more a prize domestic animal than a man. Locusta’s face, despite its faint patterning of age wrinkles, was smooth and pale. Her greenish eyes danced.
    “Does it make you nervous, bestiarius, coming here for such an obvious purpose?”
    “No, my lady. Nothing could bother me after what I saw in your Temple.”
    “Be sure you keep what you saw to yourself.”
    “I will. I don’t think I could discuss it in public.”
    Daintily she plucked a moist, freshly shelled crab from a platter. She offered the dish to me. I shook my head, making a bad start at politeness.
    “I take it you don’t care for the Eastern mysteries, Cassius. I find that view curious. What’s worse? Private indulgence of the lust for flesh, or public indulgence of the lust for killing in the arena?”
    “In truth, my lady, I suppose one is no worse than the other. But when I enter the arena, I fight by my own rules. Those rules are as honorable as the combat allows.”
    Irritated, she threw aside the bit of crab and selected a ripe mushroom.
    “My lady, my lady,” she mimicked. “Is that all I’ll hear from you tonight? My name is Locusta. I don’t see why we must pretend with one another. That day I happened to drop in at the Beast School, I became convinced there was something about you that marked you as different from the rest of those oafs. Many of whom,” she finished archly, “I have entertained in this same peristyle, by the way. Does my frankness offend you?”
    Without her leave, I reached for a cup of wine and drank quickly. Later she told me the sweet stuff was Chalybonium, from Damascus, a favorite of the Emperor’s. After a jolt of the wine washed the sourness from my mouth and warmed my belly, I answered her.
    “No, my — Locusta. Your frankness doesn’t offend. It allows me to be equally frank. I accepted your invitation in the hope that your favor might help me gain what I want.”
    “Oh, you’re insolent on top of everything else!” she exclaimed, with a nasty display of white teeth. She walked to the pool’s edge and stood gazing down, allowing me the chance to see her splendid body through the thin silk. She smoothed the material once, a quick motion of her hands down her belly, heightening the prominence of her breasts. “So you came here not for an evening’s entertainment or a meal, but for something more?”
    “Much more.