The Course of Honour by Lindsey Davis Read Free Book Online Page B

way.
    The press of people in the narrow streets did not deter a man of his sturdiness. Keeping close behind his shoulder she slipped after him as he moved unhurriedly; he forced a path more courteously than most men of his status ever managed. He checked frequently, though she sensed he was sufficiently alive to her presence to know immediately if they did separate in the crush. Once a water-carrier with two wildly sloshing cauldrons slung on a bowed pole pushed impatiently between them on his way from a public fountain to the upper quarters of an apartment block; she caught at Vespasian’s toga, but with one of his abrupt smiles he was already slowing up to wait for her.
    Freckles of sunlight flickered on their faces as they reached the smaller streets; these were just wide enough to glimpse the sky far away between corners of the roofs on the six-storey blocks whose cramped apartments were piled one upon the other like towers of slipper-limpets on a rock. Everywhere taverns and workshops spilled out in front of them, for by day life was lived in the streets. The pillars of the arcades were garlanded with metalware—bronze flagons and copper jugs with chains through their handles like preposterous necklaces. They stepped around leaning stacks of pottery, then ducked under baskets hung on ropes above their heads. They squeezed past touts with trays of piping-hot meat-pies, pressed back under balconies as sedan chairs jostled by, paused to watch a game of draughts on a makeshift board scratched in the dust. Assailed by noise and smells and the shoving of a polyglot humanity which at times carried them along helpless on the tide, at length they reached their destination.
    â€˜Show me your ticket!’ Caenis commanded. ‘Then I can look out for you—but you mustn’t wave.’ Gravely he produced the ivory disc from which she memorised the number of his seat. ‘If you still want to see me, I’ll wait over there afterwards by the fortune-teller’s booth. If I leave early I’ll send down a message.’
    â€˜I’ll be there,’ he assented sombrely.
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    Women sat at the top of the third tier of seats in the theatre, after the various ranks of masculine citizens; Caenis had saved up for a ticket, to avoid having to stand on the upper terrace with foreigners and less thrifty slaves. Even from this high perch she soon picked out Vespasian; already the way he moved seemed vividly familiar. Usually she followed a play almost ahead of the actor, but she constantly lost Blathyllos today. Her concentration kept skittering off to the fourteen rows in the first tier, reserved for knights.
    The art of the tragic pantomime had developed nearly to its peak. Few new plays were written; those shown now comprised part of the communal memory. The mood of the story was conveyed by an orchestra of wind and percussion while the words, which the audience often knew by heart, were sung either by a small choir or a soloist. Nowadays there was only one actor, who portrayed all the parts; he honed himself for this with a strict regimen of diet and exercise. He presented the action through a combination of mime and dance, where each gesture, each glance, each delicate flexing of a muscle, each precise modulation of a nerve, caught the imagination and through the imagination the heart.
    Blathyllos was good. At first he commanded his audience simply by standing still and drawing on their expectation. His slightest movement carried right to the back of the auditorium and as in all the best theatre it was apparently effortless. He used suspense, horror, confusion, sentiment, and joy. He brought them through heroism and pity, anger and desire, grief and triumph. By the end even Caenis felt wrung. The final applause discovered her blinking, dry-mouthed, momentarily bemused.
    When she regained the street she thought for one wild moment that Vespasian would not come. She was waiting, sufficiently