Steven Saylor - Arms of Nemesis

'The running of this house, for example?'

'Actually, Crassus himself owns the house and all the land around it. He has no need for villas; he scoffs at the idea of retreating to the countryside or the coast to relax and read poetry. And yet somehow he keeps acquiring them, dozens of villas by now. He can't keep empty houses all over Italy, so he prefers to rent them to his family and his factotums. Then, when he travels, he can reside in them when and as he needs to, a guest and yet more than a guest.'

'And the household slaves?'

'They are also the property of Crassus.'

'And the Fury, the trireme in the harbour that brought me from Ostia?'

'That belongs to Crassus, too, although it was Lucius who oversaw its use.'

'And the deserted vineyards and fields we rode through on the way from Misenum?'

'Property of Crassus. Along with numerous other properties and manufactories and gladiator schools and farms in the region, from here to Surrentum.'

'Then to call Lucius Licinius the master of this house-'

'Licinius gave the orders and acted independently in his own home, to be sure. But he was nothing more than Crassus's creature. A servant, really, if a privileged and very pampered one.'

'I see. Is there a widow?'

'Her name is Gelina.'

'And children?'

'Their marriage was barren.'

'No heir?'

'Crassus, as his cousin and patron, will inherit Licinius's debts and possessions.' 'And Gelina?'

'She now becomes Crassus's dependent.'

'From the way you speak, Faustus Fabius, it seems that Crassus owns the whole world.'

'I sometimes think he does. Or will,' he said, raising an eyebrow.

There was a loud booming at the door. A slave hurried to answer it. The door swung ponderously open, illuminating the dim hallway with a wedge of muted sunlight that framed a stocky, broad-shouldered silhouette in the flowing red cape of a military officer. Marcus Mummius marched towards us through the little garden, trampling on a bed of herbs and banging his elbow against the delicate faun.

He stopped before the body and scowled at the sight of the exposed wound. 'You've already seen it, then,' he said, reaching out to replace the camouflage of ivy and making a mess of it. 'Poor Lucius Licinius. I suppose Fabius has explained everything to you.'

'Not at all,' I said.

'Good! Because it's not his job to brief you. I wouldn't have thought he could keep his lips sealed around a stranger, but perhaps we'll make a soldier of him yet.' Mummius smiled broadly.

Fabius gave him a withering look. 'You seem to be in high spirits.'

'I raced my men all the way up from Misenum. A swift ride to loosen the joints after a few days at sea — that and the air of the Cup should put any man in high spirits.'

'Still, you might lower your voice just a little, in deference to the dead.'

Mummius's smile disappeared in his beard. 'Sorry,' he muttered,

and returned to the fountain to dab at the water and touch his moistened fingers to his bowed forehead. He looked uneasily at the body, and then at each of us, waiting for any notice of his impiety to the shade of Lucius Licinius to pass.

'Perhaps we should call on Gelina,' he finally said.

'Without me,' Fabius said. 'I have business to attend to in Puteoli, and not much time if I'm to get there and back before sundown.'

'And where is Crassus?' Mummius called after him.

'In Puteoli as well, on business of his own. He left this morning with word that Gelina should not expect him back before dinner this evening.' The door opened for him, pulled by an invisible slave in the shadows so that it seemed to open by magic at his approach. He stepped into the light and disappeared.

'What a prig,' Mummius muttered under his breath. 'And for all his high-flown attitude, they say his family could barely afford to buy him a decent tutor. Good blood, but one of his ancestors emptied the family coffers and no one ever filled them up again. Crassus took him on as a lieutenant only as a favour to Fabius's father; he hasn't turned out to have much talent as a military man, either. I could name a few plebeian families who've made more of a mark in the last hundred years or so.' He smiled a bit smugly, then called to a little slave boy who was crossing the atrium: 'You there, Meto, go and find your mistress and tell her I've arrived with her guest from Rome. As soon as we've refreshed ourselves in the baths, we shall call on her.'

'Is that necessary?' I asked. 'After the insane rush to get me here, do you really think we should spend time in a tub of water?'

'Nonsense. You can't meet Gelina smelling like a sea horse.' He laughed at his own joke and put a hand on my shoulder to lead me away from the corpse. 'Besides, taking the waters is the first thing anyone does when he arrives in Baiae. It's like praying to Neptune before setting out to sea. The waters here are alive, you know. Homage must be paid.'

It seemed that the relaxing airs of the Cup could loosen even Mummius's staid and stodgy discipline. I put my arm around Eco's shoulders and followed our host, shaking my head in wonder.

What Mummius had casually referred to as the baths was in fact an impressive installation within the house that seemed to have been built over a natural terrace on the side of the hill, facing the bay. A great coffered dome lacquered with gold paint arched over the space, pierced by a round hole at the summit that admitted a beam of pure white light. Beneath this was a round pool with concentric steps leading into its depths, its surface obscured by roiling masses of sulphurous steam. An archway on the eastern side opened onto a terrace furnished with tables and chairs, with a view of the bay. A series of doors around the pool defined a semicircular arcade; the doors were of wood painted dark red, the handles were of gold in the shape of fish with their heads and tails attached to the wood. The first door led into a heated changing room; the other rooms, so Mummius explained as we shed our tunics, contained pools of various sizes and shapes, filled with water of various temperatures.

'Built by the famous Sergius Orata himself,' Mummius boasted. 'You've heard of him?'

'No.'

'The most famous Puteolian of all, the man who made Baiae what it is today. He started the oyster farms on Lake Lucrinus — that earned him his first fortune. Then he turned out to be a master engineer at building pools and fish ponds, and villa owners all around the Cup showered him with commissions. This house contained a modest bath when Crassus acquired the estate. With Crassus's permission, not to mention Crassus's money, Lucius Licinius added an upper storey here, a new wing there, and had the baths completely rebuilt, employing Sergius Orata himself to draw up and execute the plans. I'd prefer a little grotto in the woods or a common city pool myself — this kind of luxury is rather absurd, isn't it? Impressive but excessive, as the philosophers say.'

Mummius stepped up to a brass hook cast as the heads of Cerberus and mounted in the wall. He hooked his shoes over two of the heads and hung his belt in the open jaws of the third. He pulled the heavy chain mail over his head and set about unbuckling leather straps. 'But you have to admire such feats of plumbing. There's a natural hot spring that comes out of the earth at just this spot; that's why the first owner chose to build here — that, and the view. When Orata rebuilt, he designed the pipes so that some of the pools are piping hot, while others are mixed with cool water from a different spring up the hill. You can pass from the coolest to the hottest and back again. In winter some of the rooms in the house are even heated by water from the hot spring, piped under the floors. This changing room, for example, is kept warm all year long.'