Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus, a recently elected senator, quickly adjusted his gaze to the gloomy interior and rapidly searched the room for the man whose acceptance he craved more than anything in the world. He spotted Duilius and crossed the floor, his appearance putting an end to the honeyed words that Duilius had been speaking to a senator beside him, a senator whose vote Duilius had purchased many times. The junior consul looked up irritably.
‘What is it, Longus?’ he asked brusquely.
‘Scipio has returned!’ the young man said, his impatience to be the first to inform Duilius causing him to blurt out the words.
‘What …? When?’ Duilius said, standing, his voice loud in the muted chamber, the seated senator beside him forgotten.
‘Just now. I saw him crossing the Forum.’
Duilius’s mind raced to understand the reason behind the senior consul’s sudden reappearance. Why over a week early? And why unannounced? As he contemplated the answers his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the speaker’s gavel being struck on the marble lectern in the centre of the chamber. He looked up to see one of Scipio’s brats with the gavel in his hand.
‘The senior consul has returned from Sicily to inform us of a matter of grave import,’ he announced, his words holding everyone’s attention.
‘What matter?’ Duilius asked in the silent pause, his question drawing the speaker’s ire at the interruption.
‘I know not, Consul,’ Fabius replied, relishing Scipio’s adversary’s ignorance. ‘The senior consul will return to the Curia in the afternoon to speak in person to those members of the Senate who are available.’
Fabius left the lectern, to be immediately surrounded by Scipio’s allies who bombarded him with questions, none of which he had the answer to.
Senator Duilius looked around the chamber to see the eyes of his own allies looking to him for guidance, their faces blank, their minds filled with the same questions as everyone else’s.
Fools, Duilius thought, don’t they understand? There is only one step that must now be taken.
With a determined stride, the junior consul walked out of the inner chamber, his departure marked by silence as all watched him leave.
Atticus and Septimus followed Scipio and his guard into the courtyard of the senior consul’s Roman residence. The house was on the lower slopes of the northern side of the Capitoline Hill, an elevated site that afforded the residents an uninterrupted view of the expansive flood plains of the Tiber beyond the Servian Wall. The air at this height was fresher than that of the confined streets of the insulae, and Atticus breathed the earth-scented breeze deeply. Both men dismounted and followed Scipio into the house, hearing the heavy wooden courtyard gate closing firmly behind them, locking the world outside. The trio entered the atrium of the house, a large open-centred square surrounded by high-ceilinged porticoes on all sides, the roofs of which sloped inwards to collect rainwater in the shallow pool dominating the space. Although Septimus knew of such senatorial residences, he had never set foot inside a house such as Scipio’s. For Atticus, the house represented the individual version of the opulent wealth that he had witnessed in the Forum. The air inside the atrium was still and near silent, the hustle and bustle of the streets outside forgotten, the house seemingly deserted. The side of the atrium opposite the entrance was opened, leading further into the recesses of the building. The consul walked towards it with the others following in awed silence before he suddenly stopped and turned.
‘Wait here,’ he ordered; ‘my servants will attend you and bring you to one of the bathing rooms. After that, report to the guards’ quarters and await my orders.’
‘Yes, Consul,’ both men answered in unison, the senator already striding out of the atrium to the room beyond.
Septimus whistled tonelessly as he looked around the atrium. The area was sparsely furnished to give the impression of space, but the few items in view spoke of the wealth of the master of the house, from exquisitely carved marble busts of the Scipio family to gold inlaid mosaics on the walls. Moments later a slave arrived. Without comment he led them into the recesses of the enormous house.
Scipio lowered himself slowly into the near-scalding water. The steam in the room had already brought sweat from his every pore and, although the moist air had raised his body temperature, his mind protested at the additional intensity of the water in the mosaic-covered bath. Scipio fought the intense heat until his body temperature adjusted to match its surroundings, and he lay back to allow his mind to clear. There was much to think about, but he had always found that following the simple rituals of life, such as bathing, was a powerful method for ordering his thoughts. The first step in that process was to allow the ritual routine to become his focus. Only then would he experience the calm that was necessary to see the hidden solutions for every problem.
‘More heat,’ he murmured, and his mind registered the slap of bare feet as a slave scuttled to attend to his command, adding fuel to the fire that fed the underfloor heating of the large caldarium bath. Once again his body registered the change as heat built upon heat and his heart rate increased, giving him a light-headed, euphoric feeling.
When Scipio reached the edge of his level of endurance he signalled his attendant slaves to lift him from the bath. Two muscular slaves, sweating stoically in the heated chamber, rushed forward and lifted the near-limp senator over to a marble, towel-covered table. A female slave rubbed perfumed oil into every supple, heated muscle before removing the oil with a strigil, a curved metal tool that scraped off the dirt that had risen from the open pores. Scipio, feeling clean for the first time in many days, made his way into the tepidarium, the lukewarm bath in the adjoining room, and once again plunged himself into the crystal-clear waters, taken directly from the aquifer beneath the bathhouse. The water in this bath was a mere two degrees above body temperature, and Scipio lay back in the silence of the chamber, the only other presence an attendant male slave who stood ever ready for an immediate summons. Scipio totally ignored the man, considering the slave to be merely part of the surroundings in his private bathhouse; after the confines of the galley that had transported him here from Sicily, he relished the solitude.
A gentle knock on the door of the tepidarium chamber disrupted his thoughts, and he opened his eyes to look to the door, knowing who stood on the other side, smiling at the thought of seeing the familiar face.
He paused for a heartbeat, prolonging the sensation of anticipation.
‘Enter,’ he said.
The door opened inwards and a woman entered. She moved with a practised ease born of her privileged upbringing and social status, her bearing making her look taller than her average height. She was classically beautiful with dark brown eyes and long auburn hair, her mouth slightly open in a half-smile. She took a seat near the edge of the bath, facing her husband.
‘Welcome home, Gnaeus,’ she said, her voice sweet in the once-quiet chamber.
‘It’s good to be home, Fabiola,’ Scipio replied, his joy at seeing his wife and the truth of his statement evident in his voice.
Fabiola was wearing an elegant light woollen stola, parted slightly above her knee, and the hint of the fine line of her inner thigh caused Scipio to stir slightly in the bath, his loins remembering past nights in the privacy of their bedroom. She noticed the change in her husband and smiled inwardly, drawing pleasure from arousing the most powerful man in Rome.
‘I wasn’t expecting you home so soon,’ she said, concern in her voice at his sudden return.
‘Things have turned against the army’s favour in Sicily,’ Scipio replied. ‘The Carthaginians have blockaded the coast and cut our supply lines.