“Don’t mock God, Titus.”

“Then go pray to him, Kaeso, and leave me out of this.”

Kaeso trembled with anger. “Have you considered that Pedanius got what he deserved? Taunting a slave with false promises, raping that boy while the slave watched-”

“Stop there, Kaeso! If you mean to suggest that the murder of a citizen by a slave could ever be justified, under any circumstances, leave my house at once. I will not have that sort of talk under my roof. I won’t have my family and my slaves exposed to such an obscene notion.”

Clenching his jaw, Kaeso left the room without another word.

Titus sat in silence for a long time, staring at nothing.

His throat was parched. He raised his hands to clap them, then saw that the slave Hilarion was already standing in the doorway, watching him with an inscrutable expression.

Titus slept uneasily that night. He was up before cockcrow.

He left Chrysanthe sleeping and went to the garden. He had no appetite, and it was too early to go to the baths. He sat on a stone bench. In the vague light before dawn, everything around him was indistinct. The house was quiet. Even the slaves were still asleep, except for the watchman who stayed up all night, and he was probably asleep as well. What a joke it was to trust one’s safety to a watchman, if there was no one to watch the watchman and make sure he was vigilant! The watchman of Pedanius had slept through his master’s murder.

It had been a long time since Titus had simply sat alone in silence, with no distractions and no one around him, not even a slave waiting out of sight for his summons.

The Senate would meet later that morning, after its members had time to go the baths to groom themselves and put on their togas, or, more precisely, after they had been groomed and dressed by their slaves. Titus decided to attend the session. He decided that he might even take part in the debate, something he rarely did.

If he intended to speak, he should probably prepare some notes, he thought. His first impulse was to rouse one of his secretaries, dictate his thoughts, and let the fellow put his random ideas into some sort of order; an old slave called Antigonus was good at that sort of thing. Then it occurred to Titus that he might be saying some things in his speech that he did not care to share with a slave, since the punishment of the 400 slaves of Pedanius would be the subject of the debate. What a peculiar circumstance, that a senator should wish to hide his thoughts from a slave!

Titus fetched a lamp himself and figured out how to light it from the sconce that stayed lit all night. He rummaged in his study until he found a wax tablet and a stylus, and, squinting under the dim light, began to scribble some notes. Within moments his hand began to cramp; he had not written anything with his own hand in a long time. He was also uncertain of some of his spellings; when a man always dictated to a trained scribe, he did not need to know how to spell.

Writing something worthy of being delivered in the Senate House, without a slave to transcribe and edit, was rather hard work, he realized. But it was also quite absorbing, as he found himself rubbing out awkward sentences and reworking them, coming up with new ideas that needed to be inserted inside other ideas, and rearranging the order of his arguments. Before he knew it, dawn had broken and the house had come to life around him. Slaves were scurrying up and down the hallway, some of them clearly surprised to see their master awake so early. The smell of breakfast farina wafted from the kitchen.

Titus was suddenly very hungry and in the mood for something sweet. He called to one of the girls and told her to bring him a bowl of steaming-hot farina with honey and dates and pine nuts. “You know how I like it,” he said.

After breakfast, he summoned his usual retinue of slaves and headed for the baths. Often he patronized a small establishment on the slope of the Aventine above the Circus Maximus. The place was old and small, and a bit drafty, but conveniently close to his house. But on this day Titus decided to go to the Baths of Agrippa. He was in the mood for a bit of luxury and spectacle, and the Baths of Agrippa always provided that. As well, there was plenty of space in the galleries to do a bit of work, in case he wanted to polish his notes a bit more.

The baths were out on the Field of Mars, a fair distance from his house. He considered taking a sedan or a litter, but decided to walk instead. Titus did not want to become one of those effeminate fellows who never stepped outside his house without being carried by slaves.

As he strode through the markets along the Tiber and then through the busy neighbourhood around the old Circus Flaminius and the Theatre of Pompeius, it seemed to Titus that there were a great many people headed the other way, towards the Forum, and that they all looked rather serious. There was a mood in the air, an atmosphere of tension. His bodyguards noticed it, too. Titus saw them draw more closely together, looking this way and that with more than their usual wariness.

Titus could not think what was happening, and forgot all about it once he arrived at the baths. He never ceased to marvel at the grandiose beauty of the place, with its high ceilings, splendid marble columns, and galleries of famous paintings and statues. The sheer luxury of the hot plunge, the cool plunge, the warm plunge, and then a thorough massage did much to rejuvenate him after his restless night. He watched the swimmers in the long pool for a while, narrowing his eyes at the glimmer of the morning sun reflected off the water and feeling its warmth on his face. He nibbled some dried figs and almonds and sipped a much-watered cup of wine, and forgot all his cares for a while. He even forgot his speech, and did no more work on his notes. When he was finally ready to be dressed in his toga, he saw by the sundial next to the long pool that if he did not hurry he would be late for the taking of the auspices – not his duty on this occasion – and the opening of the day’s business in the Senate.

He decided to hire a sedan and told the bearers to move at a fast pace. His bodyguards trotted alongside, but the other slaves lagged a bit; they would catch up and wait outside the Senate House in case Titus needed them. The ride was so smooth that he was able to take out the wax tablet and review his notes. Taking a sedan was not such an indulgence, he decided, if one used the time to do a bit of work.

The bearers took the most direct route, between the north side of the Capitoline Hill and the Temple of Venus built by the Divine Julius. Before Titus knew it, they were approaching the Senate House from the back side. He looked up from his notes, distracted by a strange noise that came from the direction of the Forum: it sounded like the roar of the ocean, or the crowd at the Circus Maximus. As the sedan rounded a corner, Titus saw something he had never seen before: the area before the steps of the Senate House was thronged with people. There were hundreds of them, perhaps even thousands. There was no reason for them to be there; this was not a festival day, and there was no public ceremony requiring their attendance. What were all these people doing here?

The sedan came to a stop at one end of the steps. Hitching up his toga, Titus ascended a few steps, then turned to take a closer look at the crowd. It was made up mostly of men of the common sort, ill-groomed and dressed in drab tunics – the citizen rabble of Roma. He looked at their faces. They did not look happy. Some of them seemed to be drunk, but that was inevitable in any large gathering. Some were clustered in smaller groups, talking among themselves or listening to a speaker. What were they talking about? Why did they appear so angry and agitated?