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the races.
She did show surprise, the merest flicker and blink of her eyes.
'Really?' she murmured. 'I hadn't expected the games to appeal to you. They
don't hold much allure for me, I confess. Noise and dirt, and there is often
violence in the stands.'
'None of which would draw me,' Rustem agreed.
'But I suppose there is an element of spectacle. Well, I shall be certain to
inform my husband that you'd like to accompany him to the next games day ...
it ought to be within a week or two if I
understand the process rightly.'
Rustem shook his head. Td really like to attend this afternoon.'
Thenai's Sistina assumed a distressed expression. 'I don't see any way to get
a message to my husband in time. He's with the Imperial party, in the
kathisma.'
'I understand as much. I was wondering if Cleander might ... ? As a courtesy
and great favour to me?'
The Senator's wife looked at him for a long moment. 'Why today, so urgently,
if I might ask?'
Which compelled an indiscretion. In light of the morning's open window and the
fact that this was Bonosus's wife and Bonosus already knew, Rustem felt
justified. The man's physician ought to be in attendance, in fact. No one else
could possibly know the precise nature of his patient's injuries. It could be
said he had duties and would be remiss in them did he not make his best effort
to be present.
So he told the wife of Plautus Bonosus, in formal confidence, that his
patient, Scortius of Soriyya, had violated medical advice and left his bed in
the Senator's city home, where he had been recovering from wounds. Given the
fact that there was racing today, it was not difficult to deduce why he had
done so and where he would be.
The woman showed no reaction to learning this. The whole of Sarantium might be
talking of this missing man, but either she'd already known where he was from
her husband, or she was truly indifferent to the fate of these athletic sorts.
She did, however, summon her stepson.
Cleander appeared sullenly in the doorway a short time later. It had occurred
to Rustem that the boy might have breached this parental order already and
been gone from the house, but it appeared that
Bonosus's son had been sufficiently chastened by two violent incidents in one
day and night to obey his father, for now.
His stepmother, with a few impressively precise questions, succeeded in
unearthing from the flushed young man the fact that it was
Cleander who had conveyed the charioteer to Rustem in the middle of
the night, and from where and under what circumstances. Rustem hadn't expected
this. She had made an impressive leap of reasoning.
He could not help but note the boy's discomfiture, but he also knew that he
himself had betrayed no secret in this regard. He hadn't even known that the
incident had taken place in front of the dancer's home. He hadn't asked, or
cared.
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The woman was disconcertingly clever, that was all. It came with her
detachment and composure, he decided. Those able to modulate and control their
inner passions, to view the world with a cold eye, were best equipped to think
things through in this way. Of course that same coldness might also be a
reason why the husband had a chest with certain implements and toys in another
house in a distant part of town. On the whole, though, Rustem decided he
approved of the
Senator's wife. He had, in fact, attempted to structure his own professional
demeanour in this same fashion.
It was unexpected to see it in a woman, mind you.
Also unexpected was the fact that she seemed to be coming with them to the
Hippodrome.
Cleander's extreme discomfort changed-in the overheated manner of youth-to a
stunned elation as he understood that his stepmother was undertaking to waive
a part of his punishment in favour of the duties owed a guest and Rustem's own
professed obligations as a physician.
She would accompany them, she said, to ensure Oleander's good behaviour and
swift return home, and to assist the doctor if he needed any intervention. The
Hippodrome could be a dangerous place for a foreigner, she said.
Cleander would go ahead of them, immediately, taking the steward and using his
mother's name for any outlays required, employing whatever unsavoury contacts
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