Pompeii

a woman in a short green dress sat on a stool with her legs wide apart. She stood as she heard him enter and came towards him eagerly, arms outstretched in welcome, vermillion lips cracked into a smile. She had used antimony to blacken her eyebrows, stretching the lines so that they met across the bridge of her nose, a mark which some men prized as beauty, but which reminded Attilius of the death-masks of the Popidii. She was ageless – fifteen or fifty, he could not tell in the weak light.
    He said, 'Africanus?'
    'Who?' She had a thick accent. Cilician, perhaps. 'Not here,' she said quickly.
    'What about Exomnius?' At the mention of his name her painted mouth split wide. She tried to block his path, but he moved her out of his way, gently, his hands on her bare shoulders, and pulled back the curtain behind her. A naked man was squatting over an open latrine, his thighs bluish-white and bony in the darkness. He looked up, startled. 'Africanus?' asked Attilius. The man's expression was uncomprehending. 'Forgive me, citizen.' Attilius let the curtain fall and moved towards one of the cubicles on the opposite side of the vestibule, but the whore beat him to it, extending her arms to block his way.
    'No,' she said. 'No trouble. He not here.'
    'Where, then?'
    She hesitated. 'Above.' She gestured with her chin towards the ceiling.
    Attilius looked around. He could see no stairs.
    'How do I get up there? Show me.'
    She did not move so he lunged towards another curtain, but again she beat him to it. 'I show,' she said. 'This way.'
    She ushered him towards a second door. From the cubicle beside it, a man cried out in ecstasy. Attilius stepped into the street. She followed. In the daylight he could see that her elaborately piled-up hair was streaked with grey. Rivulets of sweat had carved furrows down her sunken, powdered cheeks. She would be lucky to earn a living here much longer. Her owner would throw her out and then she'd be living in the necropolis beyond the Vesuvius Gate, spreading her legs for the beggars behind the tombs.
    She put her hand to her turkey-throat, as if she had guessed what was in his mind, and pointed to the staircase a few paces further on, then hurried back inside. As he started to mount the stone steps he heard her give a low whistle. I am like Theseus in the labyrinth, he thought, but without the ball of thread from Ariadne to guide me back to safety. If an attacker appeared above him and another blocked off his escape, he would not stand a chance. When he reached the top of the staircase he did not bother to knock but flung open the door.
    His quarry was already halfway out of the window, presumably tipped off by the whistle from the elderly whore. But the engineer was across the room and had him by his belt before he could drop down to the flat roof below. He was light and scrawny and Attilius hauled him in as easily as an owner might drag a dog back by his collar. He deposited him on the carpet.
    He had disturbed a party. Two men lay on couches. A negro boy was clutching a flute to his naked chest. An olive-skinned girl, no more than twelve or thirteen, and also naked, with silver-painted nipples, stood on a table, frozen in mid-dance. For a moment, nobody moved. Oil lamps flickered against crudely painted erotic scenes – a woman astride a man, a man mounting a woman from behind, two men lying with their fingers on one another's cocks. One of the reclining clients began trailing his hand slowly beneath the couch, patting the floor, feeling towards a knife which lay beside a plate of peeled fruit. Attilius planted his foot firmly in the middle of Africanus's back, Africanus groaned, and the man quickly withdrew his hand.
    'Good.' Attilius nodded. He smiled. He bent and grabbed Africanus by his belt again and dragged him out of the door.

    'Teenage girls!' said Ampliatus, as the sound of Corelia's footsteps died away. 'It's all just nerves before her wedding. Frankly, I'll be glad, Popidius, when she's your responsibility and not mine.' He saw his wife rise to follow her. 'No, woman! Leave her!' Celsia lay down meekly, smiling apologetically to the other guests. Ampliatus frowned at her. He wished she would not do that. Why should she defer to her so-called betters? He could buy and sell them all!
    He stuck his knife into the side of the eel and twisted it then gestured irritably to the nearest slave to take over the carving. The fish stared up at him with blank red eyes. The Emperor's pet, he