(Age of Decadence)
Lies and deceit leading on,
the maelstrom swirls us back.
We return to where we began.
PROLOGUE:
Mucia Faustina was seated on the third level of the amphitheater, the maenianum summum, the section allocated to women. On the roof above her the poor, the pullati, stood to watch the games. Fortunately she was in the first row of seats above the balteus, one of the steep walls that separated the three levels of Rome's Flavian amphitheater, giving her a clear view of the oval arena without having to look over someone's shoulder. Though she would have preferred to be on the podium just above the arena where she could see all the action up close. But, then, she couldn't complain. The late emperor Nero, it is said, even in his privileged box, had been forced to use a cut emerald to see all the action having had poor vision.
And she certainly couldn't complain about the weather. A balmy breeze kept down the stench of animals that had been slaughtered by the bestiarii during the morning hunt. And banks of white, fluffy clouds cut down the heat and glare of the sun. It had been such a pleasant a day so far that there had not been any need to unfurl the velarium to provide shade for the spectators.
Soon the noxii, prisoners and other antisocial types, would be brought out for the noon executions. Normally this was when many people would take a break for meals or to relieve themselves, but not today, for today the amphitheater was jam-packed. Over 50,000 people took up all the seats while another 25,000 stood shoulder to shoulder in the passageways that encircled the three levels above the arena. No one wanted to leave and take a chance of not being able to get back in, for Rome's greatest living gladiator, Thanatos, a retiarius, was scheduled to fight two secutors that afternoon on the Bridge of Death.
A canvas tarp hid the bridge sitting in the middle of the arena waiting to be unveiled when Thanatos would make his grand entrance later that afternoon. Mucia Faustina squirmed on her wooden seat in anticipation. Thanatos was her idol. Many nights she had lain awake feverish with sexual excitement as she recalled his hard, young body and handsome face. All the women were hot for Thanatos. On all the walls were graffiti extolling his sexual magnetism by female and male fans: "Oh, Thanatos, sheath your mighty dagger in me." . . . "One night with me, Thanatos, and you'll never desire another.". . . "You are the heartthrob of all women, Thanatos."
Mucia felt the excitement rise in her as the trumpets blared and the first noxii were escorted into the arena by men armed with spears and whips. Mucia glanced at her program of events purchased from a hawker for a quadrans. These were Christians who would not declare Domitian their God. They always held themselves up as being better than others. Mucia had no sympathy for people disloyal to Rome. Especially Christians who everyone knew conducted lewd orgies, engaged in incest and practiced cannibalism as part of their obscene rituals.
Whatever punishment they received in the arena they deserved.
Mucia felt her heart race as a nude woman was shoved onto her knees into a circle of muscular men wearing only loin cloths and armed with whips. As she rose up one of the men lashed her naked flesh; even as high up as she was Mucia could hear the woman's scream and the crack of the whip. All around her spectators shouted their encouragements.
"Give it to her!" "Rip her!" "Make the blood flow!"
Catching the fever, Mucia rose to her feet shouting her own imperatives with clenched fists raised above her head. When she sat down the woman next to her placed a hand on her thigh. Mucia glanced at her and saw the events of the moment distorting her face with raw lust. Her hand, smooth and warm, trembling, moved up under Mucia's stola and up the inside of her thigh. Mucia gasped as she felt the tip of the woman's fingers touch the shaved surface of her cunt.
Below the screams of the noxii rose to the highest levels of the maenianum. When the naked woman had been reduced to a bloody pulp two men dressed as ancient demons rushed out with red hot irons which they placed against her flesh. She made a feeble motion indicating that she was still alive. Seeing that, one of the men slit her throat with a dagger, then they dragged her off toward the Portal of Death by poles fixed with sharp hooks in her heels. Other noxii were impaled on spears and forced to crawl around until they bled to death while the crowd roared with laughter at their frantic struggles.
Mucia watched the blood flow, the screams of the dying feeding her libido. The woman's fingers were working in her. The seat became wet beneath her, then a delicious delirium engulfed her as the woman clutched her tit and forced a wet tongue in her mouth.
Chapter I
"One thing I know, and it's this: all the works of mortal hand lie under sentence of mortality: we live among things doomed." -- Seneca
Loud claps of thunder followed brilliant tributaries of lightning on a rainy night as two youths in their mid teens walked down the Vicus Farbricii to where it terminated in the Via Sacra. Flashes of lightning revealed the gilded statue of the late emperor Nero looming one hundred and twenty feet high and the Flavian amphitheater to the right.
Moving beyond they entered a cluttered section of Rome called Subura located between the Viminal and Esquiline hills. The buildings here bordered a dreary warren of narrow winding streets and alleys as dark as the roiling clouds overhead. Fortunately the heavy rain would soon wash all the foul-smelling offal thrown from windows into the streets down drains to empty eventually into the Tiber.
The two youths moved warily now, for it was dangerous to walk the streets of Subura at night due to roving gangs of robbers and murderers who preyed on the hapless. They carried stout sticks for protection and for light lanterns, but there were no street signs or house numbers to guide them.
"Now tell me again, my dear friend, why we are risking our asses to be here."
From underneath the dripping wool hood of his cloak Gaius Antonius Saturninus turned his head and grinned with smooth, gleaming teeth at his hawk-faced companion, Lucius Horatius Calvus.
"You've seen my stepmother, amicus; isn't that enough reason?"
Lucius raised a judicious eyebrow. "Perhaps, but I think you're headed for a world of trouble.
"No doubt, but I've got to have her. She's like a goddess, so beautiful.
"What about your father?"
"As you know, all he delights in is governing Judea. Besides, I've asked Venus to give me a sign if what I wanted was wrong; I've received nothing."
"That's because the void does not speak to us, Gaius."
"Humph, I detect Epicurus, or one of those, speaking through you. If the gods are indifferent, then what does it matter what we do?"
Lucius grinned, water dripping from the tip of his nose. "That's a conundrum I'll have to bring up with my instructor and get back to you. But he did say once, I believe, that a stiff dick lends itself to a perverse youth."
"And was he speaking from experience?"
After a few minutes they came to a fork and paused.
"Are you sure you know where the fuck we are?" Lucius asked.
Gaius stroked his chin. "Hmm, I think we go to the right."
They walked on for several more minutes, hunched against the wind and rain, before coming to an intersection. On a corner diagonal to them was a tavern emitting a dim, amber glow from an open doorway sheltered by an extended arch with embedded Corinthian columns on either side.
They paused for a heavy gush of wind to pass, then stepped from the raised gravel-surfaced sidewalk down into the calf-deep rushing water of the cobblestone street. Refuse swept past them; a human fetus was revealed monetarily in the light of their lanterns. Certainly no petcocks would have to be opened to clean the streets for several days hereafter.
They hurried into the tavern lowering their hoods and shaking water from their cloaks. The sour smell of stale urine and vomit permeated the air. A bronze cock with a grinning human head hung from the ceiling with several lamps dangling on chains. Two men were playing dice at a small table, clay cups of wine at their elbows. Although gambling was illegal except on the Saturnalia or for athletic events the prohibition was rarely enforced. An older woman and a younger woman, both heavily made up, sat at another table next to a counter where a burly man, with a brutish, sly face, reclined in a chair, arms folded across his chest. His eyes followed them as they took their seats at a table near the doorway.
The older woman gave the younger one a nod, and she rose and came over. She may have been pretty, for she had a well shaped oval face, but too much makeup made it hard to tell what lay beneath. Her eyebrows had been plucked and dark, artificial ones painted on with exaggerated arches like the wings of a raven taking flight. Her eyelids were rubbed to a dark brown and her lips and cheeks reddened with lees of wine, or perhaps blood.
She looked over the two youths, a hand on hip. One had curly, black hair over a hooked nose, angular face and close set brown eyes like a raptor. He would be the scholarly one, no doubt, but the other youth was much more to her liking. Handsome beyond belief. The face of a Greek god. Blond with piercing blue eyes that chilled her in exciting ways. Adonis. Adonis. Oh, to be his Aphrodite. His wool cloak hid the shape of his body, but the broad, sloping shoulders and the muscular neck hinted at a body to die for.
"What can I do for you?" she asked, focusing on her Adonis. She slid her hand down the curve of her hip slowly, seductively.
Gaius gave her a narrow stare. "We need to see Bagus."
"Anything else you want?"
"Maybe."
"Hmm, I'll be waiting -- Bagus," she called over her shoulder, then with swaying hips went back to her table.
"Gods be damned," Lucius murmured. "Has there ever been a woman you couldn't have?"
Gaius chuckled. "My stepmother."
"I bleed for you."
The burly man got up slowly and came over to them.
"You wanted to see me?" His voice was gravelly. A jagged red scar circled his throat. He had the unmistakable military bearing of a former soldier that never rubs off after twenty years of mandatory service. He stood with both feet firmly planted on the tile floor, weight evenly distributed, hands down by his side, a defensive stance that he'd probably assumed many times in combat, and which had become by now unthinking second nature.
"We want to see Merlo," Gaius said.
"What makes you think I know anyone by that name?"
"A friend of mine got knocked up. She needed a remedy. She told me you could put me in touch with him."
Bagus sized them up for a moment then pulled a chair over and sat down. Two rich kids dressed like commoners in coarse woolens.
"Okay, but keep your voices down." He glanced over his shoulder toward the two customers playing dice, but deep in their cups they were too engrossed in their game to pay them any attention. Slowly he rubbed the back of his neck with a beefy calloused hand.
"I might be able to help you, but it will be expensive. This man Merlo is reclusive; a mystic from the Lake Fucinus region, who worships Angitia, the Marsi's goddess of healing, especially snake bites --"
"Witches, warlocks, necromancers," Lucius murmured.
"Yes, many are, but they know more of the legitimate healing art than all the doctors and herbalists in Rome."
