I needed a drink.

More than that, I needed to get away from my house. I could take only so much of Diana weeping, Bethesda stamping her feet, the broken Minerva staring at me. I did not want to overhear the whisper of my slaves saying, "What's to be done with her?" or "What's to be done with him?" or "I knew it all along!"

Where can a man go to forget his cares in the middle of the night?

I had not set foot in the place the poet Catullus called the Salacious Tavern in almost exactly four years, since the final day of another trial, that of Marcus Caelius. Eco and I found it easily enough, tramping through the warehouse district to the northwest of the Palatine Hill accompanied by his bodyguards (without Davus, of course) until we came to the upright pillar in the shape of a phallus, and the door lit up by a phallus-shaped lamp.

The place had not changed a bit. It reeked of smoke from cheap lamp oil and the fumes of cheap wine. The general roar was punctuated every now and again by the rattle of dice and the cries of winners and losers. The few women in the place were clearly for sale. Most of the men appeared to be in a good mood. Insofar as the clientele of the Salacious Tavern had any interest in politics, they were likely to be Clodian sympathizers.

While Eco and I looked for a bench to accommodate ourselves and our bodyguards, I overheard several snatches of conversation.

"Cicero might as well have had his tongue cut out – maybe that'll be next, if Pompey ever has the guts to make himself dictator and starts handing out some real justice!"

"The idea of Milo heading off for Massilia, where he'll stuff himself with mussels and wallow with Gaulish whores – what kind of punishment is that?"

"Did Antony's speech make any sense to you at all?"

"Only a little more than Cicero's!"

"I wept, I tell you, wept when his nephew talked about him dying alone and bleeding on the Appian Way. He was a great man -"

We finally found a place. A serving boy brought us wine at once. The vintage was as foul as the service was quick.

"Eco, what am I going to do with them?"

"A good question, Papa."

"How did it happen?"

"I think you know how it's done, Papa."

"You know what I mean!"

"Is she absolutely certain about… her condition?"

"She seems to be. So was Bethesda, after she questioned her."

"When did it happen, Papa? The first time, I mean… assuming there was more than one occasion…"

"Do you remember the day the contio turned into a riot, and Belbo was killed, and the next day you and I decided to merge our households? You brought your bodyguards along with you, and gave me Davus to replace Belbo. Apparently, that very first night he was under my roof-"

"Oh, no!"

"Yes! What in Hades are you smiling at?"

"Am I? Well, it's just – at least, Davus wasn't my slave any longer when it happened, technically. Thank the gods for that. I'd given him to you, to be your personal bodyguard."

"So you're saying none of this is your concern?"

"No, Papa, that's not what I meant. I'm concerned, of course. But deciding what to do with Davus is entirely up to you."

"Thank you very much!"

The serving boy made a fortuitous appearance to refill our cups.

"He saved my life that day, you know," I said. "What's that?"

"The riot, the massacre in the Forum. When Milo and Caelius escaped dressed up like slaves. I came very close to being killed myself. It was Davus who plucked me out of the crowd. He's no coward, that's for sure."

"I'll say. It takes a brave man to fiddle with his master's daughter right under his roof, and on his first day in the house. What could he have been thinking?"

"What was he thinking with, you mean. Not with his head! Diana claims it's not his fault, of course."

"I think some of it must be his fault, Papa."

"I know what she means, and so do you. She says that she was the one who… initiated the matter."

."You make it sound like a legal contract! She may have 'initiated' it, but he was the one who should have refused. I told you Diana was starting to have an eye for young men. I told you it was time for her to marry."

"An eye for young men…" I nodded. "You'll have to admit, Davus is just what they like. Big as Hercules. Handsome as Apollo."

"And as stupid as an ox. An ox in rut, at that! Where in Hades is that serving boy? Do you feel like doing some gambling, Papa?"

I had to laugh out loud. "Eco, I feel like I've been doing nothing but gambling for months now. I think I'd like to stop gambling for awhile!"

"And just drink!"

"Exactly, Just drink!"

The serving boy arrived. We complained that the tavern's cups were absurdly small. He made a face to show that he had heard this before.

"So Diana is absolutely certain?" said Eco. His speech was beginning to slur.

"Yes. I didn't inquire for the precise details, Eco, but it's been over three months since the two of them met, and Bethesda says that Diana's schedule is considerably more reliable than the Roman calendar-"

"No leap-months!" For some reason Eco found this hilarious. I waited for him to finish cackling. "Anyway, it's all a great mess."

"So you mean, all the time Davus was with us on the Appian Way-"

"He was thinking about Diana, no doubt! Just as you were missing Menenia, and I…"

"And afterwards, when we were abducted, and he was thrown from his horse and then came to his senses and went back to the house -"

"Yes, Eco. The two of them were under the same roof every day, all day, and can you believe that Bethesda never noticed? Of course,

Bethesda was distraught over the two of us, and busy managing Pompey's guards and trying to keep the household running. Diana was probably her least worry."

"Still, how could Bethesda not have smelled something brewing? I think what this means, Papa, is that Diana has proved herself to be more clever and conniving than her mother!"

"Actually, I think I knew that already. Yes, Diana outwitted Bethesda. She hid her trysts with Davus -"

"All those days we were gone… and all the days we've been back!"

"Please, Eco, I don't want to think about it. And she also managed to hide her condition from Bethesda, which was quite a feat. Of course, that couldn't go on forever. All this time, she's been growing more and more miserable -"

"And Davus has been acting like the treasury slave caught with his hand in the coffer… so to speak."

"Yes, I could tell he was guilty of something. It's a terrible betrayal, isn't it? He was supposed to be guarding me and my family, and instead…"

"Papa, Davus is a man. And Diana, like it or not, is a woman."

"Davus is my slave, and Diana is my daughter!"

"Meto was a slave, before you adopted him. And Bethesda was a slave, before you set her free and married her."

"But Eco was only a little boy, and Bethesda was carrying Diana. What was I to do, have my daughter born a slave?"

"You could set Davus free. Make him a citizen. Then he could -"

"Out of the question! Reward him for what he's done?"

"Then the only alternative, short of putting him to death, is to sell him, preferably to a new master somewhere far, far away. Or you could sell him to the galleys or mines if you really wanted to punish him; he's young and strong enough that he'd probably survive a few years of that Most men would have had him beaten senseless and put in chains the moment they found out, and done something almost as bad if not worse to the daughter involved. In the old days, a good father would have had both parties put to death on the spot and never have blinked an eye -"

"Eco, stop! Oh, all this smoke is giving me a headache. I don't want to think about it any more. Look, isn't that…?" I peered through the orange reek of hazy lamplight "Over there in the corner – it is! Who would have thought it?"