I stuck things out long enough to make a feeble point, then laid a piece of dried grass in my scroll to keep my place and tucked its baton under my chin while I rerolled what I had read.
Both my new cronies wore white tunics with green binding; it looked like household livery, and from their confident expressions must have been the livery of some minor town councillor who thought himself big in the neighbourhood. The large one was surveying me like a farmer who had turned up something slimy on his spade.
'I'd better warn you,' I tried frankly, 'I know when a stranger comes to town men of enterprise plunder his life savings in the high spots while sinful women tickle his chastity in low dives-' There was more hope of extracting a flicker of expression from a pair of archaic statues in a deserted tomb.
I drank my water thoughtfully, and let events take their course.
'We're trying to find a priest,' the large one growled.
'You don't strike me as devoted types!'
Taking my advice from Laesus about changing my appearance, I had snugged into an old dark-blue tunic after my bath. With my open-backed felt slippers, this indigo disaster completed a comfortable ensemble for a night staying in for a good read. I probably looked like a sloppy philosophy student who was thrilling himself silly with a collection of racy legends. Actually I was dipping into Caesar on the Celts, and any interruption was good news for my sore gut because the lofty Julius was beginning to enrage me; he could write, but his sense of self-importance was reminding me why my crusty ancestors so distrusted his high-handed politics.
It seemed unlikely these visitors wanted to discuss Julius Caesar's politics.
'Who's this priest you're after?' I offered.
'Some fool of a foreigner,' the big terrorist shrugged. 'Caused a commotion in the marketplace.' His small friend sniggered.
'I heard about that,' I admitted. 'Used a naughty word for liquorice. Can't imagine how. Liquorice is a Greek word anyway.'
'Very careless!' the strong man groused. He made it sound as if being casual with language was a crucifixion crime. That's one opinion though not mine and not, I thought, a debating point this monster himself chewed over by a roaring country fire on long winter nights. 'You've been asking for someone we know; what do you want with Gordianus?'
'What is it to you?'
'I'm Milo,' he told me proudly. 'His steward.'
Milo stood up. I decided Gordianus must have something to hide: his household steward was built like the door porter of an extremely shady gambling hall.
Croton is famous for its athletes, and the most famous of all had been called Milo. The Gordianus steward could easily have modelled for the souvenir statuettes I had resisted in the market. When Croton captured Sybaris (the original sin city, further round the Tarentine Bay), that Milo had celebrated by sprinting through the stadium with a bull across his shoulders, killing the beast with one blow of his fist, then eating it raw for lunch…
'Let's go inside,' this Milo told me, looking at me as if he quite fancied half a hundredweight of uncooked sirloin.
I smiled like a man who was pretending he could handle the situation, then let myself be led indoors.