The Mark of the Horse Lord Read Online Free PDF Page A

but Phaedrus, with a few grains of sense still in him, put a hand on his shoulder and slammed him down again. ‘Softly! The “Rose of Paestum” isn’t the only wine-shop in Corstopitum.’
    And a big red-faced young man with a loose mouth grinned in agreement. ‘Tired of that girl on the wall, she’s coming off in flakes, anyhow. Le’s go ’nd find some real dancing-girls.’
    Somehow matters were sorted out, and the remains of the score paid, with a good deal of bickering, and they were spilling out into the street, hotly arguing as to where they should go next. They had been no more than loudly cheerful and from time to time a little quarrelsome in the hot room, but the fresh air went to their heads and legs like another kind of wine. ‘I’m drunk,’ Phaedrus thought. ‘I haven’t been as drunk as this since Saturnalia!’
    Well, he had meant to get as drunk as an Emperor tonight, and the feeling was good. He was not lonely or cold any more, and tomorrow could look after itself; he felt eighteen hands high and curiously remote from his own feet. He could fight a legion single-handed, and whistle the seven stars of Orion out of the sky. It was not such a grey world after all.
    They had forgotten about the quest for dancing-girls, and for a while they wavered their way about the streets, singing, with their arms round each other’s necks. Respectable people scurried into doorways at their approach, which seemed to all of them a jest for the Gods, so that they howled with laughter and began to kick at doors in passing and yell insults at any protesting face that appeared at an upper window. They had no clear idea of where they were heading, but presently they found themselves in the centre of the town, with the square mass of the Forum buildings and the Basilica rising before them cliff-wise out of the late lantern-light into the darkness. Among the small lean-to shops, closely shuttered now, that lined the outer colonnade, the gleam of a lantern here and there told where a late wine-booth was still open, and the sight of the little groups gathered about them made Phaedrus and his boon companions thirsty again.
    ‘C’mon,’ Quintus said. ‘Let’s have another drink.’
    ‘Had enough.’ The dark, plump boy still had more sense left in him than any of the others. ‘Maybe we’d best be jogging home.’
    ‘Roma Dea! The night’s still in swaddling-bands, there’s two full watches of it left yet.’ And another of the band lifted up his voice in mournful song:
    ‘Oh do not drink so deep, my son,
    My dear and only child!
    And do not lie down in the street
    And look so strange and wild.’
    The others joined in the chorus:
    ‘Yellow wine of Chios
    And dark wine of Gaul
,
    But the blood-red Falernian,
    The ruby-red Falernian,
    The fire-red Falernian
,
    Is the Emperor of them all.’
    Then in a blurred gabble, ‘
I’ve-a-fine-and-noble-reason-for-lying-here-a-season-but-what-it-is-I-cannot-quite-recall
.’
    And baying each other on to further efforts, they headed for the nearest of the still open wine-booths, close beside the main gate, with its triumphal inscription and attendant stone lions.
    The booth, which was no more than a trestle table under the roof of the colonnade, with a couple of coarse wine and water jars behind it, a few horn cups and a red pottery lamp in the midst of all, was kept by an ex-Legionary who had had trouble with drunks before. He eyed them with grim disfavour as they drew near, and began ostentatiously to stack the horn mugs together.
    ‘And what might you be wanting?’
    Quintus propped himself against the trestle table. ‘What’s one generally come to a wine-booth for, eh? – Tell me that. Wha’s one gener-rally—’
    ‘Well, you’ve come too late,’ said the booth’s owner. ‘Can’t you see I’m shutting for the night?’
    Quintus shook his head, while the rest crowded closer, and said with elaborate care, ‘That was what they said at the “Rose of Paestum”.