The press of people in the narrow streets did not deter a man of his sturdiness. Keeping close behind his shoulder, she slipped after him as he moved unhurriedly; he forced a path more courteously than most men of his status ever managed. He checked frequently, though she sensed he was sufficiently alive to her presence to know immediately if they did separate in the crush. Once a water-carrier with two wildly sloshing cauldrons slung on a bowed pole pushed impatiently between them on his way from a public fountain to the upper quarters of an apartment block; she caught at Vespasian's toga, but with one of his abrupt smiles he was already slowing up to wait for her.

Freckles of sunlight flickered on their faces as they reached the smaller streets; these were just wide enough to glimpse the sky far away between corners of the roofs on the six-story blocks whose cramped apartments were piled one upon the other like towers of slipper-limpets on a rock. Everywhere taverns and workshops spilled out in front of them, for by day life was lived in the streets. The pillars of the arcades were garlanded with metalware—bronze flagons and copper jugs with chains through their handles like preposterous necklaces. They stepped around leaning stacks of pottery, then ducked under baskets hung on ropes above their heads. They squeezed past touts with trays of piping-hot meat pies, pressed back under balconies as sedan chairs jostled by, paused to watch a game of checkers on a makeshift board scratched in the dust. Assailed by noise and smells and the shoving of a polyglot humanity that at times carried them along helpless on the tide, at length they reached their destination.

"Show me your ticket!" Caenis commanded. "Then I can look for you—but you mustn't wave." Gravely he produced the ivory disc from which she memorized the number of his seat. "If you still want to see me, I'll wait over there afterward by the fortune-teller's booth. If I leave early I'll send down a message."