"Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus? Equestrian knight and former private secretary to the Imperial Court? Hail!" the Praetorian declaimed.

Suetonius stumbled to his feet and clutched his private parts behind his tunic with as much dignity as his clouded state, unsteady gait, and distressed arousal could marshal.

Damn! he thought, things were just getting really interesting!

"I am he," he mouthed in his best legal-argument voice trained in earlier years at the Bar of Rome. He had only the faintest nervous tremor in his vowels. "All hail, Praetorian!"

"On the instruction of Imperator Caesar Publius Aelius Hadrian, I convey to you an Imperial Summons."

The officer extended a small furled scroll at arm's length. It was bound in the scarlet silk tie and clay seal of the Imperial Administration which Suetonius instantly recognized from his own years earlier as Private Secretary to Hadrian.

Gathering his composure, he took the scroll and broke the seal to unfurl the small roll beneath. His mind had cleared swiftly and his nerves returned to a steadier flow as the inscrutable Praetorian stood at ease intently observing his responses. The officer would already know what he was about to learn, Suetonius imagined.

He read the epistle silently to himself, trying to ensure his hands weren't trembling. It began with the standard triumphalism.

"Imperator Caesar Trajan Hadrian Augustus, son of the divine Trajan Parthicus, grandson of the divine Nerva, pontifex maximus, tribunican power for the fifteenth time, thrice consul, pater patriae, on this 28th day of October of the thirteenth year of our rule, to Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, knight and scholar of Rome. Greetings — !"