My dead diary - parties

Monday. Steeling myself to venture outside but meet Panchises on the stairs and end up dragged to some lunar celebration in the Egyptian rooms. I don’t know why I agreed; they’re a tedious bunch, and so full of themselves with their fancy coloured coffins. Kantep’s the only one worth talking to so I sit with him for a while, reminiscing about old days. It was his king whose trade routes we used to plunder – I remember one particular ambush, charging down a mountainside in early morning light and their charioteers fighting like women. Seems only right that the king ended up by mistake in a shallow grave somewhere while Kantep the slave got the posh valley tomb. He’s snubbed by the others of course, and we are getting disapproving looks but then Trimalchio rolls in, still blind drunk from his Assyrian evening, and throws up over the host. We manage to extract him from the ensuing uproar and leave him with the monks in the Mediaeval gallery to sleep it off.

At least two encroachments from outside over the last few days. Some folk here already talking about war. I’ve taken to wearing a sword most of the time now.