Catilina's riddle

CATILINA'S RIDDLE

Steven Saylor

CONTENTS

Maps

Part One NEMO

Part Two CANDIDATUS

Part Three CONUNDRUM

Part Four NUNQUAM

Epilogue Author's Note

NOMENCLATURE

The Latin name Catilina is sometimes spelled Catiline, especially in older texts, just as the Latin Pompeius is more familiarly rendered Pompey and Marcus Antonius becomes Mark Antony. Scholars nowadays tend to prefer original Latin spellings, which I have followed in the case of Catilina, if only for its euphony. The stress falls on the third syllable, which has a long i.

I have also used contemporary Latin names for a number of cities. Some of these (with their more familiar names) include: Faesulae (Fiesole), Arretium (Arezzo), Massilia (Marseille), and Horentia (Florence).

Dates are given according to the Roman calendar before it was reformed by Julius Caesar. These are the months of the year (with English names and spellings, if different, in parentheses, along with their number of days): Januarius (January, 29 days), Februarius (February, 28 days), Martius (March, 31 days), Aprilis (April, 29 days), Maius (May, 31 days), Junius (June, 29 days), Quinctilis (July, 31 days), Sextilis (August, 29 days), September (29 days), October (31 days), November (29 days), and December (29 days).

The Romans did not reckon the days of the months by consecutive numbers, as we do, but by their positions in relation to certain nodal days, namely the Kalends (the first day of the month), the Nones (the fifth or seventh day), and the Ides (the thirteenth or fifteenth day). The day of the month was reckoned by counting backwards from these days. I have tried to conform to this system in most cases.

The story begins on the first day of June (the Kalends of Junius), 63 bc.

Embossed upon the shield Aeneas saw The stony halls of the netherworld, the domain of the damned And the punishments they suffer. There Catilina clings to the edge of a sheer Precipice, cringing in terror while the Furies beat their wings about him…

Virgil, The Aeneid, v: 666-669

How haue we chang'd, and come about

in euery doome, Since wicked CATILINE went out,

And quitted Rome? One while, we thought him innocent;

And, then accus'd The Consul for his malice spent;

And power abus'd. Since, that we heare, he is in armes,

We thinke not so: Yet charge the Consul, with our harmes,

That let him goe. So, in our censure of the state,

We still do wander; And make the carefull magistrate

The marke of slander.

ben jonson, Catiline his Conspiracy, act iv: 863–878

What is truth?

pontius pilatus

The

CLAUDIAN ESTATES

in Etruria, together with maps of Rome & Northern Italy at the time of Cicero's Consulship, 63 B.C.

Part One Nemo

'According to Cato…' I said, and paused, squinting at the scroll. Bright summer sunlight from the 'window glared across the parchment, obscuring the faded black letters. Then again, at forty-seven, my eyes are not what they used to be. I can count the leaves on an olive tree fifty feet away, but the difference between O and 17, or even land L, is not as clear as it once was.

'According to Cato,' I began again, holding the scroll at arm's length and reading silently. 'Well, this is ridiculous! Cato clearly says that the haymaking should have been done by now, yet here it is, the Kalends of Junius, and we haven't even begun!'

'If I may interject, Master…' Aratus, standing at my elbow, cleared his throat He was a slave, not yet fifty, and had been foreman of the fcrm since long before my arrival the previous autumn.

'Yes?'

'Master, the blooms are not yet off the grass. It is not uncommon for the crop to be late. Why, last year it was just the same. We didn't harvest the hay until almost the end of Junius—'

'And I saw how much of it went bad in the barn! Bundles and bundles rotted away during the winter, so there was hardly enough left to feed the oxen during the ploughing this spring.'

'But that was because of the storm damage to the roof of the barn last winter, which let in the rain and so spoiled much of the hay. It had nothing to do with the late harvest last summer.' Aratus lowered his eyes and compressed his lips. His patience was near its end, if his subservience was not.

'Still, Cato is explicit: "Cut the grass crop when the time comes, and

take care that you are not too late in cutting it" Now, Marcus Porcius Cato may have been dead for almost a hundred years, but I don't suppose the ways of nature have changed in that tune.' I looked up at Aratus, who pursed his lips tightly.

'And another thing…' I shifted through the scroll, seeking the passage that had leaped out at me the night before. 'Ah, here: "The chickpea is poisonous to livestock and thus should be pulled up when found growing among the grain." And yet, only the other day, I saw one of the slaves take the burnt portions of chickpeas from the kitchen and mix them in among the oxen's feed.'

Did I catch Aratus rolling his eyes, or only imagine it? "The herbage of the chickpea is poisonous to livestock, Master, not the bean. Poisonous to men, as well, I suspect,' he added dryly.

'Ah, well. Yes, that explains it then.' I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. 'As you say, if the bloom is not yet off the grass, I suppose we shall simply have to wait to begin the haymaking. The vineyard has begun to come out in leaf?'

'Yes, Master. We have already begun to trim the vines and tie them to supports — just as Cato says to do. And since, as Cato advises, only the most skilled and experienced slaves should be engaged in the task, perhaps I should go and oversee the work.'

I nodded, and he left.

The room seemed suddenly stuffy and hot, though the hour was not quite noon. I felt a throbbing in my temples and told myself it was the heat, though it was more likely from squinting at the scroll and arguing with Aratus. I walked out into the herb garden, where the air was cooler. From within the house I heard a sudden shriek — Diana screaming, and then Meto shouting, 'I never touched her,' followed by a maternal scolding from Bethesda. I sighed and kept walking, through the gate and onto the path that led to the goat pens, where two of the slaves were engaged in mending a broken fence. They scarcely looked up as I passed.

The path took me alongside the vineyards, where Aratus was already busy overseeingthe tying ofthe youngvines. I kept walking until I came to the olive orchard and paused in the cool shade. A bee buzzed by my head and flitted among the tree trunks. I followed it up the hillside to the edge of the orchard, to the ridge where a patch of virgin forest stood. A few naked stumps at the periphery-showed where an attempt had once been made to clear the high land, and then abandoned. I was glad the ridge had been left wild and wooded, though Cato would have advised clearing it for crops; Cato always seemed to prefer high places to the lowlands where mist might gather and ruin the crops with rust.

I sat on one of the stumps and caught my breath beneath the shade of a gnarled, ancient oak. The bee buzzed by my ear again — perhaps it was drawn to the almond-scented oil that Bethesda had rubbed into my hair the night before. How grey my hair was becoming, half grey or more, mixed in with the black. Living in the countryside, I did hot bother to have it cut as often as in the city, so that the loose curls lapped onto my neck and over my ears, and for the first time in my life I had grown a beard — that also was half grey, especially around the chin.

Bethesda, too, had been growing greyer, until she began to dye her hair with henna; the tint she had concocted was a deep, rich red, like the colour of a bloodstain. How beautiful her hair still was, thick and luxurious. As I had grown more careless with mine, she had grown more elaborate with hers. She never wore it down any more, except for bed. During the day she wrapped it into coils and pinned it atop her head, as haughty as any Roman matron — though her Egyptian accent would always give her away.

The thought made me laugh, and I realized that my headache was gone. I looked down on the valley and breathed in the smells of summer in the country: the odour of living beasts, of grass rustling in the dry breeze, of the earth itself dozing beneath the hot, baking sun. I studied the plan of the farm, like a picture laid before me: the red-tiled roof of the great house, hiding the bedrooms, kitchen, library, and dining room within; the higher roof that showed where the baths were installed; the formal courtyard just within the front door, with its fishpond and flowers; the second courtyard where the wine was fermented, with its kettles and vats; the third courtyard with its paved threshing floor open to the sky; the herb garden appended to the library, from which I had come. Close by the house were the sheds and pens and the well and the little house that held the olive press. The surrounding land was divided into various uses: fields for grains and other crops, vineyards, olive orchards. The boundary was marked on my left by a wooded stream, on my right by the road from Rome — the wide, paved Cassian Way — and in the far distance directly before me, beyond an expanse of cultivated fields, by a low stone wall that ran from the stream to the road. Stream to the left, road to the right, wall in the distance; and the fourth boundary was the ridge on which I sat. It was an idyllic setting, worthy of a poem or even of crusty old Cato's praise, I thought. It is the dream of every Roman, rich or poor, to have a firm in the countryside, to escape the turbulence and madness of the city. Against all expectations, I had done so at last. Why, then, was I not happy?

‘You don't belong here, Gordianus.'

I gave a start and swung around. 'Claudia! You startled me.'

'Good! Startled is better than bored and unhappy.'

'And how, from behind, could you tell that I'm bored and unhappy?'

My neighbour put her hands on her ample hips and looked at me askance. 'Feet and knees apart,' she observed. 'Elbows on knees, hands cupped together, chin on hands, head cocked to one side, shoulders slumped. If you were thirty years younger, Gordianus, I'd say you were miserably in love. In your case, it's what I've told you before: you simply don't belong in the countryside. Here, let me join you on this neighbouring stump and show you how someone who truly loves the country surveys such a magnificent scene.'

She sat down on the stump, which was apparently a bit lower than she thought so that she bumped it with her well-padded bottom and let out a good-natured laugh. She spread her legs, slapped her palms on her knees and beamed at the vista before her. Had we been sitting on the opposite slope of the ridge, looking down on her own, she could not have looked more pleased.

Claudia was the cousin of my late friend and benefactor Lucius Claudius, from whom I had inherited the farm. In appearance she was as much like him to have been his sister, and indeed in many ways seemed a female incarnation of Lucius, which predisposed me to like her from the first day she had come over the hill to introduce herself Like Lucius she was sausage-fingered, plum-cheeked, and cherry-nosed. She had considerably more hair than Lucius, who had grown quite bald before his death, but like his, her hair was orange-red (faded with age and mixed with strands of silver) and of the same wispy, frazzled texture; she wore it atop her head in a careless clump from which stray tendrils escaped to waft about her friendly, round face. Unlike Lucius, she did not care for ornamentation, and the only jewellery I ever saw her wear was a simple gold chain around her neck. She disdained a woman's stola as impractical for farm life, and instead wore long woollen tunics in rustic colours, so that at a distance, given her general bulk and plain dress, she could be mistaken for a man, or even for a male slave, an ironic circumstance considering her high patrician blood.

Her farm was on the other side of the ridge; when I say that it was hers, I mean it quite literally, for she owned the property outright without recourse to father, brother, or husband Like Lucius, Claudia had never married, but had somehow contrived to live independently and on her own terms. This would have been a notable feat even for a wealthy patrician matron in the city, but for a woman in the tradition-bound countryside it was nothing less than remarkable, and bespoke a strength of character and resolve of which Claudia's soft, round features gave no indication.

How she had wrested her particular plot of land from the Claudian fortunes I did not know. Her farm was only a small part of the family's holdings in the region. Indeed, I found myself surrounded by Claudii on every side. Over the ridge from me to the south was Claudia's small farm, which was generally held to be one of the poorer tracts, given the rocky nature of the slope and the lowness of the valley, plagued in winter by those mists so dreaded by Cato. Across the wooded stream, to the west, were the holdings of her cousin Publius Claudius; from my high vantage I could just glimpse the roof of his massive villa above the treetops. Beyond the low wall to the north was the property of another cousin, Manius Claudius; because of the distance I could see little of his land and nothing of his house. Across the Cassian Way, to the east, the land became steep and rocky at the base of the mountain the locals called Mount Argentum, whose upper reaches were wreathed by a dark forest. This property was owned by Claudia's cousin, Gnaeus Claudius, and was said to be prime land for hunting boar and deer. There was also, drilled somewhere into the heart of the mountain, a deep silver mine. The mine, however, was said to have been exhausted long ago. I could clearly see the winding trail that led up the mountain's side and disappeared over a pine-studded shoulder; where once many slaves must have trekked in continuous labour, the way had become disused and overgrown and was now a path for goats.

Of all these properties, it was generally agreed that that of Lucius Claudius, my benefactor, was much the best, and Lucius, by his will, had left it to me. The Claudii, in the name of young Gnaeus and represented by a veritable legion of advocates, had contested the will, but to no avail. I had had my day in a Roman court, and the farm was mine. Why was it not enough?

'Truly, it's a beautiful place,' said Claudia, gazing down at the red tiled roof and the cultivated earth. 'When I was a girl, it was quite rundown; Cousin Lucius took no interest at all in the place, and let it run to ruin. Then, oh, about fifteen years ago — just after he met you and you had your first adventure together — he took a sudden interest in the place and began to come here quite often. He purchased Aratus and installed him as foreman, planted new vineyards and olive orchards, brought in new slaves, refurbished the house. He turned the farm into quite a lucrative enterprise, as well as a retreat from the city. We were all amazed at his success. And distressed at his sudden demise last year, alas,' she sighed.

'And disappointed in his choice of an heir,' I added quietly.

'Now, Gordianus, you must not bear a grudge. You can't blame my Cousin Gnaeus for bringing that suit against you; Lucius was his cousin, and we all expected Gnaeus to inherit, since his own property is good only for hunting, not for fanning, and the silver mine was long ago exhausted. Alas, Cicero put your case quite brilliantly, as usual — you're very lucky to have had access to the great man, and we all envy you. Swayed by Cicero's arguments, the court in Rome ruled that Lucius's will was valid, and that was that Lucius's fortune was not small; he had many other wonderful possessions, which he settled among his blood relations. I myself inherited his mother's jewellery and his town house on the Palatine Hill in the city. To you he gave his Etruscan farm. We have all reconciled ourselves to the fact'

'I know that you have, Claudia, but I'm not so sure about your cousins.'

'Why? Have they been harassing you somehow?'

'Not exactly. I haven't seen either Gnaeus or Manius since our day in court, but each of them sent a messenger to tell my foreman to be sure to keep my slaves off their property — that is, unless I cared to have a slave returned to me with a limb missing.'

Claudia frowned and shook her head. 'Regrettable. How about Publius? He's the oldest and has always had a level head.'

'Actually, Publius and I may be going to court soon.'

'No! But why?'

'There seems to be some disagreement about the stream that marks the boundary of our two farms. The deed I inherited from Lucius clearly indicates that I have the right to use the stream and anything in the stream as I wish, but Publius recently sent me a letter in which he claims that such rights belong to him exclusively.'

'Oh, dear!'

'The lawyers will sort it out eventually. Meanwhile, yesterday some of my slaves were washing some clothes downstream from some of Publius's slaves, who deliberately stirred up the water so that it was full of mud, which prompted the women, on my side to hurl insults at the women on the opposite bank, until more than insults were hurled. The two foremen finally arrived to stop the altercation, but not until one of my women had been struck on the head by a flying rock’ 'Was she seriously hurt?’

'No, but there was plenty of blood, and the wound will leave a scar. If I had a litigious nature I'd demand that Publius buy me a replacement,'

Claudia slapped her hands on her knees. 'Intolerable! I had no idea that such provocations were being imposed on you, Gordianus. Really, I will have a word with my dear relatives and see if I can't intervene on behalf of good neighbourly relations, not to mention common sense and law and order!'

She was so dramatically outraged that I laughed. 'Your intervention on my behalf would be most appreciated, Claudia.'

'It's the least I can do. Really, constant litigation and neighbourly ill will may be the rule in the city, but here in the country such unpleasantness has no place. Here, all should be tranquillity, fertility, and domesticity, as Lucius himself used to say.'

'Yes, I remember him using those very words once, when he was making ready to leave the city for the farm.' I glanced down at the stream and then above the treetops to the roof of Publius's house, felt a vague uneasiness, then looked away and resolved to think of something else. ‘You saw Lucius often when he visited the farm?'

'Oh, I never missed seeing him whenever he came. Such a sweet man — but you know that. We would come and sit on this very ridgetop, on these very stumps, and gaze down on the farm, and make plans for the future. He was going to build a little mill house down by the stream. Did you know that?'

'No.'

'Yes, with a great waterwheel, and one set of gears for grinding meal and another set for grinding stones dug out of Gnaeus's mine. It all sounded very ambitious and complex, but Lucius thought he could design the workings himself A pity he died as he did, so suddenly.'

'Suddenly is best, I think. I've known many men who were less fortunate.'

'Yes, I suppose it would be worse to die slowly, or alone…' 'Instead, Lucius died very swiftly, with hundreds of people around — crossing the Forum, where he was known and liked by just about everyone. Laughing and joking 'with his entourage — so I was later told — when he suddenly gripped his chest and collapsed. He died almost at once; he suffered only a little. The funeral was quite an affair — so many loving friends, from all walks of life.' I smiled, remembering. 'He had put his will into the keeping of the Vestal Virgins, as many rich men do. I had no idea, until I was called to see it for myself, that he had left anything to me at all. And there it was, the deed to his Etruscan farm, together with a worn copy of Cato's On Farming. I suppose he must have heard me daydreaming from time to time about retiring to the countryside, escaping all the madness in Rome. Of course, those were only idle dreams — what man of my means could ever afford to buy a decent farm, with all the slaves necessary to run it?'

'And a year later here you are, with that very dream realized.'

'Yes, thanks to Lucius.'

'And yet I find you brooding up here on the hilltop, like Jupiter looking down on burning Troy.'

'Blame the behaviour of certain of my neighbours,' I said ruefully.

'Granted, but there is something else that troubles you.'

I shrugged. 'This morning Aratus and I almost came to blows. He thinks I'm an impossible, pompous-ass from the city who knows nothing about farming and only wants to get in his way. I suppose I must look rather ridiculous to him, fussing about details I only half understand and quoting to him from Cato.'

'And how does he look to you?'

'I know that Lucius thought highly of him, but it seems to me that the farm is not run nearly as efficiently as it could be. There's too much waste.'

'Oh, how I hate waste!' said Claudia. 'I never allow my slaves to throw anything away if I can possibly make use of it.'

'Well, between Aratus and myself it's been one battle after another ever since I arrived last autumn. Perhaps I am a pompous ass from the city who knows nothing about farming, but I do know waste when I see it, and I can read Cato. And beneath that, there's something about Aratus I don't trust Perhaps I'm simply not used to owning so many slaves and having to manage them all, especially not a slave as strong-willed and sure of himself as Aratus. I gather that Lucius generally gave him the run of the farm, so that my arrival was a great inconvenience to him. He looks on me as a thorn in his side. I look on him the way you might look on a horse you don't trust; you must have the beast to get where you're going, but secretly you suspect he'll throw you. I find myself sniping at him constantly. He reacts by acting surly and impertinent.'

Claudia nodded sympathetically. 'Ah, a good foreman is always hard to find But the joys of farm life far outweigh the travails, or so I've always found. I think more than Aratus is bothering you, Gordianus.'

I looked at her sidelong. Her probing was beginning to touch on tender spots. 'I suppose I should confess that I miss my elder son.'

'Ah, young Eco. I met him when he helped you move in last autumn. A fine-looking young man. Why is he not here with you?'

'He's taken over my house on the Esquiline Hill in the city and seems quite content there. Well, you can't expect a young man of twenty-seven to choose the tranquillity of country life over the distractions of the city. Besides, he's newly married; the girl no doubt prefers to run her own household. Can you imagine a young bride competing with Bethesda for command of a household? I shudder at the thought. There would be no tranquillity in that! Also, his work is there. He does the sort of things that I used to do — dangerous, and I worry. Rome has become a dreadful place'

'One must let them go their own way eventually. Or so I've heard. And you still have children at home.'

'Yes, they were at each other's throats when I left the house. Meto is old enough to know better. He'll turn sixteen next month and put on his toga of manhood. He has no business fighting with Diana. She's only six. But she does delight in tormenting him…'

'Diana? Is that what you call her for short?'

'Well, Gordiana is too big a name for such a small girl, don't you agree? Besides, the name of the goddess suits her; she loves wild things. She's happy here in the country. I have to be careful that she doesn't go wandering too far on her own.'

'Ah, how big the farm must seem to a six-year-old. This ridge must be a mountain, the wall a great fortification, the stream a mighty river. And Meto, does he like the country?'

'He grew up away from the city, down in Baiae, on the coast.' Claudia looked at me oddly. 'Adopted, like his older brother,' I explained. I did not add that Meto had been born a slave; others might discover that fact, but not from me. 'So country ways come naturally to him. He was happy enough in the city, but he likes it here as well'

'And your wife, Bethesda?'

'There are women who have the power to remake whatever corner of the world they occupy to suit themselves; she is one. Besides, all places pale when compared to her native Alexandria. Rome could not match it, so why should the Etruscan countryside? But in truth I think she misses the big markets and the gossip, the smell of fish at the waterfront, the crush of the Forum on festival days, all the rush and madness of the city.'

'And you?'

^tWhat about me?'

'Do you miss those things?'

'Not for a moment!'

She looked at me shrewdly, but not without sympathy. 'Gordianus, I have not been the sole mistress and overseer of two generations of conniving slaves, not to mention the' customer of every cunning auctioneer and merchant between here and Rome for the last forty years, without learning to discern when a man is being less than honest with me. You are not happy here, and the reason has nothing to do with quarrelling neighbours or missing your son in the city. You are homesick.'

'Nonsense!'

‘You are bored.'

'With a farm to run?'

'And lonely.'

'With my family around me?'

'Not bored because you have nothing to do; bored because you miss the unexpected adventures of the city. Not lonely for lack of loved ones, but lonely for new strangers to come into your life. Oh, the loneliness for strangers is nothing new to country dwellers; I have known it all my life. Don't you think I grow weary of my little circle of Cousin Publius and Cousin Manius and Cousin Gnaeus and their slaves, and long for a new face to appear in my world? Which is why I like talking to you, Gordianus. But I was raised in the country and you in the city, so it must be much worse for you, this boredom and loneliness.'

‘Well, there may be some truth in what you say, Claudia, but you can't say that I miss the city. I couldn't wait to leave it! It's all right for younger men, or those who are driven by their vices — there is no place like Rome for a man to satisfy his ambition for power or his lust or greed, or to die in the pursuit. No, I've turned, my back on all that. The fact that Lucius died and left me this farm was the will of the gods, smiling on me, showing me a way out Rome has become unlivable — filthy, overcrowded, noisy, and violent. Only a madman could go on living there!' 'But your work—'

'I miss that least of all! Do you know what I did for a living? I called myself a Finder. Advocates hired me to find proof of their enemy's crimes. Politicians — may I never see another! — hired me to uncover scandal about their adversaries. I once thought that I served truth, and through truth, justice, but truth and justice are meaningless words in Rome. They might as well be obliterated from the Latin tongue. I discover a man is guilty of some heinous crime, only to see him acquitted by a bribed panel of judges! I learn that a man is innocent, then see him convicted on spurious evidence and hounded out of the city! I discover that the scandal attached to a powerful man is true enough, but for all that he is a sound and honest man who has only the same failings as other mem even so, the scandal is all that anyone cares about, and he is expelled from the Senate, and the true reason is some political manoeuvring by his enemies, whose true agenda I can only guess at. Meanwhile a total scoundrel charms the mob and bribes their leaders and gets himself elected consul! I used to think that Rome was growing worse and worse, but it was I who changed. I've grown too old and weary to stomach such beastliness any longer.'

To this tirade Claudia made no answer. She raised her eyebrows and shifted a bit uncomfortably at such an outburst of passion, then joined me in gazing silently at the view. A plume of smoke ascended from the kitchen. The muffled pounding of mallets, swung by the slaves repairing the goat pen, echoed up from the valley, along with the bleating of a kid which had wandered through the breach and was lost in the high grass of the hayfield. A young slave had gone looking for it, but was headed in the wrong direction. Over on the Cassian Way, coming down from the north, was a train of wagons, their contents battened down and covered by heavy sheets of canvas. To judge by the retinue of armed guards, the contents were quite valuable — probably a shipment of vases from the famous workshops at Arretium on its way down to Rome. Heading north on the road, about to meet and pass the wagons, was a long file of slaves with heavy loads on their backs, driven by men on horseback. Their chains were new and glinted in the noonday sun. Beyond the road, up on the slope of Mount Argentum and just across from our high vantage point on the ridge, a herd of unattended goats negotiated the winding path that led to Gnaeus's abandoned silver mine. A faint bleating, barely audible, echoed across the hot, still air.

'And yet…'I sighed.

'Yes, Gordianus?'

'And yet… do you know what this makes me think of, sitting here and gazing down on the scene?' 'Of Rome?'

'Yes, Claudia, of Rome! The city has seven hills, and every hill affords a different view. I was thinking of one in particular, on the Quirinal Hill, just up from the Fontinal Gate. You can see all of the northern quadrant of Rome. On a clear summer day like this, the Tiber sparkles beneath the sun as if it were on fire. The great Flaminian Way is thronged with carts and men on horseback. The Circus Flaminius looms up in the middle distance, looking enormous and yet like a toy; the crowded little tenements and shops cluster around it like sucklings to their mother. Beyond the city wall lies the Field of Mars, hazy with dust from the racers in their chariots. The sounds and odours of the city rise up on the warm air like the breath of the city itself'

'You miss the city, Gordianus.'

'Yes,' I sighed. 'For all its danger and corruption, for all'its meanness and squalor — still, I miss the city.'

We looked down again in silence. The slave had found the kid, which bleated and kicked at being dragged through the high grass. A kitchen girl brought a draught of water to the slaves at the goat pen, and their mallets fell silent. In the stillness I could hear Aratus shouting in a shrill voice at one of the slaves in the vineyard: 'Wrong, the whole row is wrong! Redo them, every one!' Then all was quiet again, except for the buzzing of bees in the woods behind us.

'Actually, Gordianus, I was hoping to find you here on the ridge today.'

‘Yes, Claudia?'

'As you know, election time is close at hand.'

'Don't remind me. After last summer's farce I never care to witness another such disgusting spectacle.'.

'Nevertheless, some of us have kept our civic spirit. Next month the election for the two consuls will be held in Rome. It's a tradition for our branch of the Claudii — the Etruscan country cousins, we call ourselves — to gather beforehand, decide which candidate to support, and choose a representative to send to Rome to vote. This year it falls my turn to play hostess to this little gathering. Never mind that my house is modest and I haven't the household slaves to properly provide for such a conclave; duty is duty. The garnering will be at the end of the month. It would help tremendously if I could borrow your cook and some of your kitchen slaves for the occasion. I'd need them for only a couple of days beforehand, to help prepare the feast, and then on the day of the gathering itself to help serve. Three days in all. Would it be too great an imposition, Gordianus?' 'Of course not.'

'I shall repay you somehow. You never know when you'll need to borrow an ox or some bundles of hay. It's the way that country neighbours should help each other, yes?'

‘Yes, indeed.'

'And I trust that you won't instruct your slaves to slip a bit of poison into the feast — that would be too drastic a solution to your troublesome neighbours, eh?'

It was a joke, of course, but in such bad taste that I winced instead of smiling. In Rome I had encountered more cases of poisoning than I cared to remember.

'Come, Gordianus, don't cringe! Seriously, I’ll take the opportunity to have a word with my relations about their uncivil treatment of you.'

'That would be appreciated.'

'Any advice on this year's slate of candidates? Your friend Cicero seems to be having quite a successful year as consul. We bear him no grudge, of course, even though he represented you in the case of Lucius's will You must be proud to have such a friend. As consul, he's turned out better than any of us expected — too bad he can't serve two years in a row. At least last year he kept that wild-eyed madman Catilina out of office. Now Catilina is running again this year, and appears unstoppable, or so says—'

'Please, Claudia — no politics!'

'But of course; you're sick of all that.'

'Quite. I may miss Rome, but I don't miss—'

At that moment I heard a high voice calling from the valley below. It was Diana, sent by her mother to fetch me for the midday meal I watched her step from the library doorway into the herb garden. Her long hair was uncommonly thick and black for a child, glinting almost blue in the sunlight. She was dressed in a bright yellow tunic with her arms and legs bare. Her skin was tanned to a dark bronze, the gift of her Egyptian mother. She ran through the gate and skipped quickly along the path, passed the goat pens and the vineyards and disappeared in the olive orchard at the foot of the hill. Through the foliage I glimpsed the yellow tunic approaching and heard her laughing: 'I see you, Papa! I see you, Papa!'

A moment later she was rushing into my arms, giggling and out of breath.

'Diana, do you remember our neighbour? This is Claudia.' 'Yes, I remember her. Do you live up here in the woods?' said Diana.

Claudia laughed. 'No, my dear, this is only where I come to visit your father from time to time. I live down in the valley on the other side of this ridge, on my own little farm. You must come and visit me some time.'

Diana looked at her gravely for a moment, then turned to me. 'Mama says you must come at once or she shall throw your food into the pen and let the goats eat it!'

Claudia and I both laughed and rose from the stumps. She said farewell and disappeared into the woods. Diana wrapped her little arms around my neck and I carried her down the hillside all the way to the house.

After the midday meal, the day grew even warmer. Everyone — animals, slaves, and children alike — found a shaded place and dozed in the heat. Everyone but me. I went to the library and took out some parchment and a stylus. I began to draw wheels with notches that fit into other wheels, trying to imagine the water mill that Lucius Claudius had planned to construct down on the stream.

All was peace and contentment, yet I was not bored at all. I had been mad, I decided, to tell Claudia that I missed the murderous intrigues of the city. Nothing and no one in this world, neither man nor god, could ever persuade me to return to such a life.

II

I was contemplating the problem of the water mill again ten days later when Aratus brought the cook and his two young assistants into my library. Congrio was a heavy man; what good cook is not? As Lucius Claudius had once remarked, a cook whose creations are not so tempting that he stuns himself with stolen delicacies is not a cook worm having. Congrio was not Lucius's best cook — that post had been reserved for Lucius's house on the Palatine Hill in Rome, where he entertained his friends. But Lucius had not been a man to stint himself of culinary pleasures no matter where he went, and his country cook was more than skilful enough to delight my palate.

In the heat of the morning Congrio was already sweating. His two assistants stood to each side and slightly behind him, respectful of his authority.

I dismissed Aratus and asked Congrio and his helpers to step closer. I explained my intention to lend them to Claudia for the next few days. Congrio knew Claudia, because she had dined with his late master from time to time. She had always been pleased with his work, he assured me, and he was certain he would please her again and give me cause to be proud of him.

'Good,' I said, thinking it might help to smooth matters with the Claudii to render them this favour. 'There is one other thing…'

'Yes, Master.'

‘You will do your best for the Claudii, of course; you will obey Claudia, and Claudia's own cook as well, since you will be serving in her house.'

'Of course, Master; I understand.' 'And also, Congrio…' 'Yes, Master?' He wrinkled his fleshy brow. 'You will say nothing to embarrass me while you are in Claudia's service.'

'Of course not, Master!' He seemed genuinely hurt.

'You will not exchange gossip with the other slaves, or trade opinions of your respective masters, or pass along what you may perceive to be my opinions.'

'Master, I fully understand the proper behaviour of a slave who has been lent to a friend of his master.'

'I'm sure you do. Only, while you keep your mouth closed, I want you to keep your ears open.'

'Master?' He inclined his head, seeking clarification.

'This applies more to your assistants than to you, since I assume you may not leave the kitchen at all, while they may assist in serving the Claudii at their meal. The family will mostly be discussing politics and the upcoming consular elections; about that I care nothing, and you may ignore whatever they say. But if you should happen to hear my name mentioned, or any other matter concerning this farm, prick up your ears. Indicate no interest, but note what is said and by whom. Do not discuss the details among yourselves, but remember them When you return, I will want to hear any such details, faithfully recounted. Do you understand, all of you?'

Congrio drew back with a sudden look of self-importance and nodded gravely. His assistants, watching him for their lead, did likewise. What makes a slave feel more warmly wicked than to be commissioned as a spy?

'Good. About the instructions I have just given, you will say nothing, not even to the other slaves. Not even to Aratus,' I added. They nodded again.

After I sent them on their way, I stepped to the window and leaned out, breathing in the warm fragrance of mowed grass. The bloom was finally off the grass, and the slaves had begun to make hay. I also noted the figure of Aratus walking quickly alongside the house, his back turned to me, as if he had been standing by the window and listening to everything I said.

It was two days later, in the afternoon, when the stranger arrived. I had taken a stroll to the stream and had settled on a grassy slope, my back against the trunk of a spreading oak, a wax tablet on my knees and a stylus in my hand hi my imagination a mill began to take shape on the bank of the stream I tried to draw what I saw in my mind, but my ringers were clumsy. I smoothed the wax with the edge of my hand and started again.

'Papa! Papa!' Diana's voice came from somewhere behind me and echoed off the opposite bank. I stayed quiet and continued to draw. The result was no more satisfactory the second time. I rubbed the tablet clear again.

'Papa! Why didn't you answer me?' Diana stepped in front of me, putting her hands on her hips in imitation of her mother.

'Because I was hiding from you,' I said, beginning a fresh mark in the wax.

"That's silly. You know I can always find you.'

'Really? Then I hardly need to answer when you call, do I?'

'Papa!' She rolled her eyes, imitating Bethesda again, then collapsed on the grass beside me as if suddenly exhausted. While I drew, she contorted herself into a wheel and pulled at her toes, then lay flat again and squinted up at the sunlight that filtered through the oak canopy above. 'It's true that I can always find you, you know.'

'Can you? And how is that?'

'Because Meto taught me how. Meto says that you taught him. I can follow your footsteps in the grass and always find you.' 'Really?' I said, impressed. 'I'm not sure that I like that.' 'What are you drawing?'

'It's called a mill. A little house with a great wheel that dips into the water. The flowing water turns the wheel, which turns other wheels, which will grind corn, or stones, or a little girl's fingers if she isn't careful.'

'Papa!'

‘Don't worry, it's just an idea. A problem, if you like, and probably too complicated for me ever to solve it,'

'Meto says that you can solve any problem'

'Does he?' I put the tablet aside. She squirmed and rolled on the grass and laid her head in my lap. The broken sunlight spangled her hair, jet black in shadow and shot through with lustrous rainbows, like oil on water, where the light struck it I had never seen a child with hair so black. Her eyes were also black, very deep and clear as only a child's eyes can be. A bird flitted above us. I watched Diana follow it with her gaze, amazed at the beauty of her least movement.

She reached for the tablet and stylus, stretching her body awkwardly, and held them, above her.

'I don't see a picture at all,' she said.

'It's not very good,' I admitted.

'Can I draw over it?'

'Yes.'

She did a thorough job of obliterating my tentative lines with her small hand, then set to drawing. I stroked her hair and studied my imaginary mill by the stream. At length, across the water, two women emerged from the woods. They were kitchen slaves carrying clay jugs. They saw me and gave a start, conferred for a moment with their heads close together, then disappeared back into the woods. A little later I glimpsed something farther down the stream and saw them stepping down to the water's edge at a less convenient place. They dipped their jugs into the current, hoisted them onto their shoulders, and struggled up the steep bank and into the woods. Had Publius Claudius told them I was a monster who would eat them?

'This is you!' announced Diana, turning the tablet about and thrusting it towards me. Among the squiggles and curlicues I could barely make out a face. She was an even poorer draftsman than myself, I thought, but not by much.

'Extraordinary!' I said. 'Another Iaia Cyzicena is among us!'

'Who is—' She stumbled over the unfamiliar name.

'Iaia, born in the city of Cyzicus, on the Sea of Marmara far away. She is a great painter, one of the greatest of our day. I met her down in Baiae, when your brother Meto first came into my life.'

'Did Meto know her?'

'He did’

'Will I ever meet her?'

'It is always possible.' Nine years had passed since the events in Baiae, and Iaia had not been so very old. She might yet live long enough for Diana to know her. 'Perhaps one day you and Iaia may meet and compare your drawings.'

'Papa, what is a Minotaur?'

'A Minotaur?' I laughed at the abrupt change of subject. 'So far as I know, there was only ever one, the Minotaur. A terrible creature, the offspring of a woman and a bull; they say it had a bull's head and a man's body. It lived on a faraway island called Crete, where a wicked king kept it in a place called the labyrinth, a great maze.'

'Amaze?'

'Yes, with walls like this’ I wiped the tablet clean and set about drawing a maze. 'Every year the king gave the Minotaur young boys and girls to eat. They would make the children enter here, you see, and the Minotaur would be waiting for them here. This went on for a very long time, until a hero named Theseus entered the Labyrinth and slew the Minotaur’

'He killed it?'

'Yes’

'Are you sure?' 'Quite’

'Completely sure?'

•Yes’

'Good!'

'Why do you ask about the Minotaur?' I said, anticipating the answer.

'Because Meto has been saying that if I'm not good, you'll feed me to it. But you've just said that it's dead’ 'Ah, so it is’

'So Meto is wrong!' She rolled out of my lap. 'Oh, Papa, I almost forgot! Mama sent me to fetch you. It's important.'

‘Yes?' I raised an eyebrow, imagining some dispute with the unskilled slaves who were overseeing the kitchen in Congrio's absence.

‘Yes! There's a man who's come to see you, a man on horseback all the way from Rome, all covered with dust.'

It was not one man, but three. Two of them were slaves, or more precisely bodyguards, to judge from their size and the daggers at their belts. The slaves had not entered the house, but stood outside with their horses, drinking water from a jug. Their master awaited me just inside the house, in the little formal courtyard with its fishpond and flowers.

He was a tall, strikingly handsome young man with dark eyes. His wavy black hair was trimmed short over his ears but left long on top, so that black curls fell carelessly about his smooth forehead. His beard was trimmed and blocked so that it was no more than a black strap across his chin and upper lip, accentuating his high cheekbones and red lips. As Diana had said, he was dusty from his journey, but the dust did not hide the fashionable and expensive-looking cut of his red tunic or the quality of his riding shoes. He looked familiar; a face from the Forum, I thought.

A slave had brought him a folding chair to sit on. He stood up as I entered and put down the cup of watered wine from which he had been drinking. 'Gordianus,' he said, 'it's good to see you again. Country life agrees with you.' His tone was casual, but it carried the polish of an orator's training.

'Do I know you?' I said. 'My eyes fail me. The sunlight is so bright outside, here in the shade I can't see you clearly

'Forgive me! I'm Marcus Caelius. We've met before, but there's no reason you should remember me.'

'Ah, yes,' I said. 'I see you more clearly now. You're a protege of Cicero's-and also of Crassus, I believe. You're right, we've met before, no doubt at Cicero's house or in the Forum. Memories of Rome are so irrelevant here, I sometimes have a hard time recollecting. And the beard fooled me. The beard is definitely new.'

He reached up and stroked it proudly. 'Yes, I was probably clean-shaven when we met. You've grown a beard, as well.'

'Mere laziness — not to mention cowardice. At my age a man needs every drop of blood he has to keep his bones warm. Is that the fashion in Rome these days? The way you trim it, I mean.'

'Yes. Among a certain set.' There was a trace of smugness in his voice that put me off.

'The girl has already brought you some wine, I see.'

'Yes. It's quite good.'

'A modest vintage. My late friend Lucius Claudius was rather proud of it. Are you on your way from Rome to some point farther north?'

'I've come from Rome, yes, but this is my destination.'

'Really?' My heart sank. I had hoped he was merely passing through.

'I have business with you, Gordianus the Finder.' 'It's Gordianus the Farmer now, if you don't mind.' 'Whatever.' He shrugged. 'Perhaps we could retire to another room?'

"The courtyard is the coolest and most comfortable place at this time of day.'

'But perhaps there's another place more private, where we might be less likely to be overheard,' he suggested. My heart sank again.

'Marcus Caelius, it's good to see you again, truly. The day is hot and the road is dusty. I'm glad I can give you a cup of cool wine and a respite from your horse. Perhaps you require more than a drink and a brief rest? Very well, my hospitality is not exhausted. To ride all the way from Rome to my door and back again in a single day would challenge even a man as young and fit as you appear to be, and so I will gladly offer you accommodations for the night, if you wish. But unless you want to talk about haymaking or pressing olive oil or tending the vine, you and I have no business to discuss. I have given up my old livelihood.'

'So I've heard,' he said amiably, with an undaunted glimmer in his eyes. 'But you needn't worry. I haven't come to offer you work.'

'No?'

'No. I've come merely to ask a favour. Not for myself, you understand, but on behalf of the highest citizen in the land.' 'Cicero,' I sighed. 'I might have known.'

'When a duly elected consul calls him to duty, what Roman can refuse?' said Caelius. 'Especially considering the ties that bind the two of you. Are you sure there's not another room that might be more appropriate for our discussion?'

'My library is more private… if hardly more secure,' I added under my breath, remembering my glimpse of Aratus skulking away from the window two days before. 'Come.'

Once there, I shut the door behind us and offered him a chair. I sat near the door to the herb garden, so that I could see anyone approaching, and kept an eye on the window above Caelius's shoulder, where I had caught Aratus eavesdropping. 'What have you come for, Marcus Caelius?' I said, dropping all pretence of pleasant conversation. 'I'll tell you right now that I will not go back to the city. If you need someone to spy for you or dig up trouble, you can go to my son Eco, though I hardly wish it on him.'

'No one is asking you to come back to Rome,' said Caelius soothingly.

'No?'

'Not at all. Quite the opposite. Indeed, the very fact that you are now living in the countryside is what makes you so appropriate for the purpose Cicero has in mind.'

'I don't like the sound of that.'

Caelius smiled thinly. 'Cicero said you wouldn't.'

'I'm not a tool that Cicero can pick up whenever he wishes, or bend to his purpose at will; I never was and never will be. No matter that he's consul for the year, he's still only a citizen, as I am. I have every right to refuse him.'

'But you don't even know what he's asking of you.' Caelius seemed amused.

•Whatever it is, I won't like it,'

'Perhaps not, but would you refuse an opportunity to serve the state?'

'Please, Caelius, no empty calls to patriotism.'

'The call is not empty.' His face became serious. "The threat is very real. Oh, I understand your cynicism, Gordianus. I may have lived only half as long as you, but I've seen my share of treachery and corruption in the Forum, enough for ten lifetimes!'

Considering his political education at the side of men like Crassus and Cicero, he was probably speaking the truth. Cicero himself had trained him in oratory, and the pupil did his master proud; the words that poured from his lips were polished like precious stones. He might have been an actor or a singer. I found myself listening to him in spite of myself

"The state stands poised on the brink of a terrible catastrophe, Gordianus. If it steps over that brink — or is pushed, against the will of every decent citizen — the descent will be more abrupt and harrowing than anything we've known before. Certain parties are determined to destroy the Republic once and for all. Imagine the Senate awash in blood. Imagine a return of the dictator Sulla's proscriptions, when any citizen could be named an enemy of the state for no reason at all — you must remember gangs running through the streets, carrying severed heads to the Forum to receive their bounty from Sulla's coffers. Only this time the anarchy will spread unceasingly, like waves from a great stone cast into a pond. This time the enemies of the state are determined not to reform it, at whatever bloody cost, but to smash it altogether. You own a farm now, Gordianus; do you want to see it taken from you by force? It will happen, most certainly; because in the new order everything already established will be usurped and thrown down, ground into the dust. The fact that you no longer live in Rome will provide no protection to you or your family. Bury your head in a haystack if you wish, but don't be surprised when someone comes up behind you and cuts it clean off'

I sat for a long moment in silence, unblinking. At last I managed to shake my head and suck in a breath. 'Well done, Marcus Caelius!' I said. 'For a moment there, you had me entirely under your spell! Cicero has taught you exceedingly well. Such rhetoric could make any man's hair stand on end!'

He raised his eyebrows, then his lids grew heavy. 'Cicero said you would be unreasonable. I told him he should have sent that slave of his, Tiro. Tiro you know and trust—'

'Tiro I sincerely like and respect, because he is such a kind and openhearted man, but I would have beaten him back with words at every turn, which is no doubt precisely why Cicero did not send him. No, he did very well to send you as his agent, Marcus Caelius, but he did not count on the depth of my disgust with Roman politics, or the strength of my resolve to steer clear of any involvement with his consulship.'

Then what I've said so far means nothing to you?'

'Only that you've mastered the skill of making insanely exaggerated statements as if you sincerely believed them.'

'But every word is true. I exaggerate nothing.'

'Caelius, please! You're a Roman politician in the making. You are not allowed to speak the truth, and you are absolutely required to exaggerate everything.'

He sat back, momentarily rebuffed but regrouping, as I could see from the glimmer in his eyes. He stroked his narrow beard. 'Very well, you care nothing for the Republic. But surely you at least retain some vestige of your personal honour as a Roman.'

'You are in my house, Caelius. Do not insult me.'

'Very well, I won't. I will argue with you no longer. I will simply remind you of a favour you owe to Marcus Tullius Cicero, and request on his behalf that you pay back that favour now. Having faith in your honour as a Roman, I know you won't refuse.'

I shifted in my seat uneasily. I glanced over my shoulder, through the doorway into the herb garden, where a wasp was buzzing among the leaves. I sighed, already sensing defeat. 'I assume you refer to the case that Cicero argued on my behalf last summer?'

'I do. You inherited this estate from the late Lucius Claudius. His family, quite reasonably, contested the will. The Claudii are a very old and distinguished patrician clan, whereas you are a plebeian with no ancestry at all, a dubious career, and a most irregular family. You might very well have lost your case, and with it any claim to this farm where you have so comfortably retired from the city you claim to loathe so much. For that you can thank Cicero, and don't deny it — I was in the court that day and I heard his arguments myself. I have seldom witnessed such eloquence — excuse me, untruths and exaggerations, if you prefer. It was you who asked Cicero to speak for you. He might well have declined. He had just finished a gruelling political campaign, and as consul-elect he was pressed on all sides with obligations and requests. Yet he took time to prepare your case and to present it himself. Afterwards, Cicero asked no payment for his service to you; he spoke on your behalf to honour you, acknowledging the many occasions on which you have assisted him since the trial of Sextus Roscius, seventeen years ago.’ Cicero doesn't forget his friends. Does Gordianus?'

I looked out at the herb garden, avoiding his gaze. I watched the wasp, envying its freedom 'Oh, Cicero trained you well indeed!' I said under my breath.

'He did,' Caelius acknowledged quietly, with a crooked smile of triumph on his lips.

'What does Cicero want from me?' I growled.

'Only a small favour.'

I pursed my lips. 'You try my patience, Marcus Caelius.'

He laughed good-naturedly, as if to say: Very well, I've bested you and will toy with you no longer. 'Cicero wishes that you should play host to a certain senator. He asks you to open your house to this senator whenever he wishes and provide a haven for him, a safe retreat from the city. You should understand the need for that'

'Who is this senator? A friend of Cicero's, or someone to whom he owes a favour?'

'Not exactly.'

"Then who?'

'Catilina.'

‘What!’

'Lucius Sergius Catilina.'

'Cicero wishes me to provide a safe haven for his worst enemy? What sort of plot is this?'

"The plot is Catilina's. The point is to stop it'

I vigorously shook my head. ‘I want no part of this!'

'Your honour, Gordianus—'

'To Hades with you!' I rose from my chair so abruptly that I knocked it to the floor. I stepped out of the door and crossed the herb garden, waving the wasp out of my way, and strode through the gate without looking back.

I turned towards the front of the house, then remembered that

Caelius's bodyguards were loitering there. The sight of them would only make me more furious. I spun around and circled towards the rear of the house. An instant later I glimpsed a figure crouching beneath the library window. Aratus, I thought, spying on me again!

I opened my mouth, but the curse died stillborn in my throat. The figure turned towards me — and it was Meto, not Aratus, who looked me square in the face. He put a finger to his lips and backed cautiously away from the window, then scurried to my side, looking not the least bit guilty for eavesdropping on his own father.

III

‘A son should not spy on his father,' I said, trying to be stern. "There are some Roman fathers who would beat their sons for such a crime, or even have them strangled.'

Up on the ridge, Meto and I sat side by side on the stumps and looked down on the farm. In front of the house, Caelius's bodyguards sat beneath the shade of a yew tree. Caelius himselfhad stepped into the herb garden and was peering towards the stream with one hand shading his brow from the westering sun. He had no idea where I was.

'I wasn't exactly spying,' Meto said, chagrined.

'No? Spying is the only word for it'

'Well, I learned it from you. I suppose it's in the blood.'

This last was absurd, since Meto was the son of slaves and had not a drop of my blood in his veins, but I was touched by his fantasy. I couldn't resist reaching out to muss his hair, and none too gently. 'I suppose you blame your wilfulness on me, as well?'

'I give you credit for all my outstanding qualities, Papa.' He smiled crookedly. The clever, charming little boy I had adopted had grown into a handsome and soft-spoken youth. His face became pensive. 'Papa, who is Catilina? And why do you bear such a grudge against Cicero? I thought he was your friend.'

I sighed. These matters are very complex. Or not complex at all if a man does the sensible thing and turns his back on them for good.'

'But is that possible? Marcus Caelius says you owe a personal favour to Cicero.'

'True enough.'

'Without Cicero, we wouldn't have the farm.'

'Might not have the farm,' I corrected him — but the guilelessness in his soft brown eyes compelled me to acknowledge the truth. 'Very well, without Cicero there would be no farm. Without him to represent me, the Claudii and their lawyers would have eaten me alive in court. I owe him a great favour, like it or not. But what use is this farm if I must pay for it by allowing men like Caelius to bring Rome to my very doorstep?'

'Is Rome truly so awful? I like the farm, Papa, but sometimes I miss the city.' His eyes lit up. ‘Do you know what I miss most? The festivals, when they have plays and chariot races! Especially the races.'

Of course you miss them, I thought. You're young, and youth craves distraction. I shook my head, feeling old and sour.

'The festivals are only another form of corruption, Meto. Who pays for festivals? The various magistrates elected each year. And why? They will tell you they do it to honour the gods and the traditions of our ancestors, but in truth they do it to impress the crowd, for their own personal aggrandizement. The crowd gives its support to the man who can put on the most splendid games and spectacles. Absurd! The spectacles are only a means to an end. They impress the voters, who in turn give a man power. It's the power which ultimately counts — power over the fates and property of men, over the life and death of nations. Time and again I see the people, impressed by games and shows, give their votes to a man who then proceeds to legislate against their interest. Sheer stupidity! Point out this betrayal to the citizen in the street and he will answer But, oh, what a splendid spectacle the man put on for us! Never mind that he emasculated the people's representation in the Forum or passed some invidious property law — he brought white tigers from Libya to the Circus Maximus and hosted a great feast to inaugurate the Temple of Hercules! Who's more to blame for such wickedness — the cynical politician without a shred of principle, or the Roman citizens who allow themselves to be so easily duped?'

— I shook my head. 'You see how it affects me to speak of it, Meto? My heart begins to race and my face turns hot. Once I accepted the madness of the city without question; such was life and there was nothing particularly wrong with it — there is a fascination, after all, in the dealings of men, no. matter how vile and corrupt. More importantly, there was nothing I could do about it, and so I merely accepted it. My livelihood took me deep within the councils of powerful men, and showed me more of the truth than most men ever see. I was growing wise in the ways of the world, I thought proudly, but what good is such wisdom if it only leads to a knowledge of how helpless one is to change this world? Now, as I grow older, Meto, I grow less and less able to tolerate the stupidity of the people and the wickedness of their rulers. I have seen too much suffering created by ambitious men who care only for themselves. Unable to affect the course of events, I turn my back on them! Now Cicero would force me into the arena again, like a gladiator pressed to fight against his will’

Meto considered this in silence for a moment. 'Is Cicero a bad man, Papa?'

'Better than most. Worse than some.'

'And Catilina?'

I remembered my recent conversation with Claudia, whom I had cut off when she began to talk of Catilina's bid for the consulship. 'Our neighbour on the far side of the ridge calls him a wild-eyed madman.'

'Is he?'

'Cicero would say so.'

'But what do you think, Papa?' He frowned. 'Or should I not press you to talk about it?'

I sighed. 'No, Meto, press on. Since I manumitted you and made you my son, you are a Roman citizen, no more or less than any other Roman, and soon you will put on the manly toga. Who else should educate a boy in the ways of Roman politics except his father, even if I must bite my tongue to do it?'

I paused for breath and looked down on the farm. Caelius's men were still idle, while Caelius himself had withdrawn from the heat of the herb garden back into the cool of the library; he was probably looking through the tew modest volumes I had acquired over the years, many of them from Cicero as gifts to sweeten his payment for my services. The slaves were busy at their labours; the beasts were drowsing in their pens. I could stay on the ridge all afternoon, but eventually the sun would set and Bethesda would send Diana to fetch us for dinner. I would be compelled to offer hospitality to Marcus Caelius. He would press me again to honour my debt to Cicero, and how could I refuse?

'I've often thought, Meto, that the death of my friend Lucius Claudius was somehow providential. Oh, I'm not so vain as to think that the gods would strike down a good man merely to make my life more bearable, but in many odd ways the Fates sift out the details of our lives to unseen ends and, if we're fortunate, to happy coincidence. Just when I felt that I could no longer stand living in the city another year, the dream of a retreat from the city became real. The election campaign last summer was the last straw. Consular campaigns as a rule are crude, vicious affairs, but an uglier campaign I've never witnessed.

'Candidates all run against each other,' I explained, 'and the two who garner the most votes become joint consuls for the year. If the two consuls are of the same political persuasion, they can reinforce one another and have a very effective year in office. If they're of different stripes, the Senate quickly learns which is the more dominant of the two and which the more easily led. In some years rivals are elected, and the stalemate as they try to outdo one another can be spectacular— literally. The year you came to live with me, Crassus and Pompey shared the consulship, and it was one feast after another, festival upon festival, from their inauguration in Januarius up to their valedictory addresses in December. The citizens grew fat and saw some fine chariot races that year!'

'Can any senator run for the consulship?' asked Meto.

'No. There is a prescribed sequence of offices that must be held first. The praetorships, the quaestorships, and so on, all last a year and have their specific functions. A politician goes up the ladder rung by rung, year by year. An electoral defeat means he sits out a whole year, and men in a hurry quickly grow bitter.'

'But what keeps a man from holding the same office over and over?'

'No man may hold the same office two years in a row — otherwise the same tiny handful of the most powerful men, like Pompey and Crassus, would be consul over and over. Besides, the consulship itself is yet another stepping-stone. The whole point of attaining the consulship is that it entities a man to a year as governor of a foreign province. A Roman governor can become fabulously rich by bleeding the locals white with taxes. The whole ugly enterprise is fuelled by endless corruption and greed.'

'And who votes?'

'Every citizen but me, I suppose, since I gave it up years ago. Nothing will ever be changed in Rome by voting, because not all votes are equal'

'What do you mean?'

I shook my head. Having been born a slave, Meto had no grounding from infancy in the inherited privileges of citizenship; having been raised in my household, his subsequent education in such technicalities had been sorely neglected, due to my own growing apathy. "The votes of a poor man count less than those of a rich one,' I said. 'But how?'

'On election day the citizens gather on the Campus Martius, between the old city walls and the River Tiber. Eligible voters are divided into what are called centuries. But the centuries have nothing to do with the number of voters in them. One century might have a hundred men in it and another might have a thousand. The rich are allotted more centuries than the poor, even though there are fewer rich men than poor ones. Thus, when a rich man votes, his vote counts much more than a poor man's vote.

'Even so, me poor man's vote is often needed, since the candidates all come from the rich or high-born classes and split those centuries among themselves. So common citizens are not neglected; they are wooed, seduced, suborned, and intimidated in all sorts of legal and illegal ways, from promises of favouritism, to outright bribery, to gangs set loose in the streets to beat up a rival's supporters. During the campaign the candidates tell pretty lies about themselves and hurl hideous accusations at their rivals, while their supporters cover the city with slanderous graffiti.'

' "Lucius Roscius Otho kisses the buttocks of the brothel keepers!" ' quoted Meto, laughing.

'Yes, one of the more memorable slogans from last year,' I agreed glumly. 'Yet Otho was elected praetor nonetheless!'

'But what was so unusual about last year's campaign?' asked Meto earnestly. 'I remember hearing you rage about it to visitors in your library, but I never really understood.'

'Only that it was so dirty and disgusting. And the fact that it was Cicero, of all people, who plunged the tone of the campaign to such depths. And the things that Cicero has done since the election…'

I shook my head and started again. 'There were three leading candidates: Cicero, Catilina, and Antonius. Antonius is a nonentity, a wastrel and a scoundrel, with no political programme at all, only a desperate need to get his hands, on a provincial governorship so that he can bleed enough taxes from the unfortunate locals to pay off his debts. There are those who say the same things about Catilina, but no one denies that Catilina has charm to spare and a keen political sense. He comes from ancient patrician stock, but he has no fortune; just the sort of aristocrat who backs radical schemes for redistributing wealth, cancelling debts, democratizing public offices and the priesthoods — and the conservative ruling classes do not like to hear that sort of talk. Even so, within the old ruling class there are plenty of patricians who have fallen on bad times and are desperate for a way out, and there are plenty of rich men who think they might use a demagogue for their own purposes, and so Catilina was not without substantial backing, despite his radical posturing. Crassus himself, the richest man in Rome, was his chief financial backer. Who knows what Crassus was up to?

'Then there was Cicero. None of his ancestors had ever held elective office before — he was the first of his family to hold public office, what they call a New Man. And no New Man had managed to get himself elected consul in living memory. The aristocracy turned up their noses at him, despising his political canniness, his eloquence, his success with the crowd. Cicero is a glorious upstart, a comet that came from nowhere, and immodest as a peacock. In his own way he must have appeared as much a threat to the order of things as Catilina. And he might have been, had his principles not proved to be so flexible.

'Catilina and Antonius formed an alliance. From early on they were both favoured to win. Catilina never ceased to needle the aristocracy with reminders of Cicero's common origins (though Cicero was hardly born poor!), but to his own supporters he began talking up the kind of radical schemes that give property owners grey hair and sleepless nights. The rich were in a quandary — Cicero they could not stomach, but Catilina they truly feared.

'As for Cicero, his campaign was managed by his brother Quintus. After the election, one day when I had business at his house, Cicero pressed me to look at a series of letters that he had exchanged with Quintus, discussing the progress of the campaign; he was so proud of them that he was actually talking aboutmaking them into a pamphlet, a sort of guide to successful electioneering. At the very outset Cicero and his brother decided to stop at nothing to destroy Catilina's character. Slander is the accepted style in any election campaign, but Cicero set new standards. Some of the accusations were whispered from ear to ear; others were made by Cicero outright in his speeches. In the thick of it I dreaded setting foot in the Forum, knowing I would have to hear Cicero haranguing the crowd. Even when I could avoid the Forum, the graffiti and the gossip were everywhere. If only half of what they said about Catilina is true, the man should have been strangled in his mother's womb.'

'What was he accused of?'

'A whole catalogue of crimes. There were the usual accusations of corruption, of course, such as buying votes and bribing election officials; those accusations were probably true, considering the financial backing that Catilina was receiving from Crassus — what good is so much money in an election except for bribes? When Roman voters know a candidate has money, they run to him with their palms up.

'Cicero also dredged up old charges of corruption from the days when Catilina was an administrator in Africa. A few years ago Catilina was tried on those particular charges — and Cicero himself considered defending him. Catilina was found innocent, for what it's worth. Lodging such criminal charges is just another tool that Roman politicians use to embarrass a rival and disqualify him from running for office. Both the charge and the verdict are purely political; any link to truth or justice is purely coincidental.

"Then there were the more serious accusations and innuendoes — rumours of sexual scandal, incest, murder… but perhaps all this talk of politics is beginning to bore you.'

'Not at all!' Meto's wide eyes showed I had his full attention.

I cleared my throat. 'Very well. They say that back in the terrible days of Sulla the dictator, Catilina served as one of his henchmen, killing Sulla's enemies and bringing in their heads for the bounty. They say he got away with murdering his own brother-in-law that way; Catilina's sister wanted the man killed and Catilina did it in cold blood, then made it legal by listing the man as one of Sulla's enemies.'

'Is it true?'

I shrugged. 'Men did terrible things in Sulla's time. Crassus made himself rich by buying up murdered men's estates. When murder is made legal, you see the true capacity of men for wickedness. Perhaps the story about Catilina is true, perhaps not. He was brought to trial for one instance of murder, twenty years after the fact, and found innocent. Who knows? But these were only the first of his alleged murders.

'A few years ago, when he came back from Africa, Catilina took a new wife. They say the woman refused to wed Catilina if there was already an heir in his house, so he murdered his son. As for the young bride, she happens to be the daughter of one of Catilina's former mistresses — there are even those who say she's Catilina's daughter!'

'Incest!' whispered Meto.

'Cicero himself never said that word aloud, he only made the innuendo. And that is only the beginning of the list of Catilina's alleged sexual crimes. They claim he corrupted one of the Vestal Virgins in a great scandal ten years ago; about that I happen to know a little, because I was summoned to investigate the matter in secret. It's the only time I've ever had personal dealings with Catilina, and I found him a puzzlement — utterly charming and utterly suspicious. Cicero likes to remind his listeners of the scandal, but only to a point, since his wife's sister was the Vestal accused of fornicating with Catilina! Oh, in some ways Rome is quite a small town.'

'And did they? Catilina and the Vestal?' Meto was positively glowing with interest.

'That I don't know, though I have my suspicions. I'll tell you the full story some other time. At any rate, both Catilina and the Vestal won acquittal — which, as I told you, has little to do with guilt or innocence.'

'It sounds as if Catilina has spent most of his career defending himself in court, or else murdering people!'

'And the rest of the time he fornicates, if you believe the stories. His circle in Rome is said to be utterly dissolute; he charms the bright young men of Rome by pimping for them, and charms rich, aging matrons by guiding the same young men into their bedrooms; they say he occasionally takes the best-looking of the young men and the richest of the matrons for himself Certainly a contrast to Cicero! Say, do you want to hear a joke about Cicero that was going around during the campaign?'

'Yes.’

'Keep in mind this probably came from Catilina. You have to know that Cicero has a daughter who's thirteen, Tullia, and a son who's barely two, Marcus. Well, they say that Cicero hates sex so much that he's tried it only twice in his life. Tullia came of the first time, but he hated it as much as he thought he would. Eleven years later his wife nagged him into trying it again, and he agreed, just to be sure that it was as bad as he remembered — and the outcome was Marcus!'

Meto winced.

'Well, I suppose it's a rare boy who laughs at his father's jokes. But you should have heard them laughing in the taverns when they told that one on election day. But after the votes were counted, it was Cicero who laughed.'

'Did Catilina just tell jokes about Cicero, or did he try to defend himself against all those accusations?'

'Oddly enough, he didn't try. Perhaps the rumours are true, or true enough that he didn't care to repeat them, even to refute them. And then, Catilina is a patrician, and Cicero is a New Man — I think that Catilina was too haughty to step into the gutter with someone he considers so far beneath him. That's another tactic of Roman politicians, especially from old families — they wrap themselves in their dignity. But Catilina's haughtiness proved a cold garment. On election day Cicero was the clear winner by an overwhelming majority. It was a tremendous personal triumph for a man without ancestry, who created a political career by his own canniness and perseverance. The consulship is a pinnacle few men attain. Cicero has reached it. This is his glorious year, and no one can say he didn't earn it.'

'And Catilina?'

'Trailing far behind Cicero in the votes was Antonius, the nonentity. Catilina was a very close third, but third means nothing in a race for the consulship. In previous years one lawsuit after another kept Catilina from running. When he finally had his chance, Cicero trounced him. This year Catilina is running again. He was said to be heavily in debt when he ran last year. How much further into debt will this race drive him? He must be a desperate man, and if one can believe even a small part of the rumours, a man easily disposed to murder. Not the sort of man I would care to have as a guest under my roof.'

'I suppose not,' said Meto gravely, 'even to return Cicero's favour.' We sat for a while in silence, looking down on the farm. Suddenly Meto made an odd noise and began to shiver. He clutched himself so violently that I was alarmed — but he was only laughing, so uproariously that he rolled off the stump onto the grass, hugging himself.

'What in Hades—'

'Now I get it!' he gasped. 'Only twice in his life — and tried it the second time just to make sure it was as bad as he remembered!' He laughed so hard his face turned red

I rolled my eyes, but couldn't help smiling. The law and society might say that he was almost a man, but it often seemed to me that Meto was still very much a boy.

IV

Dinner that night was not a success. Bethesda is not a bad cook, but cooking is among the least of her skills; cooking was certainly not the reason I bought her at the slave market in Alexandria those many years ago. A slave no longer — when she became pregnant with Diana I manumitted and married her — she was quite skilful in managing the labour of others, and to her I could leave the running of the household with complete confidence… except in the matter of the kitchen, where the egos of cooks were always colliding with her own. With Congrio lent to Claudia, Bethesda had taken advantage of the opportunity to exercise full sway in the kitchen.

Alas, her genius, so far as it went, was with simple foods such as she had served me in my leaner years (leaner in every sense), and particularly with fish, which were always to be had in quality and abundance at the markets in Rome, either freshly caught in the Tiber or brought upriver from the sea. At the farm good fish were harder to come by, and so, with a guest from the city to entertain, Bethesda had chosen to attempt something extravagant with the provisions on hand. She had overreached herself The celery and calf s brains with egg sauce was not up to Congrio's standards, and the asparagus stewed in wine might have succeeded had she chosen a less assertive vintage. (Such pretentious judgments about food I learned from the late Lucius Claudius.) The carrots with coriander were passable, and the potted peaches stewed with cumin at last provided a triumph I could sincerely compliment — which was a mistake.

'Congrio potted the peaches’ she remarked tersely. 'I merely

instructed one of the slaves to simmer them with the olive oil and cumin.'. -

?Ah — and your instructions were impeccable’ I said, kissing my fingertips. Bethesda raised a dubious eyebrow.

'I’ll take some more,' said Meto, gesturing to the serving slave.

'Actually, the whole meal was delicious,' insisted Marcus Caelius. "There aren't many Roman matrons who could personally oversee every course of such an ambitious meal in the absence of their cook. To find such culinary excellence here in the countryside is a delight.' The words sounded false to my ear, but Bethesda was suddenly glowing; it was the fancy beard that charmed her, I thought. 'But you need not strive to impress Catilina when he stays here,' added Caelius. 'He's a man of adaptable tastes. He can discriminate between two vintages of Falernian wine blindfolded, or drink from the jug kept for slaves with equal relish. Catilina says, "A man's palate was meant to experience every possible flavour, or else a tongue is good only for talking." '

This struck me as vaguely obscene; Bethesda must have caught the implication as well, for she now seemed even more charmed by our guest. Was it this that irritated me, or the fact that Caelius seemed to take my acquiescence for granted?

'I think we should retire to the library,' I said 'We still have business to discuss, Marcus Caelius.'

Meto looked up expectantly and began to rise from his couch. 'No,' I said,'stay and finish your peaches.'

'You have some very fine works in your collection,' said Caelius, trailing his eye over the scrolls in their pigeonholes and fingering the little labels that hung from them. 'I see you're particularly fond of collecting plays. So is Cicero. I suppose on occasion he passes on his duplicates to you. I had plenty of time to look through your library this afternoon, and I was impressed by all the volumes inscribed, "From Marcus Tullius Cicero, to his friend Gordianus, with warm regards—" '

'Yes, Caelius, I'm well acquainted with the contents of my own library. I remember where each volume came from.'

'Books are like friends, are they not? Steadfast, unchanging, reliable. There's a comfort in that. Pick up a volume you put away a year ago, and the words will be the same.'

'I take your meaning, Caelius. But is Cicero really the same man now that he was a year ago? Or seventeen years ago, when I first met him?'

'I don't understand.'

'The news from Rome arrives here sporadically and secondhand, and I listen to it with only one ear, but it seems to me that Cicero the consul has turned out to be rather more reactionary than was Cicero the aspiring advocate. The man of the people who bravely spoke out against Sulla now seems quite at home serving the interests of the same handful of rich families whom Sulla served.'

Caelius shrugged. 'This is all beside the point, isn't it? I thought you were sick of politics. That's why I chose to talk about friendship, instead.'

'Caelius, even if I were eager to do as you ask, I would hesitate. How old are you?' Twenty-five.'

'Quite young. I take it you have no wife and children yet.' 'No.’

"Then you probably don't understand why I hesitate to allow a man like Catilina into my house, no matter what the circumstance or pretext I left Rome partly because I was sick of the constant violence and danger. Not because I feared for my own safety, but because there are others I must consider and protect Before I adopted him, my elder son Eco was a child of the streets; he could always fend for himself, and now he's a man and on his own. But my younger son Meto is quite different; clever and resourceful, yes, but no t nearly as canny or resilient as Eco. I've shared as little of the dangerous part of my life with him as I could. And you've seen my little gid, Diana. She needs protection most of all'

'But we're not asking you to do anything dangerous, Gordianus, only—'

'You sound as sincere now as when you complimented Bethesda's dinner.'

Caelius gave me his heavy-lidded look. I think he was used to getting his way by using charm alone and could not quite account for my obstinacy.

I sighed ‘What precisely is it that Cicero wants of me?'

To his credit, Caelius showed no hint of smugness at this concession. His face became quite grave. 'I spoke to you this afternoon of a looming threat to the state. You discounted my words as mere rhetoric, Gordianus, but the facts are plain enough. The threat is Catilina. You may despise the pomposity and corruption of what passes for politics in Rome nowadays, but believe me, the anarchy Catilina would bring would be far more terrible.'

'You're beginning to speechify,' I warned.

Caelius smiled gradgingly. 'Stop me when I do that. To be clear, then: Catilina, as you know, is running for consul again. He cannot possibly win, but that won't stop him from trying, and from stirring up: as much, trouble as he can, using the campaign as a vehicle to foment disorder and discontent in the city. He has two plans. The first is predicated on his victory. If he should win the consulship—'

'You just said that was impossible.'

'I was speechifying, Gordianus; I told you to stop me if I did that. On the very slight chance, then, that Catilina should win the election, it will be taken as a sign that the electorate is irreparably fragmented. Cicero's consulship will have been a momentary respite of sanity before the storm. The Senate will erupt. There will be riots and murders in the streets. Very likely there will be civil war, the various politicians and great families are already aligning themselves. In such a conflict Catilina will inevitably lose, if not quickly, then when Pompey brings his troops back from the East. And if Pompey has to be called back to restore order, what is to stop Pompey from becoming dictator? Consider that possibility.'

Against my will, I did. After Catilina, Pompey as dictator was the ruling oligarchy's worst nightmare. Such an eventuality would mean either the end of the Republic or yet another civil war; men like Crassus and the young Julius Caesar would not let power elude them without a struggle.

'And if the only possible thing happens, and Catilina loses the election?' I said, hating to be drawn into the argument.

'He's already begun planning his revolt. His supporters are as desperate as he is. His military support is concentrated among the veterans settled here in Etruria, farther north. Within the city he has a small but devoted coterie of powerful men who will stop at nothing. There is already evidence that he plans to murder Cicero before the election.'

'But why?'

'Chiefly because he blames Cicero for stealing the election from him last year, and longs to see him dead. How it fits into Catilina's overall scheme, I'm not sure; perhaps he simply wants to spread chaos and fear before the polling, or to cancel the election altogether.'

'How do you know all this, Marcus Caelius?'

"There was a meeting of the conspirators earlier this month—'

'How do you know this?' -

'I'm telling you: there was a meeting of the conspirators earlier this month, and I was there.’

I paused to absorb this. If only it could have been Aratus seated across from me, discussing how many oxen to buy at market this year, or Congrio telling me we would need more provisions for the month ahead. Instead I was confronted with one of Cicero's smoothest proteges, listening to him pronounce dire warnings of conspiracy and revolution.

"This is all too much, Caelius. You say that Catilina is hatching a conspiracy to murder Cicero, and that you yourself sat in on his secret proceedings?'

'I'm telling you too much, Gordianus, more than I intended to, but you're a difficult man to convince.'

'This is your way of convincing me to help you? I tell you I want no danger to this house and you tell me stories of assassination and civil war!'

'All of which can be prevented, if we work together.’ Why — in spite of all my protests, my clearly reasoned judgment, all the resolutions and promises I had made to myself the great daily satisfaction I took in turning my back on the madness of the city — why in that moment did I experience a shiver of excitement? Intrigue is an intoxicant more powerful than the headiest wine. Secrecy casts a spell over the workaday world and turns common, drab existence into the stuff of plays and epics. A man eats of such stuff and only feels hungry for more. Even so, such a diet makes a man feel alive. That shiver of excitement was something I had not felt since I left the city.

'Tell me more about the meeting you attended with Catilina,' I said slowly.

'It was at Catilina's house on the Palatine; a splendid, rambling mansion that his father built, and the only thing left of his inheritance, besides his name. It began as a dinner party, but after the meal we withdrew to a room deep within the house. The slaves were dismissed and the door was shut. If I told you the names of the senators and patricians who were there—'

'Don't'

Caelius nodded. "Then I'll only tell you that the gathering ranged from the respectable to the notorious—' ' "Taste every flavour." So Catilina says.'

'Exactly. He coins a memorable phrase, as you see. You flatter me by calling me an apt pupil of Cicero's, but I tell you Cicero has nothing on Catilina when it comes to passionate speeches. He dwelt upon the common distress of the men gathered there and pointed to the wealthy oligarchs as the cause of all their misery; he promised them a new state consecrated by the blood of the old; he spoke of cancelled debts and confiscations from the rich. When it was over he produced a bowl of wine and compelled every man to make a cut on his arm and squeeze a trickle of blood into the bowl'

'And you?'

Caelius held forth his arm and showed me the scar. "The bowl was passed around. Every man drank from it. We all took an oath of secrecy—'

'Which you're breaking right now.'

'An oath against Rome is no oath at all to a true Roman.' Even so, he lowered his eyes.

'Then Catilina accepted you as one of his own, despite your connection to Cicero?'

'Yes, because for a time I was truly under his spell. I convinced him of my loyalty because it was real, at the time. Until I suddenly saw through him, until I learned that he planned to murder Cicero. Then I went to Cicero with all I knew. He told me to remain in Catilina's confidence and said that I could be more valuable to him as a spy. I'm not the only one who watches Catilina for him.'

'And now he wants me to spy for him as well.'

'No, Gordianus. He merely wants you to play passive host to Catilina. Catilina's movements are watched, but he has ways of getting out of the city unobserved. His principal ally outside Rome is Gaius Manlius, a military man up in Faesulae; Catilina needs a secret place of refuge between Faesulae and Rome, not one of his known supporter's farms, but a place where his enemies would never think to look.'

'And that place is with me? If he doesn't know already, anyone could tell Catilina that I've done much work for Cicero in the past, and that Cicero helped me hold on to this farm.'

'Yes, but I've told Catilina that you've had a serious falling-out with Cicero — that's easy enough, to believe, isn't it? — and that you're disgusted with things as they are in Rome, and sympathize with him. That you know how to be discreet is accepted without question; you do have a reputation for that, Gordianus. Catilina doesn't believe that you're an ardent supporter, only that you're willing to offer him hospitality and to keep your mouth shut. That's all he'll expect from you — a safe retreat when he needs to get out of the city, and a way station on the road to Faesulae.'

'How do I know there won't be secret meetings in my house, with bowls of human blood passed around?'

Caelius shook his head. "That's not what he wants from you. He wants a refuge, not a meeting place.'

'And what does Cicero want?'

'An accounting of Catilina's movement, through me. Of course, if Catilina should happen to confide something of importance to you, Cicero trusts you to use your judgment in passing on vital information. They say you have a way of drawing out the truth from men, even when they hope to conceal it.'

I turned my back on him and looked out the west-facing windows, beyond the herb garden to the land sloping down towards the stream The treetops were gilded with moonlight. The night was quiet and peaceful, pleasantly warm. The air smelled rich and sweet, a mixture of animal dung and cut grass. Rome seemed very far away, and yet inescapable.

'I would deal only with you, then, and with Catilina? With no one else?'

'Yes. Cicero himself will be only a phantom, never seen. Any message you need to send you will send to me, in the city. Catilina will find nothing suspicious in that.'

'It can't be as simple as you claim. Is it because of your youth and inexperience that you can't see all the terrible things that could go wrong? Or are you intentionally trying to coddle me?'

He smiled. 'My teacher Cicero would say that one should never respond to a question of either or if both answers are damaging. One should change the subject instead.'

I begrudged him a smile in return. 'You're positively wicked, Marcus Caelius; too wicked for a man your age. Yes, I do believe you could fool Catilina himself into trusting you. If I agree to do as you ask, I must have some way of protecting myself; I can't be seen as an ally of Catilina's if he comes to ruin, as he probably will. A letter from Cicero would be useful, acknowledging my help ahead of time.'

Caelius grimaced. 'Cicero foresaw such a request. It's not possible. If suchacommunication were to be intercepted, it would spoil everything, and put you in immediate jeopardy, besides. Put your mind at ease. If a crisis comes, Cicero will not forget you.'

'Still, I'd like some assurance from Cicero himself. If I came to Rome—'

'He couldn't see you, not now. Catilina would know, and all would be ruined. Do you not believe me, Gordianus?'

I considered for a long moment The shiver of excitement I had felt earlier was joined by a prickle of apprehension. I felt like the man who cannot control his drinking and so abstains, but who picks up a cup intended for someone else and accidentally swallows a mouthful of warm wine. 'I believe you,' I finally said.

But later that night, as I lay beside Bethesda, a doubt took shape, grew and hovered over me like a grey mist in the moonlit darkness. Caelius had offered no proof that he came from Cicero. Might he have been sent by Catilina, instead? Even if he had come from Cicero, might not Catilina have seen through their plan? Where did Caelius's true allegiance lie? The same charming young man who claimed to have fooled Catilina might just as easily be able to fool Cicero, not to mention an unreformed intriguer named Gordianus the Finder, who thought he had sworn off politics forever.

Bethesda stirred. 'What's wrong, Master?' she whispered. She had ceased to call me Master on the day of our marriage, but occasionally she slipped in her sleep; to hear her call me that reminded me of days long ago, before the world became so weary and complex. I reached out and touched her. The familiarity of her body — firm, warm, and responsive — dispelled my hovering doubts like ragged mists beneath the sun. She rolled towards me and we folded our bodies together. For a while all apprehensions were forgotten in the animal act of love, and afterwards I slept the sleep of a country farmer, dreaming of endless fields of hay and the musical lowing of oxen.

V

The next morning Marcus Caelius was up before I was. I found him in front of the stable, fully dressed and readying his mount for the ride back to Rome. His bodyguards emerged from within, rubbing their eyes and brushing straw from their hair. The sun was not quite above Mount Argentum, and the world was lit by a thin blue light. A trail of mist hovered over the stream and crept into the low places. From Publius Claudius's farm to the west, a faraway cock began to crow.

'Weren't you able to sleep, Caelius?'

'Quite well, thank you.'

'The bed was too hard, wasn't it? I knew it would be. And the room was too stuffy.' 'No…'

'Alas, as you've seen for yourself, my home is wholly unsuitable for distinguished guests.'

Caelius caught my meaning and smiled. "They say that Catilina is like a good general; he can eat and sleep under any conditions. Your accommodations will be more than adequate.'

'I still haven't said yes, Caelius.'

'I thought you had.'

'I'll need to consider it'

'Which is the same as saying no. Time presses, Gordianus.'

'Then no,' I snapped, suddenly tired of bantering with him.

He clucked his tongue. ‘You'll change your mind as soon as I'm gone. Send a messenger to me.' He mounted his horse and ordered his bodyguards to get ready.

Bethesda emerged from the house, dressed in a long-sleeved stola

with her hair down. The black and silver strands cascaded in splendid waves down her back, and there was a dreamy look in her eyes, for which I felt partly responsible.

'Surely, Marcus Caelius, you're not leaving us without eating first?' She positively purred. 'I had planned something special for breakfast.'

'I prefer to start a long ride on an empty stomach. I've looted some bread and fruit from your larder, for the road.' He turned his steed around a few times while his bodyguards mounted their horses.

'Wait a moment,' I said. 'I'll ride with you as far as the Cassian Way.'

As we set out, the sun crested the mountain and lit up the world, casting long shadows behind us. Birds began to sing. We passed by vineyards on one side and a mowed field of hay on the other. Caelius breathed in deeply. 'Ah, Gordianus, the smell of a country morning! I see why you prefer it to the city. Yet the city does not cease to exist, merely because you turn your back on it. Neither do a man's obligations.'

'You are nothing if not persistent, Caelius,' I said, shaking my head ruefully. 'Did you learn that trait from Cicero, or from Catilina?'

'A little from both, I think. There's something else I learned from Catilina: a riddle. You must like riddles, Gordianus, being so adept at solving mysteries. Do you want to hear it?'

I shrugged.

'It's a little riddle that Catilina likes to pose to his friends. He told it on the night of the blood oath. "I see two bodies," he said. "One is thin and wasted, but has a great head. The other body is big and strong — but it has no head at all" ' He laughed quietly.

I shifted uneasily on my mount. 'What is the point?'

Caelius gave me his heavy-lidded look. 'But it's a riddle, Gordianus! You must figure out the answer for yourself. I tell you what: when you dispatch your messenger to me, use a code. If you'll play host to.Catilina, if your answer is yes, then say: "The body without a head." But if no, then say: "The head without a body." But don't wait long; once set in motion, events will move very swiftly.'

"They always do,' I said, reining in my horse. We had reached the Cassian Way. Caelius waved to me, then with his men turned onto the stone-paved surface and gathered speed. For a moment I watched their capes fluttering behind them like pennants, then turned back towards the house, more uncertain and apprehensive than ever.

* * *

I was in my library that afternoon, sketching fanciful plans for the water mill, when Aratus announced that Congrio and his assistants had returned.

'Good, show them in. I want to see them. Privately.'

Aratus narrowed his eyes and withdrew. A few moments later Congrio and the kitchen slaves entered. I put aside my tablet and stylus and gestured for them to shut the door.

'Well, Congrio, how did things go with the Claudii?'

'Quite well, Master. I'm sure you'll receive no complaints about our service. Claudia gave me this note to give to you.' He handed me a rolled scrap of parchment sealed with wax on which Claudia had impressed her ring. Her seal, I noticed, was an abbreviation of her name, with the letter C enclosing a smaller A. It was clearly her own seal, neither inherited from her father nor taken from a husband, but invented by herself. This was unusual for a Roman matron, but Claudia was an unusually independent woman. I broke the seal and unrolled the letter.

To Gordianus:

Greetings, neighbour, and my gratitude for the loan of your slaves. They have comported themselves admirably, most especially your chief of the kitchen, Congrio, who has lost none of his skill since the days when he served my cousin Lucius. I am doubly grateful because my own head cook fell ill in the midst of preparations, whereupon Congrio proved to be not merely a great help but utterly essential; I should have been distraught and desperate without him. I will remember this when calculating the favour I owe you.

On a different subject, and confidentially, I want you to know that I did my best to put in a good word for you in the family council. We Claudii are a stubborn and opinionated bunch, and I cannot say that I immediately swayed anyone towards a more moderate view, but I think I made a start. Anyway, I did what I could. It was a beginning.

Thank you again for the generous loan. Consider this your promissory note, and call upon me some day to repay it. I remain your grateful neighbour,

Claudia

I rolled the letter and tied it with a ribbon, then saw that Congrio was watching me with his head quizzically cocked. 'She was quite impressed with you’1 said, at which Congrio let out a pent-up breath and smiled sweetly.

'A good woman’ he said. 'A demanding mistress, but she genuinely appreciates a man's skills’

'You obeyed my orders regarding your own discretion?'

'We were discreet, Master. I regret that I can't say the same for other men's slaves’

'What do you mean?'

"The visiting Claudii brought along their own slaves, and the most natural place for slaves to congregate is the kitchen. I did my best to shoo them out whenever the place became too crowded, but there was always a throng, and the orgy of gossip never stopped. I took no part in it, of course, but above the clanging of pots and pans I kept my ears open, as you instructed'

‘What did you hear?'

'Most of it was of no interest at all — which slaves had risen or fallen in their master's favour… fabricated stories about amorous adventures when journeying with their masters to Rome… obscene tales about illicit unions between field slaves and serving girls behind the wine press… rude comments about one another's anatomy — just the sort of trivial filth that you'd expect, and with which I would never consider polluting my master's ears’

'Was there anything at all of interest?'

'Perhaps. There were some rude insults aimed in my own general direction. Slaves often take on the colours of their masters, as you no doubt have noticed, and when there is hostility between masters it may be echoed between their slaves. Quite a few of the slaves, knowing I served Lucius Claudius long and faithfully, took crude jabs at me; these took the nature of bemoaning what they called my sad decline in the world, having now to serve a master — pardon me, Master, these are their exact words and it pains me to repeat them — having now to serve a master "so far below" the last. I answered them with stony silence, of course, which they merely seemed to find amusing. The point is that such phrases could hardly have originated from the lips of slaves; rather, slaves pick up such phrases from their masters.'

'I see. Did you hear anything so direct from the lips of the Claudii themselves?'

'No, Master, not I. As it turned out, I was confined almost exclusively to the kitchen, with hardly a moment to catch a breath of air. Claudia's head cook fell ill—'

'So she mentions in her letter.'

'As you might imagine, I was quite busy the whole time. I hardly saw any of her guests, only their slaves invading my — that is to say Claudia's — kitchen.'

'And you two?' I asked, nodding to his assistants. They drew themselves up nervously, looking at each other.

'Well?'

'We helped Congrio in the kitchen much of the time,' said one of them 'It's as he says; there were rude jibes from some of the visiting slaves, veiled insults regarding our new master — which is to say yourself, Master. But we didn't spend all our time in the kitchen. We were also called upon to serve during the family council and the dinner that followed. Your name was mentioned…'

'Yes?'

They displayed acute discomfort. One of them had a rather bad complexion, with pimples scattered over his cheeks. I was surprised Claudia had chosen him to serve, since most Romans prefer to look on something pleasant while they dine. I put this down to her general eccentricity; Claudia seemed always determined to go her own way.

'You,' I said to the boy with the pimples. 'Speak up! Nothing you say will surprise me.'

He cleared his throat 'They don't like you, Master.'

'I know that. What I want to know is what they might be planning to do about it'

'Well, there was nothing specific. Name-calling mostly.'

'Such as?'

He made a face, as if I had waved something foul-smelling under his nose and demanded he taste it' "Stupid young fart from the city"?' he finally said, wincing.

'Who called me that?'

'That was Publius Claudius, I think, the old man who lives across the stream. Actually, he did state a specific intention, sort of. He said you ought to be dunked upside down in the stream and made to catch fish with your teem.'He winced again.

'That's pretty harmless,' I said. 'What else?'

His companion chewed his lower lip, then timidly raised his hand for permission to speak. ' "Stupid nobody with no ancestors, who should be put in a cage and carted back to Rome,"' he offered.

'That was Manius Claudius, the man who lives up north beyond the wall’

'I see. Still, nothing more than idle grumbling’ The young man with the pimples cleared his throat. ‘Yes?' I prompted.

"The youngest one, the one named Gnaeus—'

The Claudian whose own rocky, mountainous property would not support a farm and who, by all expectations, should have inherited Lucius's farm, I thought 'Go on’

'He said that the family should hire some assassins in the city to come up on some dark night and leave a bit of blood on the ground’

This was more serious, though it still might be only more idle talk. 'Did he say anything more specific?'

'No, those were his words, exactly: "Leave a bit of blood on the ground"'

'And he said this where you could hear?'

'I don't think he knew what household I came from. I don't think any of them knew, except Claudia. They really didn't seem to notice us at all. Also, there was a lot of wine drunk that night and Gnaeus drank his share’

'But you should probably know, Master,' said the other slave, 'that Claudia spoke up in your defence. She answered each of these insults and threats, and told the others that there was no point in nursing their animosity because everything had been settled in court'

'And how did her cousins respond?'

'Not very warmly, but she did shut them up. Her manner can be rather…'

'Brusque’ concluded Congrio. 'And remember, it was in her home that the family conclave was being held; she is very much the mistress under her own roof I think that Claudia suffers no challenges to her authority on her own property, even from her blood relations.'

I smiled and nodded 'A woman to be reckoned with. A woman who demands respect. Do her own.slaves respect her?'

'Of course.' Congrio shrugged. 'Although…'

'Yes? Speak up.'

He wrinkled his plump brow. 'I'm not sure that they feel much affection for her, as some slaves do for their masters. She is quite demanding, as I have learned for myself. Nothing must go to waste! Every part of every beast must be rendered for whatever it's worth; every seed must be picked up off the floor. Some of the older slaves swear that they owe their bent backs to her and not to old age.'

'The very fact that she owns slaves old enough to have stooped backs speaks of a compassionate nature,' I said, thinking of all the farms where slaves are treated worse than beasts of burden. A slave's hide, unlike that of a cow, has no value after death, and thus many masters see no reason not to cover it with scars; and the flesh of slaves, unlike the flesh of beasts, cannot be eaten, and so these same masters see no need to feed them more than the bare minimum. Wise old Cato would certainly have had no wizened slaves about his farm; his advice is to cull out the sick and weak and to stop feeding a slave once he grows too old to do his full share.

Done with the slaves, I dismissed them, but as Congrio was stepping through the door (he had to turn a bit sideways, I noticed, to manoeuvre his bulk through the passageway), I called him back.

'Yes, Master?'

'This family conclave of the Claudii was mostly about the upcoming elections, I understand.'

'I think so, Master, though I imagine they also discussed matters of more immediate concern to the family.'

'Such as their unwanted neighbour and what to do about him,' I said glumly. 'Did you overhear any rumours of how the Claudii plan to vote? In the consular election, I mean.'

'Oh, in that they were unanimous. They will back Silanus, though they appear to have no great respect for him. "Anyone but Catilina," was the phrase I heard again and again. Even the slaves had picked it up.'

'I see. "Anyone but Catilina.'' You may go now, Congrio. Bethesda will wish to advise you about this evening's meal.' After he left the room, I sat for a long while with my fingertips pressed together, staring at the wall, lost in thought.

VI

For the next few days I put aside thoughts of politics and Rome and the great world beyond the farm I even managed to banish the troublesome Claudii from my mind. No more messengers arrived from the city; no more insults were hurled across the stream that bordered my estate. The city folk were busy with electioneering, and my neighbours were no doubt occupied, as I was, with the haymaking. The sun shone bright and warm, the slaves seemed content at their labours, the beasts dozed in their pens. Meto and Diana seemed to have made peace with each other, at least for the time being, and Bethesda, her maternal nature aroused by the budding spring, took them to gather wildflowers on the hillside. In my idle moments I played at designing the water mill that had been the dream of Lucius Claudius.

The nights were warm but pleasant. I went to bed early, and Bethesda and I made love three nights in a row. (The chance appearance of a handsome young visitor like Marcus Caelius in my household seemed often to have this stimulating effect, but I did not question or object.) I slept well and deeply. It seemed to me that a great peace had descended on my own little plot of land in Etruria, no matter what wickedness was brewing in the world beyond. Thus do the gods sometimes deceive us with a respite before the storm.

The bad news began at mid-month, on the Ides of Junius. Early that morning a slave came running to my library, saying that Aratus wished to see me in the fields. From the boy's uneasy countenance I saw trouble looming.

I followed him to a place at the northern edge of the farm, near the wall that separated my land from that of Manius Claudius. Since this field of grass was farthest from the house and the barns, the slaves had mowed it last. The grass was all cut, but only a few bundles had been gathered. The slaves stood idly about and became nervous at my arrival. Aratus stepped towards me, looking glum.

'I wanted you to see for yourself, Master,' he said, 'so that there would be no misunderstanding later.'

'See what?'

He indicated a bundle of dried grass. His jaw was clenched, and I saw a twitch at the corner of his mouth.

'I see nothing wrong,' I said, 'except that this bale of hay has been cut open, and these men are standing around when they should be bundling the rest.'

'If you will look closer, Master,' said Aratus, bending towards the open bale and indicating that I should do likewise.

I squatted down and peered at the mowed grass. My vision at a near distance is not what it once was. At first I did not see the grey powder, like a fine soot, that spotted the hay. Then, having perceived it, I saw mottled patches everywhere within the bale.

'What is this, Aratus?'

'It's a blight called hay ash, Master. It appears every seven years or so; at least, that's my experience. It never manifests itself until after the grass is mowed, and sometimes not until much later, when a bale is cut open in the winter and you find out that the hay within is black and rotted.'

'What does this mean?'

'The blight makes the hay inedible. The beasts will not touch it, and if they do, it will only make them sick.' 'How extensive is the damage?'

'At the very least, all the grass within this field is almost undoubtedly ruined.'

'Even if there is no blight on the blades?' I looked around at the mowed grass and saw no sign of the sooty spots.

'The blight will appear in a day or two. That's why it's often not seen until the winter. The hay is already bundled when the blight appears. It works its way from the inside out.'

'Insidious,' I said. "The enemy within. What of the other fields? What of the hay already baled and stored?'

Aratus looked grim. ‘I sent one of the slaves to cut open one of the first bales, from the field up by the house.' He handed me a blade of hay covered with the same grey soot.

I gritted my teeth. 'In other words, Aratus, you're telling me that all the hay is ruined. The whole crop that was meant to sustain us through the winter! And I suppose this has nothing to do with the fact that you waited so long to cut the grass?'

'The two things are unrelated, Master—'

'Then if the grass had been mowed earlier, as I wanted, this blight would still have found its way into the hay?'

'The blight was there before the mowing, unseen. The time of mowing and the appearance of the blight have no connection—'

'I'm not sure I believe you, Aratus.'

He said nothing, but only stared into the middle distance and clenched his jaw.

'Can any of the hay be saved?' I asked.

'Perhaps. We can try to set apart the good and burn the bad, though the blight may keep appearing no matter what we do.'

"Then do what you can! I leave it to you, Aratus, since you seem to think you understand the situation. I leave it to you!' I turned around and left him standing there among the other slaves while I stalked across the shorn fields, trying not to calculate the waste of time and labour that had given me fields upon fields of hay that was good for nothing but kindling.

That afternoon great plumes of smoke rose into the still air from the bonfires which Aratus organized in the fields. I went myself to make sure that only the visibly blighted hay was being destroyed and found bales that appeared to be untouched mixed among the kindling. When I pointed this out to Aratus, he admitted the error, but said that saving any of the hay was only a postponement. I found this a poor excuse for destroying hay that might, for all I knew, be perfectly good. I had only Aratus's word and his judgment that the good hay would yet be blighted. What if he was mistaken, or even lying to me? A fine thing that would be, to be deceived into destroying a whole crop of good hay on the advice of a slave in whom I was beginning to lose all trust.

Plumes of smoke continued to rise into the air the next morning, when Aratus separated more bales of blighted hay and made them into bonfires. Not surprisingly, a messenger arrived from Claudia. The slave was shown into my library, bearing a basket of fresh figs in his arms.

'A gift from my mistress,' he explained. 'She is proud of her figs and wishes to share them with you.' He smiled, but I saw him glance sidelong out the window at the pillars of smoke.

'Give her my thanks’ I called to one of the house slaves to fetch Congrio, who seemed a bit startled at being summoned so early in the day. He gave Claudia's messenger an odd look, which made me think something untoward must have transpired between them during his stay at her house; slaves are always fighting with one another. 'Congrio,' I said, 'see the fine figs Claudia has sent to me? What might we send her in return?'

Congrio seemed to be at a loss, but at last suggested a basket of eggs. "The hens have produced an exceptional batch of late,' he assured me. 'Yolks like butter and whites that stir up like cream Fresh eggs are always a treasure, Master.'

'Very well. Take this man to the kitchens and supply him.' As they were leaving the room, I called for the slave to come back. 'And in case your mistress should ask,' I said in a confidential tone, 'the plumes of smoke she sees rising above the ridge come from a blighted crop of hay. Hay ash, my steward calls it. She may tell this to the other Claudii if they come asking her, as I doubt that they will send messengers onto my property to inquire for themselves.'

He nodded in the same confidential manner and withdrew with Congrio. Supplying him with eggs should not have taken long, but even so it was at least an hour later when I happened to be strolling around the house and saw him stepping outside through the kitchen door, holding a basket full of eggs and whispering something to Congrio over his shoulder. When he turned towards me, I saw the reason for his tardy departure, for he reached up with one hand to wipe a bit of custard from his lips. Who could resist tarrying for a while to sample a bit of Congrio's cooking? The slave saw me and gave a guilty start, then recovered himself and departed with a crooked smile.

The next day I had more evidence of Aratus's incompetence. Near the end of the day, when I escaped to the ridge to brood in solitude over the loss of the hay, I saw a wagon drawn by two horses turn off the Cassian Way. The heavily loaded vehicle lumbered along the road, sending up a small cloud of dust, and finally stopped alongside the house, near the kitchens. Congrio emerged from within and began to oversee the unloading of the wagon.

And where was Aratus? It was his job to oversee such work. I made my way down the hillside and came upon Congrio huffing and puffing as he helped his assistants unload heavy bags of millet and wooden crates stacked with clay cooking pots. The afternoon had cooled a bit, but Congrio was drenched with sweat.

'Congrio! You should be inside, tending to the kitchens. This is work for Aratus.'

He shrugged and made a face. 'I only wish that were so, Master.' He spoke with an anxious stutter, and I could see that he was as upset as I was. ‘I have asked Aratus over and over to order certain provisions for me from Rome — you simply cannot get such clay pots anywhere else this side of Cumae. He kept promising he would do so, but then he always put it off until finally I ordered the things myself. There was adequate silver in the kitchen accounts. Please don't be angry with me, Master, but I thought it best if I took the initiative and avoided confronting him in your presence.'

'Even so, it's Aratus who should oversee the unloading. Look at you, as red as a clay pot and sweating like a horse after a race. Really, Congrio, this kind of exertion is too much for you. You should be inside.'

'And let Aratus drop a crate and ruin my pots from spite? Please, Master, I can oversee the work myself I prefer it that way. The sweat is only the price I pay for carrying a bit of extra girth; I feel quite fine.'

I considered for a moment, then relented with a nod.

'Thank you, Master,' he said, relieved. 'It's really for the best. Bring Aratus into this, and I'll never hear the end of it. He gets in my way enough as it is.'

'And in my way as well,' I muttered under my breath.

First had come the respite and then the storm, or so I thought, believing that the burning of the hay was disaster enough for one season.

The next morning I rose early, in a good mood despite my troubles. I grabbed a handful of bread and my wax tablet and stylus, and headed for the site of my imaginary water mill. I sketched for a while, but as the day became warmer I grew drowsy. I lay back amid the high grass on the sloping bank. The water rushed and gurgled. Birds twittered overhead. Dappled sunlight played across my closed eyelids, and the same play of cool shadow and warm light delicately caressed my hands and face. Despite the bothers of running a farm, despite having to deal with squabbling slaves, despite the ill will of the Claudii, life was quite good, very good. What had I to complain of really? Other men had lived much harder lives than I had, and had nothing to show for it.

Others had more to show, but to what ends had they gone to acquire it? I was an honest man at peace with the gods, I told myself and as much at peace with other men as a free man could expect to be in such times.

The late-morning warmth was delicious. I felt utterly relaxed, as if my body glowed contentment from within. My thoughts drifted to Bethesda. Three nights of lovemaking in a row! We had not had such an appetite for each other in years. Perhaps it was another benefit of country living. In my new surroundings I had certainly never been tempted to stray from her. There was not even a pretty slave girl on the farm — Bethesda had quietly seen to that — and my neighbours offered no distractions in that vein. What sort of erotic life did Claudia lead, I idly wondered, and then killed the thought stillborn, as I did not really care to know. Ah, Bethesda…

I recalled a particular instant of our lovemaking, a specific sensation, and smiled, doting on the memory. What had set off the sparks between us? Ah, yes, the visit from young Marcus Caelius with his stylish beard and his elegant tongue. I found myself contemplating his face, and found the image not unpleasant. He was quite handsome, after all, if in a wily sort of way. Too wily for such a young man. Catilina liked to surround himself with good-looking young men, as everyone knew; a lascivious mind might well imagine just how young Caelius had managed to insinuate himself so firmly into Catilina's confidence. What would happen if I allowed Catilina himself to visit the farm, as Caelius desired? What sort of effect would that have on Bethesda? Catilina was well into his forties, barely younger than I, but he was famous for having the energy of a man half his age. And for all the insults that had been hurled at him, no one had ever called him ugly. In his own way he was as good-looking as Marcus Caelius, or had been once, for I had not seen him close at hand in many years. Beauty is beauty no matter what the gender. Beauty brings universal pleasure to the eye…

These thoughts unfurled and my imagination drifted into a worid of pure flesh, as I find often happens just before sleep. All the words poured from my head like water through open fingers. I lay upon the grass, content to be an animal warmed by the sun, my head full of animal thoughts.

And then I heard my daughter calling me.

I sat up — with a start, because there was no plafulness in her voice, but instead an unfamiliar urgency.

She called to me again, from quite near, and then she appeared over the verge of the hill and came running down to me, her tiny sandals slipping on the lush grass. I blinked and shook my head, not quite fully awake.

'Diana, what is it?'

She slid onto her bottom beside me, gasping for breath. 'Papa, you must come!'

'What is it? What's wrong?'

'A man, Papa!'

‘A man? Where?'

'He's in the stable.'

'Oh, not another visitor!' I groaned.

'No, not a visitor,' she said, sucking in a deep breath and then frowning thoughtfully. Later I would wonder how she stayed so calm, so serious. Why did she run to me and not to her mother? How did she keep from screaming after what she had seen? It was my blood in her, I decided, the blood of the ever-curious, ever-deliberating, dispassionate Finder.

'Well, then, who is this man?'

'I don't know, Papa!'

'A stranger?'

She shrugged elaborately and stuck out her arms. 'I'm not sure.' ‘What do you mean? Either you know the man or you don't' 'But, Papa. I can't tell whether I know him or not!' 'And why not?' I said, exasperated. 'Because, Papa, the poor man has no head!'

The body lay upon its back in an empty horse stall How it had arrived there — dropped, dragged, or rolled — could not be told, because the straw all around it had been deliberately disturbed and then patted down; this I could tell from the fact that bits of straw had been littered onto the body itself indicating that the disturbance of the straw had occurred after the arrival of the corpse. Nor were there any footprints or other signs to indicate how the body had come to be in the stable. For all I could tell, it might have grown out of the earth like a mushroom.

It had, as Diana had observed, no head, but all its limbs and digits were intact, as were its private parts. This I could tell at a glance, for the body was naked.

I looked down at Diana, who stared at the corpse with her mouth slightly open. I think she might have seen a dead body before, perhaps in a funeral procession in Rome, but she had never seen a headless one. I put my hand on her head and gently turned her around to face me. I squatted down and held her by her shoulders. She trembled slightly.

'How did you come to find him, Diana?' I said, keeping my voice low and even.

'I was hiding from Meto. Only Meto wouldn't play with me, so I took one of his silly little soldiers and went to hide it'

'Little soldiers?'

She turned and ran to a corner of the stall. She reached down for something in the straw, darted a wary glance at the corpse, then hurried back. She held out her hand, which cradled a little bronze figure of a Carthaginian warrior with a bow and arrow. It was from the board game called Elephants and Archers. After he was elected consul, Cicero had handed out specially minted sets of the game to dozens of guests at one of his celebrations. I had passed the gift along to Meto, who treasured it.

'I might have taken one of the little elephants, but I knew that would make him even: angrier,' she said, as if the distinction were important for her defence.

I took the bronze archer from Diana and nervously fingered it. 'You came to the stable alone, then?'

'Yes, Papa.’

'Was no one else here?' 'No, Papa.'

The stablehands, I recalled, were up at the northern end of the farm helping Aratus repair a broken section of the wall. Aratus had asked me the night before for specific permission to take them away from their usual tasks. They had fed and watered the horses at daybreak and then gone off to work before the day became too hot. If they had seen the body, they certainly would have informed me. The body had appeared after daybreak, then — but that seemed impossible. Who could have smuggled a body into the stable in daylight? Perhaps, lying low as it did amid the straw in an empty stall, it had simply been overlooked.

But I was getting ahead of myself. I didn't even know who the man was, or had been, or how he had died.

'Whom else did you tell, Diana?'

'I ran straight to you, Papa.'

'Good. Here, let's step away, back towards the door.' 'Shouldn't we cover him up?' said Diana, looking over her shoulder.

At that moment Meto came running through the open doorway. 'There you are!' he said. ‘Where did you hide it, you little harpy?'

Diana suddenly burst into tears and hid her face in her hands. I squatted down and put my arm around her. Meto looked abashed. I handed him the little bronze soldier.

'She took it,' he said haltingly. 'I didn't start it. Just because I have better things to do than play hide-and-seek with her all morning, that's no excuse for her to take my things.'

'Diana,' I said, holding her by the shoulders and speaking softly, 'I have a job for you to do. It's very simple, but it's important I want you to go and fetch your mother. Don't say a word about why, especially if there are any of her slaves about. Just say that: I want her to come here to the stable right away, alone. Can you do that for me?'

The crying stopped as abruptly as it had begun. 'I think so.' 'Good. Now run along. Be quick!'

Meto looked at me in consternation. 'But I didn't do anything! All right, I called her a harpy — but can I help it if she's such a cry baby? She took my game piece, and she knows that's wrong.'

'Meto, be quiet. Something terrible has occurred.'

He drew an exasperated breath, thinking I was about to lecture him; then he saw how serious I looked and wrinkled his brow.

'Meto, you've seen dead men before. You're about to see another.' I led him to the empty stall.

Be careful in choosing your own vulgar exclamations, for your children will say them back to you. 'Numa's balls!' he whispered hoarsely, his voice abruptly breaking.

'Not old King Numa, I think. Better to call him Nemo — Nobody — though a body is not what he's missing. But Nemo it will be, until we find a better name for him.'

'But what is he doing here? Where did he come from? Is he one of the slaves?'

'Not one of our slaves, of that I'm pretty certain. Look at his build and colouration, Meto. You know the slaves as well as I do. Could this body belong to any of them?'

He bit his lower lip. 'I see what you mean, Papa. This man was tall and rather heavy about the middle, and hairy.'

I nodded. 'See the hair on the back of his hands, how thick it is? Of our slaves, only Remus has hands like that, and Remus is a much smaller man. A younger man as well; see the grey hairs mixed in with the black, especially on Nemo's chest?'

'But then how did he get here? And who did this to him?'

'Who killed him, you mean? Or who cut off his head?'

'It's the same thing, isn't it?'

'Not necessarily. We can't be sure that he died from having his head cut off.'

'Papa, I should think that anyone would die if you cut off his head!'

'Are you baiting your father, Meto, or merely being obtuse?' I sighed. 'I see no wounds to the front of his body, do you? Here, do you think you can help me roll him over?'

'Of course,' he said, but I saw him swallow hard as he stooped to take hold of one of the legs while I reached under the corpse's shoulders. He gave a shudder as his hands touched the clammy flesh. So did I.

I grunted and stepped back, brushing straw from my hands. 'No apparent wounds to the back, either. And yet it isn't easy to murder a man by cutting off his head — think about it. You have to have some way to hold him still. Perhaps they cut his throat, or strangled him first. That would be hard to tell, since it won't be easy to find any bruises on his neck amid the gore.'

While I knelt to have a closer look, Meto stepped discreetly back and covered his mouth with one hand. He had turned considerably paler, though he was still several shades darker than the corpse, which was as white as a fish's belly.

'He wasn't killed this morning, that's for sure,' I said.

'How can you tell?'

"The body is cold and stiff, and all its colour is gone. It takes time for that to happen. Physicians say that the lungs are like bellows, heating the blood. Even after they stop working, the body stays warm for quite some time, like a coal slowly losing its heat. Also, look at the wound itself See how the blood is clotted and the wound gone dry. The fresher the wound, the more it would seep. This cut must be at least a day old to have dried so completely. See, there's not even any blood on the straw below. And yet he can't have been dead for too long, because even in this heat the body has not begun to smell too strongly. Here, Meto, step closer. Observe the wound with me.'

He obeyed, but with considerable hesitation. 'What else can we observe from the wound itself?' I said.

He shrugged and made a face.

'Observe how cleanly the cutting was done. A very sharp, very broad blade, I should think, and accomplished with what appears to have been a single blow, the way that chickens are decapitated on a chopping block. There are no signs of hacking or sawing. Indeed, I can even see traces of the blade's particular grain, the way one can see the serrations of a knife after it has sliced through a roast. The subsequent outpouring of blood should have obscured all such details, don't you think? I wonder, could the cutting have been done after the blood had already dried within the body? If so, the decapitation had nothing to do with the cause of death. Now why would anyone decapitate a dead body and then hide it in plain sight in my stable?'

I felt a flash of anger, a fury at being violated, but I swallowed hard and suppressed it. So long as I could simply play an old familiar role — examining a corpse for clues, dispassionately studying a situation — I knew I could keep a level head. I felt incredibly attentive and alert, and everything around me had taken on a preternatural clarity — the smell of straw and horse dung, the heat of the day, the swirling motes of dust captured in bars of sunlight. Yet at the same time a part of me had gone numb.

I stepped back. 'What else can we tell about him? You say he looks rather heavy about the middle, Meto, but to me he also looks rather gaunt in the chest and limbs and buttocks, like a heavy man who has suddenly lost weight. He looks unwell'

'Papa — the man is dead!' Meto rolled his eyes.

I sighed and found myself missing my elder son, who would already have grasped all that I had observed and been far ahead of me. But then, Eco had begun his life as a child of the streets and had learned to use his wits of necessity long before I adopted him. Meto had been born a slave in a rich man's villa and had always been rewarded more for cleverness than cunning. I only hoped he would grow into a decent farmer, for a Finder he would never be.

Still, I persevered. 'What can we tell of his place in the world, Meto? Slave or free?'

Meto studied the body from head to foot. 'He's not wearing an iron ring,' he offered.

'Indeed he is not. But that really tells us nothing. A citizen's iron ring is easily removed, and the opposite — to slip such a ring onto a slave's finger — would have been just as easy. Nemo might be a patrician for all we know, whose gold ring has been pilfered. However, sometimes an iron ring does leave a stain or a band of paler flesh on its wearer's finger. I see none, do you?'

Meto shook his head.

'Still, inconclusive. Certainly he wasn't the field slave of some cruel master — there are no shackle marks on his wrists or ankles, no scars on his back from being whipped, no brand marks on his flesh. All in all he looks well taken care of) and not used to hard labour. See, there are no heavy calluses on his hands or feet, and his fingernails and toenails are well groomed. Nor did he spend much time outside — his skin is not much darkened by the sun. If only we had his head, we could tell much more…'

There was a sudden rustling behind us. I gave a start, but it was only Diana running towards us through the straw. A moment later Bethesda appeared in the doorway. Bright sunlight silhouetted the stray tendrils of her coiffed hair and the long, loose stola belted beneath her breasts and again at her waist. She paused in the doorway and then walked resolutely forwards like a woman expecting the worst. When she saw the body her nostrils dilated, her eyes grew wide, and she pressed her lips together until all the colour was gone from them She clutched at her stola and stamped her foot. Bethesda's manner is often imperious or brusque, but I have seldom seen her truly angry. It was a sight to make even the staunchest Roman turn to jelly.

‘You see!' she cried. 'Even here! You said that life would be different in the country. No more mobs, no more murders, no more lying awake at night wondering if my children were safe! Ha! All lies!' She spat upon the corpse, then turned and swept out of the stable, hitching up her stola to protect it from the dung.

Meto staggered back, agog. Diana began to cry. In the sunlit doorway, motes of dust swirled in Bethesda's wake. I then turned my gaze to the corpse, clenched my fists, and muttered a curse against the gods. Meto must have overheard, for when I looked up, he had turned as pale as the headless body at my feet.

Later, I would tell myself that I should have kept the discovery of the body from Bethesda. Life would have been simpler that way. But that was never an option, of course; Diana would have told her sooner or later, and why not? After such a shock the child needed to be reassured and comforted by her mother. Diana could not be expected to keep such a momentous and terrible discovery to herself.

It did seem best, if at all possible, to keep the slaves from knowing. Such an incident would inflame their superstitious natures and undermine my own authority, making them unwieldy at best and at worst unreliable or even dangerous. Cato would probably have got rid of the whole lot after such a shock to the household, selling those he could and setting any others free to starve along the roadside. For me, such drastic measures seemed both impractical and cruel, and besides, the slaves might know things I did not. If any of them had betrayed me, I needed to discover why, and for whom If they had not betrayed me, they still might have seen more than they knew. I might ultimately need their knowledge and their help. Something terrible had been unleashed, and I could see neither where it came from nor where it might lead.

I had to confide in someone, and I chose Aratus. He was, after all, my steward. I swallowed my mistrust, telling myself that I had probably been unfair to him all along. Besides, if he was somehow complicit in the appearance of Nemo, perhaps I could read it in his eyes. When Meto brought Aratus to the stable, the shock on Aratus's race looked quite genuine.

Aratus knew nothing, had seen nothing; so he assured me. He would tell none of the other slaves; so he vowed. I told him to take a few slaves from their work on the north wall and to dig a hole for the body amid the brambles in the secluded southwest corner of the farm, where the stream cut through the ridge.

'But what reason shall I give them?' he asked.

"Think up a reason!' I told him 'Or give them no reason at all. You're the foreman, aren't you? I leave it to you to handle the slaves. But not one of them is to know of this, do you understand? And if any of them seems to have any knowledge of it, report to me at once!'

That afternoon, after the trench was ready, I instructed Aratus to set the slaves to some task at the far corner of the farm. Meto, Aratus, and I wrapped the corpse in a sheet and tied it to a cart, then pushed the cart over the rocky soil to the place where the hole had been dug. It did not take us long to cover the body with the moist soil, and then to scatter rocks and uprooted brambles over the torn earth. It would have been unseemly to consign even a naked, anonymous, and headless corpse to the earth without some monument, and it would have been unwise to bury any man without properly propitiating his shade, lest we invite his lemur to haunt the farm forever. So I made sure that black beans were buried with the corpse, and as head of the household I threw a handful of the same beans over my shoulder onto the grave when we were done.

Many days later, I returned to the place and drove a slender stele made of marble into the gravesite, which was almost hidden by thorns. On the stele, reading downward, were inscribed these letters:

N E M O

The artisan in the village had complained that it was an odd request, engraving a stele for Nobody, but he had accepted my silver readily enough.

The feverish spell of lovemaking between Bethesda and myself was definitely over, as I discovered that night. She turned her shoulder to me when I came to bed, and when I tried to talk to her about the body in the stable, she pulled a pillow over her head.

‘I complained that the circumstance was not of my devising; that I knew no more about the body and how it came to be there than she did; that I would do all I could to protect her and the children. She made no answer. Eventually I heard her snoring. Insulted and angry, I left the room.

I paced for a long time in the formal courtyard, circling the pond over and over. I paced for so long that I was able to watch the moon shadow of the roof slide slowly across the paving stones. Half the world was black shadow and the other half a soft, hazy silver, and I strode back and forth between the two.

At last I left the courtyard. I looked in on Meto and Diana in their little rooms and found each of them sleeping soundly and apparently without dreams.

I followed the short hallway to my library. I lit a lamp and hung it above my writing table. I spread a piece of parchment before me and pulled the inkstand nearer. I dipped a reed into the ink and began to write. Aratus did most of my letter writing; my hand was clumsy and I made a number of spots on the parchment before I got the reed to flow properly. I wrote:

To my beloved son Eco at his house in Rome, greetings from his beloved father at the farm in Etruria.

Life here in the countryside continues to be full of surprises. It is not nearly as dull as you might imagine. I know you love the excitement of Rome, but I think you would be surprised at how much goes on here.

Keep in mind that we celebrate Meto's sixteenth birthday next month, when he will put on his manly toga. The house in Rome will need to be at its best to receive a number of distinguished (and some not-so-distinguished) visitors. The distinguished visitors will need to be impressed by the family's best ornaments and plate; the not-so-distinguished ones will need to be kept from stealing them. I trust your new wife will be up to the task of organizing and overseeing such an event. Bethesda will probably take over matters anyway.

By the way, I have a small favour to ask. Do this discreetly, please. There is a young man named Marcus Caelius, a protege of Cicero and of Crassus. Send him a message for me. Say: 'The body without a head.' I realize this makes no sense; it is in the way of a private joke. He will understand.

I think of you often. You are missed by everyone. I know you are busy in the city. I hope you are exercising all reasonable caution and keeping yourself sate from harm, as is

your loving father.

I sat for a while to let the ink dry, then rolled up the parchment and slipped it into a cylindrical case, tied it and sealed it and pressed my ring into the soft wax. In the morning I would dispatch a slave to take it to Rome.

I stepped into the herb garden. No bees hovered there, having all retired to their hives for the night, but a pair of great luminous moths flitted among the vines. The hour was very late, but I did not feel sleepy. Instead I felt as I had earlier that day in the stable — preternaturally alert, seeing and hearing everything around me with an uncanny clarity. The full moonlight was so bright that I could see everything almost as if by daylight, as if the sun had simply turned to blue fire instead of yellow. All was normal, and yet not normal at all. As earlier in the day, I felt the same strange numbness in the midst of acute perception.

I passed through the gate and walked towards the hillside until I found myself at the southwest comer of the estate, not because that was where we had buried the stranger, but because it was the most secluded place on the farm.

I had tried to flee from Rome, but Rome was too great. Within this world, there is no escape from her. Rome is like a net, and men are fish caught in her sweep. Even if a man could make himself so small as to pass through the net, he would only find himself the prey of larger men; and even if he could be so clever and so fast as to escape those other men, he would still find himself at the mercy of Fortune, which is the sea in which we swim, and of the Fates, which are the crags upon which we are pounded. There is no escape.

And so I sat on a rock and gathered up the hem of my tunic and rolled it into a ball, then pressed it to my mouth and screamed into it. I screamed as loudly as I could, and no one heard — not Bethesda softly snoring, nor the slaves, nor Meto and Diana sound asleep in their beds. All day I had held that scream inside me. Something unexpected and terrible had occurred. I had examined the situation, learned what I could from it, attempted to control it. But from the first moment I saw the headless corpse, all I had really wanted to do was to scream — the furious anguished scream of the wolf caught in a trap, of the eagle thrust into a cage.

Part Two

Candidatus

VIII

For the next several days I waited in anticipation of a visitor who did not come.

In the meantime life resumed its normal rhythm. Work on the farm continued as always. Aratus oversaw the field slaves and worked on my accounts, Congrio cooked, the house slaves went about their business.

The days grew longer and hotter, and the nights grew warmer, except in my bed, where things were quite chilly. Bethesda never once queried me about the body in the stable; she had decided long ago, and rightly, since I was then her master, that if my work brought danger into our lives, then dealing with it was my worry, not hers. Her outburst in the stable had been a rare occurrence, and she clearly did not intend to repeat it and would bite her tongue rather than mention it again. Her unspoken attitude announced that she simply saw no point in wasting her breath on interrogating or chastising me; secretly I knew she was deeply worried.

Her manner was cool and distant, like that of soldiers' wives who must live with the terrible prospect of losing their husbands and yet partly blame their husbands for such a possibility in the first place, and thus feel anxiety and anger and helplessness all together. Feigned apathy is a protection, a steeling of the will against the implacable Fates. Bethesda's aloofness I had experienced before and grown used to, but mixed with it was a harsh new strain of suspicion and hard scrutiny, as if I were guilty of a deliberate breach of faith and were directly responsible for subjecting her to the shock of Nemo's arrival.

She was playing a game of patience, I thought, waiting for me to break and tell her all I knew about the corpse and its appearance. I gave in to her more than once, and with an oblique mention of what had happened in the stable let her know I was ready to confide in her, but every time this happened she responded by loudly changing the subject, slamming doors, stalking from the room, and generally making life miserable for everyone in the household. "This wouldn't be happening if I had kept you a slave instead of marrying you,' I would grumble halfheartedly under my breath, but of course there was no one to hear me, and I did not quite believe the words myself

Meto did not seem particularly upset by the body's unexplained appearance. His having grown to manhood in my household in Rome had apparently so inured him to such madness that he could take it for granted. As with Bethesda, it was not his worry; in his offhand, unspoken way he let me know that he fully trusted his father to deal with any such contingency, no matter how menacing or outrageous. His faith in me was touching, and all the more so because it was considerably deeper than my faith in myself

Diana, on the other hand, grew moody and cross, though I think her unhappiness was more to be attributed to the discord between her parents than to the shock of having found Nemo. Or was I fooling myself, minimising the awfulness of the shock of witnessing such a grotesque intrusion into her. secure little world, because to contemplate such ugliness perpetrated on a child, my child, was enough to send me back to the brambles howling into my tunic? I tried my best to show her as much attention as I could, holding her and combing her hair, giving her treats of curdled cream and honey, but she squirmed in my lap, threw her sweets on the ground, and displayed a querulous dissatisfaction with all the world. I sighed and remembered that she was the daughter of her mother, after all.

Meanwhile, as subtly as I could, I queried the slaves to discover anything they might know about Nemo. I came up with nothing. Aratus, who vowed to keep his mouth shut and his ears open, had no more success. It was as if only we five had ever seen him, and otherwise Nemo had never existed.

The month of Junius waned. The month of Quinctilis approached, and with it high summer. All the world turned hazy with heat. Mount Argentum to the east shimmered like a wavering reflection in a pond. The stream grew smaller in its banks, and its gurgling voice became a low murmur. Even in the shade it was almost too hot to sleep at midday.

A visitor arrived at last.

He did not come through the gate but left the Cassian Way where it veered closest to the ridge at the southeast comer of the farm, and: picked his way through the brambles and oak woods. He was not alone, but accompanied by a hulking giant with straw-coloured hair who looked almost too big for his horse. Together they approached slowly and cautiously, surreptitiously examining the main house and the adjoining fields from a distance before coming closer.

By chance I happened to see them before they saw me, for I was up on the ridge that afternoon, sitting and gazing down on the form. The ridgetop sometimes catches a faint breeze even when the air is still down below, and so, with a skin of cooled wine, it can be a comfortable place to pass the waning of a hot, cloudless day.

Claudia had joined me a few moments before, coming up from her side of the hill. She wore a long, loose brown tunic and a farmer's straw hat with a brim almost as wide as she was tall, so that she gave the appearance of a giant mushroom. We sat in the shade and talked idly about animal ailments and temperamental slaves and the weather — not about Nemo or politics or her hostile cousins, for the heat was much too strong for confiding secrets or stirring up controversy. It was Claudia who first saw my visitors.

'Oh, Gordianus, those can't be two of your slaves, can they?'

'Where?'

'Those two men on horseback, down at the foot of the ridge. No, you can't see them now for the treetops — but now, there,' she said, pointing with a down-crooked finger.

'What makes you think they're not my men?' I asked, peering down but still unable to see them.

'Because as I was climbing up the other side of the ridge I sat down to rest for a moment and saw them over on the Cassian Way, riding up from the south.'

"The same two men? You're sure?'

'Only because one rides a white horse and the other a black, and the one on the black is positively enormous. I don't think you have any slaves that big on your estate.'

I finally saw them, at rest on their horses beneath the olive trees down below. They faced away from us and seemed to be watching the farmhouse.

'Ah, yes,' I said uneasily, 'visitors from Rome, I suspect.' Catilina, I thought, come at last.

'Anyone I know?'

I cleared my throat, trying to think of an answer, and meanwhile peered down at the men on horseback. All could see were their shoulders and their round-brimmed hats.

Claudia laughed. 'Forgive me for being so nosy. Country habits; if I'd been raised in the city I suppose I'd have learned to mind my own business. Or maybe not. Well, I shall leave you to go and greet your visitors.' She rose and put on her hat. Though why they should be approaching your house through the woods like a pair of bandits, instead of using the road, is a puzzlement You do know who they are, Gordianus?'

'Oh, yes,' I assured her, wondering if I did.

I waited for her to leave, then stood and took a sip of wine from the skin. Down below me, the men on horseback did the same, passing a skin between them. They seemed content to sit and watch from their vantage point beneath the shady olive trees, so I sat and watched them in turn. This went on for quite some time, until I began to grow impatient and a little angry. After all, invited or not, they had no business being on my property without my knowledge, and to spy upon my house, whatever their reason or intent, was inexcusable.

I had decided that I had had enough of their impertinence, and was about to go down the hill to confront them, armed with nothing but my dignity as a citizen and a farmholder, when the larger one suddenly turned and looked up at me over his shoulder. I couldn't see his face, because of the shadow cast by his hat, but he must have seen me, for he said something to his companion, who likewise turned his head and looked up at me. The smaller man gestured for the other to stay, then dismounted and began hiking up the hillside.

I should have realized then who it was, for he seemed to know at once the right way to come, as no stranger could have. There was also something instantly familiar about his gait and the outline of his body, though his face was still hidden by the brim of his hat But it was not until he gained the ridgetop and was almost upon me that I knew him and said his name with a start.

'Eco!'

'Papa!' He took off his hat and put his arms around me, squeezing the breath out of me.

'I hope you don't squeeze your new bride that hard.'

'Of course I do!' He squeezed me harder and then finally released me. 'Menenia is a young willow and she bends.'

'And I'm an old yew that can crack,' I said, arching my back.

He stepped back. 'Sorry, Papa. It's just that I'm so glad to see you.' His voice still carried that same hoarse, husky quality that had marked it ever since he had regained it nine years before in Baiae, after many years of muteness. To hear him speak is always a miracle to me, and a reminder that the gods can sometimes be generous beyond all expectation.

'But what are you doing here? And why on earth do you look like that?' I asked, for I suddenly realized that his hair and beard were trimmed in exactly the same fashion as Marcus Caelius's — his hair shorn short on the sides but left long and unruly on top, and his beard trimmed and blocked into a thin strap across his jaw and above his lips. The style would look eccentric on anyone, I thought, but was at least nattering to Caelius with his high cheekbones and red lips; it was not at all suitable for Eco.

Eco raised an eyebrow in puzzlement, then touched his chin. 'Oh, the look! Do you like it?'

'No.’

He laughed. 'Menenia likes it.'

'The head of his own household should not put on an appearance merely to please his wife,' I said, and immediately thought, Numa's balls, you sound just like every old fart of a Roman father who's ever lived. 'Never mind,' I quickly said, then frowned. 'So long as it doesn't mean you've taken up with some sort of strange clique.'

'Whatever are you talking about?'

'I mean, so long as the beard and hair aren't part of joining a certain political set…'

He laughed and shook his head. 'It's just a fashion, Papa. Anyway, I came as quickly as I could. I was gone from Rome when your letter came, down in Baiae on business for a client — one of the Cornelii; you know how well they pay. I got back only yesterday. When I read your letter, naturally I put things in order as fast as I could — well, after being gone from home so long I couldn't leave Menenia without at least spending the night. I brought Belbo along with me in case there was real trouble. Oh, and I did as you said and dispatched that cryptic message to Marcus Caelius before I left.'

'But, Eco, I didn't ask you to come.'

'Oh, didn't you, Papa?' He looked at me shrewdly and pulled a rolled scrap of parchment from his belt. ' "My beloved son Eco", "his loving father.' Really, so much sentiment at the outset alarmed me right away. And then these peculiar references to surprises in the countryside and hints of something exciting taking place — as if you were writing with someone looking over your shoulder and unable to say what you really meant. Then comes the main point of the letter, ostensibly anyway, reminding me of Meto's coming-of-age party — really, as if I were likely to forget that, or as if we hadn't already discussed all the details in the spring! Then, disguised as an almost forgotten afterthought, your request that I pass on a message that can only be some sort of code — private joke, indeed! — followed by a final entreaty to be cautious and stay out of harm's way. Well, you might as well have sat down and written a letter saying, "Help, Eco, come as quickly as you can!"'

'Let me see that letter,' I said, and snatched it from his hands. 'Do you always scrutinize your personal correspondence for messages between the lines?'

He shrugged. 'Papa, I am your son. Aren't you glad I've come? Isn't it what you wanted?'

'Yes. Yes, I'm glad you're here. I do need someone to talk to.' I sat down on the stump and picked up the wineskin.

Eco tossed his hat onto the ground and sat beside me. 'Interesting,' he said, slipping the palm of his hand beneath his buttocks. 'This stump is rather warm, despite the fact that it's in the shade. Was someone else sitting here before me?'

I shook my head and sighed. 'Oh, for better or worse, you are the Finder's son!'

'No wonder I found you wearing such a long face,' said Eco. He sat with his bare feet in the grass, warming his legs in the late afternoon sun. While we talked, the sunlight and shadows had shifted around us. I had told him everything I could think of that had happened in the last month, and several things I had forgotten, thanks to his persistent questioning. Between us on the grass the wineskin lay flattened and empty. At the foot of the hill the horses were tethered to a rock, and Belbo dozed against a tree trunk.

'So you assume that it was Marcus Caelius who put the headless body in the stable, as a message?' Eco said, gazing thoughtfully down at the farmhouse.

'Who else?’

'Perhaps someone on the other side,' he suggested. 'Which other side? That's the problem'

"Then you don't believe that Caelius truly represents Cicero?'

'Who knows? When I told him I would require assurances from Cicero himself, he flatly refused, though not without giving me reasons. He wants no link between Cicero and myself.'

'We can find a way around that,' said Eco. 'You needn't do it yourself. I can get a message to Cicero so that no one will know, and convey it here to you.'

'And then what? Let us suppose that Cicero assures us that Caelius is indeed his spy in Catilina's camp — even so, can Cicero see into the young man's heart? Caelius claims to be merely posing as Catilina's ally while secretly working on Cicero's behalf But what if his treachery doubles back on itself? What if he truly is Catilina's man? Then, if I go along with what he requests, I still have no way of knowing whose interests I'm ultimately being forced to serve. Oh, it's like being thrown into a snake pit — some are more poisonous than others, but all have a bite. What a choice, choosing which snake to let bite you! And just when I thought I had climbed out of the pit for good.. '

'But the body,' Eco said, pressing on. 'You're sure it was a message, then, from one side or the other?'

'That much seems clear. Catilina's riddle — a head without a body or a headless body, so Caelius said, and if I would submit to his wishes I was to send a message: "The body without a head." I hesitated — and then the very thing appears in my stable! That was only five days after Caelius returned to Rome. Not much time before he began to strong-arm me, was it?'

'Unless, as you say, the message came from a different quarter.'

'But the message means the same thing, no matter which side sent it. I am to do as I was told, to welcome Catilina into my house. I postponed giving an answer, and in return I was intimidated, my daughter frightened, my household turned upside down.'

'You think it was Catilina who did this?'

'I can't believe that Cicero would stoop to such a tactic.'

'Caelius might have done it without Cicero's knowledge.'

'What does it matter who did it? Someone has gone to considerable lengths to show me that I'm at his mercy.'

'So you acquiesced and had me send your reply to Caelius.'

'I saw no choice. I sent it through you because I knew I could trust you, and because an indirect approach seemed wise — and yes, perhaps because in my heart I wanted you to come so that I could confide in you. I didn't count on my message to Caelius being delayed on account of your absence from Rome. Strange, that there have been no further repercussions. Barely five days passed after Caelius's visit before the body appeared. Now twice that much time has passed; you sent my message on to Caelius only yesterday, and yet there has been no further incident in the interval.'

'The consular election approaches. The politicians and their cohorts are in a mad rush, canvassing the voters. Perhaps they've just forgotten you for the moment.'

'If only they'd forget about me for good!'

'Or else…'

‘Yes, Eco?'

'Perhaps the message — the body — came from another quarter altogether.'

I nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I've considered that. From the Claudii, you mean.'

'From what you say, they're already conspiring against you, and they have no scruples. What was it that Gnaeus Claudius said about assassins?'

‘Something about hiring men from Rome to come and 'leave a bit of blood on the ground", or so it was reported to me. But like most hotheaded young men, he's more talk than action, I imagine.'

'And if he's not? He sounds like just the sort who'd leave a corpse in the stable to frighten you.'

'But why a headless corpse? No, the coincidence would be too great. And if he wanted to murder someone to make his point, why Nemo, whom I can't even identify? Why not one of my slaves, or even me? No, I've considered the possibility that one or more of the Claudii might be behind the incident, but there's simply no evidence.'

Eco was thoughtful for a moment, 'You questioned your slaves?'

'Indirectly. I don't want them to know about Nemo if I can help it. Disastrous for discipline.'

'Why are you so discreet? Most men wouldn't care if the slaves knew. Most men would have every slave on the farm tortured until the truth came out,'

'Then perhaps most men could afford to replace a whole farm of slaves; I can't. Besides, terror is not my way to the truth. You know that. I asked what I needed to ask. Not one of them had seen or heard anything that I could connect with the body's appearance.'

'How could that be? To put the body in the stable without anyone seeing, one would have to know when and where the slaves would be sleeping or working, and to know that would in itself require some collusion on the part of one of your slaves, or so I should think. Have you been betrayed?'

I shrugged. 'I've told you about my quarrels with Aratus.'

Eco shook his head. 'You've sat through more trials than I have, Papa. Imagine Cicero making shreds of your suspicions of Aratus. They're groundless. You simply don't like him.'

'I don't accuse him,' I said. 'I accuse none of the slaves. Roman slaves do not turn on their masters, not since Spartacus was put down.'

We sat in silence for a while and passed the wineskin between us. Eco finally hardened his jaw and pulled his eyebrows together, a gesture which I knew presaged a decision.

'I don't like it, Papa. I think you should leave the farm and come to the city. You're in danger here.'

'Ha! Leave the countryside and go to Rome for safety's sake? Would you advise a swimmer to leave the backwater for the rapids?'

'There can be dangerous undercurrents in the backwater.'

'And sharp rocks hidden in the rapids. And eddies that suck you down into darkness and whirl you around and around.'

'I'm serious, Papa.'

I looked down at the farm. The sun was sinking rapidly, casting an orange haze across the fields. The slaves were driving the goats into their pen. Diana and Meto emerged from the deep green shadows of the trees along the stream bank, heading towards the house. 'But summer is a busy time on the farm. I have plans to build a water mill—'

'Aratus can run the farm, Papa. Isn't that what he's for? Oh, I know you dislike him, but nothing you've told me has given you any true cause to distrust him. Bring Bethesda and the children to the city. Stay with me.'

'In the house on the Esquiline? Hardly big enough for all of us.' 'There's plenty of room.'

'Not for Bethesda and Menenia to run separate households.'! 'Papa—'

'No. It's election time, as you just reminded me, and I have no stomach to be in Rome while the candidates and their retinues swarm through the markets, and every ignorant fishmonger spouts his opinion on the state of the Republic. No, thank you. Besides, the month of Quinctilis is far too hot in the city. When you're my age you'll understand — your bones learn to hate the cold and your heart can't tolerate the heat.'

'Papa—'

I raised my hand and put on a stem face to silence him, then let my countenance soften and put my hand on his knee. 'You're a good son, Eco, to have come all this way out of concern for me. And you are a dutiful son, to offer me lodging in the house I gave you. But I will not go to Rome. Not to worry — it seems inevitable that Rome will come to me.'

We made our way down the hillside to rouse Belbo and take the horses to the stable. I felt as if a great weight had been lifted from me. I told myself it was the wine, which makes a lighter load in the belly than in a skin, but in truth the feeling of lightness and relief came from having unburdened myself to the one person who could understand what I felt. Perhaps I should have taken Eco's advice; who can say what other path the Fates might have woven had I chosen to spend that summer and autumn in Rome instead of Etruria? But I am not a man prone to mulling over what might or might not have been, especially in what turned out to have been a small choice amid the far greater choices and the graver puzzles that were yet to come.

Eco's arrival was greeted with great happiness in the household; I had not realized how severe had been the tension that followed in Nemo's wake until Eco came to relieve it. Diana sat happily on his lap, and he obliged her by bouncing her up and down. (With a twinge of mixed feelings I realized that at twenty-seven he was quite old enough to have a daughter Diana's age himself, and now, with Menenia, might announce the advent of my first grandchild at any time. Meto exhibited the mixture of curiosity, deference, and envy of a youth in the presence of a brother more than ten years his senior, especially when one is still a boy and the other is most definitely a man; despite the difference in their ages and their origins they had always got along very well. Bethesda complimented Eco's stylish haircut and beard and doted on him shamelessly.

Belbo, who had protected the house on the Esquiline audits occupants for many years, was beginning to look a bit heavy and grey, I thought, though his shoulders were as broad as ever and his arms still looked like a metalworker's. Much to his consternation, Diana made a game out of tugging at his red and grey whiskers until Bethesda threatened to deny her Congrio's confection of honey and almonds.

Eco wanted to ride back to Rome the next morning, but I persuaded him to spend the day. I asked him to look over Aratus's accounts, which he did in a cursory manner and pronounced them to be above reproach. I showed him my plans for the water mill, which I was determined to start as soon as possible, and he offered a few minor suggestions to improve it. As we strolled around the farm, I pointed out changes I had made since his last visit and talked about improvements I was planning for the future.

That night Bethesda herself took charge of the kitchen and cooked exactly the kind of simple meal that Eco had grown up on. His tastes had grown more sophisticated since then, but he seemed truly to enjoy the dishes of lentils and barley, if only for sentiment's sake. Afterwards the slaves pulled the couches into the atrium, and the family gathered in a circle to watch the stars come out. Bethesda was persuaded to sing one of the Egyptian songs from her childhood, and to the sound of her voice Diana and Meto fell fast asleep. Beneath the moonless sky, at Bethesda's prompting, Eco talked about the small details of his home lite in the city with his new bride. I sat in silence, content to listen.

Later, Bethesda roused Meto and sent him off to his room and picked up Diana to carry her to bed, leaving Eco and me alone.

'Papa,' he said, 'when I get back to the city I'll see what I can find out about Catilina, and Caelius, and what they might be up to. Discreetly, of course.'

'Don't put yourself in danger.'

He shrugged, and in the gesture I saw myself 'A curious man in Rome is always in danger, Papa. You know that.' 'Even so—'

'I can't stand by and do nothing while someone weaves a plot around you and tries to draw you in. These people, to have left a dead body as a token — clearly they'll stop at nothing.'

'Which is exactly why I have no choice but to submit and go forward. A man surrounded by a ring of fire cannot stand idle and fret or he will surely be consumed. The only way out is to ride straight through the fire and emerge on the other side.'

'And then where will you be?'

I took a deep breath and studied the stars above us. I made no answer, and Eco did not press the question.

Thus passed the last day of Junius. Early on the morning of the Kalends of Quinctilis, Eco and Belbo left for Rome. I went with them as far as the Cassian Way and watched after them for a long time, until all I could see were two wavering spots of white and black to mark their horses on the dusty horizon, which already shimmered with heat.

IX

The afternoon of Eco's departure I began work on the water mill in earnest. Aratus, who had far more practical knowledge of engineering than I, reviewed my plans and pronounced them feasible; indeed, I secretly congratulated myself that he was more than a little impressed. He called on the slaves who had the most experience with woodworking to begin fashioning the various parts.

Meanwhile Aratus and I did a rough survey of the spot I had chosen, marking the elevations and the width of the stream. I had thought I might need to dam a small section, but I saw a way to divert the flow instead by digging a channel on my side of the bank. There would be no inconvenience to my neighbour Publius, except a muddying of the waters. Still, his washerwomen would no doubt complain, and I had no desire to provoke any further altercations among the slaves. Then there was the matter of the litigation between us, involving my disputed rights to use the stream in the first place. That might take months or years to settle, and I had no intention of waiting to begin the mill. Perhaps, I thought, if I offered to allow Publius to use the water mill himself he would be more amenable to the project; surely he would see that it was to his benefit as well. I gritted my teeth and made up my mind to do the reasonable and forthright thing, and go calling on Publius Claudius.

No road communicated between our properties. To reach his house by any road I would have to ride out to the Cassian Way and make a great loop north of Manius Claudius's farm and then ride south again. Given the chill between us, it seemed a bit brazen to simply cross the stream and go riding across his fields to his house, but there was no other practical route. I decided to take Aratus with me, along with one of the larger field slaves, just in case there was trouble. To keep Meto out of harm's way, I dispatched him to take Aratus's place and oversee some slaves working near the north wall. He chafed at being left at home, but I could see that being given some responsibility pleased him.

We set out in the early afternoon. In summer, most farmers take a long break in the middle of the day to escape the heat, and I hoped to find Publius at his leisure, his stomach full from his midday meal, his head a bit fuzzy with wine. I could approach him with an open hand, neighbour to neighbour. Our slaves had had their altercations at the stream, but, so far as Congrio and his assistants had reported, Publius himself had made no serious threats against me at the family gathering. Perhaps we could reason with each other and avoid any further unpleasantness.

Thus had the calming effect of Eco's brief visit banished pessimism and lulled me into a state of goodwill towards my fellow men.

We rode across the stream and up the hillside. As we crossed the fields, the slaves I saw were taking respite from the heat, resting in the shade of olive trees and fig trees. They looked at me strangely, but none of them challenged us.

The farm was less well kept than I had thought. From the vantage point of the ridge it looked idyllic, but distance obscures a barn made of rotting wood or an orchard where trees have been spotted by blight. The grass was high, long overdue for mowing. It hissed all around us as our horses stepped through the growth, setting grasshoppers and chirring cicadas to flight. Aratus clucked his tongue in disapproval as he surveyed the conditions of the livestock and their pens. 'It's one thing to see such filthiness in the city — there you've got a million people all pressed together, and who can help it? But in the country things should be clean and neat. So long as a man owns enough slaves, there's no excuse for such a mess.'

Looking around us at the overgrown hedges, the poody mended fences, the scattered tools and the piles of debris, I had to agree with him. I had thought Publius Claudius was a rich man. How could he allow his property to fall into such disrepair?

We dismounted and tethered our horses. The house was in better shape than the sheds and barns around it, but the tiles on the roof needed repairing. On the way to the door I tripped on a cracked paving stone and almost fell. Aratus caught my arm and helped to right me.

He rapped on the door, at first gently, then harder. Even if the household was napping in the heat of the day, there should be a slave to answer the door. Aratus looked back at me with his lips pursed. I nodded for him to rap more loudly.

From within came the sound of a dog barking, and then a man shouting for the dog to be quiet. I expected the door to open then, but instead there was silence.

Aratus looked back at me. 'Well, go ahead,' I said. 'Knock again.'

Aratus knocked. The dog barked again. The man shouted and cursed, at us now instead of the dog. 'Go away or you'll get a beating!' he yelled.

"This is ridiculous,' I said. Aratus stepped out of my way to let me bang on the door myself 'Your master has visitors at the door!' I said. 'Open it now or it's you who'll get the beating!'

The dog barked and barked. The voice beyond the door cursed us and blasphemed half the gods of Olympus. There was a loud whimpering squeal and the barking ceased. At last the door rattled and swung open. I wrinkled my nose at the smell from within — a mixture of dog, stale sweat, and stewed cabbage.

Beyond the little foyer was an atrium bright with sunlight, so that I saw the man in silhouette and for a moment could only dimly make out his features. I noticed his hair first, long and unkempt like a shaggy mane, streaked with grey. He had the posture of an old man, stooped and slump-shouldered, but he looked neither small nor weak. His tunic was rumpled and worn-looking, all awry, as if he had just pulled it on. As I saw him more clearly, I noticed his grizzled jaw, covered with several days' worth of stubble, and his big, fleshy nose. His eyes were bloodshot, and he squinted as if the light caused him pain.

'Who are you and what do you want?' he growled, his speech slurred by wine.

‘Numa's balls, I thought, what a slave to answer the door! Clearly, Publius Claudius paid no more attention to the running of his private household than he did to the running of his farm. 'My name is Gordianus,' I said. 'I own the farm that once belonged to Lucius Claudius, across the stream. I've come to speak- with your master.'

The man laughed. 'My master — fah!'

Behind me, Aratus sucked in a breath. 'Sheer insolence!' he whispered.

The man laughed again. Behind him there was a flash of movement in the sunlit atrium. A girl, completely naked except for a crumpled garment she carried in her hands, stepped into the light and looked towards the doorway with wide startled eyes. She was young — so young that I might have taken her for a boy had it not been for the matted tangle of her long black hair.

I pursed my lips. 'Obviously, Publius Claudius must be away from the farm for such behaviour to take place in his own house,' I said dryly.

The man turned and saw the girl, then lunged at her and clapped his hands. 'Out of here, Dragonfly! Put on your clothes and get out of my sight or I'll give you a beating. Ha! What manners — showing your naked backside to visitors! Come back here and I'll add some stripes to go with my handprints, you little harpy!'

He turned back to us, wearing a self-satisfied smirk. With a sinking feeling I glanced down at his right hand and saw that he wore a ring on his finger — and not just a common citizen's iron ring, but a patrician's band that gleamed golden in the soft light.

'You must be Publius Claudius,' I said dully. My eyes having adjusted to the light, I studied his face and saw that it was true. I had seen him in court at the Forum in Rome, but only at a distance and with his hair neatly clipped and his beard shaved, and he had worn a fine toga. He had looked as staid and sober as a man running for office. In his own home he showed a very different face.

He looked me up and down. 'Ah, yes, I remember you. The man who got away with Cousin Lucius's property. You looked all stuffed full of yourself in the court, silly and dull like most city boys. You still look like a city boy.'

I drew myself up. It does not do to be insulted in front of one's slaves. 'Publius Claudius, I've come as your neighbour, to discuss a small matter involving the stream that marks our common boundary.'

'Fah!' He curled his lip. 'We'll settle the matter in court. And this time you won't have that windbag Cicero to come to your rescue by wriggling his silver tongue between the judges' buttocks. I understand he's already got his mouth full just to keep them smiling in the Senate.'

'You have a foul tongue, Publius Claudius.'

'At least I don't put it where Cicero does.'

I took a breath. 'As you say, Publius, the matter of water rights will be settled in court. Until then I have no intention of stopping using the stream—'

'So I've seen. Oh, come, if it's the feuding between the washerwomen that's brought you here, let the matter go! Yes, yes, one of your slaves was struck by a stone. My foreman told me all about it. Well, can she still do her work or not? If she's ruined, I’ll give you one of mine in exchange. But I won't go paying damages just because a washerwoman spilled a little blood — it's not as if she were a pleasure slave and the scar would make a difference. What more do you want from me? I gave every one of the slaves involved a sound beating, and gave special punishment to the little witch who threw the stone — she won't soon try that again. I hope you did the same to your slaves — that's my advice, and if you haven't done so, then do it now. It's never too late. They'll have forgotten what they did wrong, but they'll remember the beating if you do it properly. Sometimes a beating is a good idea, even if they've done nothing wrong. Just to remind them who's in charge.'

'Publius Claudius, the matter I've come to discuss—'

'Oh, Romulus and Remus, it's far too hot to stand here in the doorway talking. Come on inside. Who's this behind you, your foreman? Yes, bring him in, too — but leave the big one outside. You don't need a bodyguard to enter my house. What sort of man do you think I am? You, slave, close the door behind you. Ah, good, my couch is still in the shade.'

There was a fountain in the courtyard, but no water; the basin was littered with twigs and straw. Publius fell back onto his couch. There was only a stool for me to sit on. Aratus, having closed the door, took a place behind me and stood.

'You'll forgive the lack of soft furnishings and the like,' said Publius. A hound appeared and slunk whimpering beneath his master's couch. 'I've never had a taste for luxury. Besides, it takes a woman to make a house all soft and comfortable for visitors, and the only wife I ever took died a year after I married her. She took with her the only heir I ever made as well, or the baby took her, whichever way that works. They went down into Hades together, hand in hand, I suppose.' He reached under his couch and produced a wineskin. He put it to his mouth and squeezed, but the skin only sputtered. 'Dragonfly,' he crooned. 'Oh, Dragonfly, bring Papa some more wine.'

'I came here, Publius, because I propose to build a water mill on the stream. There will be no need to disrupt the flow, as I plan to divert the channel into a ditch upstream from the site—'

'A mill? You mean a sort of machine with wheels run by the water? But what would you do with such a thing?'

'I could have many uses. It could be used to grind meal, or even stones.'

'But you already have slaves to do that, don't you?' 'Yes, but—’

'Dragonfly! Bring me more wine right now or I shall spank you again, here in front of these strangers!'

After a moment the girl appeared, dressed now in a stained tunic that left her arms and legs bare, carrying a bloated wineskin. Publius took it from her and slapped her backside. The girl began to withdraw, but Publius grabbed her buttock with one hand and pulled her back while he held the wineskin in his other hand and uncorked it with his teeth. While he swilled the wine, he slid his hand up underneath her tunic and fondled her backside. The girl stood passively, her eyes averted, her face red.

I cleared my throat. 'It might interest you to know that I got the idea for building the water mill from Claudia. She told me it had always been an ambition of your cousin Lucius to build such a mill. So in a way, you see, I am fulfilling his wishes.'

Publius shrugged. 'Lucius had a lot of stupid ideas, like leaving his farm to you. Like yourself, he was a city boy. That's where stupid ideas come from, the city. Put enough fools in one place and you have what they call a city, eh? And then the stupid ideas spread from head to head like a pox.' He did something with his hand that made the girl give a start and open her mouth. Publius laughed

I stood up. 'I was thinking, if it would be of any interest to you, that I could allow you some access to the mill once it's finished. You might find it useful.'

'What would I want it for? I have slaves to grind my meal.'

"The water could do the work of the slaves.'

'Then what would the slaves do? Idle slaves only end up getting into trouble.'

'I'm sure the slaves could find plenty of other work to do around here,' I said dryly. I meant to be insulting, but Publius seemed not to notice.

'A mill is a machine,' he said. 'Machines break and must be repaired There is only so much water to run such a thing, especially in the dry months. And when a machine is idle, it's of no use to anyone — while a slave can be useful even when she's at rest.' Publius did something that made the girl let out a gasp. She began to draw away, then twitched and stood stiffly upright. A vein stood out in Publius's forehead, and he narrowed his eyes. His shoulder and elbow moved in a strange gyration. The girl pouted and bit her hps. Publius put the wineskin to his mouth. He sucked at the spout, spilling wine on his chin.

'Ill go now,' I said. Aratus hurried ahead of me to open the door.

'Oh, but I'm a miserable host!' cried Publius, slurring the words. 'Here I am making myself at home and I've offered nothing to my guest. Which would you like, Gordianus, the wineskin… or the girl?'

'I’ll begin construction on the water mill tomorrow,' I said, not looking back. 'I hope I may expect no interference from you. I’ll thank you for your cooperation.'

On the path outside, Publius came hurrying after me. He laid his hand on my arm. I jerked it from his grasp. His breath smelled of wine. His hand smelled of the girl.

'Another thing, Gordianus — you have to build a mill from scratch. But a slave — you can make your own slaves! Why, half the slaves on this farm were planted in their mothers' wombs by me. You don't have to buy them, you see, you can make your own — more fun that way, eh? And doesn't cost a copper. You see the big one over there beneath the olive trees, rousing the others from their nap and putting them back to work — one of my bastards. Oh, I've made some big ones, strong boys who can keep the rest in line. I feed them well and let them play with the Dragonfly now and again, to keep them happy. It doesn't matter if the others are miserable or not, so long as you've got the strong ones to keep them in line. Feed the weaker ones just enough to keep them going, but not so much as to make them stronger than they should be—'

I mounted my horse. Aratus and the field slave I had brought did likewise.

'But what's this, Gordianus, you don't care to discuss agrarian philosophy? I thought all you city boys, all you friends of windbags like Cicero, delighted in a good discussion — ' He staggered after me, tripping on the paving stones.

'You shouldn't drink so much on such a hot day, Publius Claudius. You'll fall and hurt yourself' I said, gritting my teeth.

'It's the trouble down at the stream that's still bothering you, isn't it? Fah! That was nothing. Women squabbling. If I'd really wanted to make a point, I'd have sent one of my big bastards over to do it. Oh, yes, you're just what my cousins say you are. Another nobody from the city who's risen too far above his station in life. Rome is in a sad state when a nobody like you can get his hands on a patrician's farm and take on airs like a country noble — and a nobody like your friend Cicero can worm his way into the consulship. Your head is all swollen, Gordianus — maybe someone should pop it open for you!' He slapped his fist into his palm with a crack.

I wheeled around. Publius drew back, startled and coughing from the dust stirred up by the horse's stamping hooves. His enforcers in the olive grove pricked up their ears and began walking quickly towards us.

'What's that you said about heads, Publius?' I demanded. 'What?' He looked up at me with a puzzled expression, waving at the dust.

'Do you make a habit of doing damage to other men's heads, Publius Claudius?'

'I don't know what you're talking about. It's a figure of speech—'

'And if you popped a man's swollen head, Publius — what would you do with the body?'

The enforcers arrived and circled their master. His momentary abashment passed and Publius squinted up at me defiantly. 'I think you'd better get off my property. If you have no taste for my hospitality, then go! And don't think I'll forget the matter of the water rights. It's my stream, not yours!'

I turned around and called to Aratus and the field slave to follow me. I drove the horse at a trot, then at a full gallop through the high grass, scattering startled cicadas and grasshoppers in my wake. The heat of the fields rushed over my face, and the wind roared in my ears. The pounding of the horse's hooves against the hard earth vibrated through my body. The slaves returning to their labours drew back in alarm. Even when I came to the stream I did not slow the pace, but urged the beast to bound over the water. Once I was on the far bank I pulled on her reins and bent forwards to stroke her neck. I rested in the shade, listening to the breath pass through her nostrils, and the pounding of my heart in my ears.

Aratus and the field slave went back to their duties. I lingered for a while by the stream, letting my horse drink from the cool water and eat the tender grass. When she was done, I rode up to the stable. I was about to dismount when a faraway movement on the highway caught my eye. I shaded my brow and peered across the fields. Two men were turning off the Cassian Way onto the road to my house. One rode a black horse, the other a white.

Eco, returning so soon? That could only mean trouble, I thought, I hurried down the road to meet him

As I drew nearer I thought I recognized Eco by his fashionable beard and haircut, but the other rider, on the white hone, was not nearly large enough to be Belbo. I reined in my horse and waited for the men to draw closer. They kept a slow, steady pace, until the one on the black horse broke into a trot and rode ahead to meet me. He looked absurdly happy; indeed, it seemed to me that a great smile was approaching me accompanied by a horse and rider.

When he was close enough for me to see him more clearly, I knew that I must be seeing the first and foremost face to wear the fashion so popular among the young men at Rome, for it could not possibly have suited any other face, not even that of handsome Marcus Caelius, as perfectly as it suited his. The strap of beard across his jaw was the ideal frame for his strong chin and perfectly chiselled nose. The cut of his hair, long on top and sheared above the ears so that flecks of silver shone among the black, was ideally suited to his straight black eyebrows and lofty forehead. His eyes were a piercing blue that seemed to pin me and hold me in place as he drew nearer.

'Beautiful!' he said as he reined in his mount, taking his eyes from mine to gaze at the fields around him. 'Even better than Marcus Caelius promised. It couldn't be more perfect — could it, Tongilius?' he said, calling back to his young companion. He breathed deeply, savouring the sweet smells of hay and wildflowers. 'A beautiful piece of earth. One can almost picture Pan himself flitting across the fields. The kind of farm every Roman dreams of.' With a great smile on his face he extended his hand. Reluctantly I took it. His grasp was warm and strong. 'You must be a proud and happy man, Gordianus!'

I nodded and sighed. 'Oh, yes, Catilina, I am assuredly that,'

We had met briefly ten years before, but in all the time since the scandal of the Vestal Virgins I had had nothing to do with Catilina and had hardly seen him, even when he was in the Forum campaigning for office — especially then, for the sight of a politician approaching with his retinue was enough to send me running. (A Roman politician will doggedly pursue an honest man into a shop or tavern or even a brothel to beg for his vote; the only hope of escape is to head speedily in the opposite direction.)