Catilina's riddle

The hours passed uneasily. Catilina's men took turns trying to sleep, wrapping themselves in the blankets I had brought and pressing against one another for warmth. The watch at the entrance grew lax; not even a Titan would have dared to scale the mountain and attack us on such a night. Catilina sat against a stone wall. Tongilius lay curled on his side, clutching a blanket, his head on Catilina's lap. Catilina's face was in shadow, but I could see that his eyes remained open; now and again they caught the nicker of the names.

Meto dozed, but at one point he opened his eyes and was wide awake. He stared at something set atop a rock against one of the walls. The cloth in which it was wrapped had come loose, exposing a glint of silver.

'What is that?' he whispered, rising to a crouch and stepping towards it with an odd look on his face.

Catilina slowly turned his head. "The eagle of Marius,' he said in a low voice.

I peered at it through the gloom. It was an eagle with its beak held high and its wings spread. But for the glimmer of silver, it might have been a real bird, frozen in glory. Meto reached towards it, almost but not quite touching it with his fingertips.

'Marius carried it in his campaign against the Cimbri, when you and I were boys, Gordianus.'

'It's absurdly heavy,' murmured Tongilius sleepily. 'I know; I carried it up the mountain.'

Catilina ruffled the youth's hair and then gently stroked it. 'If it should come to battle, I intend to carry it atop a pole as my standard. An extraordinary object, is it not?'

'How did you ever come to possess it?'

'That is a long story.'

"The storm rages; we have all night.'

'Suffice to say that it came to me through Sulla, during the proscriptions. It has a bloody history. Cicero told the Senate that I keep it in my house as some sort of shrine, bowing down to worship it before commencing with my murders. He tarnishes even pure silver with his acid tongue.'

'An eagle,' said Meto, turning his face towards me so that the firelight reflected from the silver lit his face like a strange mask.

'Yes,' I murmured, suddenly sleepy. 'But an eagle, Papa — don't you see?' 'Yes, an eagle,' I said, closing my eyes.

XXXIV

The storm abruptly lifted to reveal a sky littered with clouds shredded like torn pennants, Lit from beneath with a pale orange glow by the first rays of dawn. Catilina's men roused themselves, gathered up their things, and helped one another scale the wall that blocked off the mine. The only evidence left behind of their stay were some bread crumbs and apple cores, scattered pieces of charcoal and the tangy smell of a wood fire.

The path was littered with small rock slides and broken branches, but these were minor impediments. A greater handicap for me was the aching in my legs. After climbing the mountain, my knees had turned to rusty hinges and my shins to splintered wood. When I was a boy, my father told me that it was a joke of the gods that going downhill was more painful than going uphill. I had not understood him then. Now, looking at the younger men around me who had ridden from Rome, had had a desultory sleep in a dank mine, and were now tramping down the path with smiles on their faces, I understood him only too well. Each step sent a little thunderbolt quivering through my knees.

I dreaded the crossing of the swollen stream. As I had feared, it was more turbulent than before, or at least looked that way in the light of dawn, which picked out every scudding eddy and treacherous hole. But the task was made easy by our numbers. By linking arms, clasping hands to wrists, we formed a chain stronger than the rushing waters. The young men of Catilina's company seemed exhilarated by the plunge into icy water up to their thighs. I bore it as best I could and laughed along with them, if only to still the chattering of my teeth.

At the place where the path diverged, leading one way to Gnaeus's

house and the other way down the disused, steep descent to the Cassian Way, I pulled Catilina aside. 'Which path do we follow here?' I said.

He raised an eyebrow. 'We go down the way we came, of course.' His men waited for him at the head of the narrow trail. He waved for them to proceed without him. 'Otherwise we should end up stealing on tiptoe by the house of that awful neighbour of yours, with all those howling dogs. Surely you remember—'

'I do. But there are other things I remember as well.'

'Gordianus, what are you talking about?'

'You must never come to my house again. Your enemies will watch for you there—' 'I understand.'

'My family — I must think of their safety.'

'Of course. And I must think of keeping my head on my shoulders!'

'Catilina, no jokes, no riddles!'

He mirrored the distress on my face. 'Gordianus—'

'Lucius, are you coming?' Tongilius waited at the trailhead, with Meto beside him.

'Go on without me,' said Catilina over his shoulder, in a jovial voice. 'The old men must rest their legs for a moment.'

Tongilius pursed his lips thoughtfully, then nodded and ducked out of sight. Meto followed, but not before looking me in the eye and hesitating, long enough to be invited to join us. At last he followed Tongilius, scowling. Why did he have to take everything I did as a personal affront?

'Now, Gordianus, what is this all about?'

'Ever since Marcus Caelius first approached me about playing host to you, strange things have been transpiring on my farm. The first was a headless body discovered in the stable.' I paused and studied his face. He only stared back at me blankly. "Then came the body in the well—'

'Yes, you told me about that. The poor goatherd who showed us this path. What did you call him?' 'No, what did you caH him, Catilina?' 'What do you mean?'

'What did you call poor Forfex? Was he your spy, your confederate, your dupe? Why did he die? Why was his head cut off before he was dropped down my well?'

Catilina looked at me gravely. 'You do me an injustice to ask me such questions, Gordianus. I have no idea what you're talking about'

I took a breath. ‘You have no secret relationship with Gnaeus Claudius?'

'Your disagreeable neighbour? I saw the man only once, and that was with you! Afterwards I told Crassus about the mine. I advised him to make an offer on this property, but I told you, he wasn't interested in dealing with the Claudii. So I never came back.'

'But you're here now, hiding on Gnaeus's property.'

'Without his knowledge. Though not for much longer if we linger here; one of his goatherds will come along and raise an alarm. When I first saw the mine, I knew it would make an ideal hiding place, especially if Crassus bought the property. Of course, that was postulated on Crassus's remaining loyal to me’ His eyes flashed with bitterness. 'Still, the place turned out to be useful, didn't it? As for these strange happenings on your farm, what have they to do with me?'

'They occurred at key moments, when I resisted Caelius's pressure to put you up.'

'Pressure? Are you saying that you never wanted to have me?'

I shook my head, not wanting to speak. How could I say that the idea had come from Cicero?

'Gordianus, I never told Caelius to strong-arm you into having me. Caelius told me you were happy to do so.'

'But your riddle in the Senate, about the headless masses and the Senate with its withered body. The coincidence of the headless bodies on my farm…'

'Gordianus, are you telling me that all this time, you've hosted me only because Caelius forced you to? Well, there you have your villain. Someone told Cicero's henchmen to go looking for me on your farm last night: Caelius, obviously. He must have been loyal to Cicero all along. By Jupiter, when I think of the confidences I divulged to him…' He threw back his head with a pained expression. 'Gordianus, have you then no affection for my cause at all? Were you merely doing Caelius's bidding when you let me into your house?'

Now it was my turn to mirror his look of consternation. I might have said yes and not told a He, but the truth no longer seemed as simple as that.

'Never mind,' he said. 'The important thing is that you didn't betray me last night, when you had the chance. Unless—' He looked at the trailhead, and his face turned grey. 'Unless Tongilius and the others are descending into an ambush!'

He put his hand on the hilt of his sword. I felt a quiver of panic. He turned to me with murder in his eyes, and for the first time I saw the true depth of his despair. Lucius Sergius Catilina was a patrician, born into privilege and respectability. Trust was his birthright and highest value — trust in the gods, trust in the immutability of his station, trust in the high regard of his fellow citizens; trust, also, in the invincibility of his own innate charm. Now these layers of trust had been stripped away from him one by one; gods and men alike had betrayed him.

I laid my hand on his. I had to grit my teeth with the effort to keep his sword in its scabbard. 'No, Catilina, your men are safe. I haven't betrayed you! Think — Meto is with them. I wouldn't send my own son into a trap.'

He slowly relaxed. His lips registered a cracked smile. 'Do you see what's become of me?' He gazed towards the empty trailhead, as if he could still see the young men who had descended ahead of us. 'But they still look to me for strength, as they always have. Come, hurry!'

As I had feared, the way down was more treacherous than the way up. The trail was littered with the debris of twigs and branches, and the rain had turned the rigid earth into a treacherous soup of mud and stones. We descended as much by sliding as by stepping. We tumbled against each other and clutched at each other's arms, using the solidity of our bodies to gain a mutual balance against the unsteady elements. I banged my elbows and scraped my knees; I slipped and fell on my rump so many times it almost stopped hurting. The near-impossibility of the descent eventually took on an air of absurdity. From below us we heard the high-spirited whooping of Catilina's men, a warning of more slipping and sliding ahead. I braced myself for the final stretch, too out of breath to laugh.

At last we came to the stony clearing where the horses waited. The beasts looked ragged and miserable after their long night in the rain, but they nickered and shook themselves at the sight of Catilina's men, as eager to set out as their riders. Everyone was covered with mud, myself most of all.

'I've already had a look at the highway,' said Tongilius. 'The road is clear.'

We led our horses one by one through, the narrow passage between the boulder and the oak. To make up for the missing hone, I gave them my own. Meto and I mounted his horse together.

The exhilaration of the descent had restored Catilina's confidence. He clutched his reins and let his mount canter about. She stood upright on her hind legs and whinnied, happy to be out of the mud and muck. When he had calmed her, he came over to us, leaning forward to stroke the beast's neck. 'Are you sure you won't come with us, Gordianus? No, I'm only joking! Your place is here. You have a family. You have a future.'

He circled, waving for his men to form a bodyguard around him. How strange his company looked, filthy and ragged and yet wearing smiles as if they had just won some glorious battle. 'Tongilius, you have the silver eagle? Good. Gordianus, I thank you for what you've done. And for what you might have done against me but did not do, I thank you even more.'

He turned and rode away at a swift gallop. Meto and I followed him to the crest of the hill and watched the company for a long time as they grew smaller and smaller, vanishing into the north.

Meto said aloud what I was thinking: 'Will we ever see him again, Papa?'

I let my body answer — a twitch of the shoulders to form a non-committal shrug. Who but the Fates could answer such a question? Even so, I feared that we had seen the last of Catilina.

When we returned to the house, Diana was delighted, thinking we must have been out early playing in the mud. Bethesda was appalled, but also relieved, though she tried not to show it. Exhausted, I let her scrub me with a sponge and then crawled into my bed. At some point she joined me and made love to me with a consuming ferocity she had not shown in a long time.

On that very day — while I dozed, while Catilina and his company raced northwards — Cicero made a second speech against Catilina in Rome, not to the Senate but directly to the citizens assembled in the Forum. This I learned the next day from a slave who brought a letter from Eco, which warned me, too late, of Catilina's flight. The speech to the people reiterated much of what Cicero had said to the Senate, but with even greater venom and a crude hyperbole that showed no small contempt for his audience's sophistication. Eco made no comments on the speech — understandably, for what if the letter had fallen into other hands? — but instead quoted it at length. Perhaps he was as appalled as I was and thought that rendering Cicero's words verbatim would convey all that needed to be said, or perhaps he was merely amused at such outrageously inflammatory rhetoric, and transcribed it for my amusement.

In his speech Cicero announced Catilina's flight from Rome and humbly took credit for 'removing the dagger from our throat.' He then coyly acknowledged that some might fault him for not putting the scoundrel to death instead (though he could not have done so legally; only the courts and the people's Assembly have that right). Catilina's flight was proof of his guilt, and Cicero berated those who had been too stupid to see the truth before. If there were those who portrayed Catilina as a guiltless martyr and Cicero as his vengeful persecutor, then Cicero would bear the burden of such slander for the sake of saving Rome. As for those in league with Catilina who remained at large in the city, that band of perfumed and overdressed 'warriors' could hope to have no secrets from him; the consul's eyes and ears followed them everywhere, and he was aware of their innermost thoughts.

As for rumours that Catilina was headed for Massilia and exile rather than for Manlius and his soldiers, Cicero hoped it might be true but doubted it 'By Hercules, even if he were utterly innocent of traitorous designs, Catilina is precisely the sort of person who had rather die an outlaw's death than wither away in exile.' Cicero had gauged his opponent shrewdly.

He dwelt on Catilina's sex life repeatedly and at great length, calling him the world's most accomplished seducer of young men, mentioning Tongilius and others by name, and saying that Catilina made some of his conquests by murdering young men's parents at their request and thus sharing their inheritances even while he plundered their orifices. Catilina, Cicero said, was shameless in taking both the dominant and the subservient role. His once-famous attributes of physical endurance and energy had long ago been squandered in mindless orgies.

Catilina's inner circle shared his sexual excesses. Like their mentor they flaunted their skill at playing either role in bed. Pretty boys made for dancing and singing, they had nevertheless learned to flail daggers and sprinkle poisons, and were thus more dangerous than their pouting faces and neatly coiffed beards might suggest. They frittered away their fortunes on gambling, harlots, and expensive wines, and the vomit that came from their mouths was vile talk about murdering loyal citizens and burning the city to the ground merely to cancel their debts. Now that they were fugitives, what would Catilina and his boys do without their debauched socialites and whores to tuck them in at night? Perhaps, Cicero pondered, their notorious practice of dancing naked at parties had only been conditioning for the cold nights to come by the camp fire.

The crowd in the Forum would devour such leering wit. But could even the least discriminating among them swallow the exaggerations that Cicero served up? 'What crime or wickedness has Catilina not been guilty of?' he demanded. 'In all of Italy there is not one poisoner, gladiator, robber, assassin, parricide, will-forger, cheat, glutton, wastrel, adulterer, prostitute, corrupter of youth or corrupted youth who has not been his mtimate. What murder has been done in recent years without him? What nefarious debauchery, except through him?'

The issues could not be clearer, for the two sides were like day and night. On the side of his cause, said Cicero, was everything modest, chaste, honest, patriotic, level-headed, and self-restrained; on the side of Catilina was everything insolent, lecherous, fraudulent, traitorous, hysterical, licentious, and hotheaded. 'On one side of this confrontation are justice, moderation, courage, wisdom, and all that is good; on the other side are injustice, luxury, cowardice, recklessness, and everything bad. Prosperity struggles against poverty; right against wrong, sanity against madness, hope for the future against bottomless despair. In such a conflict, even if human efforts may fail, will not the immortal gods themselves ordain that such a league of vices must be overthrown by such a glorious army of virtues?'

What patriot in the Forum could fail to cheer such a sentiment?

Along the way Cicero managed to reiterate the danger of a slave uprising, saying that even if Catilina succeeded in his revolt, he would merely bring chaos, and that would mean a country overrun by escaped slaves and gladiators. He deplored violence, but promised the people that in the dreadful event of war he would strive for the lowest number of casualties. And he piously called on 'the immortal gods themselves' to give strength to 'this invincible people, this glorious empire, this most beautiful of cities.'

Cicero's voice was in fine form and his timing impeccable, Eco said; the speech was well received. Reading these excerpts left me profoundly depressed.

The messenger who had arrived with Eco's letter returned bearing my reply. I told him that the house guest he had inquired about had indeed passed by on the Cassian Way, but had not stopped at my house. Indeed, by mutual agreement, the man would not be staying with me in the future. I did not want Eco to worry.

The rains continued. The earth was refreshed and the stream was recharged. Though our worries over the shortage of hay were just beginning, our great worry about water was finally over, and for the first time I saw the water mill move without human intervention, driven by the power of the rushing current. To see it in motion, the great wheel revolving in its circle, the gears meshing against one another in harmony, made me think of my old friend Lucius Claudius, whose demeanour had been likewise harmonious. He would have been delighted by the mill, and that pleased me. I thought also of Catilina, whose practical genius had solved the riddle of the water mill where I had failed. Those thoughts pleased me less, for I could see no happy outcome for Catilina and his company. I tried not to think of them at all.'

That would not be possible for long, I knew. All Italy must be talking about Catilina, awaiting word of his fate. Some would listen in hopeful expectation of an uprising against the Optimates; others would listen with spite in their hearts, praying for the traitor's demise; and others would simply wait anxiously, remembering the devastation of the wars, purges, and uprisings that had wracked Italy in recent years.

I secretly hoped that Catilina would do as he had said, and flee to Massilia. But this was not the case, or so it seemed from the letter I received from Eco a few days after the Ides of October

Dearest Papa,

The press of events here prevents me from coming to visit you, or I surely would. I miss your steady counsel and the sound of your voice. I miss Bethesda as well, and Diana, and my brother Meto. Give them my love.

The news here is that Catilina has definitely taken up arms with Manlius in Faesulae. He is said to have stopped in Arretium first and to have stirred up trouble there. We hear fresh rumours every day of uprisings to the north and south, near and far. The people of Rome are in a state of great agitation and anxiety. I remember nothing like it since the years of the Spartacan revolt. People talk of nothing else, and every fishmonger and shop owner has an opinion. As the playwright says: ‘The underworld shivers like a web being plucked at one corner.'

The Senate, at Cicero's urging, has declared Catilina and Manlius outlaws and enemies of the people. Any man who takes them under his roof will be considered an enemy of the people as well. I know you understand.

An army is being raised under the command of the consul Antonius. There will almost certainly be war. People speak of Pompey rushing back from his foreign duties to save the day, but people always say that about Pompey in times of domestic crisis, don't they?

Please, Papa, come to Rome and bring the family. Surely the farm is disagreeable at this time of year. Rich men abandon their farms for the city in the winter, so why shouldn't you? If there is a war, it is likely to be waged in Etruria, and I cannot sleep when I think of your vulnerable position. The city would be so much safer for all of you.

If you will not come for a long stay, then please come for a visit very soon, if only so that I may speak to you in terms more frank than a letter permits.

This is the fond desire of your loyal son, Eco.

I read the letter twice. On the first reading I was touched by his concern, smiled to see him quoting Bolitho (a second-rate playwright, but Eco has always loved the stage), and shook my head at his admonishment not to let Catilina under my roof again; why did he worry when I had already let him know that my guest would not be returning? On a second reading I was mainly struck by the unease and unnatural restraint of his tone.

Eco had come to the farm when I needed him, even though I had not directly asked him to. I could hardly do less when he pressed me so passionately to visit him. I consulted with Bethesda. I asked Aratus when I would be least missed (knowing he would be happy to have me gone and out of his way at any time). Between them I decided that the family would take a trip to the city at the beginning of December.

For a man who professed a weary disgust for politics, my timing could not have been more ironic. My summer trip had subjected me to political harangues and led me through the voting stalls against my will. My winter trip would make me a witness to afar grander spectacle, for with less than a month remaining of his year as consul Cicero was about to experience the crowning moments of his career. Life is like the Cretan Labyrinth, I sometimes think; whenever we bump our noses against a wall, somewhere the Minotaur is laughing.

Part Four

Nunquam

XXXV

We departed for Rome before daybreak on the day after the Kalends of December. The wind, bracing but not bitter, was at our backs, and our horses were full of spirit. We made excellent time and arrived at the Milvian Bridge when the sun was strongest.

Traffic was light, especially compared to the jam of horses and wagons we had encountered on our last trip. Even so, a knot of people had gathered at the nearer end of the bridge. I thought at first that tradesmen selling wares had attracted the crowd, but as we drew nearer I saw that the only commodity being traded was conversation, much of it quite animated. The men were of various classes — local farmers and freedmen, as well as a few well-dressed travellers attended by their slaves.

As we drew nearer, I signalled to the slave who drove the cart carrying Bethesda and Diana to stop beside the road. Meto and I dismounted and walked into the crowd. Several men were talking at once, but the voice that carried above the rest belonged to a farmer in a dusty tunic.

'If what you say is true, why didn't they kill them on the spot?' the farmer said.

His remarks were addressed to a merchant, a man of some wealth, to judge from the rings on his fingers and the coterie of slaves around him, all of whom were more finely dressed than the farmer. 'I only repeat what I heard before I left the city this morning,' the merchant said. 'Business takes me north; otherwise I would have stayed to see what transpires this afternoon. It's rumoured that Cicero himself may address the people in the Forum—'

'Cicero!' The farmer spat. 'Chickpeas turn my stomach sour.'

'Better that than a barbarian's knife in the stomach, which is what these traitors had in mind for you,' snapped the merchant.

'Bah, a bunch of lies, as usual,' said the farmer.

'Not lies,' said another man, who stood just in front of me. 'The man from the city knows what he's talking about. I live in that house just over there, on the river. The praetor and his men spent the night under my roof, so I should know. They waited in ambush, then trapped the traitors on the bridge and arrested them—'

'Yes, you told us your story already, Gaius. Certainly, soldiers arrested some men from Rome, but who knows what it really means?' demanded the angry farmer. 'Just wait and see, the whole thing is another scheme concocted by Cicero and the Optimates to bring down Catilina.' Several others joined him with a chorus of angry shouts.

'And why not?' demanded the merchant. As the crowd grew more animated, his slaves drew around him in a protective ring, like trained mastiffs. 'Catilina should already be dead. Cicero's only fault is that he didn't have the fiend strangled while he was still in Rome. Instead, he continues with his plots, and you see where it's led — Romans plotting with barbarians to stage their revolt! It's disgraceful.' This set off a round of jeering from the farmer's contingent, and an equally vociferous response from those who agreed with the merchant,

I touched the shoulder of the man called Gaius, who claimed to live nearby. 'I've just come from up north,' I said. '"What's happened?'

He turned around and peered at us with eyes puffy from lack of sleep. His chinless jaw was grizzled and his hair unkempt. 'Here,' he said, 'let's step away from the crowd. I can't hear myself think! I've told the story a hundred times already this morning, but I'll tell it again.' He sighed in mock weariness, but I could see he was only too happy to recount his tale to anyone who hadn't yet heard it. The men in the crowd were too busy arguing to listen to him any longer. 'Are you headed into the city?'

'Yes.'

"They'll all be talking about it there, have no doubt. You can tell them you heard the facts from a true witness.' He looked at me gravely to see that I grasped the importance of this.

'Yes, go on.'

'Last night, long after I was in bed, they came banging on my door.'

'Who?'

'A praetor, he said he was. Imagine that! By the name of Lucius Flaccus. On a mission from the consul himself, he said. Surrounded by a whole company of men all wrapped up in dark cloaks. And all carrying short swords, like the men in the legions do. He told me not to be afraid. Said they'd be spending the night in my house. Asked to put his horses away in my stable, so I sent a slave to show his men. Asked if there was a window where he could keep an eye on the bridge. Asked if I was a patriot, and I told him of course I was. Said if that was true, then he knew he could trust me to keep quiet and out of the way, but gave me a piece of silver anyway. Well, that's customary, isn't it, to pay something when soldiers put themselves up in the house of a citizen?'

'But these men weren't soldiers, were they?' said Meto.

'Well, no, I suppose not. They weren't dressed like soldiers, anyway. But they came from the consul. The Senate passed a decree last month — you must have heard about it — charging the consuls to protect the state by whatever means are necessary. So it's not a big surprise to see armed men being sent around by the consul, is it? Of course, I never thought I'd find myself in the middle of it!' He shook his head, smiling faintly. 'Anyway, the praetor stations himself at the window and opens the shutters — well, lean forward a bit and you can see it from here, how that side of my house looks out over the river and the bridge. He sent one of his men to bring him a bit of burning wood from my brazier, then held it up in the window and waved it. And do you see that other house just opposite mine, across the river? From a window in that house someone else waved a bit of flame in answer. So they had men hidden away in houses on both sides of the bridge, don't you see? An ambush for somebody. I could see that myself, even without being told.'

He paused and peered at us, making sure we had absorbed the full drama of the situation. 'Yes,' I said, 'go on.'

'Well, the night drew on, but I couldn't sleep, of course, and neither could my wife or children. But we couldn't have any light, so we sat in darkness. The praetor never left the window. His men huddled together, wrapped up in their cloaks, talking to each other in low voices. It was some time between midnight and dawn when we heard the clatter of hooves on the bridge — it was a clear, cold night with hardly a sound besides the water in the river, and the noise on the bridge carried like drumbeats. Quite a few horses, it must have been. The praetor went stiff at the window, watching, and the men sucked in their breaths. I stood across the room, but I could see over the praetor's shoulder. That bit of fire appeared again at the window across the way. "This is it!" said the praetor, and the men were on their feet in an instant, with their swords already drawn. I just stood back and flattened myself against the wall to keep out of their way as they rushed out of the door.

'There was quite a racket on the bridge then, enough to wake the lemures of the drowned — men rushing onto the bridge from both ends and the clatter of horses in the middle, along with shouts and curses, some of it in that awful tongue the Gauls use.'

'Gauls?' said Meto.

'Yes, some of the men on the bridge were Gauls, from the tribe of the Allobroges, as the praetor told me afterwards. The others were Romans, though they don't deserve the name. Traitors!'

'How do you know this?' I said.

'Because the praetor Lucius Flaccus told me. After the ambush, he was quite proud of himself, flushed with excitement, I guess, after all that waiting, and then—' He clapped his hands. 'To have it all over so fast, just as he wanted, I suppose. Not a drop of blood was shed; at least you can't see any on the bridge this morning. The traitors were pulled from their horses, disarmed and bound. Once it was all over, Flaccus thanked me and slapped me on the back and told me I had done my part to save the Republic. Well, I told him I was proud, but I'd be even prouder if I knew what had happened. "It will be on everyone's tongue soon enough," he said, "but why shouldn't you know before the rest? These men we've just arrested are part of a conspiracy to bring down the Republic!"

' "Catilina's men?" I asked him. Living on the highway as I do, I keep up with what's happening in Rome, so I know the problems that the consul's been having with that scoundrel.

' "We shall see," said the praetor. "The proof of that maybe here." And he held up some documents, all of them tightly rolled and sealed with wax. "Letters from the traitors to their fellow conspirators; we'll leave them for the consul to open," he said. "But there's the worst evidence against them — the Gauls who were travelling with them" He pointed towards a group of barbarians in leather breeches who were still sitting on their horses.

' "Enemies?" I said, not understanding why they hadn't been dragged from their horses and bound as well.

' "No," said the praetor, "loyal friends, as it turns out Those men are official envoys of a tribe called the Allobroges, who live in the province of Gallia Narbonensis, beyond the Alps, under Roman rule. The traitors tried to bring them into their plot. They wanted the Allobroges to make war up in Gaul, to de up the troops there while the traitors carried out their revolt in Rome. Imagine, turning to foreigners to make war against fellow Romans! Can you think of anything more despicable?" I told him I could not. "These conspirators are men without honour or loyalty," he said. "You'd think the mere fact of being Roman would've stopped them from even contemplating such foul crimes, but men like these have no respect for either their country or the gods. Fortunately, the Allobroges betrayed the plot to their Roman patron, who in turn revealed it to Cicero, whose eyes and ears are everywhere. The traitors, still thinking the Allobroges were on their side, dispatched their messages with the barbarians to carry word to Catilina and on up to Gaul. But this is as far as they got. We'll be taking them back to Rome now. The Senate and the people can decide what to do with these scum." '

The man paused, both for breath and for dramatic effect. He had delivered his long monologue with considerable skill, no doubt having honed it with each successive repetition. 'Well, I haven't slept at all since I was roused from my bed last night, as you can imagine. Too scared at first, then too excited after it was all over. Then dawn came, and all the neighbours wanted to know what the noise was about in the middle of the night — they thought they were hearing bandits or runaway gladiators and closed their shutters tight. So I found myself standing here telling the tale, and every traveller on the road wants to hear it.' He suddenly stretched his jaws in a great yawn and wiped the sleepiness from his eyes. 'Ah, well, it's not every day that such mighty events take place right under a man's nose. Like the praetor said, I've done my part to save the Republic!'

Just then, a clump of horse dung came sailing through the air and struck the side of the man's head. He gave a yelp and clutched his ear in confusion.

'Jupiter turn you into a toad!' shouted a shrill voice, which I recognized as that of the pro-Catilinarian farmer. It was he who had thrown the dung; his target had been the wealthy merchant, who was more adept at ducking than I would have thought.

'How dare you?' shouted the merchant

'Keep your filthy slaves away from me!' screamed the farmer, who was suddenly surrounded.

I saw the glint of steel in the crowd and clutched at Meto's arm, but he was already ahead of me. We mounted our horses while the driver set the wagon in motion. Midway across the bridge — in the very place where the praetor Lucius Flaccus had intercepted the plotters and their unfaithful Gallic allies — I looked back. The incident had erupted into a small riot. Missiles of dung were thick in the air, as was the roar of vile curses. The angry farmer came staggering out of the crowd, supported by a few allies. He clutched his head with both hands. Trickles of blood streamed down his forearms. The proud witness Gaius, meanwhile, had made a strategic retreat to his house by the river, where he stood watching from the doorway, yawning with his eyes open wide.

Rome, I thought, is like Bethesda. Just as I have learned to sense my wife's moods by the most subtle signs — the angle at which she holds her head, the disarrangement of a comb and brush on her table, the way she takes a breath — so I have learned to gauge the mood of the city by small manifestations. Forewarned by the news at the Milvian Bridge, my eyes were keen for signals. Shopkeepers were shooing customers from their counters and closing their doors early. Taverns were filled to overflowing. I saw few women about. Gangs of boys ran through the streets, while men stood on corners in small crowds and debated. Among those who went about their business on horseback or on foot, there appeared to be a strong general drift towards the Forum; some proceeded to the centre swiftly and surely, while others seemed drawn inward in a spiral approach, like bits of straw circling an eddy. So strong was this impression that as we made our way up the Subura Way to Eco's house, I felt as if we were swimmers working against a slow but steady current.

Menenia greeted us. As Diana ran to leap into her arms, I asked for Eco, and received the answer I expected. 'He went to the Forum, only a little while ago,' she said. "They say Cicero will be addressing the people this afternoon. We didn't know how soon to expect you, but Eco said that if you came in time you should go down to the Forum and try to find him.'

'I think not—' I began to say, imagining the scene, but Meto interrupted.

'Shall we take the horses or walk, Papa?' he said, looking at me eagerly. 'I'm for walking, myself My backside aches from all that riding! Besides, it's always so hard to find a place to leave the horses, and it's not that far.. ' We decided to walk.

The sensation of being caught in a current grew stronger and stronger as we neared the Forum. Just as a stream grows swifter as it narrows, so the traffic of bodies hastened and grew more congested. By the time we came to the Forum itself, the crowd was quite thick. Rumours swirled all around us like darting fish, and from passing tongues I heard the same words over and over: 'Traitors… Allobroges… Cicero… Catilina…"

It would be impossible to find Eco in such a press of bodies, I thought, but in the next instant Meto waved and called out his name. An arm rose above the crowd nearby, and beneath it I saw Eco's surprised and anxious face.

'Meto! Papa! I didn't know if you'd get here so early. Did you go to the house first? Hurry, I think he's already begun.' Indeed, far ahead of us I heard echoes of a distinctly familiar voice.

We headed towards the open space in front of the Temple of Concord. Behind the temple the cliff of the Arx rose steeply. To our right stood the Senate House and the Rostra, from which Cicero had many years ago made his speech in defence of Sextus Roscius. To the left was the foot of the path ascending to the summit of the Capitoline Hill and the Arx. It was to the Temple of Concord that the prisoners had been taken after their arrest at the Milvian Bridge, and it was here that the Senate had been hastily convened to discuss the matter. Now Cicero had emerged from within and was addressing the crowd from the top of the steps leading into the temple. Beside him, conspicuous for its gleaming newness and the splendour of its workmanship, was a massive bronze statue of Jupiter. The Father of the Gods sat upon his throne, magnificently muscled and heavily bearded, a bundle of thunderbolts grasped in one hand, a sphere cradled in the other, with rays of lightning emanating from his brow. Beside him, Cicero looked quite small and mortal, but his voice was as thunderous as ever.

'Romans! To be rescued from danger, to be snapped from the jaws of certain doom, to be lifted up from a sea of destruction — is there any experience more joyful, more exhilarating? You have been rescued, Romans! Your city has been rescued! Rejoice! Praise the gods!

'Yes, rescued, for under the entire city, beneath every house and temple and shrine, the kindling for the holocaust had been secretly prepared. The flames were nickering — but we stamped them out! Swords were raised against the people, pressed against your very throats — but we knocked those swords aside and blunted them with our bare hands! This morning, before the Senate, I revealed the truth of the matter. Now, fellow citizens, I shall briefly convey the facts directly to you, so that you may know for yourselves the danger that was bravely faced and fended off. I shall tell you how, in the name of Rome and by the grace of the gods, this danger was detected, investigated, uncovered, and cut short.

'First of all, when Catilina broke out of town some days ago, or more precisely, when I drove him away — yes, I proudly take credit for running him off, no longer afraid you will censure me for doing so; more worried, in fact, that you will blame me for letting him leave with his life — when Catilina left, it was my hope that he would take all his foul associates with him and we would be rid of that scum for good! Alas, more than a few of these odious intriguers stayed behind, intent on acting out their criminal designs. Your consul has kept a constant watch since then, fellow citizens; indeed, I have hardly allowed myself to sleep, or even blink, knowing that sooner or later they would strike. But even I have been taken aback at the enormity of their madness. You would hardly believe it yourselves if I did not have the proof to show you. But believe it you must, for the sake of your own self-preservation!

'It came to my ears that the praetor Publius Lentulus — yes, citizens, "Legs" Lentulus; save your laughter until you've heard the worst! — was trying to corrupt the envoys of the Allobroges, hoping to set off an insurrection beyond the Alps. These envoys were to set off for Gaul yesterday, with letters and instructions, accompanied by one of Lentulus's henchmen, Titus Volturcius, who was also given a letter addressed to Catilina.

'By Hercules, I thought, the chance had come at last, the opportunity I prayed the gods would send — a way to prove once and for all the depth of these men's degeneracy and their hatred for Rome, irrefutable proof that I could lay before the Senate and the people. Yesterday, then, I summoned two valiant and loyal praetors, Lucius Flaccus and Gaius Pomptinus, and explained the situation. Being men of irreproachable patriotism, they accepted my orders without hesitation. As night fell, they made their way secretly to the Milvian Bridge, divided their forces into two detachments on either side of the Tiber, and hid themselves in the nearest houses. Then they waited.

'In the early hours of this morning their patience was rewarded. The envoys of the Allobroges reached the bridge, accompanied by Volturcius and a retinue of his traitorous companions. Our men burst upon them and encircled them. Swords were drawn, but the praetors wielded the advantage of surprise, and when the Allobroges unexpectedly drew aside rather than join in their defence, Volturcius and his men lost heart and surrendered. The letters were handed over to the praetors with their seals intact. Volturcius and his men were taken into custody and delivered to my doorstep just as dawn was breaking. I immediately summoned those men whose seals were upon the letters, or who were otherwise most deeply implicated, among them that notorious hothead Gaius Cethegus and, of course, Lentulus, who arrived a slow last, despite the reputation of his legs. Perhaps he was sleepy from staying up late, writing incriminating letters!

'Many of our leading statesmen called upon me during the morning. They advised me to go ahead and open the sealed letters myself, so that if I was mistaken as to their contents, I would be spared any embarrassment. But I insisted that they should be unsealed and read before the Senate, and if I was embarrassed, so be it; there is no shame in being overzealous in the defence of freedom! So I hastily convened an emergency meeting of the Senate, here in the Temple of Concord. Remember the significance of this temple and what it commemorates: the harmony of the orders, the happy coexistence and cooperation of the classes, for it is all Romans — plebeians and patricians, rich and poor, freedmen and freeborn alike — who have been saved this day from the calamity that menaced all Rome.

'First Volturcius was summoned to testify before the Senate. The man was in such a panic he could hardly speak. To loosen his tongue, he was given a promise of immunity — he was only a mere messenger boy, after all, though a knowledgeable one, as it turns out. This stumbling footman comes from Croto, down in the toe of Italy. Oh, but a canker on the toe was enough to cripple the schemes of "Legs" Lentulus!'

I took a breath and looked around me. The crowd was laughing, as they laughed at all of Cicero's word games. Even in the more sophisticated arena of the Senate, it was said that he could never resist a pun, no matter how awful, especially if it contained an insult for his enemies. Even Eco was smiling, I noticed, though Meto was not. His face was tightly drawn and his eyes narrowed, as if he wrested with a deeper and darker puzzle than Cicero's wordplay.

^‘What did Volturcius reveal? I will, tell you: first, that Lentulus had given him messages and a letter for Catilina, urging him to mobilize an army of slaves and march on Rome.' At this the crowd's laughter ceased and there were cries of anger and dismay. I remembered Catilina's analogy of the thunderbolts and how Cicero used them to manipulate the crowd, and I found myself looking not at Cicero but at the gleaming new statue of Jupiter, and at the credulous faces around me. 'Within the city their plan was to set the seven hills aflame — yes, with each conspirator taking charge of igniting a given area — and to massacre great numbers of citizens. Catilina was to intercept and slaughter those who fled and then unite his slave army with his loyal forces in the city.'

A wave of anger passed through the crowd, as palpable as a hot wind. Slaves and fire: these two things are dreaded most by free Romans. Both are tools to be bent to their will and to give comfort, but either may run out of control and wreak terrible havoc. For any man to turn them loose upon his fellow Romans is an act of unforgivable betrayal, and in a single breath Cicero had managed to accuse Catilina and his friends of plotting to use both.

'Next, the Allobroges were brought before the Senate. They declared that they had been made to swear an oath and been given letters from Cethegus and Lentulus, and moreover had been ordered to send cavalry across the Alps to assist in their planned uprising. Imagine an army of slaves, Gauls, and outlaws, marching on the city in flames! To secure their alliance, Lentulus had declared to them that soothsayers and the Sibylline oracles had foretold that he would be the third of the Comelii, after Cinna and Sulla, to rule over Rome — or what remained of it, for he also declared his belief that this is the year preordained for the destruction of Rome and its empire, being the tenth year after the acquittal of the Vestal Virgins and the twentieth year after the burning of the Capitol' Cicero shook his head to show his disgust with such blasphemy.

'The Allobroges also informed us of discord within the ranks of these intriguers. It seems that Lentulus, typically lazy, wanted to wait until seventeen days from now and commence their carnage under cover of the festivities of the Saturnalia — the holiday when masters trade places with their slaves. But the bloodthirsty Cethegus, insensitive to such delicate irony, was eager to begin the massacre right away.

It was time to confront these scoundrels directly. Bach of them was called forward and shown the letters that had been intercepted. We showed Cethegus his letter. He agreed that the seal was his. The thread was cut.Written in his own hand and addressed to the leaders of the Allobroges, the message reiterated the plot exactly as I have already described it. Earlier, upon information from the Allobroges, I had sent one of the praetors to Cethegus's house, where a great cache of swords and daggers had been uncovered and confiscated. When I confronted him about this, Cethegus had answered sarcastically that he was merely a collector of fine weaponry! But now that his letter had been read aloud and his wickedness exposed, he collapsed with shame and fear and fell silent

'Another of the letter writers, Statilius, was brought in. Again, the breaking of the seal, the reading of the letter, the stuttering confession of guilt

'Then came Lentulus. His letter was read. It reiterated what we already knew, but Lentulus declined to break down and confess like the others. I offered this man — currently serving as a praetor and once a consul of the Roman people — an opportunity to speak on his own behalf He refused, and instead demanded that Volturcius and the Allobroges be called into his presence, so that he might confront his accusers. This was done; and thus was Lentulus undone, for as our informers resolutely recited the occasions on which they had met with him, he began to crumble, and when they brought up the business of the Sibylline oracles, those of us present witnessed what the exposure of guilt can do to a man. The magnitude of his crime and the glaring absurdity of his delusions suddenly came crashing down on him and robbed him of his wits, and instead of continuing to deny the allegations, which he might easily have done, Lentulus surprised us all by blurting out his confession. He did so in a whimpering voice that none of us had heard before; when he needed them most, his famous oratorical skills and even his notorious sarcasm deserted him completely.

'Volturcius was then called on to produce the single remaining unopened letter. Seeing it, Lentulus blanched and began to tremble; nevertheless, he acknowledged that the seal and the handwriting were his, though the letter itself was unsigned. I will read it to you now.' Without turning from the crowd, Cicero held out his hand. From behind him, his secretary Tiro appeared and placed the document into his master's palm. Cicero unrolled it and snapped it stiff between his hands.' "You will know who I am from the man who brings this to you. Remember that you are a man; consider your situation; take steps to do whatever is necessary. Recruit the aid of all, even the lowest." '

Cicero thrust out his arm, as if the document had an odour, and Tiro relieved him of it.

'Letters, seals, handwriting, confessions — citizens, these might seem to be the most compelling possible evidence against these men. But even more conclusive was the furtive look in their eyes, the pallor of their faces, their stupefied silence and the way they gazed at the floor, ashamed to look up, or else glanced cringingly at one another. Their own guilty appearance was the most incriminating testimony against them.

'Acting on the evidence we have gathered, the Senate unanimously voted to put under arrest the nine men most intimately involved in this conspiracy — only nine, despite the alarming number of traitors among us, because the Senate in its leniency believes that the punishment of these nine alone may recall the others to their senses.

"Thus have the foul schemes of Catilina met with abject failure. Had I not had the foresight to eject him from the city, it might not have been so. For while there was never any real danger, so long as I was vigilant, from lazy Lentulus or the wild-eyed Cethegus, Catilina is another matter. His skill at swaying the hearts of men, his personal attention to every detail of his vast plans, his cunning, his great strength and physical endurance — all these made him the most formidable of Rome's enemies, so long as he was in our midst. He would never have made such a stupid mistake as sending off incriminating letters with his own seal upon them! Had he remained, even with myself to watch his steps and counter his designs, we would have had a bitter fight on our hands, a struggle to the death.'

Cicero paused. He clasped his hands before him and bowed his head for a moment, then with a deep breath raised his eyes to the statue of Jupiter beside him and stepped closer to it. 'In my conduct of these affairs, fellow citizens, I feel very strongly that I have been guided every step of the way by the will of the immortal gods. Such a conclusion is obvious, for human initiative alone could scarcely be credited with directing these matters to such a fortuitous end. Indeed, throughout these dark days, so persistendy have the gods made known their will that they have virtually been visible before us. Word of their portents has already spread among you, so that I scarcely need mention all the manifestations — the flames seen in the sky by night, me tremblings of the earth, the strange patterns of lightning. By such signs the gods foretold the outcome of this struggle. I will not enumerate them all, but there is one incident so compelling that I must not pass over it

'Cast your minds back two years ago, to the consulship of Cotta and Torquatus. In that year the Capitol was struck repeatedly by freakish lightning, which jarred the images of the gods from their pedestals, struck down the statues of our ancestors, and melted the brazen tablets of the law. Even the image of our founder Romulus was struck, that gold-covered statue that shows him suckling the she-wolf. Soothsayers, who had gathered from all over Etruria, prophesied slaughter and conflagration, the overthrow of the law, civil war, and the end of Rome and her empire — unless the gods could be persuaded to alter the course of destiny. In accordance with these dire warnings, ceremonial games were held for ten consecutive days, and nothing that might appease the gods was left undone.

"The soothsayers commanded that a new statue of Jupiter should be made and that it should be placed in a lofty spot facing the dawn and overlooking the Forum and the Senate House. With the image of the Father of the Gods, turned upon our mortal activities, any grave threat to the safety of Rome would be brought to light and made manifest to the Senate and the people. So slowly did the construction of this massive, magnificent statue proceed that only now has it been completed — and it was not ready to be installed in its lofty place beside the entrance to the Temple of Concord until this very day’

'No man here is so blind that he cannot see how the entire universe, and most specifically this chosen city, is guided and governed by the will and the majesty of the gods. Two years ago we were warned, by those who interpret the signs of the gods, of impending catastrophe and civil chaos. Not all believed the signs, but wisdom prevailed and the gods were placated. Now the time of crisis arrives and — who would dare call it coincidence? — the statue of Jupiter is ready! So timely is the benign intervention of great Jupiter that at the very hour the conspirators were being conducted through the Forum to the Temple of Concord, the engineers were just completing the statue's installation! And now, with Jupiter's terrible gaze upon us, this plot against your safety and the very survival of Rome has been revealed and brought into the bright, harsh light of day.

'Harsher than ever, then, should be your hatred and punishment of these men who have dared to spread the flames of destruction not only to your homes but to the shrines of the gods as well. How proud

I would be to assert that their apprehension and arrest is all due to me, but it is not so; it was Jupiter himself who thwarted them. Jupiter wishes for the Capitol to be saved, and for the temples and this city and all of you to be saved as well. In that divine wish I have been his vessel.

The Senate has decreed a thanksgiving to the gods. Their decree was issued in my name — the first time that such an honour has ever been bestowed upon a civilian. It is framed in these words: "because he saved the city from flames, the citizens from massacre, and Italy from war." Yes, citizens, raise your voices in thanksgiving, but not to me; render your loving praise to the father who has saved you all, to the destroyer of Rome's enemies, to Jupiter Almighty!'

Cicero raised his arms to the gleaming statue beside him and stepped back. Cheering erupted throughout the crowd, so precisely on cue that I wondered at first if Cicero had seeded his partisans among the crowd. But the ovation was too overwhelming to be false, and why not? It was not Cicero, the mere vessel, whom they were cheering, but the Father of the Gods, who gazed out at us from beneath his thunderous brow. Even so, as he backed away into the shadows, Cicero wore a smile of utter triumph, as if the cheering were entirely for him,

XXXVI

This means the end of Catilina,' said Eco that night, reclining on his dining couch. The meal was finished. The food and utensils had been cleared away and only a pitcher of watered wine remained. Diana was fast asleep in her bed, and Bethesda and Menenia had retired to another room.

'Until today,' Eco went on, 'no one in Rome was certain what would happen. There still seemed a very real chance of an uprising in the city, successful or not. You could feel it in the streets — the anger, the resentment, the restlessness, the longing for any sort of change at any cost. It was as if people were hoping that the sky would open and reveal a whole new pantheon of gods looking down from the heavens.'

'Is this what you meant in your letter to me, when you said you could speak more frankly face to face?' I said.

'Well, I could hardly express such ideas in a letter, could I? Look what's become of Lentulus and Cethegus for putting their incriminating thoughts onto parchment! Not that I sympathize with them, but everyone has to be very careful these days — what one says, to whom one talks…'

' "The eyes and ears of the consul are everywhere," ' I said.

'Exactly.'

'And his eyes watch even one another.' 'Yes.'

'Then it's too bad all Cicero's cross-eyed spies haven't tripped over their own feet!' said Meto suddenly, with a vehemence that surprised us. He had been sitting quietly on his couch, drinking watered wine and listening.

Eco looked at his brother, confused. 'What do you mean, Meto?'

‘I mean — I'm not sure what I mean, but I thought Cicero's speech today was sickening.' His voice was infused with the fervent passion of those who are very young, very earnest, very angry. 'Do you think there was a word of truth in it?'

'Of course there was,' said Eco. Meanwhile I kept quiet, leaned back, and listened to them debate. 'You don't suppose Cicero concocted those letters himself?'

'No, but who concocted the scheme in. the first place?'

'What scheme?'

"The idea for the conspirators to discredit themselves by dealing with the Allobroges.'

'Lentulus came up with the scheme, I suppose, or one of the other—'

'Why not Cicero?' said Meto.

'But—'

‘I was listening to some men talking in the Forum after the speech was over and the crowd was breaking up. These men were saying that the Allobroges are unhappy with Roman rule, and not without reason. The Roman officials in Gaul are corrupt and greedy, like Roman officials everywhere. That's why the envoys came to Rome, seeking redress from the Senate.'

'Exactly,' agreed Eco. 'And knowing their discontent, Lentulus saw an opportunity to suborn them.'

'Or was it Cicero who saw an opportunity to use them for his own ends? Don't you see, Eco, it's just as likely that it was the Allobroges who approached Catilina's supporters, that the idea came from them, acting secretly at Cicero's behest. He said in his speech today that he was desperate for a way to expose his enemies, to draw them out. Desperate enough to engineer this whole affair himself! Lentulus and Cethegus were set up, and like fools they took the bait. Now Cicero has them in his net, and they'll never get out'

Eco leaned back, looking pensive. 'Men were saying this in the Forum?'

'Not too loudly, as you can imagine, but I have good ears.'

'It makes sense, I must admit, but it's mad.'

'Why? We all know that Cicero prefers to operate in secrecy, with trickery and deceit Do you think he's above stage-managing the whole incident? It's so simple, so clear. The Allobroges come seeking favours, and the Senate ignores them. Cicero is the most powerful man in

Rome; he can get them what they want, if anyone can. He makes them promises, but in return they must act as his agents. So they approach Lentulus and Cethegus, claiming to seek an alliance. Without Catilina to guide them, Lentulus and Cethegus and the rest are getting nowhere on their own, so they eagerly take up the offer. But the Allobroges want an agreement in writing- only that will satisfy Cicero — and the fools give it to them. The envoys pretend to leave for their homeland. Acting on information from Cicero, two praetors stage a dramatic mock ambush on the Milvian Bridge.' 'Why "mock"?' said Eco.

'Because, while the praetors thought the ambush was real, the men they ambushed were expecting them and put up no resistance. Why? Because the informant Volturcius, who was accompanying the Allobroges, was also in on the game, another of Cicero's agents.'

'Were they saying that, too, in the Forum?'

'No,' said Meto, with a hint of a smile softening his outrage. "The part about Volturcius is my idea.'

'But not unlikely,' I said, sitting up and rejoining the conversation. 'We know that Cicero's spies are everywhere.'

'Even in this room,' whispered Meto, so low that I barely heard him.

'Still,' said Eco, shaking his head, 'even if what you say is true, and Cicero set a trap for the conspirators, they needn't have stepped into it. They allied themselves with foreign subjects and plotted war against Rome.'

'Yes,' I said, 'and Meto is right to call them fools for doing it. The Roman people might forgive a plot to bring down the state from within — many of them might even join in such an insurrection, if only for the chance to plunder — but for Romans to plot with foreigners against the state is unforgivable. It turns them from rebels into traitors. I think you're right, Eco, when you say that Catilina can never recover from this. Really, it's no wonder Cicero gave thanks to the gods at the end of his speech — Jupiter himself couldn't have devised a more foolproof way to discredit Catilina and his followers.'

Meto covered his ears. 'Please, Papa, no talk about gods! You know how Cicero really feels about religion; he makes quite a show among his intellectual friends of having no belief in the gods at all. He says it's all nonsense and superstition. Yet when he talks to the people in the Forum, he turns as pious as a priest and calls himself Jupiter's vessel. Such hypocrisy! And can you believe that nonsense about the statue of Jupiter being an omen? Don't you find it more likely that Cicero chose the day for the "ambush" on the Allobroges to coincide with the installation of the statue, so that he could exploit the coincidence? That proves, more than anything else, that he must have masterminded the whole affair and timed it to his liking’

Eco opened his mouth to say something, but Meto wouldn't be stopped. 'Do you know what else? I'm not even sure that Lentulus and Cethegus were plotting to torch the city. What evidence do we have for that, except the word of Volturcius the informer — Cicero's hired spy? Perhaps Lentulus and Cethegus were stupid enough to have come up with such a plot, or perhaps Cicero simply made up the part about fire to frighten people, just as he made up the stories about Catilina's wanting to lead a slave revolt. Nothing frightens people more than those two things, fire and slaves, running out of control. The rich fear the vengeance of slaves, and the poor fear fire, which can claim all they own in an instant. Even the poorest, who look to Catilina as a saviour, would turn their back on any man who plotted arson.'

'Thunderbolts, cast into the crowd!' I murmured.

'What did you say, Papa?' said Eco.

'An idea I got from Catilina. Vestal Virgins and sexual debauchery; arson, anarchy, slave revolts; conspiring with foreigners; the will of Jupiter — Cicero seems to have made a science of the words and phrases that will manipulate the masses.'

'Don't forget his watchfulness,' said Meto. He stood up and put down his cup. His hands were trembling. 'At least I can say something no one else in this room can say: I've never served as the consul's eyes or ears.' With that he abruptly turned and left us.

Eco stared after him. 'Papa, what on earth has happened to my little brother?'

'He's become a man, I suppose.'

'No, I mean — '

'I know what you mean. Ever since his birthday celebration here in Rome, he's become more and more as you see him now.'

'But these wild ideas, and the depth of his anger against Cicero — where does it come from?'

I shrugged. 'Catilina has slept under my roof several times. I think Meto may have had some private conversations with him while I was elsewhere. You know Catilina's notorious effect on the young.'

'But such ideas are dangerous. If Meto wants to brood on the farm, that's one thing, but here in the city I hope he knows enough to keep his mourn shut, at least in public. I think you should have a talk with him.'

'Why? Everything he says makes perfect sense to me.' 'Yes, but aren't you worried?'

'I suppose. But when he left the room just now, it wasn't worry that I was feeling. I was feeling rather proud of him, actually — and a little ashamed of myself'

There are moments in the theatre when the characters and events upon the stage seem to become more real than reality itself. I speak not of bawdy Roman comedies, though sometimes even those attain the phenomenon I'm thinking of; I speak more of those sublime tragedies of the Greeks. One knows that mere actors reside behind the masks, and one knows that the words they speak come from a script, and yet when Oedipus is blinded one feels an anguish more vivid than physical pain and a terror that seems to well up from the deepest recess of the soul. Gods hover in the air: one knows they are merely men suspended from a crane, and yet one experiences an awe that transcends all reason.

The days that followed Cicero's speech in the Forum were coloured with that same sense of vivid, compelling unreality. There was something grand and theatrical, but at the same time grubby and absurd, about the inevitable progression towards the destruction of the men who had fallen into Cicero's power. Ultimately it was not Cicero who decreed their annihilation, but the Senate. Whether that august body acted legally or not is a controversy which I doubt will be resolved in my lifetime.

Roman law does not give to either the consuls or to the Senate the right to put a citizen to death; that right is reserved for the courts and for the people's Assembly. Because the courts are slow and cumbersome and the Assembly is dangerously volatile, neither institution is of much use in an emergency. It might be argued that the Extreme Decree, by which the Senate had empowered the consuls to take any steps necessary to preserve the state, superseded other restrictions and allowed for a penalty of death against Rome's enemies within. Even so, was it right, legal, or honourable to put to death men in captivity, who had laid down their arms and given themselves into custody, and thus posed no immediate threat to anyone? These were some of the arguments that occupied the Senate over the next two days.

Self-professed hater of politics that I was, I should have left the city at once, but I did not I could not Like every other citizen I endured the passing hours in nervous, spellbound suspense, feeling the dread of something awful hanging over the city and its people. Everyone felt it, no matter what his political stripe, or his opinion of Cicero, or his belief in the righteousness or wickedness of the men in custody. The dread was like an ache that had settled into every joint of the body politic, a fever that addled the collective mind. We wished to be rid of our illness. We also feared that our physicians in the Senate would resort to some drastic cure that would not only break the fever but also kill the patient.

On the day after Cicero's speech the city became a vast whirlpool of rumours, with the Temple of Concord, where the Senate continued to meet, at its ravenous centre. The news that one of Catilina's supporters had implicated Crassus sent a panic through the commodity traders in the Forum; men wrung their hands, wondering what would happen if Crassus should be arrested and his fortune immobilized or confiscated, while others said that Crassus would never allow such a thing and would instead join Catilina in civil war. In fact, a certain Lucius Tarquinius had come before the Senate to state that Crassus had sent him to Catilina to carry news of the arrests and to advise Catilina to march on Rome at once. The senators' reaction, after some consternation, was to shout the man down. Even if the story was true, no one particularly cared to draw Crassus into the affair so long as he remained publicly loyal to the Senate. After a brief debate, those present recorded a vote of confidence in their richest member. It was also decided that Lucius Tarquinius would not be allowed to give any further testimony until such time as he was willing to reveal who had bribed him to give false and slanderous testimony against a man of such indisputable patriotism as Marcus Crassus. Some believed that Tarquinius had set out to implicate Crassus in order to moderate the punishment of those already in custody, since with Crassus among them the Senate would shrink from taking drastic measures. Others thought that it was Cicero who put Tarquinius up to it, in order to silence Crassus and keep him from influencing the debate. Lucius Tarquinius nevertheless stood by his original story and, disqualified from further testimony, was effectively gagged. The matter of Crassus's loyalties was not raised again, but he also removed himself from actively debating the fate of the arrested men.

Caesar was also the subject of scrutiny and suspicion. Had Volturcius and the Allobroges implicated him as well? And had those charges been suppressed by the Senate and censored by Cicero in his speech, because they did not want a confrontation with Caesar? Or were these assertions merely rumours circulated by Caesar's enemies? Whatever the truth of the matter, the rumours against Caesar were widespread. So strong did feelings run among the armed men assigned to protect the Temple of Concord — all equestrians and partisans of Cicero — that when Caesar was leaving the building that afternoon they shouted threats and brandished their swords at him. According to those who were there, Caesar's dignity never faltered, and once he was clear of the cordon he quipped, 'What a foul mood these dogs are in; has their master not ted them lately?'

That day the senators voted on the treasonable conduct of the prisoners, and after a brief debate pronounced them all guilty. Whether or not this constituted a legal trial was a question that would loom large for years to come. The senators also voted to give substantial rewards to the Allobroges and to Volturcius.

In the shops and taverns and open squares, details began to circulate about the uprising that had allegedly been scheduled to coincide with the Saturnalia. The entire Senate was to be killed along with as many citizens as possible in an indiscriminate slaughter; only the children of Pompey were to be taken alive, as hostages to keep the great general at bay. A hundred men had been recruited to set fires all over the city and to demolish the aqueducts, so that the fires would burn unchecked; anyone bearing water to extinguish the blazes was to be slain on the spot. Which of these details was authentic and which fantastic? It was impossible to tell, for as soon as one heard a rumour, another arose to contradict it. A silver merchant near the Forum told me he had seen with his own eyes the enormous cache of newly sharpened swords and incendiary material that had been discovered in the house of Cethegus, and that Cethegus's household consisted of a fierce coterie of highly trained gladiators; a few steps away and a few moments later, a wine merchant who claimed to have visited Cethegus only two days before his arrest said that the only weapons at the house were a collection of harmless ceremonial heirlooms, that he kept only a handful of bodyguards (like every senator), and that his house contained no more kindling and brimstone than any other.

Fresh rumours asserted that Lentulus and Cethegus and the rest were planning to escape. The captives had been put under house arrest in the custody of various senators. But Lentulus's freedmen were said to be scouring the streets, trying to incite workmen and slaves to rise up and free their patron, and Cethegus's purported army of gladiators was attempting to join forces with the city's hired gangs to storm the house where he was being kept. Accordingly, the consul ordered more troops from the garrison to surround the nine houses where the accused were incarcerated. The presence of so many armed men in the streets set even more rumours into motion.

At sundown Cicero was banished from his house on the Palatine for reasons that had nothing to do with the crisis. It was the night of the annual rite of the Good Goddess, Fauna, a state ceremony traditionally presided over by the wife of the consul and attended by the Vestal Virgins. Because men are excluded from the rite, Cicero spent the night in the home of his brother Quintus. Among the Vestals in attendance was Cicero's sister-in-law Fabia, who had been tried and acquitted ten years before for consorting with Catilina; according to Bethesda, the chief topic of gossip among the women of Rome centred on what Fabia must be feeling on such a night, I myself was more curious about Cicero's wife, Terentia. Whether or not she had any more belief in Fauna than did her husband in Jupiter, she was just as canny at perceiving omens; when the name dedicated to the goddess was thought to have gone out and then suddenly sprang up again, Terentia sent a message at once to her husband, advising him that the Good Goddess had sent a sign for him to show no mercy to the enemies of Rome.

The Nones of December dawned bright and cold. A coterie of armed men gathered before the Temple of Concord. One by one the senators arrived, leaving their entourages behind in the milling throng while they mounted the stairs beneath the stern countenance of Jupiter and disappeared within the temple to decide the fate of the conspirators. Crassus was conspicuously absent, as were a great many senators of the populist party, but Caesar attended, making his way through the Forum with a large body of followers.

While the Senate met, the nervous crowd in the Forum awaited the outcome. Men speculated wildly about the debate being staged within, and mad rumours circulated — that Lentulus had escaped, that Cethegus had already been strangled in the night, that Crassus had committed suicide, that Catilina and a huge army were crossing the Milvian Bridge, that parts of the city were in revolt and had been set on fire, that Caesar had been attacked and killed inside the Temple of Concord. This last bit of gossip set off a small riot among Caesar's partisans, who began to storm the temple and were brought under control only when Caesar himself appeared on the steps to show himself alive and whole.

I found myself wishing that Rufus could have smuggled us inside, as he had done on Meto's birthday, so that we could hear the speeches for ourselves. Instead I learned of the details afterwards, largely from Rufus but also from reading the speeches themselves; for Cicero, with his mania for surveillance, who in his first speech against Catilina had proclaimed, 'Let every man's political views be written on his brow for all to see,' actually stationed an army of secretaries among the senators to record the entire debate, something that had never been done before. These secretaries had been trained by Tiro himself in the method called Tironian 'shorthand', by which whole words and phrases are recorded with a single stroke. Using this new invention, they were able to take down every word, and thus the sentiments of every senator were put on record in Cicero's files.

The consul-elect Silanus began the debate with a fiery condemnation of those who would have plunged Rome into the ruins of civil war; he conjured up images of children torn limb from limb before their horrified parents, of wives raped in front of their castrated husbands, of boys and girls brutally ravished, temples plundered, homes burned to the ground. No course would satisfy the gods, he argued, except that the prisoners should suffer 'the supreme penalty'.

Subsequent speakers agreed and seemed bent on outdoing one another with expressions of outrage, until the proposal was countered by Caesar, who pointed out that Roman law permits a convicted citizen to go into exile rather than face execution. He did not argue that the convicted men deserved to live, but rather that the law should be scrupulously adhered to, for the sake of tradition. 'Consider the precedent you establish, for all bad precedents originate from measures good in themselves. You would inflict an extraordinary penalty on guilty men who doubtless deserve it. But what happens when power passes into the hands of men less worthy than yourselves, and they wish to inflict death upon men who do not deserve it? They will point to your precedent and no one will be able to stop them.' Thus did Caesar, whom many thought to be connected with the conspirators, manage to argue for clemency without actually arguing on their behalf. Instead of executing them, he proposed instead that their property should be confiscated and that they should be banished to distant towns and kept under guard until Catilina had been defeated in battle or the crisis had otherwise passed.

Cicero spoke against this proposal, saying that the only safe period of imprisonment for such men would be imprisonment for life, for which there was no precedent at all, and that the laws that protect the lives of citizens no longer applied to the men in question, 'for a man who is a public enemy cannot be regarded any longer as a citizen.'

Nevertheless, so persuasive was Caesar that Silanus himself equivocated, saying he had never meant to advocate death for the prisoners, for in the case of Roman senators such as Lentulus and Cethegus 'the supreme penalty' meant imprisonment. This was met with guffaws and cries of disdain from all sides.

More speeches followed, and it appeared that those present were deeply split between execution and banishment. Tiberius Nero drew cries of assent when he argued that no action as drastic as execution should be taken in the heat of the moment, and that to follow Caesar's course was best; nothing should be done without strictly legal trials, he said, and no clear judgments could be rendered until after Catilina had been either driven into exile for good or defeated in the field.

At this point Marcus Cato rose to speak. Though the transcripts do not record it, one can imagine a collective groan from the assembly. Marcus Cato was the self-styled conscience of the Senate, ceaselessly admonishing his fellows to uphold those stern moral principles he inherited from his famous great-grandfather.

'Many a time have I spoken before this body,' he began, 'and many a time have I reproached my fellow citizens for their spinelessness, their self-indulgence, their indolence and greed. By doing so I have made many enemies, but, as I have never excused myself for my own failings, I find no reason to excuse the failings of others. You know my sentiments. You have heard them many times before, and I see your eyes rolling up even now at the prospect of hearing them again. Men do not like being told that they have lost the virtues of their ancestors, especially when it is true. Our forefathers built this empire by hard work, just rule abroad, and integrity within this chamber. Today you pile up riches for yourselves while the state is bankrupt. Posts of honour that should be awarded for merit are sold to ambitious schemers. In your private lives you are slaves to pleasure, and here in the Senate you are mere tools for money and influence. The result? When an assault is made upon the Republic, there is no one here to defend it. Everyone stands around, trembling and confused, waiting for someone else to act!

'Over the years you have taken little notice of my admonishments.

You have shrugged me off and held fast to your reckless course. Fortunately, thanks to the sound foundation laid by our ancestors, the state has withstood your waywardness and has even prospered. Now, however, the issue at stake is not a question of morality, or whether our empire should be even grander and richer than it is. The issue is whether our empire is going to remain our empire or whether we shall lose it to our enemies! In such a crisis, what fool dares to speak to me of clemency and compassion?’

‘For a long time now we have ceased to call things by their proper names. Giving away other people's property is called generosity; seditious ideas are called innovations; criminal daring is applauded as courage. No wonder we've come to such a pass! Very well, let us be liberal at the expense of those who pay taxes, and merciful to those who plunder the treasury. But must we make a gift of our lifeblood to those who would murder us? Must we spare a handful of criminals, only to let them destroy good, honest men?

'We are advised to bide our time, to let our passions cool, to wait for a clearer perspective — while staring into the jaws of an abyss! We are urged to adhere to the letter of the law, to await a formal trial, to allow convicted men the option of exile — while the kindling is being stacked up around our houses! Other crimes can be punished after they have been committed, but not this crime. Nip it in the bud, or else it's too late. Let these traitors take over, and you can forget about invoking the law. When a city is captured, its defeated inhabitants lose everything. Everything!

'If you cannot be stirred to patriotism, then perhaps you can react to self-interest. Let me address myself to those of you who have always been more concerned for your expensive villas, artwork, and silver than for the good of your country. In Jupiter's name, men, if you want to keep those precious possessions that mean so much to you, wake up while there is still time and lend a hand to defend the Republic. We're not talking here about misappropriated taxes, or wrongs done to subject peoples. Here and now it is our lives and liberty that are at stake!

'We may react to this crisis with either strength or weakness. To show weakness would be the most dangerous course, for any mercy you show to Lentulus and the other prisoners is a clear signal to Catilina and his army. The harsher your judgment, the more their courage will be shaken. Show weakness, and like a pack of dogs they will swarm over you and tear you apart. Once that happens, forget about calling upon the gods for help. The gods help those who help themselves!

'Banishment? Imprisonment? What absurd half-measures! These men must be treated exactly as if they had been caught in the act of the offences they contemplated. If you came upon a man setting fire to your house, would you stand back and debate your reaction — or would you strike him down? As for the senator who argues for a lesser punishment — well, perhaps he has less reason to be afraid than the rest of us!'

This was a clear implication that Caesar was somehow connected to the conspirators, and those who sat around Caesar reacted with loud booing and catcalls, until Caesar himself stood up and engaged Cato in a heated debate on the merits of his proposal. Nothing new was said, and no memorable insults were exchanged until, while Cato was speaking, Caesar was handed a letter by one of his secretaries. He began to pore over it, drawing it close to his chest as if it contained a great secret Cato, apparently thinking it was a note from someone involved in the conspiracy, stopped what he was saying and demanded that Caesar read the letter aloud. Caesar demurred, but Cato vehemently insisted until Caesar handed the slip of parchment to his secretary and sent it across the aisle, saying, 'Read it yourself, out loud if you must.'

Cato snapped the letter away from the secretary's hand, held it up, and hurriedly scanned it. While the whole Senate watched, he blushed a purple to match the stripe on his toga. Caesar is said to have barely registered a smile while Cato, sputtering with rage, crumpled the parchment in his fist and hurled it back at Caesar, shouting, 'Take it back, you filthy drunkard!'

In the midst of a debate over life and death and the future of the Republic, Caesar had received a lascivious love letter from Cato's own half-sister, the wayward Servilia, a perennial source of embarrassment to the great moralist. Was this scene contrived by Caesar to discombobulate his opponent in the midst of the deliberations? Or did Servilia, pining away in her house on the Palatine and blithely unconcerned about the crisis that had paralyzed the whole city, simply happen to crave Caesar's attentions with an unusual intensity that afternoon? Even the most outlandish writer of comedies would never have dared to compose a scene of such pungent absurdity.

In the end, it was Cato, discombobulated though he may have been, who carried the day. The Senate voted to exact the supreme penalty on five of the nine prisoners. These included the two senators, Lentulus and Cethegus; two men of equestrian rank, Lucius Statuius and Publius Gabinius Capito; and a common citizen, Marcus Caeparius.

The senators feared that nightfall might bring an attempt to free the prisoners, and no time was wasted in carrying out the sentence. While praetors went to fetch the others, Cicero himself, flanked by numerous senators and an armed bodyguard, went to fetch Lentulus from the house on the Palatine where he was being kept. The senators formed a moving cordon as Cicero escorted the former consul through the middle of the Forum I was among the crowd, holding my breath, listening to the pounding of my heartbeat, alert for the first signs of a riot, my ears pricked for cries of insurrection. But the crowd was hushed and made only a dull, wordless roar like the surging of the sea. I have never seen a crowd in the Forum so subdued. I looked at the men around me, and on their faces I saw that awe which overcomes men when they witness some terrible spectacle. The solemn ritual of death held them spellbound. I thought again of the theatre, with its strange power to remove men from reality and yet bring them face to face with something vaster than themselves. The Senate of Rome was enacting its will, and there was no power on earth that could stop it.

Eco and Meto were with me. I was content to hang back, but Meto wanted to work his way closer to the procession. Beyond the shields and upraised swords of the bodyguard, through a brief opening in the sea of purple-striped togas, I caught a glimpse of Cicero. One arm was at his side; the other was raised to his chest to clutch the hem of his toga. His chin was held high. His eyes looked straight ahead.

Beside him walked another, older man in senatorial garb, whose posture and expression were exactly the same. Lentulus showed no trace of that irascible sarcasm that had earned him his nickname, nor did he bow his head in shame or tremble with fear. Had I not known which was the consul and which the prisoner, by their bearing alone I could not have told them apart Then Lentulus chanced to turn his face in my direction. I caught a glimpse of his eyes and knew that I saw a man approaching his end.

Close by the Temple of Concord, built into the hard stone of the Capitoline Hill, is the ancient state-prison of Rome. The prison was built in the days when kings ruled the city, as a place to put their enemies. Once Rome became a republic, the prison became a place to keep Rome's conquered foes. Its most famous inhabitant in my lifetime had been King Jugurtha of Numidia; after being dragged through the streets of Rome in chains, he and his two sons were taken to the prison and cast into a lightless, airless pit twelve feet underground, reached only through a hole in its stone roof. There they lingered for six days without food or water before being strangled by their jailers.

Lentulus did not have so long to wait. Inside the prison, where the four other prisoners had already been brought, he was stripped of his toga, then escorted to the same pit where the King of Numidia had met his end. As befitted his rank, Lentulus was the first to be lowered through the hole. As soon as his feet touched the ground, executioners strangled him with a noose. One by one the four other condemned men were lowered into the pit to join him in death.

When it was over, Cicero emerged from the prison and announced to the hushed crowd, 'They have lived their lives' — the traditional way to speak of death without saying the ill-omened word itself, so as not to tempt the Fates or raise the lemures of the unquiet dead.

Once the executions were over, a great tension lifted from the city, as when the final words of a tragedy are spoken and the actors leave the stage. Night was falling. The crowd began to disperse. Cicero, surrounded by his bodyguard, made his way across the Forum Sudden cries of acclamation filled the air. Men rushed towards Cicero, calling him the saviour of the city. As he left the Forum and walked through the luxurious neighbourhood of the Palatine towards his house, rich matrons rushed to their windows to see him and sent slaves to put lamps and torches in their doorways, so that his path was brightly lit. He no longer wore a grim face, but smiled, and waved to the crowd as generals do in their triumphal parades.

Thus ended the Nones of December, Cicero's greatest day. To watch the crowd hail him as he ascended the Palatine, one might have believed his triumph was endless and absolute. But when we returned to Eco's house on the Esquiline, we saw no celebrations in the Subura. In its dirty, unlit streets, a sullen silence reigned.

XXXVII

The year dwindled and the winter grew harsher. Cold winds blew from the north. Sleet pelted the shutters at night. Frost covered the earth, and days seemed to grow dark before they had even begun.

Hie shortage of hay on the farm grew acute. 'We should begin to favour the younger, healthier animals’ Aratus told me, 'and to consider slaying some of the others to eat, or else try to sell them at market, even at a loss, rather than see them wither and grow weak. Underfed animals will fall prey to a hard winter. They'll die of illness if not starvation. Better to get some use from them than to watch them slowly die.'

From time to time we saw troops marching up the Cassian Way towards the north, dressed in battle gear and wrapped in their marching blankets. The Senate's forces were gathering strength for a confrontation. One day, when a troop of legionnaires was passing by, I came upon Meto and Diana up on the ridge. He was pointing to the ranks of soldiers passing below and telling her the names and uses of their various weapons and pieces of armour. When he realized that I was behind him, he fell silent and walked away. Diana ran after him, then turned back. She cocked her head and frowned at me. 'Papa’ she said, 'why do you look so sad?'

Eco sent messages from the city to keep me informed of developments. He continued to hear news of uprisings as far away as Mauritania and Spain, but following the executions in Rome a great many of Catilina's supporters abandoned him at once. Still, there were those who persevered in their loyalty, and even within families there had been great upheavals. Most terrifying was the story of a senator's son, Aulus Fulvius, who had left Rome to join Catilina. His rather sent a party of men after him. Aulus was apprehended, brought back to Rome, and put to death by his father.

The Saturnalia came and went without bloodshed. The midwinter holiday was celebrated in Rome as a day of deliverance. Cato declared to the throng in the Forum that Cicero should be saluted as the Father of the Fatherland. The crowd took up the cry without hesitation, and the Senate later passed such a resolution into law. When he began his year as consul, could Cicero have foreseen in his wildest dreams that he would attain such glory?

The first sour note was struck at the beginning of the new year, when Cicero was obliged to lay down his office. Tradition demanded that he should take an oath proclaiming that he had been faithful in his service to Rome, and then be allowed to deliver a valedictory address from the Rostra in the Forum. What a speech Cicero must have been planning! Having once spent several days in his house while Cicero composed his defence of Sextus Roscius, I could imagine him in his opulent library, pacing back and forth, trying out this phrase and that, sending Tiro after various books so as to get every quotation right, polishing and repolishing what was to be the supreme oration of Rome's greatest orator, his declaration to posterity of all his magnificent accomplishments as consul.

But it was not to be. Two of the new tribunes, who had already taken office, used their power to block Cicero from delivering his farewell speech, citing a technicality of the law and saying that a man who had put Roman citizens to death without due process of law could not be allowed to deliver a valedictory address. They occupied the Rostra and would not allow him to mount the platform. Finally they relented, but only to let him pronounce the oath of leaving office. While the tribunes watched, ready physically to remove him, he began the oath — and then quickly improvised: 'I swear… that I did truly save my country and keep her great!'

Cicero may have had the last word that day, but his bitterness at being deprived of his valedictory must have been great. Some say Caesar and the populists were behind the incident. Others say it was Pompey's faction, who were already tired of hearing Cicero proclaim that his execution of the traitors was as great an achievement as Pompey's conquest of the East, and thought that Senator Chickpea needed to be put in his place.

* * *

I was not surprised when Meto came to my library one frosty morning, and said, with his eyes averted, that he wished to leave the farm for a while and go to stay with his brother in the city.

I considered this request for a long moment. 'I suppose, if Eco is — amenable…'

'He is,' said Meto quickly. ‘I know, because I already asked him, when we were in Rome last month.' 'I see.'

'I'm not really needed here. You have all the help you need.' 'Yes, I suppose we can manage without you. Diana will miss you, of course.'

'Perhaps I won't be gone for long.' He sighed and threw up his hands. 'Oh, Papa, can't you see I simply need to get away?'

‘Yes, that much is clear. You're right, it would probably be a good thing for you to be in the city. You're a man now. You need to find your own way. And I know that we can trust Eco to look after you. Which of the slaves will you take with you?'

He averted his eyes again. 'I was thinking that I would go by myself'

'Oh, no, not with the countryside in such turmoil. You can't travel alone. Besides, I can't send you to Eco without sending along a slave to compensate for the extra burden on his household. How about Orestes? He's strong and young.'

Meto merely shrugged.

He left almost at once, having already packed his things the night before. Bethesda waited until after he was gone to start crying. She thought that Meto and I must have had a great row, and pestered me for the details. When I denied this and tried to comfort her, she shoved me from the room and closed the door in my face.

'Perhaps I should flee to Rome myself,' I muttered under my breath.

It was turning out to be a very hard winter.

The next day I took a long walk around the periphery of the farm, thinking that exertion and fresh air might help relieve my depression. I struck out towards the Cassian Way and walked along it towards the north until I came to the low stone wall that separated my land from that of Manius Claudius. What a peculiar fellow he had turned out to be, I thought, remembering the scene he had made at Meto's party. Stealing bits of food to take home with him, and then daring to insult me in my son's home! He was probably in Rome now.

Claudia had said that he preferred the city, especially in the colder months.

The slaves had done a good job of repairing the wall during the summer, but already the rains and the ice were taking a toll; I noticed several small cracks here and there in the mortar. I looked across the open fields that gradually rose towards my house, from which the smoke of wood fires rose into the still air. From such a distance, with the ridge behind it, it looked the very picture of a rich man's peaceful retreat from the city.

I came to the stream and turned south. Except for the evergreens, all the foliage along its course had been stripped naked by the winter, and the stream had frozen over, locking the waterwheel in place until the thaw. Some day, I thought, the controversy over the stream would be settled for good, and I could visit its banks without thinking of lawyers, law courts, and the sour countenance of Publius Claudius. A hill obscured my view of his property, but I could see a plume of smoke rising from his house. What was my neighbour doing on such a day? Probably keeping warm with his little Butterfly, I thought. The memory of my brief visit to his house caused me to shiver.

Following the stream, I came to the thicket at the southwestern corner of the farm, the secret place where I had buried Nemo. Amid the denuded branches it was not hard to find his stele. Who had he been, after all — a pawn of Cicero's, or Catilina's, or of Marcus Caelius? Not far away we had buried the body of Forfex. Though we knew his name, I had buried him as a slave, with only a stone to mark the place.

I climbed the ridge and looked down over all. The view was pleasing, even to a melancholy eye, with its muted shades of grey and umber. I would have stayed longer on the hill, but the cold in my fingers and toes drove me back to the house.

Aratus met me at the door. 'Master,' he said in a low voice, 'you have a visitor, waiting for you in your library.'

'From the city?' I said, feeling a prickle of dread.

'No, Master. The visitor is your neighbour, Gnaeus Claudius.'

'What in the name of Jupiter can he want?' I muttered.

I shrugged off my cloak and headed towards the library. I found Gnaeus seated in a backless chair, looking bored and fingering the little tag attached to a scroll tucked away in its pigeonhole, as if he had never seen a written document before. He raised an eyebrow when I entered but did not bother to stand.

'What do you want, Gnaeus Claudius?'

'Bitter weather we're having,' he remarked in a conversational drawl.

'Beautiful weather in its way, if a little harsh.'

'Yes, harsh, that's what I meant to say. Like country living in general. It's a hard life, running a farm, especially if you don't have a home in town to retreat to. People from the city read a few poems and imagine it's all butterflies and fauns lurking in the woods. The reality is quite different. All in all, I gather you've had a very harsh year here on cousin Lucius's old farm'

'From where did you gather that idea?'

'So my cousin Claudia says.'

'And what concern is that of yours?'

'Perhaps I could help you.'

'I don't think so, unless you have hay to sell me.'

'Of course I don't! You know there are no decent fields on the mountain for growing hay!'

'Then what are you talking about?'

His sudden vehemence slowly faded into a smile. 'I should like to make an offer to buy this farm'

'It's not for sale. If Claudia told you so—'. 'I merely assumed you might be ready to give it up and go back where you belong.'

"This is where I belong.'

'I think not.'

'I don't care what you think.'

'This is Claudian land, Gordianus. It has been Claudian land since—'

'Tell that to the spirit of your late cousin. It was his will that I should have this land.'

'Lucius was always different from the rest of us. He had more money and took everything for granted. No appreciation of his status; no understanding of the importance of keeping plebeians in their place. He'd have left this land to a dog if a dog had been his best friend.'

'I think you should go, Gnaeus Claudius.'

'I came here prepared to make a serious offer. If you're worried that I'll try to cheat you—'

'Did you come by horse? I'll have Aratus fetch it from the stable.' 'Gordianus, it would be best for all concerned—' 'Go now, Gnaeus Claudius!'

* * *

I was still brooding over Gnaeus's visit the next day when a messenger arrived with a letter from Eco. Whatever the news, it would brighten my outlook to hear his sweet, gruff voice in my mind. Perhaps Meto had attached a note as well, I thought. I retired to the library and hastily broke the seal.

Dearest Papa:

Your slave Orestes has arrived with no real explanation for being here. He claims that he set out from the farm with Meto the other day, but that Meto soon turned back, ordering him to go on to Rome without him and to tell me that you were making a gift of him to the household. It seems that Orestes originally thought that he was accompanying Meto to Rome, but at any rate he says that you did intend for him to stay with me for good. (He's strong as an ox, I grant, but not very bright.) Can you explain?

The mood in the city continues to oscillate wildly. I do not think there can be any return to normalcy until Catilina is soundly defeated. At times this seems inevitable, only a matter of days; then one hears rumours that Catilina's forces now include thousands of runaway slaves and his army has grown larger than that of Spartacus at its peak. It is hard to know what to believe from day to day. There even appears to be a kind of backlash against Cicero, at least among those who are not busy proclaiming him to be the greatest Roman who ever lived….

I continued to read long after the words stopped making sense to me. At length, when I put down the letter, I noticed that my hand was trembling.

If Meto was not in Rome, then where was he?

The moment I let myself ask the question, I knew the answer.

'How far away are they? How long will you be gone?' Bethesda demanded.

'How far? Somewhere between here and the Alps. How long? There's no way of knowing.'

'You're sure he's gone to join Catilina?'

'As certain as if he had told me so aloud. What a fool I've been!'

Bethesda did not contradict me. As I hurriedly gathered the things

I would need, she watched me from the doorway, her arms crossed, her back straight, but with a lurking wildness in her eyes that indicated she was secretly distraught and struggling to hide it, I had seldom seen her so upset; to look into her eyes unnerved me. 'What will we do here without you, and without Meto? There could be danger, from runaway slaves, from soldiers. Perhaps Diana and I should go to Rome—'

'No! The roads are too dangerous now. I don't trust the slaves to protect you.'

'But you trust them to protect us here in the house?'

'Bethesda, please! Eco will come. I've already written to him. He could be here as soon as the day after tomorrow, or even late tomorrow night'

'You should stay until then, to make sure he.gets here.'

'No! Every moment that passes — the battle could already be taking place, this very minute — you want Meto to come back, don't you?'

'And what if neither of you comes back?' Her voice was suddenly shrill. She pressed the back of her hand against her lips and shuddered.

'Bethesda!' I clutched her and pressed her hard against me.

She began to sob. 'Ever since we left the city, nothing but trouble…'

I felt a sudden tugging at my tunic and looked down to see Diana's immense brown eyes staring up at me. 'Papa,' she said, somehow oblivious of her mother's anguish, 'Papa, come see!'

'Not now, Diana,'

'No, Papa, you must come see!' Something in her voice compelled me. Bethesda heard it, too, for she drew back, holding in her sobs.

Diana ran ahead of us. We followed her through the atrium and out of the front door. She paused in front of the stable, waved for us to catch up, and ran on ahead. My heart began to pound.

We came to the far side of the stable and turned the corner, out of sight of the house. Empty barrels were stacked against the wall. Diana stood beyond them, pointing at something we could not yet see. I took another step. Beyond the barrels, on the ground against the stable wall, I saw two naked feet.

'Oh, no.' Another step, and I saw the legs as well. 'No, no, no!' Another step, and I saw a white, bloodless torso. 'Not now, not here, not again — impossible!' I took another step and saw all there was to see.

It was a naked corpse, and it had no head.

I buried my face in my hands. Bethesda, oddly, seemed to gain composure from the hideous sight. She took a deep breath. 'Who can it be, I wonder?'

'I have no idea,' I said.

Diana, her mission accomplished, reached up to hold her mother's hand. She looked at me with an expression of mild accusation and disappointment, 'If Meto were here,' she said, 'he'd figure out who it was!'

XXXVIII

'The man who travels alone has a fool for a companion’ runs the ancient proverb, but in the heat of my urgency to reach Meto I felt oddly invincible, as if no ordinary obstacle on the road, no waylaying team of bandits of desperate gang of escaped slaves, could stop me.

This was an illusion, of course, and a dangerous one, and the wiser part of me knew it, but it gave me the fortitude to leave behind the slaves I might have taken as bodyguards, to protect the farm instead. If I could trust them to do so! There was supposed to have been a slave keeping watch atop the stables the night before, and if he had been there he might have seen how the headless body was delivered, and by whom Saying the night had grown too bitterly cold, with tears in his eyes the slave told me he had abandoned his post and begged me not to let Aratus beat him. What else should I have expected? The man was a slave, not a soldier. Even so, I left his punishment to Aratus, whom I charged with making certain there were no such lapses in my absence, or else I would sell him to the mines. I was angry when I said it, and must have sounded convincing; Aratus turned the colour of chalk. As for the new corpse which Diana had discovered, I was able to learn nothing significant from a cursory inspection. I told Aratus to keep the body until Eco arrived; perhaps he would be able to make some sense of it.

It is a strange experience, to travel alone through a countryside braced for war in the dead of winter. The fallow fields on either side were empty and abandoned, and so was the highway. There normally should have been some traffic despite the cold, especially with the sky clear and no prospect of rain, but for hours at a stretch I saw no one. The farmhouses I passed had their doors shut and their windows shuttered, with all the animals put away in barns or in pens hidden from the road. There were not even any dogs to bark a greeting or a warning as I passed. The only signs of life were the unavoidable plumes of smoke that rose from hearth fires. The inhabitants wanted to show no signs of wealth or provisions or even occupancy to anyone passing on the road. They were like the ostriches one sees sometimes at spectacles in the Circus Maximus, digging a hole in the sand and then burying their heads, thinking to hide themselves from the roaring crowd. Had I been any different, thinking I could escape Rome by hiding on my farm? It had certainly not worked for me. Nor, I thought, would it work for these nervous country folk if a ravaging army should happen to pass through. Yet what choice remains to a bird who has wings but cannot fry — unless, I thought, he should summon up the will to fight.

The towns through which I passed sometimes seemed as abandoned as the farms, with all the houses shut up tight and no one in the streets. Yet each town had a tavern or two, and it was in these that all the life seemed to have concentrated. Inside these establishments there was no end to the arguing and debate of the locals who congregated to assure one another that all the battles would be fought elsewhere and all the troops would requisition their provisions from some other hapless town. They were eager to press for news from a stranger passing through, though I had little to give them. And though I was passing through a region where Catilina could claim his greatest support, I heard few words spoken in his favour. Those most enthusiastic for his cause would have gone to join him already, I thought, or else had done so once but had now abandoned him and fled back to where they came from.

I made the journey by long, hard stages, stopping over in towns whose names I never knew, always seeking word of Catilina's movements. Since the executions in Rome, his army had moved back and forth between the Alps and Rome, evading confrontation with the regular armies sent to engage them. At one time his forces were thought to have numbered two full legions, or twelve thousand men, but after the executions and the failure of a general uprising in Rome, me opportunists and adventurers had quickly deserted. Exhausted by forced marches, left hungry by lack of provisions, even those most devoted to its cause began to abandon the rebel army, until there remained only those for whom there could be no turning back. ‘I don't think you'll find Catilina and Manlius with more than five thousand men, if that, and many of them poorly armed,’ a tavern keeper in Florentia told me. He also said that the Roman army under Cicero's fellow consul Antonius had passed through only a few days earlier, pursuing Catilina northwards.

I found them encamped in the foothills of the Apennines, outside a small town called Pistoria. Antonius's much larger force was only a few miles away. In order to reach Catilina, I had to make a great circuit on side roads and across open country, avoiding Antonius's men.

I feared that I might be challenged and attacked as I rode in plain sight down the rocky hillside towards the village of camp fires and tents, but no one took much notice of a lone man on horseback, wrapped in a heavy cloak and wearing no armour. Once within the camp I found myself surrounded by many men who looked no more like soldiers than I did, whose only weapons appeared to be hunting spears and carving knives or even sharpened stakes. Some were younger than me, but many were older. Among these were Sulla's veterans, many of whom wore ancient armour that might have fitted them once but no longer did. Mixed with the ragtag bands were groups of men in decent legionary dress, well-armoured and well-armed, who had the look of disciplined troops.

The mood was less grim than I had expected. The atmosphere was coloured by that sense of shared resignation that makes even strangers seem blood kin. Men laughed and smiled, stood next to blazing fires to warm themselves, and talked to one another in low voices. Their faces were weary and sombre, but their eyes were bright. They appeared hopeless but not despairing — hopeless in the sense of having come to a place beyond hope, which is to say beyond false dreams or vain ambition. They had followed Catilina to this place willingly, and their faces bore no resentment

I searched their faces for the one I sought, suddenly at a loss. Among these thousands of men, how was I to find Meto, if indeed he was here at all? I was weary and had come to the end of a long journey and suddenly seemed to have no energy left But even as I felt gripped by uncertainty, I found that my feet had taken me to the centre of the camp, towards a tent that stood out from the others. Red and gold pennants were posted at its corners, and before it, mounted atop a tall standard, was the silver eagle Catilina had carried with him from Rome. In the cold, bright sunlight it looked almost alive, like the eagle that had come to earth on the Auguraculum on the day of Meto's manhood.

Two soldiers in legionary regalia barred my way. 'Tell Catilina I want to see him’ I said quietly. They looked sceptical. 'Tell him my name is Gordianus the Finder’

They looked at each other sourly. Finally the more senior officer shrugged and stepped inside the tent flap. After along wait he opened it and gestured for me to enter.

The interior of the tent was crowded but orderly. Sleeping cots had been pushed out of the way to make room for small folding tables, upon which maps had been unrolled, with weights to hold down the corners. Leather satchels lay about, stuffed full of documents. Carefully laid out on a table, as if on display, were the ceremonial axes and other insignia that by rights can be carried into battle only by a duly elected magistrate; Catilina must have brought them from Rome, thinking that by such signs he could instill in his men a sense of legitimacy, or perhaps to convince himself of the same.

Among the small circle of men who sat and conferred at the centre of the tent, I first recognized Tongilius, who saw me and nodded. He was resplendent in a shining coat of mail and a crimson cape; with his tousled hair pushed carelessly back from his face, he looked like a young Alexander. Other faces turned to glance at me, and among them I recognized several of the young men with whom I had weathered the howling storm in Gnaeus's mine. There was also a broad-shouldered boulder of a man with white hair and a white beard. His round, ruddy face reminded me of Marcus Mummius. He could only be Manlius, the grizzled centurion who had organized the disgrunded Sullan veterans and was now their general

These men glanced at me for only a moment, then returned their attention to the man who sat with his back to me, speaking to them in a low voice: Catilina. I looked around the room and suddenly noticed another figure who sat by himself on a sleeping cot at a far comer of the tent, bent over a piece of armour that he was furiously polishing. Even from the back I knew him at once, and my heart leaped into my throat.

There was a sudden burst of acclamation from the group of men around Catilina, who had finished his address. The men stood up and quickly filed out of the tent. Tongilius smiled at me as he passed.

Catilina turned around in his chair. His drawn cheeks and feverish eyes made him look more striking than ever, as if the strain of recent days had refined and purified his handsome features. He gave me a quizzical smile. I stiffened the muscles in my jaw to keep from smiling in return.

"Well, Gordianus the Finder. When the guard whispered your name in my ear, I could scarcely believe it. Your timing is impossibly exquisite. Have you come to spy on me? Too late! Or in your own perverse manner, have you finally decided to cast your lot with me at the last possible moment?'

'Neither. I've come for my son.'

'I fear you may be too late,' said Catilina quietly.

'Papa!' Intent on his work, Meto had not heard Catilina speak my name, but at the sound of my voice he put down the armour he had been polishing and turned his head. A succession of emotions animated his face until he abruptly stood and walked stiffly out of the tent.

I turned to follow him, but Catilina gripped my arm. 'No, Gordianus, let him go. He’ll come back in his own time.'

I clenched my fists, but the wiser part of me listened to Catilina and obeyed. 'What is he doing here? He's only a boy!' I whispered.

'But he wants so desperately to be a man, Gordianus. Can't you see that?'

A terrible feeling of dread swept over me. 'None of that matters! I refuse to let him die with you!'

Catilina sucked in his breath and looked away. I had spoken the ill-omened word.

'Oh, Catilina! Why didn't you flee to Massilia, as you said you would? Why did you stay in Italy instead of accepting exile? Did you really think—'

'I stayed because I wasn't allowed to leave! The way was blocked. The Senate's forces in Gaul cut off every pass through the Alps. Cicero had no intention of letting me escape with my life. He wanted a final confrontation. I had no choice. Outmanoeuvred,' he said, dropping his voice to a hoarse whisper. 'Outmanoeuvred at every turn. And my so-called compatriots in Rome — what a pack of fools, letting themselves be duped into that scandal with the Allobroges! That was the end of it. After that… But you were there, weren't you? As was Meto. His report to me was astonishingly vivid. Your son understands everything that's happened. He's incredibly wise for his years. You should be proud of that.'

'Proud of a son I can't understand, who defies me this way?'

'How can you not understand him, Gordianus, when he's exactly like you? Or like you once were, or could have been, or might still be. Brave, as you are. Compassionate, as you are. Committed to a cause, as you might be if you'd allow yourself.

Hungry for all that life has to offer, as you must have been once.'

‘Please, Catilina, don't tell me that you've seduced him, too.' He paused for a long moment then smiled wistfully. 'All right, I won't.'

I walked blindly to the cot where Meto had been sitting. I picked up the breastplate he had been polishing. For a moment I studied my reflection, distorted amid the hammered flourishes of lions' heads and griffins, then threw the breastplate across the room. 'And now you have him polishing your armour, like a slave!'

'No, Gordianus, that's not my armour. It's his. He wants it to be very bright, for the battle.'

I stared at the various pieces on the cot — the greaves to protect his shins, the plumed helmet with its visor, the short sword tucked into its scabbard. The pieces were a hodgepodge that normally would have belonged to men of different ranks; even I could see how makeshift it all was. I tried to imagine Meto wearing it, and could not

'Speaking of fashion,' said Catilina, 'I understand that in my honour the whole Senate staged some sort of ceremony to put off their normal togas and put on special clothing for the duration of the crisis, and have admonished the populace to do likewise. Is that true?'

'Eco mentioned something about it in a letter,' I said dully, staring at the bits of armour. I suddenly felt lightheaded.

'Imagine that! Well, they're always corning up with these ancient ceremonies and customs that no one alive can remember. Some are rather ridiculous, but I rather like this one. I've always been called an arbiter of fashion, and this proves it; I've even got stodgy Cato to change his outfit!'

I lifted my eyes and stared at him. He shook his head.

'No, Gordianus, I'm not mad. But an epigram always relaxes me before a battle.'

'A battle?’

'Within the hour, I imagine. Manlius and Tongilius are gathering the troops to hear me speak. You arrived just in time. Imagine, if you had missed my speech — you'd never be able to forgive yourself! Even so, if you wish to take your leave beforehand, so as to have a head start on eluding the carnage, I won't hold it against you.'

'But here, now—'

'Yes! The moment has arrived. I had hoped to postpone it once again, to buy a little more time. It was my intention to cross these mountains and somehow get to Gaul, taking back roads to evade battle, fighting our way through the passes if we had to, surviving the snowstorms if we could. But when we reached the pass up above, what do you think we saw waiting for us on the other side? Another Roman army. I decided to come back down and face this one. It's commanded by the consul Antonius, you see. He was once sympathetic to my cause. I hear that Cicero bought him off by giving up the governorship he was due at the end of his consulship and letting Antonius have it instead. Still, you never know; Antonius might decide to join me at the last moment. Yes, Gordianus, I know that's impossible, but don't say so aloud! No more ill omens within the tent, if you please. But look here, just as I said: your son returns.'

Meto stood at the entrance. 'I've come to put on my armour,' he said.

'Here, help me with mine first. It will take only a moment.' Catilina stood and raised his arms while Meto fitted a breastplate around him and tightened it, then attached a long crimson cape. He picked up a gilded helmet with a splendid red plume and placed it on Catilina's head.

'There!' said Catilina, observing his reflection in a burnished plate. 'Don't tell Tongilius I let you dress me; he'll be jealous of the honour.' He took his eyes from the mirror and looked at each of us in turn, a long, steady gaze such as one gives to friends before leaving on a long journey. 'I'll leave you alone now. Don't be long.'

Meto watched him depart, then walked to the cot where his armour lay.

'Meto—'

'Here, Papa, help me. Would you bring my breastplate? Somehow it ended up across the room'

I picked it up and went to him. He lifted his arms. 'Meto—'

'It's simpler than it looks. Line up the leather laces with the buckles and fasten the top pair on either side to begin with.' I did as he said, as if I moved in a dream.

'Forgive me for deceiving you, Papa. I couldn't think of any other way.'

'Meto, we must leave this place at once.' 'But this is where I belong.' 'I'm asking you to come home with me.' 'I decline.'

. 'And if I command you as your father?'

His breastplate fully fastened, Meto drew back and looked at me with an expression at once sad and rebellious. 'But you are not my father’ 'Oh, Meto,' I groaned.

'My father was a slave I never knew, as I was a slave’ 'Until I freed you and adopted you!'

One at a time he put his feet on the cot to fasten his greaves into place. 'Yes, the law calls you my father, and by law you have the right to command me, or even to kill me for disobeying you. But we both know that in the eyes of the gods you're not really my father. I have none of your blood in my veins. I'm not even Roman, but Greek, or some mongrel mixture—'

‘You're my son!'

Then I'm a man as well, a free citizen, and I've made my own choice’

'Meto, think of those who love you. Bethesda, Eco, Diana—' From without we heard a trumpet blast.

"That's the signal for Catilina's speech. I have to be there. You should probably leave now, while you still have time, Papa—' He bit his tongue, as if to take back what he had called me, then quickly finished outfitting himself. When he was done, he looked at himself in the burnished plate and seemed gravely pleased. He turned to face me. 'Well, what do you think?' he said, with a trace of shyness.

You see, you are my son. I thought; why else do you seek my praise? But out loud I snapped at him, 'What does it matter?' He lowered his eyes and his cheeks turned red, and now it was my turn to bite my tongue; it would have been worse if I had told him what I truly thought, for as I looked at him dressed in his gleaming, mismatched armour, what I saw was a little boy outfitted in a make-believe costume, pretending to go to war. The idea that others could look at him and see a real soldier, fit to be killed if they could manage it, sent a chill through my heart.

'I can't miss the speech,' he said, walking quickly past me. I followed him out of the tent and across the camp, to a place where a depression in the rocky hillside formed a natural amphitheatre. We worked our way through the dense crowd until we were close enough to see. There was a blare of trumpets to quiet the crowd, and then Catilina stepped forward, resplendent in his armour and wearing a sombre smile on his face.

'No speech from a commander, no matter how rousing or eloquent, ever made a coward brave, or turned a sluggish army into a keen one, or gave men who had no cause to fight a reason to do so. Yet it is the custom for a commander to give his troops a speech before a battle, and so I will.

'One reason for a speech, I suppose, is that in many armies, most of the soldiers have seldom laid eyes on the man who supposedly leads them, much less have spoken to him or been spoken to by him, and so a speech is thought to establish a certain bond. That justification for a speech does not apply here today, for I doubt there is a single man among you whom I haven't personally greeted and welcomed to the ranks of this army, or with whom I haven't shared some moment of hardship or triumph in this struggle. Yet it is the custom for a commander to give his troops a speech before a battle, and so I will.

'I said before that mere words cannot put courage into a man. Every man has a certain degree of boldness, I believe, either inborn or cultivated by training; so much, and no more, does he generally exhibit in battle. If a man is not already stirred by the prospect of glory or by immediate danger, then it is merely a waste of breath to exhort him with rhetoric; fear in the heart makes deaf the ears. Yet it is the custom for a commander to give his troops a speech before a battle, and so I will.'

How peculiar, I thought, for a Roman orator to begin a speech by deriding its importance, to satirize an oration even while orating it, to be unabashedly honest before a crowd of listeners!

Catilina's expression became sombre. 'I will set before you as plainly as I can the prospect we face together, and the stakes for which we fight.

'You know how our allies in Rome have failed us, what a lack of judgment and enterprise was shown by Lentulus and his friends, and how disastrous it has been for themselves and for us. Our present predicament is as obvious to all of you as it is to me. Two enemy armies now bar our way, one between us and Gaul, the other between us and Rome. To remain where we are is impossible, for we have run short of grain and other supplies. Whichever path we decide to take, we must use our swords to cut our way through.

'Therefore I counsel you to be resolute and to summon up whatever measure of courage you have. When you go into battle, remember that riches, honour, glory, and, what is more, your liberty and the future of your country are held in the hand that wields your weapon. If we win, we shall obtain all we need to continue; towns will open their gates to us with thanksgiving and we shall be showered with supplies. New recruits will join us, and we shall grow again in strength and numbers. The tide that flows against us will be turned and will carry us to glory. But if tear causes us to flinch, the whole world will turn against us: no one will shield a man whose own arms have failed to protect him.

'Keep in mind that our adversaries are not impelled by the same necessity as we are, nor by as just a cause. For you and me, country, justice, and liberty are at stake. They, on the other hand, have been ordered into battle to protect a ruling elite for which they can have little love. We have chosen our glorious course; we have endured exile and hardship; we have proclaimed to the world that we will not return to Rome with our heads bowed in shame, willing to live out our lives as the cringing subjects of unworthy rulers. The men we are to face, on the other hand, have already submitted to the yoke of their masters and closed their eyes to any other course. Which of these armies will show the more spirit, I ask you — those whose eyes are meekly cast down or those whose eyes are on the heavens?'

To this question Catilina received a great cheer, and among the other voices Meto's rang in my ears, crying out the name of his commander. The din went on and on. Swords were beaten against shields to produce a deafening clang. The noise died down, only to spring up again in a great roar that covered my arms with gooseflesh. At last Tongilius stepped forward and raised his arms for silence so that Catilina could go on.

He had begun his speech in a dry, sardonic tone, asifby his own brash example he could lend spirit to his men. But I think he was moved by their accolades, for he ended with a quaver in his voice. 'When I think of you, soldiers, and consider what you've already achieved, I have high hopes for victory. Your boldness and valour give me confidence. We will fight upon a plain. To our left are mountains, and to our right is rough, rocky ground. In this confined space, the enemy's superior numbers cannot encircle us. We shall face them man to man, with courage and just cause as our strongest weapons. But if, in spite of this, Fortune robs your valour of its just reward, do not sell your lives cheaply. Do not be taken and slaughtered like catde! Fight like men: let bloodshed and lamentation be the price that the enemy must pay for his bitter victory!'

Another cheer went up, echoing between the hills on either side. It was ended by blaring trumpets, calling for the troops to take up their battle formations. All around us men began to move with quick determination. Meto seized my arm with a bruising grip.

'Go now! If you take your horse, you may be able to escape the way you came, or else head up towards the pass and find some trail to lead you back down again when the battle's over.'

'Come with me, Meto. Show me the way.'

'No, Papa! My place is here.'

'Meto, the cause is hopeless! Never mind Catilina's speech. If you could have heard the way he spoke to me in the tent—'

'Papa, there's nothing you know that I do not. My eyes are open.'

And fixed on the heavens, I thought. 'Very well, then. Can you equip me with some sort of armour?' 'What?’

'If I'm to stay here and fight beside you, I'd like to have something more suitable than the dagger in my belt, though many of these wretches don't appear to have anything better.'

'No, Papa, you can't stay!'

'How dare you say that to me! Would you stand your ground and deny me the same honour?'

'But you've given it no thought—'

'No, Meto, on the journey here I had many hours to think. I imagined this moment long before it came. In my imagination it sometimes turned out considerably more to my liking, but sometimes it turned out much worse -1 thought I might find you dead without ever seeing you again, or find only a pit filled with dead bodies, with nothing to show me which was yours. This is better than that, and not as bad as I had feared. For one thing, I'm not as frightened as I thought I would be, at least not yet. No, Meto, this is my deliberate and premeditated choice, to fight beside my son.'

'No, Papa, it must be for Catilina, for what he represents, if it's to mean anything!'

'That is your cause, Meto; but very well, I'll fight for Catilina. Why not? The truth, Meto: if I had the power of Jupiter I'd wave a thunderbolt and give Catilina everything he wants. Why not? I'd resurrect Spartacus from the dust and let him have his way as well. I'd roll back time and see that Sulla was never born, or Cicero for that matter. I'd change the world in the blink of an eye, for better or worse, merely to see it changed into something different. But I cannot do those things, and neither can anyone else. So why not take up a rusty sword and run screaming into battle beside my son, for the glory of what he loves with all his foolish young heart?'

Meto looked at me for a long time with an unreadable expression in his eyes. He must believe I'm mad, or lying, or both, I thought. But when he finally spoke, he said: 'You are my father.'

'Yes, Meto. And you're my son.'

Men ran madly around us. Horses neighed, metal clanged on metal, officers shouted, trumpets blared. At last Meto took my arm. 'Come, hurry, I think there's enough spare armour in Catilina's tent to put something together for you!'

And so at the age of forty-seven I became a soldier for the first time in my life, outfitted in scraps of cast-off armour, wearing a coat of mail with half the scales missing and a much-dented helmet shaped like a hewn-off pumpkin, wielding a blunted sword for a hopeless cause under a doomed commander. I felt I must be approaching the very heart of the Labyrinth; I could almost smell the Minotaur's hot breath upon my face.

There is not much I can do to describe the battle, as I never knew quite where I was or quite what was happening. It seems that Catilina arrayed his forces in three parts, with Manlius on one side, another commander on the other, and himself in the centre surrounded by his ardent young followers and a picked body of well-armed fighting men, along with Meto and myself. We marched forward with Tongilius carrying the eagle standard until Catilina chose the spot where he would make his stand, and there Tongilius planted the standard in the ground. There was no cavalry, only infantry, for before the battle Catilina saw that all the horses were driven back towards the mountains. By doing this he showed his men that their commanders could not flee, and that their danger was shared by all alike.

The danger approached like a great crimson and silver tide, drawing towards us with a roar unlike anything I had ever heard. I know now how it must be for the enemies of Rome when they see their doom approaching. I was awed and horrified, and yet not frightened. Fear seemed pointless in the face of such catastrophe. Why should a simple man cringe with fear for his simple life, when the whole world was about to end in screaming madness?

I felt no regret, but I did feel something of a fool, for I could not help thinking to myself: stupid man, Bethesda will never forgive you for this. And it was that I feared, more than the jagged wall of steel bearing down on us.

I stayed close beside Meto, who stayed close beside Catilina. There was a great deal of running, sometimes from one side to the other, sometimes forward, but never back. I remember an arrow that whirred by my ear and struck a man behind me with a sickening thud. I remember soldiers, men I had never seen before, rushing towards me with swords in their hands and murder in their eyes; it all seemed so unlikely that I only wanted the nightmare to end. But the sword in my hand seemed to know what to do, so I followed it blindly.

I remember foaming blood sprayed upon my face like the pounding surf of the ocean. I remember seeing Catilina, his face contorted into a terrible grimace, his sword arm slashing, with an arrow projecting from his left shoulder and blood spilling down his glistening breastplate. I remember seeing Meto rush to Catilina's side with grim determination on his face, hewing a path with his sword as if he had been doing such things all his life. I hurried after him but tripped over something solid and fleshy. As I spun around, I glimpsed Tongilius in the throng behind me, bringing up the eagle standard, for with Catilina leading we had cut our way deep into the enemy's line. I gained my footing again and looked frantically for Meto, who had disappeared in the chaos.

Then, from the comer of my eye, I saw the spear approaching. I remember watching, transfixed, as it came hurtling straight towards my forehead. It seemed to move very slowly, and everything in the world, including myself, came to a sudden stop awaiting its arrival; so slowly did it approach that I felt like a man on a pier waiting for a boat to arrive. It drew closer and closer, and when it was very, very close the world abruptly jerked back into frantic motion. The absurd thought struck me that I really should be doing more than I was to get out of the thing's way — then the spear struck its target with a peculiar sound of crumpled metal and all at once I was flying backwards through the air. Behind or above me — direction lost all meaning — I caught a glimpse of the eagle banner as it wavered and tottered and went crashing to the ground like myself, and then the blood-red world turned darkest black.

XXXIX

I sat on a hard rock surrounded by rough-hewn walls of black stone, with black stone underfoot and above my head. I thought at first that the place was a cave, but the walls were too angular to be natural, and the air was warm, not cold and clammy. Perhaps it was the old silver mine up on Mount Argentum, I thought, but that was all wrong. I was in the famous Labyrinth of Crete, of course, for peering at me from around a corner, its horns making a vast shadow on the wall beyond, was the Minotaur itself.

The thing was quite close to me, so close that I could see the glistening flesh of its great black nostrils and the glint in its great black eyes. I should have been mad with fear, but strangely I was not. All I could think was that the beast's nostrils, moist and porous and sprouting a few coarse hairs, looked very delicate and sensitive, and that its eyes were rather beautiful in a bovine way. It was a living creature, and amid so much hard, bloodless stone anything made of living flesh seemed precious and rare, something to be cherished, not feared. Even so, as the beast stepped from around the corner and drew closer, its two hooves clicking on the stone, I was a bit unnerved at the sight of a bull who walked upright and had a human torso. I noticed also that its tall, curving horns had very sharp points and were marked by a stain the colour of rust.

The Minotaur snorted, spraying steam from its dripping black nostrils. It stopped a few steps away and cocked its head. When it spoke, it was in a voice that seemed somehow disguised, for it sounded hoarse and unnatural. 'Who are you?' it said.

'My name is Gordianus.'

'You don't belong here.'

'I came here to find something.'

"That was foolish. This is a maze, and the purpose of a maze is to mislead.'

'But I've found my way to you.' 'Or did I find my way to you?'

I felt a quiver not of fear but of uncertainty, so profound that it made my head ache. I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them again, I felt that something had changed, and realized that the stone walls around me had faded away. Even so, it was still quite dark. I was atop a high hill beneath starlight, looking down on a country scene — a stream with a water mill, a stone wall in the distance, a road, a farmhouse. It was my farm, I realized, though I was seeing it from an unfamiliar angle. I seemed to be on a ridge, though not the ridge I was used to. The view was oddly tilted and askew.

We were no longer alone. I turned and saw three naked, headless bodies seated on tree stumps in a row with their hands in their laps, like, spectators at a play, or judges at a trial

'Who are they? What are they doing here?' I asked the Minotaur in a hushed, confidential tone, though the others were clearly deaf, blind, and dumb. 'You know, don't you?'

The Minotaur nodded.

'Then tell me.'

The Minotaur shook its head. 'Speak!'

The beast snorted through its great, black, steaming nostrils and said nothing. It raised a human arm and pointed at something on the ground beside me. I looked down and saw a sword. I picked it up and weighed it in my grip, pleased by the way it gleamed beneath the starlight. 'Speak, or I shall make you join them,' I said, pointing with the sword to the three headless witnesses.

The Minotaur remained mute. I stood and brandished the blade. 'Speak!' I said, and when the beast refused, I swung the sword with all my strength and cut clear through its great bullish neck. As its head tumbled away, I saw that the Minotaur was hollow inside; its body was only a costume, and its head a mask. The true head began to emerge from within. I stepped back, my temples aching from the suspense.

Then I knew the truth…

* * *

And then I awoke, with a hammering, blinding pain in my head. Someone touched my shoulder and spoke in a low voice. 'It's all right, don't move. You're safe. Can you hear me?'

I opened my eyes and shut them against the brutal light. If I kept still, the pain receded. I caught my breath and heard myself groan. I put my hand over my face and cautiously opened my eyes again, not to harsh sunlight as I had thought, but to the soft, filtered light of a tent. For a moment I thought I was back in Catilina's tent, and wondered how I had got there. If his tent still stood, if his camp was intact, then — I lowered my hand and saw a face so unexpected that I was cast into utter confusion. A shock of red hair, a spangling of freckles across a handsome nose, and a pair of bright brown eyes looking into my own: my friend the augur, Marcus Valerius Messalla Rufus.

'Rufus?'

'Yes, Gordianus, it's me.' 'Are we in Rome?'

'No.’

'Then where?'

'Far to the north, near a town called Pistoria. There was a battle—'

'Are we in Catilina's camp?'

He sighed in such a way that I knew no such place existed any longer. 'No. This is the camp of Antonius.' 'Then—'

'You're very lucky to be alive, my friend.' 'And Meto?' My chest constricted. 'It was Meto who saved you.' 'Yes, but—'

'He lives, Gordianus,' said Rufus, seeing my fear. "Thank the gods! Where is he?'

'He'll be here soon. When I saw you were stirring, I sent a man to fetch him.'

I sat up, clenching my teeth at the pain in my head. My limbs and torso appeared to be intact. I looked around and saw that there was no one in the tent but Rufus, unless one counted the clucking chickens who inhabited the cages stacked near the tent flap. Looking at them suddenly made me feel hungry.

'How long since the battle?'

"That was yesterday.'

'How did, I get here?'

'Your son is a very brave young man. When he saw you had fallen, he rushed to you and carried you out of danger, behind the lines, beyond the camp, up among the boulders in the foothills. He must have been utterly exhausted. Can you imagine how much you both weighed, wearing that armour? And you a dead weight? And of course he was bleeding from his own wounds—'

'His wounds?'

'Never fear, Gordianus, they were minor. He made sure you were far from the danger; then he must have collapsed from exhaustion. He was found unconscious beside you.'

'By whom?'

'After the battle Antonius's reserves were sent to scour the hills. They were ordered to take any man prisoner who was willing to give himself up, and to offer battle only to those who offered it first. Do you know how many prisoners they came back with? Exactly two: yourself and Meto, both unconscious. Of all Catilina's army, only you two survived — such a curious omen that it was thought an augur should come to see it. I was summoned, and once I saw who it was, I put you under my protection and had you brought to my tent. When he awoke, Meto explained to me how you both came to be in Catilina's camp. He went out just a short while ago to look for something to eat.'

"Then I hope he brings something back with him,' I said, clutching my stomach. 'I don't know which feels emptier, my stomach or my head! Only we two, you say; then Catilina — '

'Gone, with all the rest. To a man, they died bravely, and took many lives with them. All morning the soldiers here in camp have been talking about it, saying they never before encountered so much resistance from such an outnumbered foe. Catilina's commanders all died in the front ranks. Each position was held fast until every man defending it was dead, and all their wounds were in front. They exacted a terrible toll: before it was over, all of Antonius's best fighters were dead or severely wounded.'

'And Catilina? How did he die?'

'He was found far from his own men, deep within enemy ranks among the bodies of his adversaries. His garments and armour and flesh were all the same colour, soaked red with blood. He was pierced by more wounds than could be counted, yet he was still breathing when they found him. They called me to hear his testament if he should speak; he never opened his eyes or uttered a word. But by his face you could see that he was himself to the end. Until his final breath he wore that expression of haughty defiance that caused so many men to hate him.'

'And made others love him,' I said quietly.

'Yes.'

'I know that expression. I should like to have seen his face.'

'You still may,' said Rufus. Before I could ask him what he meant, from outside we heard a sudden wail of grief so wrenching that it froze my blood. 'That's been going on all morning,' sighed Rufus. 'No cries of jubilation and victory, only lamentations. Men have been wandering about the battlefield, some to strip armour from the dead, others to see the scene by the next day's light, as men like to do in places where they've fought. They turn over the mangled corpses of the enemy and what do they find? The faces of friends and relatives and boys they grew up with. This has been a terrible and bitter victory.'

'Why did you come, Rufus?'

'To serve as augur, of course. To take the auspices before the battle.'

'But why you?'

'The Pontifex Maximus appointed me to do so,' he said, then looked at me shrewdly. 'Which is another way of saying that I came at Caesar's behest.'

'To be his eyes and ears.'

'If you like. As augur I can be privy to all that happens without staining my own hands with Roman blood. I sit in on the councils of war, but I do not make war. I only interpret the mood of the heavens.'

'In other words, you're here as Caesar's spy.'

'If a man can be a spy when everyone knows his role.'

'Does the intrigue never end?'

'Nunquam,' he said, gravely shaking his head. Never.

'I don't suppose Antonius ever showed the slightest hesitation about destroying his old colleague. Catilina had hoped he might waver.'

'He did, in his way. He was struck by a bad case of gout just before the battle, and put one of his lieutenants in charge. During the actual fighting Antonius was in bed with his tent flap tied shut. No one can say he failed to pursue his old friend Catilina, as he was charged to do by the Senate; nor can anyone say, strictly speaking, that he took part in Catilina's destruction. Soon the old goat will be off to enjoy the lucrative governorship in Macedonia he finagled from Cicero, and Rome will have one less hypocrite to clutter up the Forum.'

I shook my head, then winced at the lightning behind my eyes. 'My head feels like an overripe gourd.'

'And looks like one, too.' Rufus smiled. 'You have a knot on your forehead the size of a walnut.'

There was a noise at the tent nap. I turned my head too quickly and fell back against the cot, groaning. The sound must have been more alarming than the actual pain, for Meto was quickly at my side, clutching me and asking Rufus through clenched teeth, 'Is he—'

'Your father is well except for the pain in his head.'

I opened my eyes and saw Meto for only an instant before his image was blurred by tears. The tears seemed to carry away some of the ache behind my eyes, which was good, for I had many tears to spill. But tears would never make Meto the way he had been before. Rufus had said his wounds were minor, and by the scale of suffering around us he was correct, for Meto still walked and breathed and had all his parts. But the blade that had sliced away a bit of his left ear and cut a gash all the way to the corner of his mouth would leave him with a scar that he would carry forever.

It was impractical and inadvisable for Meto to speak, because the movement of his jaw pulled at the torn flesh of his wound. Rufus had fashioned for him a simple bandage to tie around his head, which kept his mouth shut and also covered the cut. When I first saw him, he had removed the bandage for a while to take a little food and water.

It was hardly easier for me to speak, or listen for that matter, because of the throbbing in my head. Perhaps it was just as well, for words could only have obscured the feelings that passed between us as he sat beside my cot, holding my hand.

I did manage to tell him about the new corpse which had appeared just before I left the farm, and also of my dream about the Minotaur, and what I had surmised from it, I knew now who had left the bodies on the farm, and why, and with whose assistance. Meto was taken aback at first, disbelieving, and questioned me through clenched teeth, but as I laid before him the bits of evidence that came to my mind, he was compelled to agree with what the dream had told me.

I longed to go home. Now that Meto was safe, I brooded over the safety of Bethesda and Diana, whom I had left at the mercy of the Minotaur. Had Eco come, as I asked him to? Even if he had, bringing Belbo and a dozen bodyguards with him, I feared that he might fail to protect them, not knowing what to protect them from The Minotaur was growing more desperate and more devious. But when I stood up and attempted to dress myself, I barely managed to stagger back to the bed. Riding a galloping horse would have been a torture impossible to bear.

Rufus offered me nepenthes for my pain and also to help me sleep. I refused him, telling him that there must be wounded men in the camp in far more agonizing pain than I was, who could use the same draught of forgetfulness to ease their release into death. Still, I think he must have put some poppy juice in the wine he brought me later, for despite my pain and the turmoil of my worries, I slipped into a fretless, healing sleep unhaunted by Minotaurs or any other monsters.

I woke only once in the night, to a darkness lit by a single small lamp and the sound of two voices quietly conversing.

'But the eagle at the Auguraculum, and Catilina's eagle—' I heard Meto say, his voice constricted by the bandage around his head.

'Yes, I agree, these were signs and you read them rightly,' said Rufus. 'It was the will of the gods that you should fight beside Catilina.'

'But I should have stayed with Papa! I only ended up taking him away from Bethesda and Diana when they needed him most — when they needed both of us to protect them. If something terrible has happened on the farm—'

'You can't blame yourself, Meto. There are forces greater than ourselves that drive us through this world, just as winds drive sailing ships or make feathery seeds go dancing on the air. To submit to the wind that brought you here was not a folly.'

'But if that was my destiny, I should have died fighting beside Catilina! It was what I thought would happen. I was ready; I didn't fear it. But when I saw Papa fall, I had to go to him. When I saw he was still alive, I couldn't leave him there. I left the battle and carried him to safety, meaning to return, but my strength deserted me and the enemy found me unconscious. I should fall on my sword in shame!'

'No, Meto. You told me something earlier, about the eagle standard. You said that just before you went to your father, you saw the standard totter and fall.'

'Yes, Tonguius was struck in the eye by an arrow. The standard fell and there was no one to pick it up.'

'Don't you see? An eagle appeared to us all at the Auguraculum, to signal the beginning of your manhood. When you first saw Catilina's silver eagle, you recognized it as an omen and followed it all the way here and into battle. But when that eagle fell, not to rise again, you were released. You had done what you were meant to do. It was the gods' way of telling you to leave Catilina, whom the gods themselves could no longer help, and to go to your rather, whom you alone could help. You did the right thing.'

'Do you really think so, Rufus?'

'I do.'

'And I'm not just a coward or a fool?'

'To follow a dream is never the act of a coward; to lay that dream aside in the fullness of time is the opposite of foolishness. To carry a man over your shoulders across a battlefield is not the act of a coward; to do so for the sake of your father marks you not as a fool but as a Roman, Meto. Ah, your rather seems to be stirring. Gordianus? No, I see he's still asleep. But look, he's smiling; his pain must have eased, for him to be having such pleasant dreams.'

The next morning I felt remarkably better. Long hours of sleep and the draught of nepenthes must have sorted out the jumbled humours in my head, and the walnut on my forehead had miraculously shrunk to a chickpea. Rufus fretted that I was not yet ready to travel, but when I insisted, he said he would supply horses for us.

'We're not prisoners, then? We're free to go?' I said.

Rufus smiled. 'Certain privileges are allowed to an augur who represents the Pontifex Maximus himself Let us say that, like nepenthes, I have been able to induce forgetfulness. Officially neither of you ever existed. No prisoners were taken at the battle of Pistoria; every one of Catilina's men died in combat. So the Senate will be told, and so the historians will record it. You're both remarkably lucky, not just to be alive but to have each other. Fortune smiles on you, Gordianus.'

"Then I pray she continues to smile,' I said, thinking of the farm and what might have transpired in my absence.

No one took any notice of us as we mounted our horses and made our way through the makeshift lanes and thoroughfares that threaded among the tents and bonfires. A sombre mood prevailed, but there was also that hint of anarchy that enters such encampments when the battle is won and danger has departed. Men sat about in groups, drinking wine, arguing over details of the battle, gambling and haggling over the loot they had stripped from the dead.

Towards the rear of the camp our route took us by the commander's tent. Was Antonius still hiding inside, crippled by gout? I smiled at the thought, but the smile stiffened on my face when I saw the trophy erected on a spit outside the tent. Meto must have seen it in the same instant, for I heard him suck in his breath through clenched teeth.

Now I knew what Rufus had meant when he had said that I might see Catilina's face again.

They had saved it so that it might be taken to Rome and shown to the Senate and the people as proof of his demise. Those who had feared him would have their fears allayed; those who had wished for his triumph would see their wishes shattered; those who might want to emulate him would be given a vivid warning. 'I see two bodies, one thin and wasted, but with a swollen head, the other headless, but big and strong,' he had told the Senate. 'What is there so dreadful about it, if I myself become the head of the body which needs one?' But now the head of Catilina, bloody and torn at the neck, was mounted on a stake outside the tent of his conqueror, of no more use to anyone. The expression of haughty disdain frozen upon his features was wasted on the impervious flies which buzzed about his eyes and hps.

I swallowed hard. Beside me Meto made a peculiar sound, a great sob stifled by the bandage that kept his jaw shut. We paused for a long moment, gazing upon Catilina for the last time. It was Meto who turned away first, snapping his reins and kicking his horse to a gallop. He raced through the camp and I followed, past startled soldiers who shook their fists and cursed, and slaves who stooped to pick up their scattered burdens. Meto did not slow his steed until he was well out of the camp and onto the open road, where the cold grey sky and the naked hills seemed to offer a kind of solace.

XL

Travelling south, I found the mood of the countryside no different from when I had travelled north, for we were ahead of the news that Catilina had been defeated and killed. I had no wish to be the bearer of tidings, welcome or not, and kept my mouth shut at the places where we stopped. This was hard to do when I heard men speak of the glorious future that Catilina would bring, or heard others make the same weary jokes about the ruining of a Vestal Virgin, or heard others rant against his vile habits and mad schemes. I feared that Meto would feel compelled to shout and argue, and might reopen his wound, but he bore all that was said about Catilina with the taciturn, hard-jawed stoicism of a true Roman.

On the morning of our return, when we at last drew near the farm and the countryside grew more familiar, I felt my spirits lift. A light mist covered the earth, muting the subtle colours of winter and softening the world's sharp edges. The air in my lungs was cold and invigorating. We were almost home. What was done was done, and life could begin again. Of course there was the matter of confronting the Minotaur, but so long as nothing terrible had taken place in my absence, I almost looked forward to the meeting. At least it would mean an end to the mounting collection of unwanted corpses on my property, and an end to my ongoing displays of wrongheaded deduction.

Meto was glad to be home, too. When we turned off the Cassian Way onto the dirt road, he broke into a gallop, and so did I. A slave was posted on the roof of the stable and stood up to scrutinize us as we approached. Good, I thought; a close watch was being kept even in daylight, just as I had ordered. When the slave recognized us, he began to call out, The Master! And young Meto!'

As we were dismounting in front of the stable, Eco stepped out of the house. I smiled at him, but he did not smile back. He must have noticed Meto's bandage, I thought, and was worried by it. But then Bethesda came ranning after him. She could not yet have seen Meto's bandage, but her face was red from crying. She ran past Eco, who was walking towards us as if every step caused him pain. She clutched my arms so hard that I thought her nails would tear the sleeves of my tunic.

'Diana!' she said, in a voice hoarse from crying. 'Diana is gone!'

Everything changed in an instant, as if night had fallen in the blink of an eye, or the air had somehow frozen solid.

'Gone?' I said. 'Do you mean—'

'Missing,' said Eco.

'For how long?'

Bethesda spoke in a rush. 'Since yesterday. I was with her all morning, and at midday she ate, but after that — it wasn't until the middle of the afternoon that I realized she must be gone. I took a nap — oh, if only I hadn't. When I woke up I couldn't find her. I called for her everywhere, I shouted until I was hoarse, until long after it was dark, but there was no answer and she never came. How could she be lost? She knows every part of the farm, and she knows better than to go wandering beyond it. I don't understand — '

I looked at Eco. 'The well?' I said.

He shook his head. 'I looked there, and in every other place I could think of where she might have fallen or hurt herself. The slaves have combed the property from end to end, more than once. There's no sign of her.'

'Meto!' cried Bethesda suddenly, seeing his bandage for the first time. She stepped away from me and put her arms around him. 'And the neighbours?' I said to Eco..

'I've gone to see all four of them. They all claim complete ignorance, but who knows? If I had cause to blame one of them, I'd gladly burn down his house to make him tell the truth.'

'Who saw Diana last?'

'She wasn't satisfied with her midday porridge and wanted more. Bethesda was asleep, so Diana took it on herself to go into the kitchen for another helping. Congrio says he teased her about being such a glutton, but gave her another bowl. She ate it there in the kitchen, and then she ran outside to play. But no one seems to have seen her—'

'Meto!' cried Bethesda as he tore himself from her arms and ran towards the house.

'Come, Eco, hurry, before he kills him?’ I cried, running after Meto.

By the time I reached the kitchen, Congrio had already been knocked to the floor. He was on his back, a look of surprised panic in his eyes, with his hands raised to shield his face. Meto wielded a heavy iron poker from the furnace and was swinging it without restraint. The metal made a curiously pleasant sound as it connected with the soft flesh that padded Congrio's body. ‘Where is she? Where is she?' Meto kept growling through clenched teeth, while Congrio wailed and screamed.

'Meto, I've already questioned him!' protested Eco, who made a move to stop the beating, then jumped back as Meto swung the poker wildly. With Eco out of the way, Meto resumed the bearing, striking the plump cook again and again. I didn't have to see his face to know the satisfaction he felt by giving in to such unchecked violence, for I felt it, too. All his despair and bitterness was being vented against the helpless body that kicked and screamed on the floor.

'Papa, stop him! He'll kill the poor slave!' cried Eco.

'As well he might, but not before we find out what he knows,' I said. 'All right, Meto, enough. Enough.!' Holding my hands before my face, I managed to intervene and grab Meto's arm as he raised it to deliver another blow. He fought against me for a moment, then clumsily transferred the poker to his other hand, as if he meant to go on beating Congrio, but Eco was able to wrest the weapon from him, and I was able to hold his arms at his sides long enough for him to gain control of himself. Congrio, meanwhile, lay blubbering and gasping on the floor.

'Torture him, Papa! Make him talk!' snarled Meto.

'Yes, I will if I have to.' I turned towards Congrio, intending to deliver the hardest kick I could manage, but the sight he presented was so pathetic I refrained.

'Please, Master, don't hurt me!' he wept, and when Meto moved menacingly towards him he shrieked. 'I know nothing!'

'Liar!' I couldn't resist kicking him then. His squealing reaction gave me a taste of Meto's joy. 'liar! I know about you already. You'll be lucky if I let you live after what you've done. Now tell me what's become of Diana, or by Jupiter I'll torture you until you do!'

Congrio was very forthcoming after that

'We mustn't give ourselves away too soon,' I cautioned Meto and Eco as we guided our horses off the Cassian Way. Belbo was also with us, along with ten other slaves, most of them burly strong-armers whom Eco had brought when he came up from Rome, and all of them armed with daggers. Ahead of us, mosdy hidden beyond a copse, was the little farmhouse. A plume of smoke rose from the house, which meant that our quarry was probably still about and had not fled to Rome or elsewhere. Diana, I prayed, was also within the house, but the thought of how we might find her caused my chest to tighten and made my stomach twist into knots.

'Since you were already here yesterday asking questions, Eco, perhaps they won't be too surprised to see you again. The important thing is to get inside, and then to move very quickly.'

'Don't worry, Papa, we talked about all this before we left the house,' said Meto. 'We know what to do.'

In the copse, hidden by the dense, naked branches, the slaves dismounted and tied their horses. Meto, Eco, and I rode on alone. It was the quiet hour after midday, and no one was stirring outside. When we reached the house we dismounted and Eco rapped on the door. An old slave woman with silver hair opened it, 'Ah, you,' she said, recognizing Eco, then squinting past him to scrutinize Meto and me.

'My father and brother, just returned from a long journey,' Eco said. "They've come to ask about my sister, as I did. For their own satisfaction, you understand.'

The slave woman nodded uncertainly. 'Ah, yes. Well, let me go and tell—'

'Eco, is that you again?' crooned a familiar voice from within. A dim figure appeared inside the dark house and approached us. 'Oh, my dear boy, I wish I had news for you, but I fear that nothing — oh, and your father as well. And Meto, wearing an awful bandage!' she said, stepping into the light of the doorway, pushing a handful of frazzled red hair from her face.

‘Yes, Claudia, we've come to ask for your help,' I said.

"Then poor Diana is still missing?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, dear, and I had so hoped that she would turn up at your house before darkness fell last night. You must be so terribly worried.' 'We are.'

'Especially Bethesda. I've never known a mother's joys myself, nor a mother's sorrows, but she must be utterly distraught! But I'm afraid I have nothing new to tell you. I had my slaves scour the property, just as you asked, Eco, but they found no trace. If you wish, you could send over some of your own slaves to search — just to satisfy yourselves. I can understand that,'

'You would allow that, Claudia?'

'Of course.'

'Would you let us search inside your stable and your outbuildings?'

'If you wish. I don't see how she could have got inside any of those places without my slaves knowing, or how she could stay unseen, unless she's intentionally hiding for some reason — but search if you wish.'

'And would you let us search even inside your house, Claudia?' Her mask slipped a bit. 'Well…'

'In your private rooms, in your bedroom, for instance? In places no outsider would ordinarily see?'

'I'm not sure what you mean, Gordianus. The child could hardly be in my house without my knowing it, could she?'

'No, I don't imagine she could.'

For an instant her eyes grew hard and glittering, then Claudia drew her brows together and pressed her mouth into a sweetly indulgent pout. 'Oh, Gordianus, how distraught you must be to be talking like this. Certainly, search wherever you wish! Do it right now, to set your mind at ease, so that you can get on with your searching elsewhere.'

'We shall,' I said, and as swiftly and smoothly as I could, as if I were taking her in my arms to kiss her neck, I spun her around and put my dagger to her throat. She opened her mouth and distended her throat to make a noise, but cringed at the touch of the sharp blade and choked instead. I pulled her out of the house into the cold sunlight, while Meto ran inside and Eco called for the slaves.

We met no resistance. The elderly door slave screamed in alarm, and Claudia's slaves came running, some with daggers or clubs, but when they saw their mistress's predicament they drew back and watched dumbly as my men ransacked the stable and the wine press, the tool sheds and the slave quarters, and then searched the house.

'You're making a horrible mistake,' said Claudia.

"The horrible mistake will be yours if you've done anything to harm her,' snapped Eco, running into the house to join the others in the search.

'The child is not here.'

'But she was brought here,' I said. 'It's no use lying, Claudia. Congrio has betrayed you. Go ahead, stamp your foot and struggle; if you cut your throat it'll be your own fault.'

She growled, and I felt the vibration of her throat against the blade. 'It has nothing to do with me if your cook has been lying to you!'

'Not a lie but the truth, Claudia. Yesterday you sent one of your men to my house, a kitchen slave, ostensibly there to trade some of your goods for mine, something that happens all the time, something so common that no one even notices the man coming and going. But in reality he was there to plot your next design with Congrio, something that's happened several times before. According to Congrio, your latest scheme has something to do with poison. That was too much for Congrio and he wanted nothing to do with it, or so he claims, and so your man proceeded to argue with him. No one else was in the kitchen, Eco was out of the house and Bethesda was napping, so they spoke freely in hushed voices, until they suddenly looked down to find that Diana had been standing no less than a foot away, listening to them for who knows how long.

"They panicked. Congrio stuffed her mouth with a rag and they wound her in a long cloth. Your man had arrived with a handcart They carried her outside and managed to fit her inside it and tie her down, and then he left as quickly as he could. My watchman claims he saw the man leave, but I think he's lying to keep from being punished, unless he's deaf and half-blind; even bound and with her mouth stuffed, I imagine Diana must have been able to make some noise and to shake the cart Even so, the man got away without anyone's noticing. My slaves hardly even remembered his being there, he's become such a regular visitor. Your agent, Claudia, conspiring with my cook! So you see, I know the truth, or enough to have tracked Diana to your door. Now where is she?'

'Ask Congrio,' she cried. 'The lying slave! Don't you see he's done something unspeakable with your little girl and won’t admit it? Instead he makes up this ludicrous story. How dare you suspect me?'

'How dare you go on lying!' I said, barely able to keep from drawing the blade across her throat.

'If you think she's here, then find her. Go on, search to your heart's content. Your daughter is not here. You'll find nothing, I tell you.'

I suddenly realized that she must be telling the truth. Diana had been brought here, of that I had no doubt, but had she remained here? No, Claudia was too clever and cautious to risk having Diana found on her property. Where then? Where would she hide a child — or a child's body?

In my abstraction I must have loosened my grip, for she suddenly slipped free. When I tried to seize her, she bit my hand. I cried out and Meto and Eco came running out of the house, but too late to catch her. She dashed into the midst of her slaves, who made a circle around her and held up their weapons.

Eco called out and his men came running. 'We can take them, Papa. Her slaves will scream and run at the first drop of blood.'

'Attack me and I won't be responsible for what follows, Gordianus,' said Claudia, breathing hard. - Do you really want a blood feud with the Claudii?’

'Say the word, Papal' said Meto, gripping his dagger so hard that his knuckles turned white.

'No, Meto! No bloodshed! Retribution can wait. The only thing that matters now is finding Diana, and I think I know where she is. Eco, stay here with your men. Make sure that Claudia stays where she is until we return. Meto, mount your horse and come with me.'

Claudia must have known of the mine all her life. As a place of remote concealment, it would have come to her mind at once. So I reasoned as we went thundering up the Cassian Way. So I hoped, and dreaded.

We rode past the hidden trail Catilina had used. It would be too slow, and I had no cause for concealment. Instead we took the open way onto Gnaeus's land, up into the foothills and the woods, past the house of the goatherds where poor Forfex had dwelled, past Gnaeus's gloomy villa, where his hounds stirred and howled to announce our passage.

We came to the end of the road, tethered our horse and proceeded on foot. Neither of us spoke a word. Our thoughts were too close, and what we were thinking we did not dare to say aloud.

The stream above the waterfall flowed quick and cold. The water came to our knees. When I stepped onto the farther bank, my feet were numb with pain, but I forgot it quickly enough as we rushed up the gruelling series of switchbacks and then across the flank of the mountain.

What if she wasn't there? My heart was pounding too hard and my breath was too laboured to think of what we would do next. And what if she was there? Surely she could have survived a single night, I told myself. She could go without eating, and she would have been out of the wind, shielded from the worst of the cold. But in what condition had they left her, and what sort of terrors had she faced alone in the darkness? What if she had gone wandering, and stepped over an abyss—

Every step I took became a greater and greater torment, until I could no longer tell whether the anguish came from exhaustion or dread. Meto ran on ahead of me. For a moment I wanted to drop to my knees, to wait passively, to let him find what there was to find and come back to tell me. But to stop now was impossible. I trudged on, cursing Claudia, hating the gods and whispering prayers to Fortune.

At last the entrance to the mine came in sight. Meto was not to be seen. He must have already scrambled over the wall that had been built to keep out wandering goats and that would easily keep a little girl prisoner inside. I began to run, though I thought my chest would explode. You've become an old man and a fool, I told myself You turned your back on the world, and look how the world struck back at you! Everything you love has been brought to the edge of disaster through your own neglect and your stubborn refusal to see clearly. Your vanity overwhelmed your judgment, and now you pay the price. You laid down your wits like a gladiator lying down his weapons; but a gladiator has no choice but to fight or else die, and you have no choice but to go on finding your way through the deceits of this vicious world or else be destroyed. What folly, fleeing from Rome, when this is where the flight led you. Diana!

I came to the wall. I wanted to shout out her name, and Meto's, but I was afraid of the answer. I reached the top of the wall and fell against it, too tired to pull myself over. I took a deep breath and hoisted myself to the top. On the other side I looked down on Meto, holding something in his arms. He turned his face up to me, and I saw tears glittering in his eyes.

'Oh, no, Meto!' I wailed.

'Papa, Papa, you've come for us! I knew you would!' The thing in Meto's arms began to wriggle wildly until Diana freed herself from his embrace and reached up to me. I dropped from the wall and fell to the ground, holding her.

'I told them you'd come, I told them!’ she cried. I held her away from me to have a look at her. She was filthy and her clothes were torn, but there was nothing wrong with her. I held her close to me and sat back against the wall, my face covered with tears, so weary and relieved that I thought I might melt into the stone.

'I told them, I told them,' she kept saying, until I asked her whom she meant.

"The others!' she said. 'Others?’

"The other little boys and girls.' In the gloomy twilight of the mine, she pointed to a collection of skulls carefully stacked against one wall, the remains of long-dead slaves.

'I don't remember seeing them stacked up like that when we were here with Catilina, do you, Meto?' I said, puzzled.

'No,' he whispered.

'I did it,' said Diana. 'I gathered them all up.' 'But why?' I asked.

'Because they were lonely, and so was I.I was cold last night, Papa, but imagine how cold they must have been, without their skins.'

I looked at her carefully. 'Who do you think they are, Diana?'

"The other little boys and girls, of course. The ones that the wicked king brought for the Minotaur to eat. Look, he ate them all up and left only the bones! Poor little boys and girls. When Claudia's slaves brought me here yesterday, I knew this must be the labyrinth. They dropped me over the wall and wouldn't help me back over, even though I screamed and told them they'd be sorry. Do you suppose they thought the Minotaur would eat me?'

'Oh, Diana,' I said, holding her tight, 'you must have been so frightened!'

'Not really, Papa.’

'No?'

'No. Meto probably would have been frightened, because Meto would have been afraid of the Minotaur, but not me.' 'Why not, Diana?' 'Because the Minotaur is dead!' 'How did you know that?'

'Because you told me so, Papa. Don't you remember?'

'Yes. Yes, I do remember,' I said, thinking back to a hot summer day when Diana had come to fetch me because an unexpected visitor had arrived from Rome, and we fell to talking about the Minotaur because Meto had been teasing her. 'I told you that a hero named Theseus slew the Minotaur.'

'Exactly. And that's why I wasn't frightened, only cold, and a little lonely, because the other poor children couldn't talk to me. And hungry. Papa, I'm so hungry. Can't we get something to eat? But not from Congrio — Congrio wants to poison us…'

XLI

Meto was of the opinion that we should carve Congrio into fillets and make a banquet of him I pointed out that the dinner would be much too fatty; besides, he might contrive to poison himself first and thus poison us when we ate him. Bethesda thought we should drop him down the well and watch him slowly starve day by day. But why pollute the well again? Eco, ever practical, suggested we choose an enemy of the family and offer to sell Congrio to the unsuspecting party, knowing how treacherous he was. Now there was an idea, I thought, but whom did we dislike that much?

As for Claudia, no punishment could be severe enough. Numerous ideas were bandied about. Most of these elaborate fantasies began with kidnapping her in the middle of the night and ended with visions of exquisite cruelty and horror to rival the worst abuses of Sulla. Bethesda was especially creative in devising torments, which I thought odd, for the Egyptians are a relatively civilized and easy-going people compared to the Romans. She was truly a Roman matron now, plotting the destruction of another Roman matron, as surely as Meto had proved himself a Roman soldier on the battlefield of Pistoria. We were all Romans now; and so, I argued, why not take recourse in that great Roman institution, the law?

This suggestion met with no enthusiasm at all We had defeated the Claudii in the courts once, Eco conceded, but that was with a will on our side and Cicero's help. We couldn't be certain of winning against them again, and besides, look at the sluggishness of the courts in dealing with the dispute over the stream. Roman courts and Roman justice had become mere tools for powerful men to attack one another with, more amenable to bribery and intimidation than to demands for truth and justice. As in the days before the Republic, men were being driven to take matters into their own hands if they wanted satisfaction, which is what we would have to do if Claudia was to suffer for what she had done.

There was, of course, the matter of the other Claudii, I pointed out, who surrounded us like an enemy army. None of them struck me as likely to sit idly by if we harmed Claudia, no matter what our justification. They hated us enough already; what would they do if Claudian blood was spilled? Were we to spend the coming years killing and kidnapping one another? What sort of life was that?

It was a good thing to let everyone shout and throw up their arms and goad each other to devise more and more and more terrible torments for the guilty. After the fright we had suffered, we all needed such a shared release. It also bought me time, for after Diana was found they had all been eager to take drastic action at once. But I wanted that night and at least another day and night to pass before we proceeded on any course. While our anger cooled and left us with clearer heads, Claudia could spend a couple of sleepless nights wondering what we were up to.

On the second morning after Diana had been rescued, having heard all their arguments and cries for action, I exerted my prerogative as father of the household and announced that I would handle the matter in my own way. My decisions would be final and beyond appeal. Having made this clear, I retired to my library and wrote a brief note, then dispatched a slave to carry the message, telling him he would be wise to approach Claudia's house with his hands in the air and an announcement that he was armed only with a letter

Claudia:

There are matters we must discuss in private, and on neutral ground. Meet me at midday at our usual place on the ridge. I will come alone and unarmed, and I vow by the memory of my father to cause you no harm. Your presence there will indicate that you come under the same conditions. There is nothing to be gained by further acrimony, and I believe that we can come to terms of mutual acceptance. That is the earnest hope of your neighbour,

Gordianus

The day was cloudless, and there was no wind on the ridgetop, as I had feared there might be. All in all, it was a mild day for the end of Januarius, a month that had already seen enough turmoil for the whole year to come.

I sat on a stump and looked out over the farm, such a placid scene that it was hard to believe so much deceit and wickedness could lurk among the innocent grapevines and the cold, gurgling stream. The sun at its zenith was low in the sky and seemed to hang motionless while I waited. It was a long time, so long that I thought my guest had refused the invitation. Then I heard a rustling among the branches nearby and Claudia emerged from the bushes.

She looked as she usually looked: sausage-fingered, plum-cheeked, and cherry-nosed, with a careless clump of frazzled orange hair atop her head. She was wearing a long woollen tunic with a heavy cloak wrapped around her. She approached without a word, took a seat on the neighbouring stump, and joined me in studying the view. I looked at her face, but she did not look back at me. I noticed a few horizontal cuts on her throat, where I had pressed too hard with my blade. She reached up from time to time to touch the marks.

After a moment she said, 'Where shall we begin?'

'At the beginning Before we say anything else, I want you to tell me the truth: did you have anything to do with the death of your cousin Lucius?'

This caused her to turn her head and look into my eyes, but only for a moment. 'How could you even think—'

I held up my hand. 'No pretty protests, Claudia. The question requires only a simple answer yes or no.'

'Did I murder Lucius? What a question! No, of course not. He died in the Forum, with hundreds of people around, clutching at a pain in his chest. Men die that way every day. It's perfectly natural.'

'You did nothing to help nature along? A bit of poison…'

'Gordianus, no!'

I studied her profile while she stared fixedly down on the farm. 'I believe you. I had no particular reason to think that you might have murdered poor Lucius, but I wanted to know for sure. He was my friend, you know. It would matter to me if someone had caused his death.'

We both gazed at the view for a while in silence. It was clear that I would be asking the questions and that she would be answering. I was in no hurry.

'When I lent you Congrio to help cook for your family gathering’ I finally said, 'that was when you suborned him, wasn't it?'

She shrugged. 'It wasn't hard to do. Congrio doesn't like you, and he despises your wife. Some slaves can't stand working for an ex-slave; Congrio hated it, simply on principle. Pride comes with talent, which he has in abundance, as I'm sure you'll agree. He had worked all his life in the respectable household of a patrician master, then suddenly found himself the property of — well, Gordianus, your ancestry is hardly worth mentioning, is it?'

'I'd prefer that you didn't mention my ancestors, true enough. So you told Congrio that if he would go along with your schemes, you could set everything right and become his new mistress. He agreed to become your agent in my household.'

'Something like that.'

'Would you believe that for a long time it was Aratus I suspected of betraying me?'

'Aratus?' said Claudia. 'You should have known better. Lucius always said he was the most unwavering and loyal slave he had ever owned. A man couldn't hope for a better foreman to run a farm.'

'So I've gradually come to realize. But back to Congrio: when the first headless body appeared in my stable, it was Congrio who placed it there, wasn't it?'

'Why ask me? You must have had the story from him already.'

'Some of the story. Other bits I've worked out for myself, but there are some things only you could know for certain, Claudia. Well, then, it started on the day that we burned the first batch of blighted hay. There were a lot of fires on my land and a lot of smoke going into the air. One of your slaves showed up, ostensibly to deliver a gift of figs from your farm, in exchange for which I sent you some fresh eggs. I thought the man was there to see what the smoke was about; in reality, he was there to confer with Congrio and make plans for the delivery of the body. I remember he stayed a long time in the kitchen; I thought he was merely tasting Congrio's custard.

"The next day a wagon arrived, full of provisions. Congrio said it came all the way from Rome and that he'd had to go over Aratus's head to order the things he needed. That made me angry at Aratus, and took my mind away from Congrio. Still, I wondered why he insisted on unloading the wagon himself. Now I know: there was a dead body amid the pots and pans. The wagon came from your farm, not from Rome. Congrio unloaded the body, as your agent had instructed the day before. He managed to conceal it in the kitchen and then put it in the stable later. No wonder he was sweating and trembling; I merely thought he was out of breath and angry at Aratus.' I spread my hands on my lap. 'So I know how the body arrived and who assisted. But who was Nemo?'

'Nemo?'

"That was what I called the headless corpse, having no name for him. From his body, it was hard to tell whether he was freeborn or a slave. If a slave, he wasn't engaged in hard labour and didn't work outdoors. Nemo was your cook, wasn't he?'

Claudia looked at me sidelong. 'How did you know that? I never even told Congrio.'

'You told me yourself, but I wasn't listening at the time. Do you remember the note you sent back with Congrio, thanking me for lending him to you?' I pulled the scrap of parchment from within my tunic. 'I saved it. I don't know why, except that you were so effusive in your gratitude that you called it "a promissory note" which I could use to call on you for repayment. It was sentimental of me to set much store by it, I suppose, but I was touched by your gratitude. In the note you also said something else. Let me read it to you: "Greetings neighbour, and my gratitude for the loan of your slaves," et cetera, et cetera, "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 cook fell ill in the midst of preparations, whereupon Congrio proved to be not merely a great help but utterly essential" So, your head cook was ill. Later he died.'

'How did you know?'

'You told me! It was here on the ridge, over on the eastern side. We were all watching the Cassian Way, you and Meto and I, and you fed us honey cakes. "My new cook baked them fresh this morning," you said. "He's no Congrio, I fear, but he does make fine sweets." Your new cook, Claudia, because the old one, the ill one, had died and you replaced him. And because you hate waste so very much — not even a morsel of a honey cake could you stand to waste! — you even found a use for your dead cook's body, thinking it could be a tool to frighten me off my farm, or at least make a beginning. So Nemo wasn't murdered, was he? He died of an illness, and after he was dead you had his head cut off so that no one would know him when he appeared on my farm. One of the kitchen slaves I lent you just might have seen the man, after all, and thus might have recognized the dead man's face.'

'You comprehend everything, Gordianus. And did the appearance of the body not frighten you at all?'

'It frightened me very much, but at the time I had reason to think I knew who had left it, and why, and it had nothing to do with my neighbours or whether I should stay on the farm. I hid the incident from the slaves, including Congrio. Was it maddening when Congrio had nothing to report to your man the next time he came?'

'Quite.'

'Meanwhile, I had every reason to think that I could trust you, if anybody, because the kitchen slaves I lent you returned with glowing reports of how you stood up for me to your cousins. It was you who planted the idea that I could use those slaves as spies on your family gathering. You joked about my having them poison your cousins; well, I would never do that, but I could tell my slaves to keep their ears open. And so they simply happened to "overhear" you defending me to Gnaeus, Manius, and Publius. But you meant for those words to be overheard, didn't you? I was to think you were my only ally, and so when awful things began to happen on my farm, I might suspect anyone and everyone else, but never you. And if the time ever came when I was ready to sell the farm in desperation — well, I would turn to the one neighbour who had stood by me, wouldn't I?'

Claudia shifted on her hard seat. 'Something like that,' she said quietly.

'The first headless body appeared in the middle of Junius. Then, for a while, nothing untoward happened. Misunderstanding the signal and its origin, I thought this was because I had complied with certain demands made on me against my will. In fact, those days were uneventful because of your absence. You left for Rome to oversee some work on the house on the Palatine, which you inherited from Lucius, so you weren't around to make mischief.

'The second body didn't appear until after the middle of Quinctilis, when we returned from Rome after Meto's birthday and the elections. You had planned to stay in Rome all that time, but you came back early, before we did; you told me at Meto's party that you were about to leave for home. You also made sure that I met your charming cousin Manius, with predictably appalling results that once again portrayed you as my friend and ally. You came back early, and so you were here when your cousin Gnaeus killed his poor slave Forfex in a rage. Perhaps you had no intention of leaving a second body on my land, but when the opportunity presented itself like a gift from the gods, once again you couldn't let a good corpse go to waste. You had the body stolen from where Gnaeus's slaves had interred it along the rocky stream bank. Once again, the corpse was delivered by your slave, visiting Congrio, probably carrying it in a handcart. The man had been dealing with Congrio so regularly, exchanging foodstuffs every now and again, that no one ever took any notice of him.

'You knew that I had met Forfex, and so once again it was necessary to remove the head, to obscure the corpse's identity. You should have removed the hands as well, but how could you have known that Meto would recall the triangular birthmark on the back of Forfex's left hand? That led me to Gnaeus. He admitted killing Forfex, which was his right as the slave's master, but he denied having dropped the body down my well. He seemed to know nothing about it.'

'He didn't,' acknowledged Claudia.

'So I thought. Once again, I had cause to suspect someone else, but the connection with Gnaeus left me uncertain and confused. I went about the business of running the farm, despite the blighting of the hay, despite the deliberate pollution of my well. I proceeded with building the water mill—'

"That absurd contraption!' Claudia snapped.

'Yes, I realize now how frustrating it must have been for you whenever you'd sneak up here on the ridge to look down on my farm, greedy for it, imagining that it could be yours, despising me for having it, doing what you could in your own craven way to drive me of£ and all the while watching the construction of the mill go on day by day, the tangible symbol of my firm intention to stay and make this property my own. How you must have hated it when I invited you to have a look at it after it was completed! How clearly I could sense your loathing, but I thought it was merely for the mill itself. You hid your true feelings well.'

'A woman learns to hide her feelings if she's to get what she wants, without a father or a husband to give it to her and without sons to defend her!' said Claudia.

The bitterness in her voice was startling, and all at once I saw a flint-eyed woman so profoundly different from the jolly, good-natured matron I had known that I was almost frightened, as when a pretty mask drops to reveal a hideous face beneath. For two sleepless nights

I had puzzled over the riddle of how Claudia could have been behind such atrocities. Now I saw another woman behind the one I thought I knew, who proceeded by guile and deceit and kept her anger and appetites hidden. How else could a woman alone have made her way in such a family and in such a world? For the first time I felt the reality of Claudia's guilt.

'I was confused again when Gnaeus offered to buy my property,' I said, 'though now I see it was you who put him up to that He even said so in an oblique way, saying you had told him I was having a hard winter, but I thought that was merely gossip among cousins. In fact you were using him to feel me out before you made your next move, seeing if I'd had enough yet of headless corpses and poisoned water and the harshness of the winter. After his surly offer to relieve me of the farm, I grew suspicious of Gnaeus all over again, especially when, the very day after I ordered him out of my house, a third corpse appeared behind my stable. I was just setting out on a journey; there was no way I could stay to sort it out. That was just as well, perhaps, or I might have attacked Gnaeus without cause.

'The third headless corpse was another of your slaves, wasn't it? You didn't kill Nemo, who died of an illness. Nor did you kill Forfex; Gnaeus did that But this slave you murdered, didn't you, Claudia?'

'Why do you say that?' she said, casting me a sullen glance.

'Because you needed someone on whom to test your poison. You had already tested it once, on a poor old slave of mine named Clementus. He was a witness of sorts on the night that Congrio dropped the body of Forfex down my well. His recollection was vague and muddled, but to a slave like Congrio, guilty of compiling against his master, even old Clementus must have seemed a terrible threat. Congrio had to get rid of him simply, quietly. You supplied him with a poison — strychnos, the deadly nightshade. That accounts for the blue lips, the vomiting, and the slurred speech that afflicted Clementus before he died. I always suspected he had been hurried along. Now I know for certain, for Congrio has confessed everything.