Last seen in Massilia

XI

I scarcely remember our moonlit journey through the streets of Massilia and our return to the scapegoat's house. Hieronymus took one look at my face and nodded gravely. "Ah, bad news," he said quietly. Without another word he showed Davus and me to a room with two beds. My mind was in such turmoil that I couldn't imagine sleeping. Sleep came nonetheless, as quickly and deeply as if I had been drugged.

I dreamed. Missiles flew from catapults. Flaming bodies plummeted from siege towers. At my side the engineer, Vitruvius, blithely chattered on about machines of death. He was interrupted by a hooded soothsayer who tugged at his elbow and loudly whispered in his ear, "Tell the Roman he has no business here." A soldier in a fluttering blue cape hurried past, limping slightly, and disappeared in a hole in the ground. I took Davus's hand and told him we had to follow. The hole led straight to Hades. I saw a disembodied head levitating amid vents of steam and jets of flames, ringed by blood at the severed neck. "Catilina!" I cried. The head flashed a sardonic grin and vanished. A cloaked figure stepped out of the mist. She pulled away her veils and I confronted the grossly misshapen xoanon Artemis come to life. "Marry me," the thing said, and I started back in horror. Suddenly all Hades was flooded. Bodies floated past. Flames hissed and died out. All was darkness. The water kept rising. I sucked in a breath and felt the burn of saltwater in my throat and nostrils. I felt a strange mixture of relief and dread, and a sadness that crushed me like a stone. Was it my own watery death I dreamed of, or Meto's?

I woke, thinking: Even in my dreams, my son refuses to appear. Then I realized that Davus was standing over me, his hand on my shoulder, his face drawn with concern.

"Where are we?" I asked. The words came out in a gasp. I had been sobbing in my sleep.

"The scapegoat's house. In Massilia."

I blinked and nodded. "What time is it?"

"After dark."

"But it was after dark when we went to bed. Surely… "It's nighttime again. You slept all day. You needed it."

I sat up and groaned. My joints were stiff: Every muscle ached. The journey, the ordeal in the flooded tunnel, the revelations of the previous night had drained all my resources. I felt as hollow as a reed.

"You must be hungry," said Davus. "No."

"Then sleep some more." He gently pushed me back. "Impossible," I said, remembering my nightmares with a shudder. And that was all I remembered until I woke again the next morning.

Had I not known for a fact that we were in the middle of a city under siege, blockaded by land and sea, threatened by famine and disease, I would never have guessed it from our breakfast at the scapegoat's house. We were given farina sweetened with pomegranates and honey, dates stuffed with almond paste, and all the fresh figs we could eat.

Rested and fed, I sat alone on the scapegoat's rooftop terrace and began to realize the predicament into which I had put Davus and myself. From the moment I had received the message about Meto, I had thought only of coming to Massilia to discover the truth, and had never thought beyond that. I had always assumed that I would find Meto alive, or at worst discover that he had vanished. Instead, the anonymous message had been borne out. My son was dead and his body lost. There was nothing more for me to do in Massilia, but thanks to my own perseverance and ingenuity, I was trapped there.

Was it for this that the gods had saved me when the tunnel was flooded? I had thanked them at the time, forgetting that they always have the last laugh.

At least in Rome I could have shared my grief with Bethesda and Diana and my other son, Eco, and the daily rhythms of the city would have afforded some distraction. In Massilia, there would be nothing for me to do but brood.

I had no friends in Massilia. Milo had as good as murdered my son. Domitius despised me, and I despised him. Apollonides had dismissed me as beneath his interest. Hieronymus alone had been hospitable to me, but over his head hung a cloud of ruin and death that only depressed me further. I felt what many a Roman exile must have felt in Massilia: helpless and hopeless, cut off from all that makes life worth living. Even if Hieronymus continued to grant me food and shelter, how could I continue to exist in such a state, hour after hour, day after day?

My emotions ran through a gamut of recriminations. I blamed myself for coming to Massilia. I blamed Milo for having laid the bait that ruined Meto. I blamed Meto for having accepted such a dangerous mission. I blamed Caesar for a multitude of sins-for having seduced my son (in every sense, if the rumors that reached my ears were true), for having sent him on a fool's errand to certain death, for having crossed the Rubicon in the first place. The vanity of the man, to believe that his destiny should eclipse all else, that the whole world was made to quiver in his shadow! How much suffering had he caused already? How many more sons would die before he was done? Meto had loved the man, had given his life for him. For that, I hated Caesar.

If I closed my eyes, I could see Meto clearly. Not one Meto, but many: as a small boy in the house of Crassus at Baiae, where he had been born a slave and where I first met him; walking proudly if a little uncertainly through the Forum at the age of sixteen on the day he first put on his manly toga; dressed as a soldier-the first time, with a shock, I ever saw him in armor-in Catalina’s tent just before the battle of Pistoria. He had been a bright, beautiful child, full of laughter. He had grown into a sturdy, handsome young man, proud of his battle scars. Each time he came home after campaigning in Gaul with Caesar, I greeted him with a mixture of elation and dread, happy that he was alive, fearful that I would find him maimed or disfigured or crippled. But the gods had seen fit to keep him alive and whole through all his battles. Until now.

A small voice in my head whispered: But Meto's body was never found. He might still be alive… somehow… somewhere. I refused to listen. Such delusions were merely weakness. They could lead only to disappointment and even greater misery.

And so I went round and round, from grief to anger, from bittersweet memories to doubt, from delusions of hope to hard, cold reason, and back to grief, resolving nothing. I sat on the terrace of the scapegoat's rooftop, staring for hours at the Sacrifice Rock in the distance and the uncaring sea beyond.

So a day or two passed, or perhaps three or four, perhaps more. My memory of that time is unclear. Both Davus and Hieronymus left me mostly to myself. Food was served to me occasionally, and I suppose I ate it. My bed was made for me each night, and I suppose I slept. I felt dull and remote, as disembodied as the levitating head of Catilina in my nightmares.

Then, one morning, Hieronymus announced that a visitor had come to see me and was waiting in the atrium.

"A visitor?" I asked.

"A Gaulish merchant. Says his name is Arausio."

"A Gaul?"

"There are a lot of them in Massilia."

"What does he want?"

"He wouldn't say."

"Are you sure it's me he wants?"

"He asked for you by name. Surely there can't be more than one Gordianus the Finder in Massilia."

"But what can he possibly want?"

"There's only one way to find out." The scapegoat raised an eyebrow and gave me a hopeful look, such as a careworn mother might give to a child recuperating from a fever.

"I suppose I should see him, then," I said dully.

"That's the spirit!" Hieronymus clapped his hands and sent a slave to fetch the visitor.

Arausio was a man of middle age with thinning brown hair, a ruddy complexion, and a drooping mustache. He wore a plain white tunic; but to judge by the well-made shoes on his feet,

blamed myself for coming to Massilia. I blamed Milo for having laid the bait that ruined Meto. I blamed Meto for having accepted such a dangerous mission. I blamed Caesar for a multitude of sins-for having seduced my son (in every sense, if the rumors that reached my ears were true), for having sent him on a fool's errand to certain death, for having crossed the Rubicon in the first place. The vanity of the man, to believe that his destiny should eclipse all else, that the whole world was made to quiver in his shadow! How much suffering had he caused already? How many more sons would die before he was done? Meto had loved the man, had given his life for him. For that, I hated Caesar.

If I closed my eyes, I could see Meto clearly. Not one Meto, but many: as a small boy in the house of Crassus at Baiae, where he had been born a slave and where I first met him; walking proudly if a little uncertainly through the Forum at the age of sixteen on the day he first put on his manly toga; dressed as a soldier-the first time, with a shock, I ever saw him in armor-in Catalina’s tent just before the battle of Pistoria. He had been a bright, beautiful child, full of laughter. He had grown into a sturdy, handsome young man, proud of his battle scars. Each time he came home after campaigning in Gaul with Caesar, I greeted him with a mixture of elation and dread, happy that he was alive, fearful that I would find him maimed or disfigured or crippled. But the gods had seen fit to keep him alive and whole through all his battles. Until now.

A small voice in my head whispered: But Meto's body was never found. He might still be alive… somehow… somewhere. I refused to listen. Such delusions were merely weakness. They could lead only to disappointment and even greater misery.

And so I went round and round, from grief to anger, from bittersweet memories to doubt, from delusions of hope to hard, cold reason, and back to grief, resolving nothing. I sat on the terrace of the scapegoat's rooftop, staring for hours at the Sacrifice Rock in the distance and the uncaring sea beyond.

So a day or two passed, or perhaps three or four, perhaps more. My memory of that time is unclear. Both Davus and Hieronymus left me mostly to myself. Food was served to me occasionally, and I suppose I ate it. My bed was made for me each night, and I suppose I slept. I felt dull and remote, as disembodied as the levitating head of Catilina in my nightmares.

Then, one morning, Hieronymus announced that a visitor had come to see me and was waiting in the atrium.

"A visitor?" I asked.

"A Gaulish merchant. Says his name is Arausio."

"A Gaul?"

"There are a lot of them in Massilia."

"What does he want?"

"He wouldn't say."

"Are you sure it's me he wants?"

"He asked for you by name. Surely there can't be more than one Gordianus the Finder in Massilia."

"But what can he possibly want?"

"There's only one way to find out." The scapegoat raised an eyebrow and gave me a hopeful look, such as a careworn mother might give to a child recuperating from a fever.

"I suppose I should see him, then," I said dully.

"That's the spirit!" Hieronymus clapped his hands and sent a slave to fetch the visitor.

Arausio was a man of middle age with thinning brown hair, a ruddy complexion, and a drooping mustache. He wore a plain white tunic; but to judge by the well-made shoes on his feet, he was a man of means; and to judge by his gold necklace and gold bracelets, not averse to advertising it. His manner was skittish and he kept his distance from Hieronymus, who remained nearby on the terrace. He had a superstitious fear of the scapegoat, I realized, a dread of contagion. What, then, had induced him to enter the scapegoat's house?

He took stock of his surroundings. Did I imagine that he gave a start when he saw the view of the Sacrifice Rock in the distance? "My name is Arausio," he said. "Are you Gordianus, the one they call `the Finder'? "

"I am. I didn't realize that anyone in Massilia had heard of me."

He flashed an unpleasant smile. "Oh, we're not all quite as ignorant in this backwater town as you might think. Massilia may not be Athens or Alexandria, but we do try to keep abreast of what's happening in the great world beyond."

"I'm sorry. I never meant to suggest-"

"Oh, that's quite all right. We're used to Romans turning up their noses when they come here. What are we, after all, but an outpost of second-rate Greeks and barely civilized Gauls just off the road to nowhere?"

"But I never said-"

"Then say no more." The man held up his hand. "I'll state my business, which you may or may not deign to find of interest. My name, as I said, is Arausio, and I'm a merchant."

"In slaves or wine?" I asked. Arausio raised an eyebrow. "I'm told it's one or the other here in Massilia."

Arausio shrugged. "I handle a little traffic in both directions. My grandfather used to say, `Romans get lazy; Gauls get thirsty. Send slaves in one direction and wine in the other.' We've done well enough. Not quite as well as this." He gestured to the house around us. His eyes swept the view. Again I saw him focus sharply on the Sacrifice Rock, then tear his eyes away.

He suddenly dropped his abrasive manner like a shield he no longer had strength to carry. "They say… you saw it

happen," he whispered. "Both of you." He ventured a glance at Hieronymus.

"Saw what?" I asked. But of course he could mean only one thing.

"The girl… who fell from the rock." His voice was strained. Hieronymus crossed his arms. "She didn't fall. She jumped."

"She was pushed!" Davus, who had been standing discreetly out of sight inside the doorway, felt obliged to step forward.

I gazed at the Sacrifice Rock. "Girl, you say. But why `girl,' and not `woman'? The three of us saw a figure in a woman's gown and a hooded cloak. We couldn't see her face or even the color of her hair. She was fit enough to climb the rock, but she did so haltingly. Perhaps she was young, or perhaps not." I looked at Arausio. "Unless you know more than we do."

He thrust out his jaw to stop it from quivering. "I think… I may know who she was."

Hieronymus and Davus both stepped closer.

"I think… the girl who fell… was my daughter." I raised an eyebrow.

Arausio's voice was suddenly choked and bitter. "He led her on, you see. Right up until the moment he married that monster, he led Rindel to think he might choose her instead."

"Rindel?" I said.

"My daughter. That's her name. Was her name.",Who led her on?"

"Zeno! The son of a whore said he loved her. But like every other lying Greek, all he cared for in the end was bettering himself."

Zeno. Where had I heard the name recently? From Domitius, I recalled, when he told me the tale of Apollonides and his hideously deformed daughter, Cydimache. The young man who had recently married Cydimache was named Zeno.

"Do you mean the son-in-law of the First Timouchos?"

"That's the one. We weren't good enough for him. Never mind that I could buy and sell Zeno's father if I wanted. Never mind that Rindel was one of the most beautiful girls in Massilia. We're Gauls, you see, not Greeks; and no one in our family has ever been elected to the Timouchoi. In this town, that puts us just one step above the barbarians in the forest. Even so, Zeno could have married Rindel. Greeks and Gauls do marry. But Zeno was too good for that. Curse his ambition! He saw his chance to leap to the top, and he took it, over the head of my poor Rindel."

A part of me, frozen with grief for Meto, simply wanted the man to go away. But another part of me grudgingly stirred. I was curious. Looking at Arausio, his face now nakedly showing his misery, I felt a pang of sympathy as well. Were we not both fathers grieving for lost children? If I understood correctly, his daughter and my son had ended their lives within a few hundred feet of each other, beneath the same wall, claimed by a plunge into the same unforgiving sea.

"She was desperately in love with him," Arausio went on. "Why not? Zeno's handsome and charming. He dazzled her. The young can't see beneath the surface of things. When he told her he loved her in return, she thought that was the end of it. She'd found her bliss and nothing could spoil it. I can't say I wasn't pleased myself; he'd have made a good match. Then Zeno stopped calling on her. And the next thing we knew, he'd married Cydimache. It broke Rindel's heart. She wept and tore her hair. She shut herself away; wouldn't eat or talk to anyone, not even to her mother. Then she took to slipping out of the house, disappearing for hours at a time. I was furious, but it did no good. She said it helped her to take long walks alone. Imagine that, a young girl walking the streets in broad daylight by herself, unescorted! `People will think you've gone mad,' I told her. Perhaps she was going mad. I should have kept a closer eye on her, but with everything in such chaos,…" He shook his head.

"What makes you think it was Rindel we saw on the Sacrifice Rock?" I asked. "And how did you hear about it? How did you know that we saw it happen?"

"Massilia is a small town, Gordianus. Everyone's talking about it. 'The scapegoat has two Romans staying at his house, and you won't believe what the three of them saw-a man chased a woman up the Sacrifice Rock, and over she went. And one of these Romans is a character named Gordianus, called the Finder; investigates for people like Cicero and Pompey, digs up scandal and snoops under people's sheets.' "

That was not exactly how I would have described my livelihood, but I felt curiously flattered to discover that my name was sufficiently well-known to provide fodder for gossip in a city where I had never previously set foot. Of course, anything to do with the scapegoat would be of interest to the locals, and any death at the Sacrifice Rock would excite speculation.

"As for why I think it must have been Rindel… There was a catch in Arausio's voice. He cleared his throat and pressed on. "That morning she went missing again. Out for another of her long walks, I thought. But I had other things to worry about. That was the day the Romans brought up the battering-ram. For all we knew, the walls of the city might come down at any moment. As it turned out, the walls held; our soldiers even captured the battering-ram for a trophy. But Rindel… He cleared his throat. "Rindel never came home. Night fell, and the curfew, and still no sign of her. I was angry, then worried, then frantic. I sent slaves to search for her. One of them came back with the rumor about a girl who had been seen on the Sacrifice Rock pursued by a soldier-an officer in a blue cape." His eyes bored into mine. "Is it true? Is that what you saw?"

"The man wore a pale blue cape," I acknowledged. I remembered it fluttering in the wind.

"Zeno! It must have been him. I knew it! Rindel must have found him and confronted him. He'd led her on, betrayed her, broken her heart-married that monster instead. Who knows what Rindel said to him, or what he said to her? And it ended with him driving her up the rock, and then-"

"No one drove anyone," objected Hieronymus. "The woman we saw led, and the man chased after her. He was clearly trying to stop her. The tragedy is that he failed. The woman jumped."

"No, Arausio is right," insisted Davus. "The woman was trying to get away from the man. Then he caught up with her. He pushed her over."

Arausio looked at me. "What do you say, Gordianus?"

Both Hieronymus and Davus looked to me for vindication. I turned my gaze to the Sacrifice Rock. "I'm not sure. But both versions can't be true."

"It matters, don't you see?" Arausio leaned forward. "If Zeno pushed Rindel, then it was murder. The heartless beast!"

"If the woman was Rindel; if the man was Zeno."

"But it must have been them! Rindel never came home. She couldn't simply disappear, not in a city as small as Massilia, with every exit blocked. It was her on that rock. I know it was! And the man was Zeno, wearing his blue officer's cape; you saw that for yourself."

"And if it was your daughter and Zeno, and if the only witnesses to the event were the three of us on this terrace, then there are at least two different opinions of what may have occurred-and no way to reconcile them."

"But there is a way. There's someone who knows the truth," insisted Arausio. "Zeno!"

I nodded slowly. "Yes, if it was Zeno we saw in the blue cape, then he alone can tell you exactly what happened, and why."

"But he never will! He lied to my daughter about loving her. He'll lie about this as well."

"Unless he could be compelled to tell the truth."

"By whom? His father-in-law, the First Timouchos? Apollonides controls the city police and the courts. He'll stop at nothing to protect his son-in-law and avoid a scandal." Arausio lowered his eyes. "But there will be a scandal. Word is already out. Everyone knows there was a death at the Sacrifice Rock. No one knows yet who it was, but word will spread soon enough. `I heard it was the daughter of that Gaulish merchant Arausio,' they'll say. `Rindel was her name. She went crazy after Zeno spurned her. Her father should have seen it coming.' And I should have. I should have locked her in her room! How could she bring such shame on her family? Unless I can show that Zeno pushed her, everyone will assume that she killed herself. An illegal suicide, unsanctioned by the Timouchoi-an offense to the gods at the very moment they sit in judgment on the city, deciding whether Massilia lives or dies! How can I bear it? This will be the ruin of me!"

I felt a sudden chill toward the man. He had come to us grief-stricken at the disappearance of his daughter. Now he seemed more concerned about damage to his own reputation. But the scapegoat had a different reaction. Hieronymus knew what it meant to suffer the onus of public humiliation and ruin in Massilia, to be outcast for the sins of others. He looked at Arausio with tears in his eyes.

"That's why I've come to you, Finder," said Arausio. "Not just because you witnessed the thing, but also because of what they say about you. You find the truth. The gods guide you to it. I know the truth-my daughter didn't jump; she must have been pushed-but I can't prove it. Apollonides could squeeze the truth out of Zeno, but he'll never do it. But maybe there's some other way to bring out the truth, and if there is, you're the man to find it. Name your fee. I can afford it." As proof, he slipped one of the thick bracelets from his wrist and pressed it into my hand.

The yellow gold was worked with images of a hunt. Archers and hounds pursued an antelope, and overseeing all was Artemis, not in her guise as the strange xoanon of the Massilians, but in the traditional image of a robust young woman with long, graceful limbs, armed with a bow and arrow. The workmanship was exquisite.

"What did your daughter look like?" I asked quietly. Arausio smiled weakly. "Rindel's hair was blond. She wore it

in braids, like her mother. Sometimes her braids hung free. Sometimes she wound them about her head. They shimmered like ropes of gold, like that bracelet in your hand. Her skin was white, as soft as rose petals. Her eyes were blue, like the sea at midmorning. When she smiled…" He drew a shuddering breath. "When Rindel smiled, I felt like a man lying in a field of flowers on a warm spring day."

I nodded. "I, too, have lost a child, Arausio."

"A daughter?" He looked at me with tears in his eyes.

"A son. Meto was born a slave and not of my flesh, but I adopted him and he became a Roman. When he was a boy, he was full of mischief and laughter, bright as a newly minted coin. He grew quieter as he grew older, more thoughtful and withdrawn, at least in my presence. I sometimes thought he was more reserved and somber than a young man his age ought to be. But every now and then he still laughed, exactly the way he'd laughed when he was a boy. What I would give to hear Meto laugh again! The sea below the walls of Massilia claimed him, as you say it claimed your daughter. I came all the way from Rome to find him, but he was gone before I arrived. Now there's nothing more I can do to help my son…"

"Then help my daughter!" begged Arausio. "Save her good name. Help me to prove that she never jumped from the Sacrifice Rock. Prove that Zeno murdered her!"

Davus cleared his throat. "As long as we're stuck here in Massilia, father-in-law, we could use the money…"

"And surely," added Hieronymus, "you need something to occupy you, Gordianus. You can't go on as you have been, sitting and brooding on this terrace from sunrise to sunset."

Their advice had no influence on me. I had already made up my mind.

"Ever since we saw the incident on the Sacrifice Rock, there's something I've been wondering about." I spoke slowly, trying to choose my words carefully, although there was no delicate way to speak of the matter. "Others have fallen from the Sacrifice Rock before-scapegoats… suicides. Were their remains never found? I should think they might eventually have… washed up on shore." I was thinking of the woman we had seen. I was also thinking of Meto.

Hieronymus lowered his eyes. "My parents were never found," he whispered.

Arausio cleared his throat. "The current can be very strong, depending on the season and the time of day. Yes, sometimes bodies have washed up on shore, but they never enter the harbor; the current won't allow that. Bodies have been found miles from Massilia-or never found at all, because so much of the coastline consists of steep, jagged rocks. A body washed onto the shore is likely to be torn to pieces among sharp rocks, or hidden in some inaccessible grotto, or sucked into a sea cave where even the eyes of the gods can't see."

"After the naval battle with Caesar, there must have been scores of bodies in the waters offshore," I said.

Arausio nodded. "Yes, but not one of them was recovered. If they were cast onto the shore, and if they could be seen and reached, it was the Romans who claimed them, not us. The Romans control the shoreline."

"So, even if the woman we saw was washed back to the shore-"

"If anyone found her, it would have been the Romans. Here in Massilia, we would never hear of it."

"I see. Then we should give up any hope that we might yet identify the woman by her… remains." My thoughts turned again to Meto. What had become of his body? Surely, if it had been found and identified by Caesar's men, Trebonius would have known, and would have told me. It seemed most likely that Meto, like Rindel-if indeed the woman was Rindel-had been swept out to sea beyond recovery, swallowed forever by Neptune.

I sighed. "Then we must determine the woman's identity by some other means. We can begin with practical considerations. For example, what was the woman on the Sacrifice Rock wearing

When we saw her that morning? And was it the same as what your daughter was wearing the last time she left your house?"

It was Hieronymus's recollection that the woman on the rock had worn a dark gray cloak. Davus thought it was more blue than gray. I remembered it as more green than blue. As far as Arausio could recall, none of his daughter's garments fit any of those descriptions, for she preferred bright colors, but he couldn't be certain. His wife and household slaves knew Rindel's wardrobe better than he did; perhaps one of them could either remember or, by elimination, deduce exactly what Rindel had been wearing on the day she left home for the last time.

We talked a bit more, but Arausio was wrung out and unable to think clearly. I told him to go home and see what else he could learn from his wife and slaves.

After he left, I sat on the terrace, idly fingering the gold bracelet and studying the changing light on the Sacrifice Rock and the sea beyond. Suddenly I noticed that Davus was looking at me sidelong, a smile of relief on his lips.