Last seen in Massilia

XXI

"I'll ask you again, Finder. What are you doing with Cydimache's ring?"

"Your daughter's ring…?"

"Yes, of course! Zeno gave it to her on their wedding day. It never leaves her finger."

I made no answer. Apollonides turned to Zeno, who averted his eyes. "Explain this, Zeno. Did you give him the ring? Why? As payment to a spy? As bribery? But Cydimache would never allow-"

"Your son-in-law did not give me this ring, First Timouchos. I found it."

"Found it? Found it?" There was a note of hysteria in Apollonides's voice. I think, by a leap of intuition, he, too, had begun to realize the truth. At our first meeting on the rooftop terrace of the scapegoat's house, when I told him what I had witnessed on the Sacrifice Rock, he had paid only grudging attention, had accused me of lying. The woman who fell from the precipice was of no concern to him. At that moment, how could he have known, how could he have imagined the truth of the matter? "First Timouchos, I think I can explain; but not here, not in this place. In your house. In the presence of… certain others." I expected more anger and bombast, but instead his voice became quite small. "Others? What others?" All the color drained from his face. In the flickering, reflected glow from the fires outside the city walls, his features looked like those of a lifeless effigy made of wax. His jaw gaped and his brows turned upward until he resembled those heads mounted on spikes in the ruins of the scapegoat's house.

We had no need of torches to light our way as we traversed the city to Apollonides's house. The sullen glow of the burning siegeworks lit up the sky and cast a fitful illumination over Massilia, drenching her open spaces in blood-red light, casting deep, black shadows into her hidden corners and recesses.

Apollonides dispatched soldiers ahead of us to fetch those I had asked him to summon, and ordered more soldiers to form a cordon around us, and after that he said no more. Zeno, too, was silent. Once or twice Davus tried to whisper a question in my ear, but I shook my head and drew away. Our little retinue made its grim way up the winding streets until we arrived at the house of the First Timouchos.

Inside the house, the soldiers who had been dispatched ahead of us stood guard before Zeno and Cydimache's quarters. Outside the room, Arausio and his wife, Rindel, stood huddled together in confusion.

"First Timouchos!" Arausio's voice quavered, "what is the meaning of this? Your soldiers rousted us from our home and brought us here without a word of explanation. Are we under arrest? I see you have the Finder with you. Does he accuse me of slandering you and your son-in-law? It's not true, First Timouchos! Don't listen to Roman treachery! Have mercy on my wife, at least-"

"Be quiet, merchant!" said Apollonides. He spoke to Zeno without looking at him. "Son-in-law, open the door to this room."

"Open it yourself," said Zeno dully.

"I will not! This is the room where my daughter grew up. My daughter, who from the first time she saw herself in a mirror wished me never to enter her presence unannounced, who wished me never to see her unclothed or unveiled-who wished for even her slaves never to see her unveiled-whose privacy I have always scrupulously respected. When you married her, this became the room she shared with you and you alone. Only once or twice since Cydimache was a child have I stepped foot inside. I certainly have never forced my way in. I have never even touched the door. I won't do so now. You will open the door."

Zeno stared at the floor, glanced furtively at Arausio and his wife, bit his lip, then expelled a mirthless laugh. His eyes glittered feverishly. He shook his head and glared at me scornfully, but also as if he pitied me. "Remember, Finder, this was your doing. It was you and no one else who brought this about!"

He opened the door to the chamber he shared with his wife. One by one, we stepped inside-Zeno first, then Apollonides, then Davus and myself. Last of all came Arausio and his wife. Their expressions were dumbfounded; for what possible reason had they had been summoned to the bedchamber shared by the man who had betrayed their daughter and the monster for whom he had betrayed her?

The furnishings were luxurious, as I would have expected. Every surface seemed to be draped with rich fabric. The walls were covered with sumptuous hangings, the lamps strung with baubles. The impression was a riot of textures and patterns, as if the room itself was swathed in layer upon layer of veils.

At the far end of the room, a startled figure turned toward us, covered with a cowled cloak and heavily veiled as on the previous night at the grim banquet in Apollonides's garden. No wonder, I thought, that Zeno had not wanted her to see the ring of Cydimache when I confronted him in the little courtyard!

For a long moment, no one moved or spoke. "First Timouchos," I said quietly, "do you wish to-"

"No! You do it, Finder. Unveil her." His voice was hoarse, hardly more than a whisper. I felt a sudden, piercing sympathy for him. He had worked out the truth, as I had. He knew what must have happened on the Sacrifice Rock that day; but what father can accept the fact of his child's death without proof, absolute proof, however painful? So it had been for me, unable, finally and without doubt, to accept Meto's death. Without proof, there must always be a glimmer of hope. For a few moments longer, Apollonides could cling to that hope. Once the veil was drawn aside, all doubt would vanish. I saw him steel himself for the moment, a look of utter misery on his face.

I slowly crossed the room. The veiled, hunchbacked figure swayed slightly back and forth as I approached, as if contemplating escape; but escape was impossible. I drew closer and closer, until I was close enough to hear the sound of heavy breathing behind the veil. I raised my hand.

The figure likewise raised a hand and seized my wrist, to stop me from lifting the veil.

I found myself staring, befuddled, at the hand that gripped my wrist. Something was wrong-entirely and completely, terribly wrong. This was not-could not possibly be-the hand of the woman I expected to find behind the veil. Hers would be a smooth, delicate hand, the skin fair and unblemished, even lovelier than that of her mother, who stood trembling with confusion beside her husband at the other end of the room. This hand was coarse, and dark, and bristled with black hairs across the back. This could not possibly be the hand of Rindel, the daughter of Arausio, Zeno's lover!

My heart pounded in my chest. What had I done? How had I arrived at a conclusion so far from the truth, and drawn all these others along with me?

"Unveil her!" wailed Apollonides, his voice trembling with suspense.

There was no other choice. I prepared myself for the shock, the shame, the terrible mistake of Cydimache unveiled.

But at that moment, Zeno, too, must have seen the hand that restrained me. He expelled a strange, barking laugh fraught with anguish. He cried out, "Beloved! It's no use, anymore. Show yourself?"

What did he mean? I somehow sensed that he was not addressing the veiled one, but someone else in the room. There was a movement behind one of the wall hangings. With a shuddering sob, a slender figure stepped out of concealment and stole across the room, into the astonished arms of Arausio and his wife. They cried out in stunned, joyous surprise as they embraced their daughter. Rindel was even more beautiful than I had imagined.

Apollonides, as confounded as I was, stared from Rindel to the veiled one and demanded, "Unveil her, Gordianus!"

I tried to reach for the veil, but the hand that restrained me was strong-stronger than I expected, far stronger than I was. Suddenly the hand released me and the figure drew back, straightening as if shedding the hunch from its back, growing tall and erect. The coarse, dark, hairy-backed hand reached up to the veil, seized it, and tore it away.

I looked into two eyes I had never thought to see again. The face before me wavered and melted as my tears obscured it. I blinked, wiped my eyes, and stared.

"Meto!" I whispered.

On the upper floor, along the wing of Apollonides's house that faced in the direction of the city's main gate, there were five small rooms all in a row, each opening onto the same hallway. In one of those rooms I sat alone with Apollonides.

The room was dark. Its single window provided a view of the faraway city wall outlined against the flames that now burned low among the Roman siegeworks. In many places the flames had dwindled to embers; the fires had done their work. Against this lingering glow I could see the tiny silhouettes of the Massilian archers who restlessly patrolled the battlements. The breach itself was starkly outlined, a flickering fissure in the midst of the jet-black wall.

Apollonides stared out the window. His face, lit only by the distant, dying firelight, was impossible to read. Finally he spoke. "In all the hours you spent beneath his roof, I suppose Hieronymus must have told you the details of his family history." Alone with Apollonides, after the shock we had both received, this was not the first utterance I expected to hear from his lips.

I nodded. "I'd scarcely known him an hour before he told me about the deaths of his father and mother, and about his own years as an orphan and an outcast."

"His father was a Timouchos."

"Yes, Hieronymus told me. But his father lost his fortune-"

"He didn't lose it; it was stolen from him. Not literally stolen, but taken from him nevertheless, by devious means. His competitors conspired to ruin him, and they succeeded. Hieronymus has never known for sure how it happened or who was behind it; he was too young at the time to understand. So was I."

"What are you trying to tell me, First Timouchos?"

"Don't press me, Finder! Let me proceed at my own pace."

I sighed. In the aftermath of Meto's unveiling, Apollonides had taken charge. His soldiers had driven everyone out of Cydimache's room, up the stairway, and into this wing of the house. We had been dispersed into various small rooms, like prisoners confined to their cells, with soldiers standing guard in the hallway outside. In one room was Zeno, in another, Meto, and in another, Davus. Rindel and her parents were in another room. And in the last room, Apollonides and myself.

"It was my father who was behind it. My father destroyed Hieronymus's father and took his fortune. All that followed-the father's suicide, the mother's suicide, Hieronymus's ruin-came about because of what my father did. He never regretted it. And when I grew old enough to examine the family ledgers and eventually discovered the truth, he told me that I shouldn't regret it, either. `Business is business,' he said. `Success shows the favor of the gods. Failure is a mark of the gods' disfavor.' The very fact that he had succeeded so spectacularly meant that he had nothing to atone for, and neither had I. My father died an old man in his own bed, without regrets.

"But when Cydimache was born…" Apollonides sighed. "The first moment I saw her, I thought: this is the gods' punishment for what my father did, that this innocent child should be so hideously disfigured. I should have disposed of her before she drew another breath; any other father would have done so, simply as an act of mercy. But I had my own selfish reasons for letting her live. Over the years she was often sickly, but she survived. She grew, and with every year became… even more hideous. She was a constant reminder of my father's sin. And yet… I couldn't hate her. Don't the philosophers tell us that to love beauty and hate ugliness is natural and right? Yet against all my expectations, against all reason, I came to love her. So I hated Hieronymus instead. I let myself blame him, not just for his own ruin, but for my daughter's deformity. Can you understand that, Finder?"

I said nothing and merely nodded.

"When the priests of Artemis came to the Timouchoi clamoring for a scapegoat, it was I who arranged for the choice to be Hieronymus. I thought that was very clever of me, to finally rid myself of the pest without having to bloody my own hands, and in a way that would not offend the gods, but in fact would be pleasing to them! It seemed fitting that he should be made to follow his father, be forced to step off the Sacrifice Rock into oblivion and out of my guilty dreams forever. Instead… it was my Cydimache who fell from the Sacrifice Rock! Could the gods make their will any more explicit, than to punish me with her death from the very spot where the father of Hieronymus died? My father always told me that the gods loved us. All along, they despised us!"

How strange, I thought, how typical of the gods and their devious sense of humor. I had come to Massilia seeking a lost child who was not lost at all, while Apollonides had lost a child and did not even know it, and we had both discovered the truth in the same instant.

"Finder, when you told me, on Hieronymus's terrace, that you had seen a man and woman on the Sacrifice Rock and that the woman had fallen-how aloof I was, how uncaring, not knowing… it was my Cydimache!" He sucked in a shuddering breath. "Hieronymus said she jumped. Your son-in-law said she was pushed. Which was it, Finder?"

"I don't know."

"But Zeno knows."

I shifted nervously. "Do you intend to torture him, First Timouchos?"

"Why, when I have you to find out the truth for me?"

"Me, First Timouchos?"

"They call you Finder, don't they? Domitius told me all about you; how men are compelled by some strange power to tell you the truth. This was a gift the gods gave you."

"Gift, or curse?"

"What do I care, Finder, so long as you compel Zeno to tell you exactly what happened on the Sacrifice Rock? Do that for me… and then you may speak to your son."