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  "First Timouchos!" barked the officer, saluting. "As you ordered, I've brought the scapegoat, along with the two men who were seen with him trespassing on the Sacrifice Rock."

  "You took your time fetching them here."

  "I took the most direct route, First Timouchos. Our progress was… difficult."

  Something-a large wine jug perhaps-crashed against the courtyard gates with a loud explosion.

  "I want that mob dispersed at once," said Apollonides. "First Timouchos, the noise is misleading. They're not as dangerous as you might think. They're completely disorganized. Loud, but not armed-"

  "Then they should be easily dispersed."

  The officer ground his jaw. "The sight of the scapegoat excited them. Perhaps if we allow them a little time to cool off-"

  "At once, I said! Call up archers. Spill some blood if you have to, but clear the streets immediately. Do you understand?" The officer saluted and backed down the steps. Apollonides turned his attention to us. He glared at Davus and me, then settled his gaze on Hieronymus, who stared sullenly back at him. "You're lucky to still be alive," Apollonides finally said.

  "The goddess protects me," answered Hieronymus, his voice steady but hoarse from yelling. "I have a higher purpose."

  Apollonides's pale blue eyes flashed. A thin smile spread across the mouth too small for his massive jaw. "Call it what you want. Your higher purpose will still lead you straight to Hades. When you meet them there, give your parents my regards." Hieronymus stiffened, and for a moment I thought he might rush up the steps and hurl himself at Apollonides. But Apollonides, a better judge of Hieronymus than I, never flinched.

  "Am I under arrest, then?" demanded Hieronymus. Apollonides snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. I had you brought here for your own safety. You should be thankful for my diligence."

  "And my friends? Are they under arrest?"

  Apollonides glowered at us. "I'm not sure. I haven't yet made up my mind. Would you believe I've had other things to think about today? In the meantime, you'll all spend the night here-where I can keep an eye on you."

  Apollonides withdrew without another word. Slaves escorted us into the house to show us to our quarters. On the way, we passed through the central garden, where evidently a dinner party of considerable size was being prepared. A little army of slaves hurried this way and that, carrying couches, small tables, portable lamps, and stacks of empty serving trays. A celebration feast, I thought; only tonight there would be no cause for celebration.

  While Hieronymus was shown to his own private quarters, Davus and I were escorted down the same hallway but in the opposite direction. We descended a short flight of steps. The hallway grew narrower, the ceiling lower, the way more poorly lit, until at last we came to a tiny, windowless room at the very end of the hallway. There were two small sleeping cots and just enough space to walk between them, if I angled my body sideways. A feeble light was cast by a little hanging lamp burning rancid oil. I fell onto my cot and realized, with a long exhalation, how weary I was. But sleep was impossible. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw twisted faces from the mob.

  At the sound of footsteps, I sat up. Hieronymus stood in the doorway. He surveyed our accommodations and raised an eyebrow. "Cozy," was all he said.

  "I suppose your own quarters are rather larger."

  He shrugged. "An anteroom, a bed chamber, and another room with a private balcony. Anything less would be an insult to the goddess!"

  By the lamp's flickering light I noticed a shiny object on the little finger of his left hand. It was the ring set with a black stone that he had discovered on the Sacrifice Rock. In the rush of events, I had forgotten about it.

  He followed my gaze and wriggled his finger, making the stone flash in the light. "A tight fit, even on my little finger. What do you make of it, Gordianus?"

  "A woman's ring, obviously. I don't think I've ever seen a stone quite like it."

  "No? I suppose they're more sought after in Massilia than elsewhere, on account of the xoanonArtemis. It's a bit of skystone; fallen from the heavens, just as thexoanon Artemis fell to earth long ago. Skystones aren't necessarily pretty. Sometimes they're quite ugly, in fact, but this one is rather interesting; not solid black, you see, but with smoky swirls of silver shot through it, and as smooth and shiny as polished marble. Quite valuable, I imagine."

  "The sort of ring a Massilian might give to his lover?"

  "I suppose, if the man were rich and the lover beautiful enough to wear such fine jewelry." With a bit of effort he twisted it off his finger and handed it to me.

  "What was it doing on the Sacrifice Rock?" I asked. "We've seen how difficult it is to get to the summit. No one goes there casually, especially now, with everyone banned from climbing the rock. So how did this ring come to be there?"

  Hieronymus pursed his lips. "We do know of two people who were on the rock not long ago. The officer in the light blue cape and the woman who jumped."

  "Who was pushed," corrected Davus.

  I nodded. "Apollonides dispatched his men to have a look in the vicinity of the Sacrifice Rock, but he explicitly forbade them to climb onto the rock itself. We must assume that the summit of the Sacrifice Rock was never searched. This ring may have been there ever since."

  "Perhaps," conceded Hieronymus. "But how did it get there in the first place? It seems unlikely that it could have slipped accidentally from the woman's finger, unless she had very small hands indeed."

  "Perhaps she pulled the ring off her finger before she… went over the edge," I said.

  "Or perhaps the man pulled it off," suggested Davus. "We saw them struggle for a bit, remember? Perhaps he pulled it off her finger, then dropped it when he pushed her-"

  "When she jumped," insisted Hieronymus.

  "In either case, if this ring did come from the woman's finger…" I left the thought unfinished. "Do you mind, Hieronymus, if I keep it for a while?"

  "You can cast it into the sea for all I care. I've no use for it." He pressed a hand to his belly. "Do you suppose we can expect anything resembling a meal this evening?"

  Davus's stomach growled sympathetically.

  As if on cue, a young slave appeared in the shadowy hallway behind Hieronymus. "Dinner is served in the garden," he announced.

  "A dinner under the stars-delightful!" said Hieronymus, turning to smile at the slave.

  By the lamp's feeble glow I saw the boy's look of surprise. His eyes grew wide, then he stepped back and averted his face. "Not… not for you," he managed to stutter. "I've come for the two Romans."

  "Then where am I to eat?" demanded Hieronymus.

  "In… your rooms," the slave stuttered, his voice hardly more than a whisper, his face turned away from the scapegoat.

  "Of course," said Hieronymus dryly. "What was I thinking? The scapegoat dines alone."

  The garden was dimly lit. In the few lamps scattered about, the flames burned low. Oil, like food, had become scarce in Massilia. The light was so uncertain that I had trouble estimating how many people had gathered in the garden; perhaps fifty or more. If this had been intended to be a celebration dinner, whom would the First Timouchos have invited? The most exalted of his fellow Timouchoi; the priests of Artemis; military leaders; perhaps a few important Roman exiles; certainly the Roman military commander. Sure enough, I noticed Domitius reclining on one elbow on a dining couch, sipping from a cup of wine. The slave escorted us to the empty couch next to him.

  Domitius peered at us blearily. If anyone should have felt betrayed by the day's events, it was him. In Italy he had disregarded Pompey's advice, made a stand at Corfinium against Caesar, and even before the siege was underway had been handed over to Caesar by his own men. Now, once again trapped in a city besieged by Caesar, he had desperately looked to Pompey for relief-and the ships sent by Pompey had sailed past Massilia and into the sunset.

  His speech was slurred. "There you are, troublemaker. I suppose you know you've caused me considerable embarrassment today. A fell
ow Roman-my personal responsibility-trespassing on sacred ground! What were you thinking, Gordianus?"

  "Davus and I wanted to watch the fleet sail out," I said blandly. "The walls were very crowded. The Sacrifice Rock seemed to offer the best vantage point."

  "You knew it was forbidden."

  "Can a visitor be expected to remember every local custom?" Domitius took this fiction for what it was worth and snorted cynically. "You can climb up the Sacrifice Rock and take a piss off it for all I care. Better yet, take a leap into the sea. It's probably the only way to get out of this godforsaken place." He held up his empty cup. A slave appeared from the shadows and refilled it. "Only thing they seemed to have stockpiled in adequate amounts-good Italian wine. And slaves to pour it. What a wretched little town this is!" He made no effort to lower his voice. I looked about. Guests were still arriving. The mood of the place was somber and the conversations quiet. Quite a few heads turned our way in response to Domitius's outburst.

  "If you're not careful," I said quietly, "your own tongue shall cause you more embarrassment than I ever could."

  He laughed bitterly. "I'm a Roman, Gordianus. I have no manners and no fear. That's how we've managed to conquer the world. How some of us have managed to conquer it, anyway. Ah, but here's another glorious loser-Milo! Over here!"

  Out of the shadowy crowd Milo appeared, looking as glum and bleary-eyed as Domitius. He dropped onto the couch next to Domitius and snapped his fingers. When the slave brought more wine, I declined; it seemed a night to keep my wits about me.

  The garden was a square surrounded by a colonnade. In the center there was a dry fountain with a conventional statue of Artemis. Couches were gathered in U-shapes, alternately facing in or out from the center so that in rows they formed a sort of Greek key pattern of the type one often sees along the hem of a chiton. In this way guests faced in all four directions and there was no true center or focus; the layout also made it possible to overhear conversations from parties that were nearby but faced another direction. Our immediate vicinity seemed to be reserved for Romans. I heard the low murmur of Latin all around. Looking over his shoulder at me from a nearby couch, I saw Gaius Verres, who had the temerity to wink at me.

  The guests included both sexes, though men greatly outnumbered women. The women, I noticed, following Massilian custom and in marked contrast to Rome, took no wine.

  Apollonides and his retinue were the last to arrive. Everyone stood (some, like Domitius and Milo, not steadily) in deference to the First Timouchos. The grim-faced men surrounding Apollonides I took to be his closet advisors. Also in the party was a young couple. I had heard much about them. Now at last I saw them together: Apollonides's only child, Cydimache, and her husband, Zeno.

  The girl wore a voluminous gown made of fine material shot through with gold and silver threads. The colorful veils that hid her face were of some gossamer stuff. On another woman such expensive and elaborate clothing might have made one think of wealth and privilege, but on Cydimache they seemed a sort of costume meant to distract curious onlookers from the misshapen, hunchbacked form within. Even her hands were concealed. Without a single, recognizable human feature for the eye to connect to, one might almost imagine that some bizarre animal had entered our midst beneath those mounds of veils.

  She shambled slowly along with an uneven gait. The rest of the party checked their strides so as not to get too far ahead of her. There was something profoundly unsettling about the sight of that little retinue headed by the most powerful man in Massilia, towering, big-jawed Apollonides, held back by the twisted form of Cydimache. The moment seemed supremely strange; I realized that I had never before seen such a misshapen mortal in such a context, finely dressed and dining in a place of honor among the rich and powerful. One only ever sees such wretched creatures wearing tags, sleeping in gutters, and begging in the poorer parts of town. No one knows where they come from; no one can imagine how they continue to exist. Respectable Roman families would never allow such a monster to live, or if they did, would hide it away and never be seen with it in public. But to become a Timouchos required offspring, and Cydimache had been Apollonides's only

  child; he could not deny her. It might even be, as Milo said, that Apollonides loved her, as any man might love his only daughter. I thought of my own daughter in Rome-Diana, so bright and beautiful-and felt pity for Apollonides.

  And what of the young man who walked beside Cydimache, solicitously holding her arm, though his support did nothing to straighten her crooked gait? I had heard that Zeno was handsome, and he was. He had the kind of dark, brooding good looks that one associates with wild young poets. His dark hair was disheveled and his eyes had a haunted look. He had removed his battle armor but still wore his light blue officer's cape. Something in his defeated posture played upon my memory, and I suddenly realized that he must be the officer I had seen that afternoon on the sole returning ship, standing alone on the prow and facing away from the spectators on the city walls.

  I noticed something else about him. It was not immediately apparent because the uneven gait of Cydimache was so much more pronounced, but Zeno, too, was limping slightly, favoring his left leg.

  XVII

  There were no speeches to start the evening, not even a welcome from Apollonides. Had the day turned out differently-had Massilia scored a great victory-everyone would have been happy to listen to speeches and toasts that reiterated to infinity what everyone already knew; boasting and gloating would have been not just permissible but imperative. Instead, what had been planned as a celebration felt more like a funeral, but even at a funeral the guests might have been more cheerful.

  I had wondered how Apollonides planned to mount a banquet when the city was facing famine. The ingenuity of his cooks was commendable. I had never seen such exquisitely prepared and presented food served in such tiny portions or in courses spaced so far apart. In any other circumstance it would have been laughable to be served a course consisting of a single olive (and not even a large one) garnished with a small sprig of fennel. This was presented on a tiny silver plate, perhaps intended to trick the eye into perceiving a double image. Milo grunted and quipped, "So what do you think of the new Massilian cuisine, Gordianus? I can't see it catching on in Rome." No one laughed. The dining couch I shared with Davus was placed in such a way that if I looked past Domitius and Milo I could see the nearby U-shaped array of couches where Apollonides and his party were disposed. Because of the dim lighting, I could hardly see their faces, much less read their expressions, but even their vague silhouettes were a study in dejection. When there was a lull in the murmur of Latin around me, I could overhear their conversation. Increasingly, as more wine was served, I heard one strong, ringing voice above the others. It was the voice of Zeno.

  Meanwhile, Domitius and Milo kept up a rancorous, rambling conversation. It turned out that the Roman in charge of the so-called relief fleet was a certain Lucius Nasidius. I didn't know him, but they did, and had strong opinions to express. Neither Domitius nor Milo was surprised that the fellow had hung back from the battle and then turned tail when he saw the day going badly for the Massilians; either of them could have told Pompey never to dispatch a shirker like Nasidius on such a critical mission; this disaster was merely the latest in a unending stream of bad decisions by Pompey; if only one of them had been in charge of that fleet… and so on.

  Occasionally Domitius or Milo tried to draw me into their exchange. I answered absentmindedly, straining my ears to pick up the conversation from Apollonides's little group. From the bits I was able to overhear, my suspicion was confirmed: Zeno had commanded the ship that sailed back with news of the crushing defeat. As Zeno began to talk about the battle, the murmur of Latin around me died down. Even Domitius and Milo fell silent. They kept their eyes straight ahead, but like everyone else within earshot, they began to eavesdrop.

  "They don't fight like ordinary men," Zeno was saying. "And upon what vast reservoir of experience do you base that observat
ion, son-in-law?" asked Apollonides sharply. "How many battles have you fought in?"

  "I fought in this one! And if you'd been there, you'd know what I mean. There was something almost supernatural about them. One always hears talk about the gods overseeing battles, lifting up fallen warriors, urging them on; but I don't think it was the gods out there on the water today, driving the victors. It was Caesar; the inspiration of Caesar. They shout his name to keep up each other's spirits, to shame the laggards, to frighten their enemies. I saw things today I never would have believed, the sort of things you hear in songs. Terrible things…

  In the dim light I saw the veiled form of Cydimache move closer to her husband on the couch they shared, not quite touching him, as if to give comfort simply by drawing near. Did Apollonides, seated across from them, scowl? His gray silhouette sat upright, arms crossed, shoulders stiff, jaw thrust out.

  Zeno went on, his words low but clear. Occasionally, when his voice grew thick with emotion, he swallowed and pressed on. "The things I saw today! Blood-fire-death… There were-there were two Romans-identical-they must have been twins. They were on a Roman galley that was trying to draw alongside and board us. The Romans cast grappling hooks at us, but the hooks fell short. They kept trying to close the distance. We kept maneuvering away. Their men outnumbered ours; they'd have overwhelmed us. Our only hope was to draw far enough away to use our catapults against them, or, if we could, swing into ramming position. But the Roman captain kept after us like a hound after a bitch. At one point they drew so close that some of their men jumped aboard. Only a handful-eight or ten-not nearly enough to take command of the ship. Such braveness, almost madness! They did it for glory, you see. If the Romans finally did manage to catch us with grappling hooks and swarm over us, these men could have boasted that they were the first aboard.