Arms of Nemesis (32 page)

He began to pace furiously. 'You're a sentimental fool, Gordianus. I've met your type before, always trying to intercede between a slave and his just deserts, turning squeamish at the ugliness that's sometimes required to maintain Roman law and order. Well, you've done your best to stand in the way of justice in this case, and, by Jupiter, you've failed. Call yourself the Finder, indeed!'

He began to shout. 'We have your ineptitude to thank for Dionysius's death and for the fact that the murderer Alexandros is still at large. Get out! I have no use for such incompetence! When I get back to Rome I shall make you the laughing stock of the city. See if anyone ever comes seeking the services of the so-called Finder again!'

'Marcus Crassus—'

'Out!' In his fury he seized the documents that littered the table, crushed them in his fists and threw them at me. They missed, but one of them struck Eco in the face. 'And don't show yourself to me again unless you can bring me the slave Alexandros in chains, ready to be crucified for his crimes!'

'The man is more unsure of himself than ever,' I whispered to Eco as we walked towards our room. 'The strain of the funeral, the bloodshed that looms tomorrow — he's become overwrought . . .'

Suddenly I realized that my face was hot and my heart was beating fast. My mouth was so dry I could hardly swallow. Was it Marcus Crassus I was talking about, or was it myself?

I took a few steps and stopped. Eco looked up at me quizzically and touched my sleeve, asking what we should do next. I bit my hp, suddenly confused and disoriented. Eco drew his brows together in an expression of concern. I couldn't meet his eyes.

What was there left to do? I had been in constant motion for days, always able to glimpse the next step, and now I suddenly found myself adrift. Perhaps Crassus was right, and my defence of the slaves had been a sentimental folly all along. Even if he was wrong, my time was almost up and I had nothing to offer him - except for the fact that I knew, or thought I knew, who had poisoned Dionysius, just as I thought I knew where the slave Alexandros was hiding. If I could do nothing else, at least I might discover the truth, for my own satisfaction.

In our room I produced the two daggers I had brought from Rome and handed one to Eco. He looked at me, wide-eyed. 'Things may come to a crisis very suddenly,' I said. 'I think it best that we arm ourselves. The time has come to confront certain persons with
this.'
I pulled out the blood-stained cloak from where I had hidden it among our things. I rolled it up tightly and tucked it under my arm. 'We should bring cloaks for ourselves, as well. The night is likely to be chilly. Now, to the stables!'

We walked quickly down the hall, down the stairway, and through the atrium. We stepped through the front doorway into the courtyard. The sun had just begun to sink behind the low hills to the west.

We found Meto in the stables, attending to the horses for the night. I told him to prepare mounts for Eco and me.

'But it's getting dark,' he protested.

'It will get even darker before I find my way back.'

We were mounted and ready to begin, pausing in front of the stables, when Faustus Fabius and an armed cordon of guards passed through the courtyard. Between the ranks of soldiers, in single file, walked the last of the household slaves on their way to the annexe.

They walked silently, meekly. Some had their heads bowed, weeping. Others looked about with wide, frightened eyes. Among them I saw Apollonius, who walked with his eyes straight ahead, his jaw tightly clenched.

It seemed to me that the villa was being drained of its lifeblood. All those who gave the great house its animation, who kept it in motion from dawn to dusk, were being emptied from its corridors - the barbers and cooks, the stokers of fires and openers of doors, the servitors and attendants.

'You there, boy!' yelled Fabius.

Meto shrank back against my mount, clutching at my leg. His hands trembled.

My mouth went dry. 'The boy is with me, Faustus Fabius. I'm on an errand for Crassus, and I need him.'

Faustus Fabius waved for the contingent to continue to the annexe and stepped towards us. 'I hardly think that's the case, Gordianus.' He gave me one of his aloof, patrician smiles. 'The story I hear is that you and Marcus have parted ways for good, and he'd just as soon see your head on a platter as on your shoulders. I doubt you should even be allowed to take his horses from the stables. Where are you headed, anyway — just in case Crassus should ask.'

'Cumae.'

'Is it as bad as that, Gordianus, that you need to ask the Sibyl for help, and with night falling? Or does your son want a last look at the beautiful Olympias?' When I made no answer, he shrugged. An odd expression crossed his face, and I realized that a bit of the bloodstained cloak, folded and concealed beneath my own cloak, had slipped into view. I moved to cover it with my elbow.

'At any rate, the boy comes with me,' Fabius said.

He grabbed Meto's shoulder, but the child refused to let go of my leg. Fabius pulled harder and Meto began to squeal. Slaves and guards turned their faces towards us. Eco grew agitated; his mount began to neigh and stamp.

I whispered through my teeth, 'Have mercy on the boy, Faustus Fabius! Let him come with me — I'll leave him with Iaia in Cumae. Crassus will never know!'

Fabius relaxed his grip. Meto, shivering, released my leg and reached up to wipe his eyes. Fabius smiled thinly.

'The gods will thank you, Faustus Fabius,' I whispered. I reached down to scoop the child onto the horse's back, but Fabius swiftly pulled him away and stepped back, gripping him tightly.

Fabius shook his head. 'The slave belongs to Crassus,' he said. He turned and pushed Meto, stumbling and looking desperately back over his shoulder, toward the other slaves.

I watched dumbly until the last guard disappeared around the corner of the stables. Twilight covered the earth and the first stars glimmered above. At last I spurred my mount and set out. To any god who might happen to be listening, I said a prayer that morning would never come.

XXI

We would have been wiser, I chided myself afterwards, to have taken the road to Cumae rather than the shortcut through the hills that Olympias had shown us. It was on such nights, I imagine, that lemures escape from Hades, rise like vapour from Lake Avemus, and go walking through the fog, spreading the chill of death through the forest and across the barren hills. The presence of the walking dead is attenuated and weak when compared to the vivid, blood-rich fecundity of living matter, like the paleness of a candle when seen beside the sun. But in certain rimes and places, as on battlefieids or around the entrances to the underworld, the spirits of the dead are so concentrated that they can become as palpable as living flesh - or so the phenomenon has been explained by those wiser than myself in such matters. I only know that death stalked the way to Cumae that night, and that those it claimed would not have far to go to be sucked into the mouth of Hades.

It was not hard to find our way, at first. We had no difficulty reaching the main road from the villa, and Eco's sharp eyes spotted the narrow trail that branched towards the west. Even in twilight the way looked familiar. We passed through the stand of trees onto the bald ridge. Off to the north I saw the camp fires of Crassus's soldiers clustered around Lake Lucrinus. Faint sounds of singing rose from the valley below. Beneath the rising moonlight I could make out the hulking mass of the arena. Its high wooden walls

shone dully, like the hide of a slumbering behemoth; tomorrow it would awaken and devour its prey.

It was after we entered the woods and darkness fell that I became less certain of our way. I had forgotten how faint the path became, and how quickly. Without sunlight there was no way to be certain of the direction. The full moon was still low in the sky, and the blue glow it cast through the woods created a strange, confused jumble of light and shadow. Wisps of fog coiled around us, whether sea fog or vapours rising from the damp earth, I could not tell. Perhaps the wisps were not fog at all, but the wavering, half-glimpsed spirits of the uneasy dead.

The stench of sulphur grew heavy on the dank air. Far away a wolf howled. Another joined it, and then a third, so near us that I gave a start. Three voices howling, like the three heads of Cerberus. The night was colder than I had expected. I pulled my cloak more tightly around my shoulders. I thought of the cloak I carried under my arm, and worried that the wolves could smell the blood that stained it, and that it drew them nearer. For a brief moment I thought I heard horses behind us, then decided it was only our echo.

I pressed on, less and less certain that I knew the way. At last we came to a vaguely familiar spot where the sky opened above and the horses' hooves clacked against hard stone. My horse hesitated but I urged him on. He hesitated again, then Eco grabbed my arm from behind and made a gulping noise of distress. I let out a gasp.

We stood on the verge of the precipice overlooking Lake Avemus. A gust of sulphurous heat blew against my face, like the foul breath of Pluto himself. In the stillness I heard the wheezing and belching of the fumaroles, and in my mind's eye I saw the hapless dead struggling like drowning men amid the scalding muck far below. The moon rose above the treetops and cast a sickly blue light across the waste. In that illusory glow I saw the pocked, scarred face of a monster too huge to comprehend, and then, as the light shifted imperceptibly and the fumaroles opened and closed, I saw a vast bowl teeming with maggots the size of men. From the distant woods across the lake, visible only in jagged silhouette, I heard the barking of three dogs together.

'Cerberus is loose tonight,' I whispered. 'Anything might happen.'

Eco made an odd, stifled noise. I bit my tongue, cursing myself for frightening him. I took a deep breath, despite the stench of sulphur, and turned towards him.

The blow descended and sent me flying head first from my hone.

Eco's stifled noise had been a warning. The blow came from behind and landed square between my shoulder blades. Even as I fell, I wondered why the assassin chose to cudgel rather than stab me, and I could only conclude that Eco had somehow managed to deflect his blow. Perhaps it was an elbow that struck me, or the pommel of a sword.

The palms of my hands struck the hard rock and went scraping over it. Some other part of me struck next, probably my hip, to judge from the bruises I noticed later. I scrambled forward, to the very brink of the precipice.

A hard kick landed against my ribs and sent me lurching halfway over the stone lip. Then I knew why I hadn't been stabbed, as I could have been so easily, caught unawares: why leave evidence of murder when you can simply throw a man over a cliff to his death? Or perhaps it didn't matter how they killed me; if they intended to dispose of me afterwards by casting my body into the fiery lake, I would be swallowed whole by Pluto, bones and all.

I felt the breath of Pluto hot on my face, and reared back from the precipice. I was kicked square on the buttocks. I held my ground and was kicked again. From somewhere behind me came a noise like the bleating of a slaughtered sheep — Eco, crying out to me.

I rolled to the left, not knowing whether the shelf ended there or not and steeling myself to plunge into empty space. Instead I rolled onto hard stone and scrambled to my feet, spinning toward the assassin. Steel glinted in the moonlight and I dipped my head, just in time; the blade whooshed above me, and the wake of its passing blew through my hair. I reached for the assassin's arm and caught him off-balance. I never saw a face or even a body, only the forearm I gripped with both hands and twisted at a cruel angle.

He gasped and cursed. He reached with his other arm to take the blade from his useless hand. I kneed him in the groin. His free hand flailed aimlessly, clutching at the sudden pain, and I felt him weaken. There was no way for me to take his knife or to reach for my own. I lurched backwards, pulling him with me, and when I sensed that I had reached the edge of the cliff I spun about with all my strength, forcing him to spin with me, like an acrobat swinging his partner.

There was a sound of feet scuffling against bare rock, and then his forearm was jerked from my grip, as if something incredibly strong grabbed his feet and pulled him straight down. I held him almost too long, and felt myself jerked downward with him. The blade in his fist whipped by and cut my hand. I cried out and then staggered for a long, dizzy moment on the verge. I held out my arms like those of a crucified man, reaching for balance. My knees turned to water.

At that moment the barest shove would have sent me flying over the cliff, or the barest backward tug on my cloak could have pulled me to safety. Where was Eco?

I wheeled my arms wildly in the air and finally folded backwards, landing with a grunt on my backside. I twisted onto, my hands and knees and sprang to my feet. My horse stood a little to one side, having backed away from the precipice, but Eco and his mount were nowhere to be seen. Nor was there any sign of another assassin.

The night fog had grown thick, diffusing the growing moonlight and obscuring everything. I stared into the gloom and whispered, 'Eco?' I said his name louder, and then shouted: 'Eco!' But there was no answer — neither the pitiful, half-human murmur I had heard him make in our room, nor the stifled, strangling sound he had made to warn me. There was only silence, broken by the soughing of the wind in the treetops.

'Eco!' I shouted, heedless of alerting whatever other assassins might be lurking in the darkness. 'Eco!'

I thought I heard noises from far away, or else from nearby but muffled by fog and dense foliage — the clang of metal on metal, a shout, the snorting of a horse. I ran to my horse and mounted him.

I felt abruptly dizzy, so dizzy that I almost fell. My head throbbed. I reached up to press my temple, and felt a slick wetness. Even in the thickening gloom, I could see that the stuff on my fingers was blood. From the cut on my hand, I thought, and then realized that the blade had cut my other hand. Somehow I had struck my head without feeling it - or else the assassin's blade had swung closer to my scalp than I had realized.