Licinia was wracked with sobs. Lucius attempted to put his arm around her, but she shook him off, refusing to be consoled. As the last of Gaius’s entourage disappeared from the vestibule, Lucius went running after them.
As Gaius proceeded through the streets of the Subura, shutters flew opened. Men cheered him, but few of them joined the entourage. Lucius looked about nervously. Where were the vast throngs who once had promised to defend Gaius to the death? They seemed to have melted away. As the small band entered the Forum, idlers and bystanders gawked with curiosity, then scattered, sensing trouble and fleeing from it.
Before the statue of his father, Gaius paused for a long time, gazing up at the face of the elder Tiberius. His loyal young slave Philocrates stood to his left. Lucius stood to his right. Gaius spoke in a dreamy voice.
“My grandfather cast a long shadow; men know me as the grandson of Scipio Africanus, not the son of Tiberius Gracchus. But my father was also a great Roman. His victories in Spain established a peace that lasted twenty-five years. His embassies to Asia made him the confidante of kings. He was twice elected consul, twice awarded triumphs, and served as censor. My brother would have been as great, if he had lived. I had hoped that
Lucius heard shouting from the direction of the Senate House, followed by the sounds of a street fight. The noise came nearer. “Gaius, we must get back to your house. There aren’t enough of us to take them on.”
Gaius gave a start. He pricked up his ears, then shook his head. “The fighting has moved between us and the Subura. We can’t go back. This is where I’ll make my stand. This is where I’ll fall.”
Lucius’s heart sank, but he took a deep breath. “I won’t desert you, Gaius.”
“You’re a true friend, Lucius.”
Armed men appeared in the distance. They spotted Gaius, gave a shout, and ran toward him. The entourage was vastly outnumbered. Men looked to Gaius for orders, but he stood as stiff and silent as his father’s statue. Some of his supporters panicked and began to flee in all directions.
At last, Gaius cried out in despair. “Lucius! Philocrates! All of you, follow me!” He cast off his toga, as did Lucius and the others who were wearing them, the better to run in his under-tunic.
With the mob at their heels, they raced from the Forum. They skirted the slope of the Palatine and sprinted across the Circus Maximus. In the narrow streets of the Aventine, they lost their pursuers. Near the crest of the hill, they came to the Temple of Diana.
Gaius ran into the temple. The handful of supporters who followed watched him fall to his knees before the statue of the goddess. “Queen of the hunt!” he cried, gasping for breath. “Daughter of Jupiter, sister of Apollo! Accept this sacrifice!” He placed the pommel of his sword on the floor and pointed the blade toward his chest. Before he could fall on it, two of his followers rushed to stop him. One of them gripped his shoulders and pulled him back. The other snatched the sword and handed it to Philocrates.
Gaius wept. He beat his fists against the floor. “Ungrateful, treacherous Romans, I put a curse on you!” he shouted. “I pointed the way to freedom, and you turned against me. I risked everything for you, and now you abandon me. Be slaves forever, then, to the murderers in the Senate!”
It seemed to Lucius that a madness had come over his friend. Gaius had always been a brave man and a fighter, yet now he seemed determined to die by his own hand, without a struggle. Gaius had been utterly sure of his cause, yet now he renounced it; he had been utterly devoted to the common citizens of Roma, yet now he cursed them. Lucius was appalled, but he could not judge Gaius. He himself had been seized by a madness the previous day, when he struck Antyllius dead without thinking.
A straggler ran into the temple. “They’re close behind me!” he shouted. “They’re coming this way!”
Lucius and Philocrates pulled Gaius to his feet. They turned him toward the entrance. In a daze, he ran out into the street. His pursuers saw him and shouted. The chase resumed.
For Lucius, the headlong flight was like a nightmare. The winding streets of the Aventine, the old fountain at the mouth of the Appian Aqueduct, the salt warehouses along the Tiber, and the bustling markets of the Forum Boarium, all these places were utterly familiar yet utterly strange. Seeing them pass by, men laughed and cheered them on, like spectators watching a footrace. Others jeered at the desperate little entourage, and pelted them with radishes and turnips and bits of bones and hooves from the market.
At the bridge across the Tiber, some of the men stopped and turned about, determined to make a stand. They begged Gaius to keep running, vowing to hold the bridge as long as they could. Accompanied only by Philocrates and Lucius, Gaius reached the far side of the Tiber just as his pursuers arrived at the bridge. The sounds of battle echoed across the river.
The west bank of the Tiber was largely wild and undeveloped. The three of them left the road, thinking to disappear amid the dense foliage. A narrow pathway led them to a stand of tall trees. The soft earth seemed to swallow the sound of their footsteps. Amid the leafy shadows, a beam of sunlight fell upon a stone altar in a small clearing. Lucius felt more than ever that he was moving through a dream.
“What place is this?” he whispered.
“The Grove of the Furies,” said Gaius in a hollow voice. “Tisiphone, Megaera, and Allecto: the vengeful sisters who punish sinful mortals with madness. Only black sheep can be sacrificed to them. Do you see their images on the altar? They carry whips and torches. Their hair is made of snakes. They’re older than Jupiter. They were born of the blood that was spilled when Cronus the Titan castrated his father Uranus-born of a crime of a son against his father. Yet I’ve always honored my father, and my grandfather! Why have the Furies led me here?”
He dropped to his knees before the altar. Shouts echoed amid the treetops. Their pursuers were drawing near.
“Philocrates, do you have my sword?”
The young slave quailed. “Master, please-”
“Put an end to me, Philocrates. At the Temple of Diana, I lost my nerve. I let them stop me. Do it for me, Philocrates. Do it now!” He threw back his head and raised his chest.
“Master, I can’t bear to do it.”
“I command you, Philocrates!”
Weeping and trembling, the young slave turned the blade on himself and fell forward. His cry of anguish reverberated though the woods. The pursuers heard and shouted to one another. They were very close.
Gaius knelt over the slave. He stroked the youth’s hair, then pulled the sword from his chest. He looked up at Lucius and extended the hilt toward him.
“This is what the Furies want,” Gaius whispered. “This is what they demand of you, Lucius. You brought about this crisis, when you slew Antyllius. Now you must end it.”
“By doing the thing I least desire in all the world to do?” cried Lucius.
“Would you allow me to be tortured and torn to pieces by my enemies?”
Lucius took the sword. He could not look at Gaius’s face. He circled him, knelt behind him, and clutched him tightly with one arm. He raised the blade to Gaius’s throat.
With his last breath, Gaius hissed a curse. “Let them be slaves of the Senate forever!”
Lucius drew the blade across Gaius’s throat. Gaius convulsed. Blood flowed warm and wet over Lucius’s encircling arm.
Lucius drew back and staggered to his feet. Still twitching, Gaius’s body fell beside that of the dead slave. Lucius dropped the blade between them.
He stepped back into the shadows and hid himself amid the foliage just as the pursuers entered the little clearing.
“Numa’s balls! Dead already!” one of them shouted. “Look at the two of them-he let the slave kill him, then the slave killed himself. The coward cheated us!”
“Doesn’t matter,” said another. “The bounty’s just as good, no matter who killed him. The consul Opimius promised a fat reward for the head of each and every citizen on his list, and the fattest reward of all is for the head of Gaius Gracchus. I claim it!”
Beating back the others with a snarl, the man raised his sword and hacked at Gaius’s neck until the head came free. He lifted it by the hair and swung the trophy in a circle over his head, whooping with triumph. Blood and bits of gore spattered the onlookers and stained the altar. A few drops penetrated the foliage and struck Lucius in the face, but he did not flinch.
“What about the slave?” someone said, giving the corpse a kick.
“Worthless. Leave it for now. Back to the city, my friends, where there’s plenty more killing to do!”
