the blank space she had left for my reply.
I rose before daybreak the next morning. The family, appropriately garbed in our darkest clothing, gathered to share a simple meal of mourning, consisting of black bread with black beans.
Had it been entirely up to me, I would have given Hieronymus the simplest possible ceremony. But since Cytheris, with her connections in the performing world, had volunteered to provide the traditional mourners, musicians, and mimes, as well as some sturdy young slaves to carry the bier, it would have been churlish to refuse her offer. Amazingly, the entire troupe showed up on time. It was a good thing Bethesda had prepared extra food, since they all expected to be fed.
An hour after daybreak, our little procession set out. We took a roundabout route, walking up and down the streets of the Palatine so as to pass by various houses where Hieronymus had been an invited guest. If the inhabitants were not awake before we passed by, the screeching mourners and the musicians with their rattles, flutes, horns, and bells surely roused them from bed. Pedestrians paused and curious onlookers peered from windows to watch the mime, trying to guess whom he was impersonating. The fellow had met Hieronymus only once at one of Cytheris's parties, but he was remarkably gifted; wearing one of Hieronymus's favorite tunics, he produced an uncanny simulation of my friend's posture, gait, hand gestures, facial expressions, and even his laugh.
One passerby, after watching the mime for a moment, made a typical comment: 'Hieronymus the Scapegoat? Is that him on the bier? Didn't know he was dead!' Such recognition was a testament to the mime's talent and to the impression Hieronymus had made on a surprising number of people. I was amazed at how many men and women seemed to have known him. Walking at a slow gait with the rest of the family behind the musicians and the funeral bier, I found myself staring at every stranger who paused to watch the procession, wondering if Hieronymus's murderer was among them.
Eventually we descended the western slope of the Palatine and crossed the Sacred Way at a point well away from the Forum. Had Hieronymus been a Roman man of affairs, a pass through the Forum would have been mandatory, but I decided to forego the area, where huge crowds were already gathering for the Gallic Triumph. We avoided the narrow, noisome streets of the Subura as well, and instead ascended the slope of the Esquiline through the Carinae district. Cytheris had requested that the funeral cortege pass before the House of the Beaks.
The performers knew who was paying them; as we approached the house, the moaning and shrieking and the drumming and fluting rose to an earsplitting crescendo. At the same time, the passable portion of the street narrowed considerably. True to his word, Antony was holding an auction in front of the house to sell off some of Pompey's possessions. The auction had not yet begun, but numerous objects had already been laid out for preview on makeshift tables.
There were odds and ends from silver table settings, many of the pieces dented or black with tarnish. A few items of jewelry, presumably from the collection of Pompey's wife, Cornelia, had been put on display. These included single earrings that had lost their mates, necklaces that needed repair, rings that had lost their stones, and stones that had lost their rings. There were piles of clothing, pieces of furniture, and a few bookcases stuffed with tattered scrolls.
Behind me I heard whispering. I turned to see that Bethesda and Diana were looking sidelong at the goods for auction and holding a hushed conference. I shushed them, but they seemed not to hear. 'Respect!' I finally said, and they tore their eyes from the items on display, looking a bit chagrined.
'We can come back later and see what's left,' I heard Diana whisper to her mother. I had to admit that I myself was tempted to rummage through the shelves and see which of Pompey's books were on offer.
'See anything you like, Finder? I can put it aside for you.'
I turned to see Antony nearby, leaning nonchalantly against one of the display tables. He reached for a voluminous green tunic with silver embroidery and held it up by the shoulders. 'Can this huge sack have been Pompey's? 'The Great One,' indeed! The old fellow had gotten as big as an elephant.'
A hand snatched the tunic from him. Cytheris replaced it on the table and gave him a chiding look. Antony crossed his arms and pouted.
'Can't you see that Hieronymus is passing by?' she said.
'Ah, yes.' Antony raised his arm in a mock salute. 'Hail and farewell, Scapegoat! In Elysium there shall be endless parties for you to crash.'
The day was just beginning, yet Antony was already drunk. Or had he stayed up all night drinking and not yet gone to bed? This was how he chose to mark the day of Caesar's Gallic Triumph, in which he should have played a honored role.
As we passed beyond the constricted area of the auction and into the open street beyond, I noticed a man leaning against a fig tree. Before he could step behind the tree, I saw his face clearly and recognized him as Thraso, one of Fulvia's slaves. Realizing I had seen him, he made no further effort to conceal himself and even gave me a slight smile and a nod. Something told me he was the man who had followed me after my meeting with Cytheris. Did Fulvia keep a watcher posted on the House of the Beaks every hour of every day?
At length we passed though the Esquiline Gate. Beyond the old city walls, sprawling over the gently sloping hillsides, was the public necropolis, the city of the dead. The unmarked graves of slaves and the modest tombs of common citizens were crowded close together. On a normal day, there would have been other funerals taking place, their flaming pyres scenting the necropolis with the smells of burning wood and flesh. But on that day, ours was the only one.
A little way off the road, atop a small hill, the pyre had been prepared. It was in the very same location where two years ago we burned the body of Rupa's sister, Cassandra. Hieronymus was laid upon the pyre. The keepers of the flame set about stoking the fire.
A few people had sent their condolences, but only my family saw fit to actually attend the ceremony. Granted, it was still early in the morning, and on that day much else was happening. But I wondered at the fickleness of those whom Hieronymus had supposedly befriended after I left Rome. Of course, when all was said and done, he had been a foreigner and an outsider, with no blood connection to the city.
It was incumbent on me to say a few words, even though only the family was present. I recalled my first meeting with Hieronymus in Massilia, when his intervention alone saved me from arrest; his hospitality to me and to Davus in that desperate, besieged city; his narrow escape from the fate that awaited him as the Scapegoat; and his journey with me to Rome. I reflected on the oscillating fortunes of his life; he had been born a child of privilege in the highest echelon of Massilian society, but his father's financial ruin and suicide had reduced the family to poverty and made them social outcasts. His selection to act as the Scapegoat promised him a brief period of the utmost luxury, followed by a sacrificial death. But it had not been so, and the doomed man became a guest in my home, and then, curiously enough, a sought-after dinner companion to the elite of the city. Then came a reversal as ironic as all the other reversals in his peculiar life, and with it, the end.
While I spoke, Davus began to weep, and Diana hugged him. Mopsus, Androcles, and Rupa, seemed distracted by the work of the fire starters; they stared past me at the pyre, awaiting the first tongues of flame. Bethesda stood stiff and unbending; was she thinking of that other funeral, for Cassandra, which she had been too ill to attend? Eco was still in Syracuse, but his wife, Menenia, was here, along with their golden-haired twins, Titus and Titania.
'What can we learn from his death?' I looked from face to face amid the small gathering of those dearest to me. 'Only what we already know: that fortune is changeable, that the love of the gods is no more steadfast than the love of mortals, that all who live must die. But the words and acts of the living carry on after them. The story of Hieronymus is not yet over, not while any one of us who remembers him still lives.'
And not while at least one man continues to search for his killer and the true cause of his death, I thought.
I bowed my head. A little later I heard the crackling of wood, smelled the odor of burning, and felt the heat of the flames against my back.
'Farewell, Hieronymus!' I whispered.
IX
