it, and inside it I found the pages of his private journal. I had sensed that Hieronymus was watching. I had imagined his voice in my head: How predictable you are, Gordianus! You saw your precious copy of Numa and felt compelled to check at once that I hadn't damaged it-you did exactly as I intended! You found my private notes, intended for my eyes only, while I lived. But now that I'm dead, I wanted you to find my journal, Gordianus, tucked inside your precious Numa…
The sight of the Numa had lured me to find the journal. But the Numa itself was the key-the truth within which the words were found. Its author was a Calpurnius, one of Numa's descendants, like Caesar's wife and her uncle. No one cared more about the legacy of Numa than Uncle Gnaeus, and Numa had left no greater legacy than his calendar, which was meant to fix for all time the sacred days and the manner of reckoning them…
'And what about my notations regarding celestial movements?' said Hieronymus. 'Didn't you connect those to my interest in the calendar?'
'Yes, but where did you learn all that?'
'From Uncle Gnaeus, of course. It was when I saw how he ranted against Caesar's intention to change the calendar that I first became suspicious of him. After that, my continuing curiosity about the calendar made him suspicious of me.'
'But I asked Uncle Gnaeus whether he instructed you about astronomy, and he denied it. He said he wouldn't waste his effort on his niece's foreign-born minion.'
Hieronymus snorted. 'And you believed him? That man would gladly lecture anyone who asked about the calendar-slave, freedman, foreigner, or even female-for hours on end!' He shook his head ruefully. 'You used to appreciate a puzzle, Gordianus-the more baffling, the better. What's become of your powers of deduction? Gone to Hades, along with your powers of observation, I suppose.'
'What is that supposed to mean?'
'What a fuss Calpurnia made over you earlier. How did she put it? 'Others see but are blind, but when you see the truth, you know it!' Yet earlier today, at the triumph, it was what you did not see that mattered. But at the time, you took no notice, and now it's completely slipped your mind.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Who was not in the procession who should have been?'
I shrugged. 'Marc Antony?'
'Please, you can do better than that!'
I thought. Cicero and Brutus had been among the senators. Gaius Octavius had ridden with the troops, as intended. And amid the priests-
'By Hercules! Uncle Gnaeus didn't march with the other priests today. I saw the priests, and he wasn't among them. You're right; I took no notice of that. I saw, but I did not observe! It's only now, thinking back, that I realize he wasn't there.'
'And where might he have been?'
'At the house of Porsenna, murdering the haruspex!'
Up at the altar, Uncle Gnaeus, having completed his dismemberment of the ox, was wiping the blade with a piece of wool, staining the cloth bright red and making the knife ready for its next victim. His clothing daubed with blood and viscera, Uncle Gnaeus left the altar and stepped into the tent, where the camilli would wash his hands and dress him in new, spotless vestments.
Hieronymus nodded. 'That's the very knife he used to kill Porsenna, earlier today-the same knife he used to kill me, when I went to report to Calpurnia that night. In fact, I still wasn't quite ready to share my suspicions of Uncle Gnaeus with her, but he saw the signs and knew I was drawing close. He was lying in wait for me, in the darkness. The old man is stronger than he looks. He knows how to use that blade, and he knows exactly where a man's heart is located.'
I averted my eyes from Hieronymus. 'Your murder I understand. But why Porsenna?'
'We can conjecture that the two of them were in league from the start, each working upon Calpurnia to gain her trust and to garner her intimate knowledge of Caesar's intentions. Uncle Gnaeus believed that the Etruscan soothsayer was on his side, a fellow proponent of old-fashioned religion and a defender of the old calendar. Porsenna's job was to fill Calpurnia's head with false suspicions, to deflect her attention from the real threat: her own uncle. But Porsenna was playing his own game. What if, at the very last moment-today-the haruspex revealed what Uncle Gnaeus was up to and saved Caesar's life, thus proving his powers of divination and his devotion to the dictator? Calpurnia would fall even more deeply under his spell; he might win even Caesar's trust. What soothsayer doesn't lust after that kind of power and influence?'
I nodded. 'But Uncle Gnaeus grew suspicious of his partner…'
'Yes. Porsenna was the one person remaining who could ruin his plans. So Uncle Gnaeus decided to put an end to him. During the triumph, he slipped away from the procession and murdered the haruspex in his home, then hurried here, in time for the ceremony.'
I frowned. 'The one person who could ruin his plans? What about me?'
'Uncle Gnaeus considered killing you. He very nearly did.'
'When?'
'Two days ago, in the public latrine, during the Asian Triumph. Did you think it was a coincidence that he happened to join you? He was marching by in the procession and spotted you in the crowd. When he saw you slip into the latrine, he followed you. You thought he was fiddling with his robes, attempting to relieve himself-when in fact he was reaching for his knife, deciding whether or not to kill you.'
'Why didn't he?'
'You were very close to death, Gordianus-as close as you've ever been. You felt it brush against you; you shivered. But Gnaeus Calpurnius decided you were harmless. You knew nothing. Or rather, you knew all you needed to know, yet you still did not suspect him. He chose to let you live.' Hieronymus looked at me sadly and shook his head.
'The accident that occurred during the first triumph, when the axle of Caesar's chariot broke-was Gnaeus Calpurnius responsible for that?'
'What do you think, Gordianus? Caesar himself suspected sabotage.'
'As a priest, Uncle Gnaeus would have had access to the sacred chariot… but I can't imagine him crawling under the carriage and sawing through the axle.'
'Perhaps not, but he could have suborned some mischievous young camillus to do so.'
'But what was the point? Caesar was unharmed. Such an accident could hardly be counted on to kill him.'
'Uncle Gnaeus's intent was not to harm Caesar but to turn the people against him. Uncle Gnaeus is a very religious man; he expected the crowd to be awed and shaken by such an ill omen. How frustrating it must have been for him that the incident actually lightened the mood of the spectators. He became more determined than ever to take matters into his own hands.'
Hieronymus turned his gaze to the tent and smiled.
'But look!' he said. 'There's Caesar now, stepping out of the tent and mounting the steps. Listen to the people cheer!'
Caesar still wore the gold-embroidered toga and the laurel crown of a triumphing general. He walked to the top of the temple steps, where he could be seen by the crowd. The cheering was thunderous. Caesar raised his hands. The tumult subsided.
He delivered a brief speech. I couldn't follow the words; they seemed muffled and garbled, as if my head were underwater. I heard only snatches-something about 'Venus, my ancestress' and 'the promise I made at Pharsalus' and 'the dawn of a new world, a new age, even a new way of reckoning the days that are sacred to the gods.'
From the tent, the placard inscribed with the new calendar was carried by priests to a place on the steps just below Caesar. The people of Rome beheld their dictator and his new calendar. The image conveyed an awesome truth: Caesar, the descendant of a goddess, was master not just of space but also of time. On the steps of the temple he had made, in front of the calendar he had decreed, his divine power was made manifest.
But even demigods are not immortal. And now, for the crime of sacrilege, for presuming to replace the ages-old calendar of Numa, Caesar would die, and the agent of the gods' wrath would be Gnaeus Calpurnius.
The old priest, attired in spotless vestments, stepped out of the tent and quickly mounted the steps. No one
