squares. I longed for the secluded quiet of my own garden, the comfort of my own bed, and the smell of Bethesda's cooking.
Then I saw Olympias climbing up a narrow trail from the beach. In one hand she carried a small basket. She was still quite distant, but I could see that she was smiling — not the ambiguous smile that she wore in Gelina's villa, but a true smile, radiant and content. I also saw that the hem of her short riding stola was dark, as if she had been wading in water up to her knees.
I looked beyond her and tried to imagine where she had come from. The trail she was taking vanished from sight among a tumble of rocks, and I could see no beach at all at the water's edge. If she wanted to gather shells or sea creatures, there must surely be better and safer places in the vicinity of Cumae.
As she drew nearer I hid behind a stone. I circled behind it, trying to find a way to watch her without being seen, and noticed a movement from the corner of my eye. A hundred paces away I saw what might have been my mirror image, had I been wearing a dark hooded cloak and worn a long pointed beard. The philosopher Dionysius stood just as I did, poised behind a rock on the edge of the cliff, furtively watching Olympias climb up the hillside.
He did not see me. I moved slowly around the stone, concealing myself from Olympias and Dionysius both, and then scurried away from the cliff until I was out of sight. I hurried back to Iaia's house and rejoined Eco on the terrace.
Olympias arrived a few moments later. The door slave spoke to her in a hushed tone. Olympias stepped, into another room. When she reappeared some moments later, she had changed into a dry stola and no longer carried her basket.
'Was your visit to the Sibyl fruitful?' she asked, smiling pleasantly.
Eco frowned and averted his eyes. 'Perhaps,' I said. 'We'll find out on the way back to Baiae.'
Olympias looked puzzled, but nothing could dampen her buoyant mood. She walked about the terrace, caressing the flowers that bloomed in their pots. 'Shall we go back soon?' she asked.
'I think so. Eco and I still have work to do, and Gelina's house will no doubt be in much confusion, such as always occurs on the day before a great funeral.'
'Ah, yes, the funeral,' Olympias whispered gravely. She nodded thoughtfully, and the smile almost faded from her lovely Lips as she bowed her head to smell the flowers.
'The sea air agrees with you,' I said. She looked more beautiful than ever, with her eyes shining brighdy and her golden hair swept back by the wind. 'Did you take a walk along the beach?'
'A short walk, yes,' she said, averting her eyes.
'When you came in the door a moment ago, I thought I saw you carrying a basket. Gathering sea urchins?'
'No.'
'Shells?'
She looked uneasy. 'Actually, I didn't go to the beach.' The sparkle in her eyes became opaque. 'I walked along the ridge instead. I gathered some pretty stones, if you must know. Iaia uses them to decorate the garden.'
'I see.'
We left shortly thereafter. As we walked through the foyer towards the door, I saw that Olympias had not bothered to conceal her basket when she entered but had left it in plain sight in the corner opposite the door slave's stool. While Olympias stepped through the door into the sunlight, I lingered behind. I stepped towards the basket and lifted the cover with my foot. There were no stones within. Except for a small knife and a few crusts of bread, the basket was empty.
The passage through the stone maze and across the bald, windy hills seemed quite different in the bright sunshine, but when we began to enter the woods around Lake Avernus I sensed the same atmosphere of uncanny seclusion that I had felt before. I looked back occasionally, but if Dionysius followed he kept himself out of sight.
It was not until we came to the precipice that I told Olympias I wanted to stop. 'But I showed you the view already,' she protested. 'You can't want to see it again. Think what a beautiful day it must be down in Baiae.'
'But I do want to see it,' I insisted. While Eco found a place to tether the horses, I located the beginning of the path on the left side of the slab, just as the Sibyl had described. The opening was obscured by overgrown brush and old branches, and the path itself was faint and disused. There was no sign of fresh footsteps in the fog- dampened earth, not even the mark of a deer. I pushed through the brush with Eco behind me. Olympias protested but followed.
The path descended in sharp switchbacks over barren, rocky ground. The odour of sulphur grew ever stronger, borne on a wave of hot, rising air, until we were compelled to cover our faces with our sleeves. At last we found ourselves on a wide, shallow beach of yellow mud. The lake was not a uniform liquid surface, as it appeared from above, but a series of interconnected pools of sulphur overhung by clouds of vapour and separated by bridges of rock that might have been used to traverse to the other side, if a man cared to take the risk and could survive the heat and the smell. The stench of the bubbling pits was almost overpowering, but I thought I detected an even more unwelcome odour borne on the reek.
I looked up. We stood almost directly below the shelf of rock from which we had descended. In the face of the cliff I could see no cave or any other sign of shelter. I shook my head, more dubious than ever of the Sibyl's word.
'How can anyone possibly meet us here?' I grumbled to Eco. 'I'd sooner expect to see the Minotaur come strolling up this beach than one of Gelina's escaped slaves.' Eco gazed up and down the beach, as far as the obscuring mists allowed. Then he raised his eyebrows and pointed at something at the water's edge only a few feet away.
I had seen the thing already and had taken no notice of it, thinking it was only a piece of driftwood or some natural detritus thrown up by the lake. Now I looked at it more closely, and realized with a shock what it must be.
Eco and I stepped cautiously towards it, with Olympias following. At one time most of the thing had been submerged in the pit, where the greater part of it had been eaten away by the boiling, caustic sludge. The remains were drained of colour, spattered with mud, and rapidly beginning to decay. We looked at what was left of a human head attached to shoulders still covered by bits of discoloured cloth. The face was turned downward into the mud. On the back of the corpse's head a ring of grey hair swirled around a bald spot. Eco stepped back in fright and stared into the lake beyond, as if he thought the thing had emerged from the pit rather than fallen into it.
I found a stick and prodded at the shoulders to turn the thing over, at the same time keeping my nose covered. It was not easy; the flesh of the face seemed to have become melted somehow into the mud. When at last I succeeded, the sight was hard to bear, but enough of the features remained for Olympias to recognize him. She drew in a shuddering breath and wailed into her sleeve: 'Zeno!'
Before I could think of what to do with the thing, Olympias decided for me. With a piercing shriek she stooped, picked up the head by its remaining hair and cast it into the lake. It flew through the mists, causing them to furl and flutter in its wake, and landed not with a splash but with a slap. For an eerie moment time stopped and the head remained afloat on the bubbling cauldron. A hissing vent of steam opened beneath it. Through the vapour I thought I saw the eyes of the thing open and peer back at us, like a drowning man looking desperately to those on shore. Then it sank beneath the mud and vanished altogether.
'Now the Jaws of Hades claims him for good,' I whispered to no one, for Olympias was mnning headlong back to the path, tripping and weeping, and Eco was on his knees, vomiting on the beach.
Part Three
