come to a bad end, though many others may suffer before they reach it.
Perhaps not coincidentally, at about the same time that the murder charges were dropped, the fraudulent will went missing in Larinum. In consequence, the property of the late Asuvius was divided between his surviving blood relations. Oppianicus and the Fox did not profit from his death.
The owner of Priapus's Palace was furious with Columba for leaving the establishment without his permission, and threatened to chastise her by putting hot coals to her feet, whereupon Lucius Claudius offered to buy her on the spot. I have no doubt that she is well treated in her new household. Lucius may not be the endlessly virile young man that Asuvius was, but that has not kept him from acting like a young man in love.
These days, I see Lucius Claudius quite often in the Forum, in the company of reasonably honest advocates like Cicero and Hortensius. Rome can always use another honest man in the Forum. He tells me that he recently completed a book of love poems and is thinking of running for office. He holds occasional dinner parties and spends his quiet time in the country, overseeing his farms and vineyards.
As the Etruscans used to say, it is an ill will that doesn't bring someone good fortune. The unfortunate Asuvius may not have left a will, after all, but I think that Lucius Claudius was his beneficiary nonetheless.
THE LEMURES
The slave pressed a scrap of parchment into my hand:
FROM LUCIUS CLAUDIUS TO HIS FRIEND GORDIANUS, GREETINGS. IF YOU WILL ACCOMPANY THIS MESSENGER ON HIS RETURN, I WILL BE GRATEFUL. I AM AT THE HOUSE OF A FRIEND ON THE PALATINE HILL; THERE IS A PROBLEM WHICH REQUIRES YOUR ATTENTION. COME ALONE-DO NOT BRING THE BOY-THE CIRCUMSTANCES MIGHT FRIGHTEN HIM.
Lucius need not have warned me against bringing Eco, for at that moment the boy was busy with his tutor. From the garden, where they had found a patch of morning sunlight to ward off the October chill, I could hear the old man declaiming while Eco wrote the day's Latin lesson on his wax tablet.
'Bethesda!' I called out, but she was already behind me, holding open my woolen cloak. As she slipped it over my shoulders, she glanced down at the note in my hand. She wrinkled her nose. Unable to read, Bethesda regards the written word with suspicion and disdain.
'From Lucius Claudius?' she asked, raising an eyebrow.
'Why, yes, but how-?' Then I realized she must have recognized his messenger. Slaves often take more notice of one another than do their masters.
'I suppose he wants you to go gaming with him, or to taste the new vintage from one of his vineyards.' She tossed back her mane of jet-black hair and pouted her luscious lips.
'I suppose not; he has work for me.'
A smile flickered at the corner of her mouth.
'Not that it should be any concern of yours,' I added quickly. Since I had taken Eco in from the streets and legally adopted him, Bethesda had begun to behave less and less like a concubine and more and more like a wife and mother. I wasn't sure I liked the change; I was even less sure I had any control over it.
'Frightening work,' I added. 'Probably dangerous.' But she was already busy adding my fee to the household accounts in her head. As I stepped out the door I heard her humming a happy Egyptian tune from her childhood.
The day was bright and crisp. Drifts of leaves lined either side of the narrow, winding pathway that led from my house down the slope of the Esquiline Hill to the Subura below. The tang of smoke was on the air, rising from kitchens and braziers. The messenger drew his dark green cloak more tightly about his shoulders to ward off the chill.
'Neighbor! Citizen!' A voice hissed at me from the wall to my right. I looked up and saw two eyes peering down at me over the top of the wall, surmounted by the dome of a bald, knobby head. 'Neighbor-yes, you! Gordianus, they call you; am I right?' looked up at him warily. 'Yes, Gordianus is my name.'
'And 'Finder' they call you-yes?'
I nodded.
'You solve puzzles. Plumb mysteries. Answer riddles.'
'Sometimes.'
'Then you must help me!'
'Perhaps, citizen. But not now. A friend summons me-'
'This will only take a moment.'
'Even so, I grow cold standing here-'
'Then come inside! I'll open the little door in the wall and let you in.'
'No-perhaps tomorrow.'
'No! Now! They will come tonight, I know it-or even this afternoon, when the shadows lengthen. See, the clouds are coming up. If the sun grows dim, they may come out at midday beneath the dark, brooding sky.'
'They? Whom do you mean, citizen?'
His eyes grew large, yet his voice became quite tiny, like the voice of a mouse. 'The lemures…' he squeaked.
Lucius Claudius's messenger clutched at his cloak. I felt the sudden chill myself, but it was only a cold, dry wind gusting down the pathway that made me shiver; or so I told myself.
'Lemures,' the man repeated. 'The unquiet dead!'
Leaves scattered and danced about my feet. A thin finger of cloud obscured the sun, dimming its bright, cold light to a hazy gray.
'Vengeful,' the man whispered. 'Full of spite. Empty of all remorse. Human no longer, spirits sucked dry of warmth and pity, desiccated and brittle like shards of bone, with nothing left but wickedness. Dead, but not gone from this world as they should be. Revenge is their only food. The only gift they offer is madness.'
I stared into the man's dark, sunken eyes for a long moment, then broke from his gaze. 'A friend calls me,' I said, nodding for the slave to go on.
'But neighbor, you can't abandon me. I was a soldier for Sulla! I fought in the civil war to save the Republic! I was wounded-if you'll step inside you'll see. My left leg is no-good at all, I have to hobble and lean against a stick. While you, you're young and whole and healthy. A young Roman like you owes me some respect. Please-there's no one else to help me!
'My business is with the living, not the dead,' I said sternly.
'I can pay you, if that's what you want. Sulla gave all his soldiers farms up in Etruria. I sold mine-I was never meant to be a farmer. I still have silver left. I can pay you a handsome fee, if you help me.'
'And how can I help you? If you have a problem with lemures, consult a priest or an augur.'
'I have, believe me! Every spring, in the month of Maius, I take part in the Lemuria procession to ward off evil spirits. I mutter the incantations, I cast the black beans over my shoulder. Perhaps it works; the lemures never come to me in spring, and they stay away all summer. But as surely as leaves wither and fall from the trees, they come to me every autumn. They come to drive me mad!'
'Citizen, I cannot-'
'They cast a spell inside my head.'
'Citizen! I must go.'
'Please,' he whispered. 'I was a soldier once, brave, afraid of nothing. I killed many men, fighting for Sulla, for Rome. I waded through rivers of blood and valleys of gore up to my hips and never quailed. I feared no one. And now…' He made a face of such self-loathing that I turned away. 'Help me,' he pleaded.
'Perhaps… when I return…'
He smiled pitifully, like a doomed man given a reprieve. 'Yes,' he whispered, 'when you return…'
I hurried on.
The house on the Palatine, like its neighbors, presented a rather plain facade, despite its location in the city's
