your son. Volumnius will make a beggar of you. Why should you not sign?'
I stared at the parchment. Would they kill me if I refused to sign? Looking at Milo, who was glaring at me balefully, I had no doubt of it. To sign meant escaping with my life. But what would happen when Caelius and Milo were destroyed and Caesar or Pompey returned to Rome? My name on such a pledge could mean the destruction, not only of myself, but of everyone close to me. Of course, in the vagaries of war, the parchment might be destroyed or lost and never seen again. And-what if…?
For a brief moment I allowed myself to think the unthinkable. What if Caelius and Milo ultimately won? In such an unlikely circumstance, by signing such a pledge I might stand to achieve a status I had never dreamed possible. From standing always on the sidelines, watching the great game at a distance, the Gordiani might find themselves at the very center of a new republic. Senator Gordianus? If that meant nothing to me, then what about my family and their future? Why should Diana not be elevated by a stroke of fortune to the rank of a Fausta or a Clodia or a Fulvia? Why should Eco's children not have the opportunity to shape the world to their liking rather than submit to the schemes of others? How else are great fortunes and great families established except by a single act of wild daring, a mad gamble?
Caelius and Milo promised wholesale revolution. Revolution inspired men without hope to think the unthinkable.
But what would it matter that Volumnius were forced to forgive my debts, if all Rome, my house included, were burned down in a wholesale conflagration? What would it matter that the Senate was emptied and its seats promised to new men like myself, if rampaging gladiators were set loose to do what they wanted with our daughters? Caelius promised a world reborn in justice, but in the end he cared only about power. His alliance with Milo and his willingness to attack Rome with gladiators proved that.
I crumpled the parchment in my fist and threw it across the room.
'I told you!' snapped Milo. 'I told you he'd never sign.'
Caelius sighed. He clapped his hands. I heard a noise behind me and turned to see two burly men step through the doorway. They must have been waiting just outside the room. They had the look of hired assassins.
'A couple of my fellow future senators?' I said.
Caelius stepped to the cupboard. A few moments later he returned with a cup and held it out to me. 'Take it,' he said.
I looked in the cup. 'Wine?'
'Cheap stuff. Sorry it's not a better vintage, but the likes of Volumnius have sucked up all the good stuff. Drink, Gordianus. Swallow every drop.'
I stared in the cup. 'Wine… and what else?'
'Drink it!' said Milo.
Behind me the two henchmen stepped so close I could hear them breathing, one in each ear. I heard the slither of daggers drawn from scabbards. 'Do what he says,' one of them whispered. 'Drink!'
'Either that,' said the other, 'or else-' I felt the prick of a dagger against my ribs, then the prick of its twin from the other direction.
Why poison me? Because a man of my years found dead without a mark on him would raise no suspicions, prompt no questions. They could leave my body in the street, and anyone would think I had died of natural causes.
Or would they carry me down the stairs and leave me in Cassandra's bed? Did she play some role in their scheme-or was she, too, a victim? What if they killed her as well, and left our bodies to be discovered together with the poison beside us? I imagined my family's shame and consternation. The cup trembled in my hand.
'Cassandra-' I said.
'Shut up and drink!' yelled Caelius. In a flash, as if he'd dropped a mask, his face changed completely. One moment he was the charming, unflappable orator, and the next, a vicious, desperate fugitive easily capable of murder or of crimes much worse. I had been afraid of Milo; it was Caelius I should have feared more.
The daggers pressed harder against my flesh. Caelius and Milo stepped closer.
'You don't want to die by daggers,' growled Milo. 'Think of it! The metal slicing into your flesh, pulling out, cutting into you again. The blood spurting out of you. The cold seeping into your limbs. The long, agonizing wait to die. Drink, you fool!'
He gripped my wrist and forced me to raise the cup. Wine sloshed against my lips, but I kept my mouth shut.
'Never mind the daggers. Grab his arms!' shouted Milo, taking the cup from me. The men behind me twisted my arms behind my back. Caelius pinched my jaw and forced it open. Wine poured into my mouth and down my throat. The taste was bitter. I swallowed to keep from sucking it into my lungs.
'All of it!' whispered Milo. 'Every drop!' I coughed and sputtered. Wine trickled over my chin and cheeks, but most of it went into my belly. He poured until the cup was empty.
Caelius and Milo stepped back. Their henchmen released me. I staggered forward, feeling dizzy. I dropped to my knees. Caelius and Milo spun above me, going in and out of focus each time I blinked. The room became dark, as if night fell.
Their voices echoed strangely and seemed to come from a great distance. 'We should have put hemlock in the wine instead of that other stuff,' said Milo. 'We should lop his head off, here and now.'
'No!' said Caelius. 'I gave her my word. I promised, and you agreed-'
'A promise made to a witch!'
'Call her that if you want, since you're not worthy to utter her name! I gave her my word, and my word still means something, Milo. Does yours?'
'Don't bait me, Caelius.'
'Then don't speak of killing him!'
'It was your crazy idea to try to win him over.'
'For a moment, I thought I had. The fool! No matter. By the time he wakes…'
Caelius's voice faded away. The floor rushed up to my face. The room turned black.
As if in a dream, I saw Cassandra standing on a distant horizon. Her lips formed words I could not hear. She stretched out her arms, beckoning to me even as she receded farther and farther beyond my grasp, until she vanished altogether.
I opened my eyes.
My head pounded. My body was stiff. The least movement caused me to groan. My mouth had a strange, unpleasant taste. My bladder was uncomfortably full. My stomach growled.
I lay on the hard, bare floor. I stirred and managed to sit upright. Judging from the angle of the sunlight that entered the window, no time at all had passed since I fell to the floor. Indeed, the light seemed to indicate that time had regressed by an hour or two. I blinked in befuddlement.
One of the chairs had been pushed against the wall. The other lay on its side on the floor. The cupboard doors stood open. From where I sat, I could see that its shelves had been emptied.
I stared at the pocket vase on the wall. The rose drooped. Half its petals had fallen to the floor below.
I had been unconscious for almost twenty-four hours.
I managed to stand. For a moment I thought I was all right, then I felt light-headed. I staggered and clutched the cupboard to stay upright. Oily spots swam before my eyes. The dizziness slowly passed.
I turned toward the doorway and gave a start. I was not alone in the room.
A man was lying face down on the floor just inside the doorway, before the curtain that was closed for privacy. He was a large fellow, with massive limbs and a neck like a tree trunk. From the way he was lying, with his neck unnaturally bent, I was almost certain he was dead.
Even so, I approached him cautiously, taking unsteady steps. I reached down and lifted his head by a handful of hair. I heard a sickening crack. His neck was broken.
I looked at his face. He wasn't one of the men who had held me while Caelius and Milo forced the drugged wine down my throat.
Who was he? Who had killed him and left me alive?
I stepped over the body and pushed aside the curtain. The hallway was empty. I made my way to the head of
