stroked with my arms, kicked with my feet. Briefly I had a terrifying illusion of propelling myself into an endless black void. Then my outstretched fingers brushed against the sides of the tunnel. I swam blindly forward, using the walls of the tunnel to guide me.
Something cold touched my face, then seemed to slither snakelike against my chest and belly. I grabbed at the thing to thrust it away, but instead became locked in a strange embrace of hard metal and yielding flesh. I was puzzled at first, then horrified. It was the body of a soldier. I recoiled, but his limbs were tangled around me. I thrashed madly until the corpse released me, then swam frantically forward.
The way was clear. My heart boomed in my ears and my lungs felt as if they might burst, but the swimming was effortless. I stroked and kicked, and began to think that escape might be possible after all.
Then my helmet struck something hard. I was dazed. I reached up to feel the jagged stump of a broken rafter above me, sharp as a javelin. What if the way ahead was ringed with broken timbers? I imagined Davus, bigger than I, even more vulnerable, impaled on a spike, thrashing, bleeding, helpless, blocking the way, making it impossible for me to get past him. The image was so real that for an instant I thought of turning back. But that was impossible. I could never hope to find the pocket of air again, not in absolute darkness.
I froze, too frightened to go on, too frightened to turn back. I lost my nerve completely. Spots of light danced before my eyes and became faces in the darkness. They were the anonymous faces of the dead all around me, receding to infinity.
Time stopped. The pressure in my lungs overwhelmed everything else, even panic. I kicked with my feet, stroked with my arms, and swam blindly, as hard as I could, heedless of the danger. I swam, so fast I caught up with Davus. His foot kicked my helmet. In desperation I imagined grabbing his leg and pulling myself past him, swimming ahead of him, breaking through to the surface.
On the next stroke, where my fingertips should have touched the guiding walls, there was nothing. The sides of the tunnel were suddenly gone.
I opened my eyes. Up ahead I saw a faint, watery light. Between me and the light, Davus loomed in foreshortened silhouette. I saw him stop and turn about, like wing-footed Mercury suspended in midair. He reached back. I held out my hand. Davus gripped it.
My strength had given out. Somehow Davus knew. With one arm stroking, he pulled me up, up, up toward a growing circle of light. For an instant I saw the world of light and air as a fish might see it, peering up from a pond. Seen through the water, the men who stood at the edge peering down at us were wavering and elongated. Their bright garments flickered like multicolored flames.
An instant later I broke the surface. The light hurt my eyes. I sucked in a long, inverted scream. Ahead of me, Davus collapsed, half in the water and half out, heaving and gasping. I crawled past him, desperate to be clear of the water completely. I rolled onto my back and shut my eyes, feeling warm sunshine on my face.
VI
I must have lost consciousness, but only for a moment. I slowly woke to a confusion of voices surrounding me, speaking Greek-men's voice, old men, speaking on top of each other. The babble narrowed to an argument between two voices.
'But where in Hades did these two come from?'
'I'm telling you, they must have tunneled through. I saw when it happened-big bubbles in the moat, then a weird sucking sound, and then a whirlpool. Look how far the water's dropped!'
'Impossible! If a tunnel broke through, and the reservoir flooded it, how did these two swim against the current? It doesn't make sense. It's uncanny, the way they came flailing out of the water.'
'You always look for religious explanations! Next you'll be saying Artemis coughed them up. They dug under the wall, I tell you.'
'They don't look like sappers. They don't look much like soldiers, either.'
'Oh, no? They're wearing helmets, aren't they? I say, kill them!'
'Shut up, you old coot. We'll hand them over to the soldiers when they get here.'
'Why wait? Do you imagine these two would think twice before cutting down a group of old Massilians gabbing in the market square?'
'They look harmless.'
'Harmless? Those are swords in their scabbards, you idiot. Here, you fellows, help me take their weapons. Take their helmets, too.' I felt myself jostled about on the sand and heard splashes nearby.
'Look, the older one's coming to his senses. He's opening his eyes.'
I blinked and looked up to see a circle of old men staring down at me. Some drew back in alarm. Their consternation almost made me laugh. The simple fact of being alive made me feel giddy. 'Argue all you want,' I said, mustering my Greek. 'Just don't throw me back.'
My Greek may have been rusty and my accent uncouth, but that hardly justified the onslaught that followed.
The most belligerent of the old men-the one who'd argued to kill us on the spot-began to thrash me with a cane. He was a skinny, bony creature, but he had surprising strength. I covered my head with my arms. He deliberately aimed for my elbows.
'Stop this! Stop at once!' The voice was a new one, a man's. It came from a short distance away. 'Slaves, restrain that horrible old man.'
My attacker backed away, slashing his cane to fend off two half-naked giants who suddenly loomed over me. The old man was furious. 'Damn you to Hades, Scapegoat! If your slaves lay a finger on me, I'll report you to the Timouchoi.'
'Oh, really? You forget, old man, I'm untouchable.' The voice was high-pitched, harsh, and grating.
'For now, maybe. But what about later? Eh, Scapegoat? When the time comes to put an end to you, I swear I'll kick you off the Sacrifice Rock myself.'
There were gasps from the circle of old men. 'Calamitos, you've gone too far!' said the one who'd been arguing with him. 'The goddess-'
'Artemis has abandoned Massilia, in case you haven't noticed-as well she might, given the impiousness of this wretched city. Caesar pinches us in a vise, and what solution do the Timouchoi come up with? A scapegoat to take on the city's sins! So now we starving citizens shrivel to scarecrows while that scarecrow grows fatter every day.' The old man threw his cane against the ground so hard it broke in two. He stalked off in a fury.
'Blessed Artemis! The old coot can't help being ugly and bad mannered, but there's no need to be blasphemous as well.' I strained my neck and saw that the voice of my rescuer came from a nearby litter attended by a retinue of bearers. 'Slaves! Pick up those two fellows and put them here in the litter with me.
The slaves looked down at me dubiously. One of them shrugged. 'Master, I'm not sure the bearers can carry all three of you in the litter. The big one looks awfully heavy. I'm not even sure he's alive.'
I rolled toward Davus, alarmed. He lay motionless on his back, his eyes shut, his face pale. A moment later, to my relief, he coughed and his eyelids fluttered.
'If the burden's too much, then you'll simply have to run home and fetch more slaves to carry us,' said my mysterious protector, his grating voice made more grating by exasperation.
'Wait, Scapegoat!' The cooler-headed of the two old men who had been arguing over me stepped forward. 'You can't simply run off with these men. They've come from outside the city. That one spoke Greek with a Roman accent. Despite his blasphemy, Calamitos was right about one thing-they might be dangerous. For all we know, they're assassins, or spies. We must hand them over to the soldiers.'
'Nonsense. Am I not the scapegoat, duly chosen by the priests of Artemis and invested by the Timouchoi? For the duration of the crisis, all godsends are mine, to dispose of as I see fit. That includes fish washed up on the shores of Massilia-and I hereby claim these two stranded fish. No doubt they were cast upon this man-made beach by Artemis herself. The big one looks like a beached whale.'
'The fellow's mad!' muttered one of the old men.
'But legally he may be right,' said another. 'Godsends do belong to the scapegoat…'
While the old men argued among themselves, strong arms scooped me up and swung me around. I was in no
