closer to the Sacrifice Rock.
Halfway up, I paused to catch my breath. Davus waited beside me while others passed by. 'Any sign of those shadows that followed us yesterday?' I asked, peering down the hollow center of the stairwell.
'Not that I've seen,' said Davus. 'The two men I saw yesterday would stand out in this crowd almost as much as I do.' We pressed on and soon emerged from the bastion onto the platform that ran along the battlements. To our right, toward the sea, the crowd was pressed thickly all along the outer wall, where people jostled one another to get the best view. I turned and looked in the opposite direction, toward the spine of hills and jumbled rooftops of the city. I searched for the scapegoat's house in vain until Davus pointed it out to me; then I clearly saw the green-clad figure of Hieronymus sitting on his rooftop terrace with tall trees on either side. If he saw us, he gave no sign. Beyond the skyline of the city, I could see the summit of the high hill upon which Trebonius had established his camp and from which the commander was no doubt at that very moment keeping watch on the city and the sea beyond.
Turning back toward the sea, I could see only glimpses of blue through the crowd. Davus, able to peer over the throng, told me he could see from the harbor mouth to the islands offshore and beyond. Away from the wall, the crowd was thin enough for us to thread our way toward the Sacrifice Rock, which loomed up as we approached. The weathered finger of limestone was white with patches of gray and streaks of black running down its smooth hollows and sinuous contours. It rose higher than the wall and extended farther outward, overhanging the sea far below like the jutting prow of a ship. As we approached the rock, the crowd grew thinner, and the section of the wall nearest the rock was completely empty. No doubt the Massilians hung back out of superstitious awe and respect for the rock's sanctity, but there was also a more practical reason; beyond a certain point, the jutting rock obscured the view of the islands outside the harbor and completely blocked the view of the harbor mouth.
Where the wall abutted the rock, the building stones had been expertly cut to fit without a gap, and the looming rock bulged out over the battlements, forming a sort of shallow cave. We had seen the man in the blue cape jump from the rock onto the wall. I found the approximate spot where he must have landed and looked up at the overhanging lip of rock. From rock to wall was a jump of at least ten feet, perhaps more. The man had stumbled when he landed, I recalled, and had limped as he tan toward the bastion tower, favoring his left leg.
It appeared, at first, that we had reached a dead end; short of scaling the overhang, there was no way to get onto the rock and over it and then to the next stretch of wall. But this was not
quite the case. At the left-hand corner where the wall abutted the rock on the city side, the overhang slanted sharply down and receded considerably. Shallow steps, some scarcely more than toeholds, had been crudely chiseled out of the stone. It would require a considerable step, angling out over a sheer drop, to reach the first toehold, and the ones that followed were erratically spaced and appeared to follow a circuitous path, having been cut more in accordance with the peculiar contours of the rock than to match the measure of a man's footsteps. To climb onto or off of the rock using these toeholds would require a considerable amount of agility and strength, not to mention nerve and patience, which was probably why the man in the blue cape had bypassed them to take the shortcut of simply jumping down onto the wall.
Davus looked at me and raised an eyebrow. 'Shall I go first, father-in-law? I'll have an easier time stepping up to that first notch. Then I can reach back to give you a hand if you need help.'
'If I need help? You're very tactful, Davus. Even at your age, I'd have hesitated to take that first step. Hurry, then, while no one's watching.'
I glanced at the crowd over my shoulder, then watched with bated breath while Davus reached up to grasp the stone face with both hands, raised his left foot to gain the toehold, and swung his body up and briefly out over a corner of empty space between the rock and the wall. He paused, testing his balance and calculating his next move, then swung up and back, again over empty space, and raised his right foot to the next toehold. The maneuver brought his center of gravity squarely back over the rock, and I heard him release a sigh of relief an instant before I did.
'Now you,' he said. He extended his hand. Had his arm been any shorter, I couldn't have reached it.
His grip was strong. With my other hand I clutched at the rock face and raised my left foot as high as I could. The toehold was just out of reach-until Davus gave me a steady pull and lifted me high enough for my toes to slip over the notch. I propelled myself upward and swung out over empty space, feeling suddenly queasy and out of control.
'Steady,' Davus whispered. 'Keep your eyes on the rock and don't look down. Do you see the next step?'
'Yes.'
'It's not as far as it looks.'
'Somehow, I don't find that particularly reassuring.'
Davus's grip remained firm. I raised my right foot, searched clumsily for the toehold, then found it. I took another swing over empty space, and for a vertiginous instant I knew beyond any doubt that if Davus were not gripping my hand I would have lost my balance and fallen. I glanced down. It was a sheer drop for most of the way. Eventually a falling body would hit either the wall or the rock and then bounce back and forth between them. I shut my eyes and swallowed hard.
A moment later, I was securely on the Sacrifice Rock, my balance regained. Another easy step upward and I was on the overhanging lip of the rock, on a relatively level surface. Davus released my hand and proceeded on all fours ahead of me. I scrambled after him.
The view from the Sacrifice Rock was uninterrupted in all directions, but the summit was slightly depressed at the middle, like a furrowed tongue, so that if we crouched, we couldn't be seen by the spectators lining the battlements on either side. We remained visible to anyone who might be gazing out from one of the houses behind us. When I turned to have a look at the scapegoat's rooftop, I saw that Hieronymus had risen to his feet and stood at the edge of his terrace, leaning forward with his hands on the balustrade, watching intently.
Peering over the farther edge of the rock, I looked down upon the section of wall that lay beyond. The crowd was even thicker along this stretch of the battlements; but as on the opposite side, even though here the rock presented no visual barrier, people
kept their distance from it. I looked for a way to get down to the wall, but if anything, this side offered even less access than the way we had come; there did not seem to be even crude toeholds for gaining access.
Staying low, I turned toward the sea and crept forward to have a look over the precipice. The rock formed a shelf extending well beyond the line of the wall and then abruptly ended. I lay flat on the rock and poked my head over the edge. Far below, I saw shallow, jagged rocks washed by churning waves that glinted blue-green and gold in the soft morning light.
Davus crept up alongside me and peered over the edge. 'What do you think, Davus? Could anyone survive a drop like that?'
'Impossible! Of course, if it weren't for the rocks…'
I looked past him, toward the stretch of wall from which Meto had jumped. There the wall dropped sheer to the sea, with no rocks at the base. If it weren't for the rocks… what then? A man might strike the water and survive? There was no point in pursuing such thoughts, yet I found myself staring at the blue-green depths as if they held a secret that might be yielded up if only I stared long and hard enough.
Davus suddenly nudged me and pointed. 'Father-in-law, look!' A Massilian galley appeared at the harbor mouth, rowing out toward the open sea. Its deck was crowded with archers and ballistic artillery. Another ship followed it, and another, all with oars flashing in the sunlight. From the top of each mast, a pale blue pennant snapped in the breeze.
As each ship came into view, cheers erupted from the spectators, beginning at the section of the wall nearest the harbor mouth and then spreading toward us, so that successive waves of cheering poured over us. Spectators waved blankets, twirled parasols, or produced bits of cloth and waved them in the air. From the decks of the outbound ships, the walls of Massilia must have presented a lively spectacle of color and motion.
'I thought the Massilian navy had been destroyed,' said Davus.
'Not destroyed, only crippled. Rendered too weak to present a challenge to Caesar's ships lying offshore. No doubt the shipbuilders have been hard at work repairing the galleys that survived the battle and refitting old ships- look, there's a vessel hardly bigger than a fishing boat, but they've installed screens to protect the rowers and mounted a catapult on it.'
More ships appeared, all flying pale blue pennants. The first to exit the harbor drew up its oars and set sail, swinging round to port to catch a rising wind that propelled it into the channel between the mainland and the
