man. Numerius was always his favorite of the younger generation. But these days, everything is twisted and turned upside down. The young have no sense of what it means to be a Roman. Every man looks out for himself, not even putting family first. So much money pours in from the provinces, corrupting everything. Young men become confused…'
She took refuge in abstractions; it was easier to talk about Rome's problems than about her own suspicions. I nodded. 'When you say that Numerius was a confidential courier for Pompey, you mean that he carried secret information.'
'Yes.' She bit her lip. Her eyes glistened. 'Secret information has value, doesn't it? Men will pay gold to get it.'
'Perhaps,' I said carefully. 'You say you found a box full of gold. Did you find any other boxes with surprises inside?'
'What do you mean?'
'If Numerius possessed valuable information- documents- he must have kept them somewhere.'
She shook her head. 'No. Only the box with the gold.'
'Have you looked again? I mean, since…' I glanced at the body.
'I stayed up all last night searching the house, pretending to help my brother and sons pack. If there were any more surprises to be found, I wanted them to be found by me- not by my brother, or by Pompey… or by the assassin who killed my son. I found nothing.' She exhaled wearily. 'You take it for granted, don't you- that Numerius was a spy? It doesn't even shock you.'
'It's as you say, we live in a world turned upside down. Men become capable of… anything. Even good men.'
'My son was a spy. There, I've said it, for the first time aloud. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. But to say the rest… to call him a…'
'A traitor? Perhaps he wasn't. Perhaps he spied
'Then why did he insist the gold be kept secret from Pompey? No, he was doing something behind Pompey's back. I'm sure of it.'
'And you think this was the reason he was killed?'
'Why else? He had no personal enemies.'
'Unless there were other secrets he kept from you.'
She gave me such a fierce look that a shiver ran up my spine. The atrium suddenly seemed very cold. The light from the overcast sky grew even weaker, dwindling to a soft, uncertain radiance that cast no shadows. Numerius on his bier, bloodless and dressed in white, glowed like a statue carved from solid ivory.
VI
As I made my way homeward from Maecia's house, the scene in the Forum was even more hectic than before, the people more frantic, the rumors wilder.
Before the Temple of Vesta an old man gripped my arm. 'Have you heard? Caesar is at the Colline Gate!'
'Odd,' I said. 'Just moments ago a fishmonger told me Caesar was on the opposite side of town, coming in the Capena Gate at the head of an army of Gauls, carrying Pompey's head on a stake.'
The old man reeled back in horror. 'He and his barbarians have surrounded us, then! Jupiter help us!' He ran off before I could say a word. I had thought to comfort the poor man by mocking his rumor with another that contradicted it; instead he believed both rumors and now was off to tell people the city was doomed.
I continued to make my way across the Forum, alone. Maecia had offered to send her messenger back with me for protection. I had declined. It was one thing to have him lead me to her house, another to take advantage of her generosity. She was without her brother or sons and had only her male slaves to protect her. Who knew how lawless the city might become in the next few hours, especially if rumors of Caesar's approach were true?
From the Temple of Vesta I could see that the Ramp was crowded, but not jammed. Foot traffic was passing in both directions. Still, my heart beat faster as I entered the confined passage between the House of the Vestals and the Temple of Castor and Pollux. I saw no sign of that morning's panicked stampede until I took the sharp leftward turn onto the Ramp. I sucked in a breath when I saw blood on the flagstones, smeared by the passage of hundreds of feet. I remembered the screaming woman. Someone had been trampled by the crowd, after all. I quickened my pace and began the ascent.
Parts of the Ramp are like a tunnel, densely shaded by overhanging yew trees. It was in one of these patches, looking up ahead, that for the second time in two days I thought I saw Tiro.
I couldn't see the man's face, only the back of his head. The climb had apparently warmed him, for he was in the process, never breaking his stride, of pulling a dark cloak from his shoulders, revealing a green tunic beneath. It was something about the way he moved that seemed to stir my memory, keying that unsettling, powerful yet fleeting sensation that one sometimes has of reliving a moment already experienced. Had I once walked up the Ramp behind Tiro, perhaps thirty years ago, and seen him shrug off a cloak in that exact same way? Or was my mind playing tricks? You're an old man, I told myself, slightly out of breath with spots before your eyes, looking at the back of someone under the shade of a dense tree on an overcast day. The idea that I was seeing an old friend who was supposed to be hundreds of miles away across the sea was hardly worth a second thought. Still, if only I could see the man's face, I could at least be satisfied of my mistake.
I quickened my stride. The path grew steeper and my breath shorter. More spots danced before my eyes. Other pedestrians blocked my view. I lost sight of the man ahead of me, until I thought I had lost him entirely. Then I caught a glimpse of the green tunic, farther ahead of me than before.
'Tiro!' I called out.
Did the man pause for a moment, cock his head, then hurry on? Or did I imagine it?
'Tiro!' I shouted, gasping for breath.
This time, the man in the green tunic didn't pause. If anything, he walked faster. He reached the top of the Ramp well ahead of me. Before he vanished, it seemed to me that he turned to the right, in the direction of Cicero's house.
I reached the top of the Ramp and sat heavily on a yew stump. The stately tree had stood in that spot for years, since long before I came to live on the Palatine; I had been able to see the top of it from my garden courtyard. Early that winter, a particularly violent storm had blown the tree over. The limbs had been cut up for firewood, but the stump had been left as a convenient spot to sit and rest after the climb from the Forum. Poor old yew, I thought, not good for much but still good for something. I would have laughed, had I breath to spare. Pompey expected me to track down a killer for him. I couldn't even follow a man up the Ramp.
Begrudgingly, a glowering Cicatrix admitted me to my own house. 'You've got a visitor,' he said in a surly voice, breathing garlic at me.
In the garden, I found Bethesda, Diana, and little Aulus waiting for me. They had been joined by Eco.
'Papa!' He gave me a forlorn look and a bruising hug. 'I've heard the news about Davus. Damn Pompey to Hades!'
'Not so loud. Pompey's man is only a few steps away.'
'Yes, I saw him on the way in. Mother and Diana explained about that, too. Pompey is such a bully.'
'Lower your voice.'
Instead Eco spoke louder, as if intentionally pitching his voice for Cicatrix to hear. 'Absurd, that a citizen in his own home should have to whisper every time he makes reference to the so-called Great One!'
I couldn't remember the last time I had seen my even-tempered son in such a belligerent mood. The crisis was provoking reactions in all of us. 'Did you bring Menenia and the twins with you?' I asked.
'Through that mob in the Forum? No, they're safe at home.'
'How are they taking things?'
'Titus and Titania are old enough to know that something's very wrong- you can't hide much from two eleven-year-olds. But they don't really understand what's happening, or likely to happen.'
'I'm not sure anyone does, not even Caesar or Pompey. And their mother?'
