overhearing.'
'Of course, Papa, I understand. It's the same with Menenia, always subjecting me to distasteful gossip. But it would be rude to plug my ears, wouldn't it? So — tell me what you've heard, and I’ll tell you what I've heard!'
I laughed. Davus, immune to the irony, looked at us as if we were crazy. 'Mostly to do with her sexual habits,' I said. 'When her previous husband, Gaius Memmius, was off governing some province, she chose to stay in Rome, and carried on so scandalously that when Memmius got home he divorced her. Then she married Milo.'
'Children?'
'Not yet. They've been married only a couple of years. But from
what one hears, she's been too busy with her lovers to do much
procreating with her husband.'
'Poor Milo!'
'Save your sympathy. I suspect it's as our hostess said — the two of them married each other for politics and profit. Whatever else she may be, Fausta is the dictator Sulla's daughter, and that means a great deal, especially to the so-called Best People with whom Milo has been trying to ingratiate himself most of his life.'
'What could it have been like, to have been Sulla's child?'
'I doubt whether you or I can even begin to imagine, Eco. She and her twin brother Faustus were born late in the dictator's life, and he was apparently quite pleased with himself — imagine cursing a child with a name meaning Lucky Omen. If Fausta's a spoiled brat, blame her doting monster of a father.'
'Marrying her was a step up for Milo, I can see that. But what was in the marriage for Fausta?'
'She may not have had many choices. Memmius had divorced her and left her with a tarnished reputation. Milo looked to be a rising star, didn't he? He'd just inherited a lot of money from his grandfather; never mind that he proceeded to squander it all on the old man's funeral games. Apparently she didn't marry Milo for his lovemaking, since she seems to look elsewhere for that.'
Eco nodded. 'I suppose you've heard the story about Milo catching the radical tribune Sallust in bed with her — the day after their wedding! He had his slaves beat Sallust black and blue and confiscated his moneybag for a fine.'
'Yes. Which makes me wonder how much of Sallust's alliance with the Clodians these days is from political sincerity and how much is from a desire to get revenge on Milo. Then of course there's the tale of how Milo caught his old friend Sextus Villius in bed with Fausta. Milo flew into a rage and dragged Villius screaming from the room. But in feet Fausta had been entertaining two lovers, and the other one had managed to hide in a wardrobe. While Milo was thrashing Villius out in the hall, the second lover sneaked back into bed with Fausta and gave her the ride of her life!'
'The lady seems to have a penchant for getting caught,' observed Eco.
'Or maybe she has a taste for cruelty and likes to see her lovers thrashed.'
Davus looked at us and made a face. I suspect he had never heard two men speculate about other people's behaviour in such a prurient fashion.
Eco shook his head. 'I'll say it again: poor Milo. He married Fausta for prestige, and all he's gotten is embarrassment. Even her twin brother makes jokes about her.'
'Yes, I know the story. While her first husband was gone from Rome she was stringing along two lovers at once, one a fuller who owned a wool-washing operation, and the other a fellow called Macula, on account of a birthmark on his cheek that looked like a stain. So Faustus observed, 'I don't see why my sister doesn't get rid of that Stain — after all, she has the personal services of a fuller!' '
Even Davus laughed.
I pointed at a circle of oak trees a little off the road. 'Your memory was perfect, Eco. There's the altar of Jupiter that you mentioned.'
'Perhaps we should stop and do something pious, to make up for all this gossipmongering.' Eco, the complete sceptic, likes to taunt me for what little religious sensibility I possess.
'It wouldn't hurt to leave a few coins and say a prayer, my son. We've had a safe journey and good fortune so far.' As we dismounted under the shade of the oaks, a man in a scrappy white robe appeared from behind the stone altar. His jaw was covered with stubble and he smelled of wine. He introduced himself as Felix, and explained that he was the priest of the place and offered to recite an invocation to Jupiter on our behalf) for a small fee. Eco rolled his eyes, but I gestured for him to open his purse. The prayer was a simple formula, mumbled so quickly that I scarcely heard it. Instead I looked into the shadowy recesses of the trees around us and listened to the nearby babbling of the stream and the rustling of the branches. So close to the normally busy, altogether civilized expanse of the Appian Way, this ancient spot possessed a powerful sense of the ineffable and unseen. There is good reason why the altars and temples of the gods are erected in some places and not in others. The places chose the altars, so to speak, and not the other way around. This was such a place, and no matter what sort of priest maintained it, its specialness was as palpable yet elusive as the mist of a breath in cold air.
When the prayer was done we turned to leave, but the priest reached for my arm. 'You're passing through?' Felix said. He had the narrow face of a ferret, and his teeth were yellow.
'On our way from here to there.'
'You know what happened just up on the road, don't you?' 'Quite a few things over the years, I should imagine.'
'No, I mean the business with Milo and Clodius.' 'Oh, that. Are we close?'
'Close? Can't you hear the lemures of the dead, shaking the leaves around us? The battle ended just down the road, at the old inn.'
'Yes, we just ate there. The proprietress told us something about it.'
Felix looked disappointed, then brightened. 'Ah, but she couldn't have shown you where the battle started.' 'No. Is it interesting to see?'
'Interesting? When you go back to Rome, you can tell all your drinking friends that you saw the very spot where the bloodshed began.'
'What makes you think we're from Rome?'
He raised an eyebrow as if to say that our origins were all too obvious to a country dweller like himself. 'So, do you want to see the place or not?'
'Are you offering to be our guide?'
'Why not? I've been the priest at this altar for twenty years, and I know everything there is to know about these parts. Of course, I would require a small gratuity, for the upkeep of the altar…'
I narrowed my eyes and looked at Eco. 'What do you think?'
Eco stroked his chin. 'I suppose it might be interesting. We're not in too much of a hurry.'
'Oh, it will only take a moment,' said Felix. 'I can't leave the altar for long.'
I pretended to consider, then finally nodded. 'Very well. Come along with us.'
Davus, Eco and I kept our horses to a slow walk, so that the priest, on foot, could keep up. Past Bovillae the road began a steady ascent. The wooded hillside rose on our left and sloped downward on our right. Despite the increasingly jumbled landscape, the road that Appius Claudius had built continued steady on its course, as smooth and broad as ever.
'So you saw the inn already,' said our guide. 'Did you nodce the new doors and shutters? You should've seen the place right after the battle — like a crone with her eyes and teeth plucked out. And all those bodies lying about!'
'Did you see the battle yourself?'
'I heard the fighting when it started up the hill, and knew that something was up. Then I saw them come running past — you can see a bit of the road from the altar — that fellow Clodius stumbling and tripping, practically carried along by his men, five or six of them, and then a little later those two monsters lumbering after them- Eudamus and Birria.'
'You recognized them?'
'Who wouldn't? I never miss a gladiator show when I get the chance to see one. For religious purposes, you understand. The games started as funeral rites, you know. They're still a sacred institution.'
I didn't care to argue the point with a priest 'Were Eudamus and Birria the only ones who came after Clodius and his men?'
Felix snorted. 'Now wouldn't that make a legend — the two gladiators who laid siege to the inn at Bovillae
