'Maybe he can find the men who killed Halicor!' suggested Androcles, looking at his brother with wide eyes.
'Don't be ridiculous, screamer, we know who killed him. We saw them do it with our own eyes.'
'Did you, indeed? Your mistress didn't tell me that, only chat Halicor had been killed, along with the foreman and two other slaves. She mentioned no witnesses.'
'That's because no one knows that we saw,' said Mopsus.
'Until now!' Litde Androcles put his hands on his hips and looked accusingly at his older brother, as if to ask which of them was the stupid screamer now.
'I shall want to hear all about it,' I said, 'but first I want to know what you meant when you told Androcles to run to the mill and wake the others. What others?'
Mopsus looked up at me, biting his Up and debating whether to cooperate. I could almost see his thoughts at work. His littde brother seemed to be in no harm, and no real threats had been made against them; his captors had disavowed any allegiance to Milo and instead had invoked the name of his mistress in Rome, a lady probably as remote and exotic to such a boy as a goddess from Olympus. Perhaps most importantly, he was beginning to get very tired of being pinned to the ground.
'Let me up and I'll tell you,' he said.
'You won't run away? Because if you do, Davus will run after you — I can hardly stop him, he's like a dog without a leash — and when he catches you, he'll never stop kughing.'
Androcles covered his mouth and giggled at the thought. Mopsus turned red. 'I won't run. Just get the elephant off me!'
'Davus, step back.'
Davus did so, but remained poised to chase after the boy, his long muscular legs ready to spring. He looked like one of those magnificent giant cats one sees at exotic animal shows in the arena, except for his grin, for such beasts never smile. Where had the crippling stiffness of the morning gone to? Ah, to be that young again, invulnerable like Achilles.
Mopsus got to his feet and dusted himself off. He made a sour face at Davus, who showed the good sense to suppress his laughter. 'What were you saying?'
'The others you mentioned — down at the mill…'
'Asleep, probably. Like they usually are at this time of the morning after they've been drinking the night before, which they have been ever since they broke into the little house where the master stored his wine.'
'Mopsus!' His little brother frowned at him and shook his head.
'What do I care? It's only the truth. It's their job to guard the house, our job to take care of the stable. They should get into trouble!'
'Then there's no one in the house at all?' I said.
'No. It's all locked up. After what happened, the mistress called all the servants back to Rome, except for the men to guard the building.'
'And us, to look after the animals,' added his brother. 'Tell her we're doing our job.'
'I shall do that,' I promised.
'But don't tell on the others,' said Androcles, suddenly very earnest. 'Not if it means they'll be punished.' He suddenly began to cry.
'Oh, shut up,' said Mopsus. 'He's remembering what Milo's men did to Halicor and the foreman. That's not how the mistress would punish drunken guards, stupid. She'd have them whipped a bit. She wouldn't cut their limbs off'
'How do you know?' The child sniffed.
'Because I'm not stupid like you.'
'Androcles doesn't seem stupid to me,' said Eco, putting his hands on his hips. 'He's not the one who threw a spear at three perfectly peaceable strangers.' How like him to take the underdog's side, I thought; was this how he kept peace between the twins at home? But it occurred to me that the boys' squabbling was also a way of skirting the ugly subject of Halicor and his fate, even as they kept bringing it up. What exactly had they witnessed?
'You were here on the day of the battle, then? You remember it well?'
'Of course we were here, tending the stable as always,' said
Mopsus. 'It turned into a busy day, what with the master and his men getting packed and ready to go.'
'What time of day was that, when your master set out for Rome?'
'In the afternoon.'
'What hour?'
The boy shrugged.
'Closer to the ninth hour, or later, around the eleventh hour?' Androcles tugged at my hand. 'The ninth hour.' 'You're sure of that?'
'There's a sundial behind the stable. After the master set out, I went to look at it because I was hungry and I wondered how long until dinner.'
'And when your master set out, did it seem that he had planned to leave at that time?'
'Not at all,' said Mopsus, before his brother could answer ahead of him. 'He was going to stay another day or two. He left because the messenger came.'
'And what was the messenger's news?'
'About the old architect, Cyrus. He was dead, and the mistress wanted the master back in Rome.'
'You seem to know a lot about your master's business for a stableboy,' said Eco, who seemed determined to needle him.
'I've got eyes and ears. Besides, who do you think is the first person a messenger on horseback sees when he arrives at the villa? Me, because I'm the one who takes his horse.'
Eco looked sceptical. 'And this messenger felt compelled to share his news with you, even before he'd delivered it to Clodius?'
'He said, 'Better get the horses ready for your master and his friends,' and I said, 'Why?' And he said, 'Because the mistress wants him back in Rome,' and I said — '
'Yes, I think we understand,' said Eco.
'So your master received the message,' I said, 'decided to head back to Rome and rounded up his retinue. But wasn't his son with him, the boy, Publius Clodius? I suppose he must be about your age, Androcles.'
'Of course Publius was here,' said Androcles. 'With his tutor, Halicor. Halicor kept him busy most of the time, but sometimes Publius would slip away and come to find Mopsus and me. We told him we had work to do, but he said as long as he was with us, it was all right to go off with him. So we'd go to play in the woods, or over at the ruins of the witches' house.' 'Witches?'
'I think he means the Vestals, Eco. That day, after the messenger came, did Publius set out with his Either?'
'No, he stayed behind with Halicor. Mopsus and I were glad, because that meant he'd be wanting to play with us and we wouldn't have to work so much, and the foreman and Halicor might get angry, but so what, because Publius was always getting into trouble and then getting out of it again.'
'Taking after his father,' said Eco under his breath.
'And as soon as the master and his men rode off, Publius came and found us in the stable — '
'We had a lot of work to do,' said Mopsus, 'cleaning up after they were gone. Quite a few of the men had slept in the stable, and men make more of a mess than beasts.'
'But Publius came and wanted to play. Mopsus told him we had work to do, but Publius said he was hiding from Halicor and we had to help him hide. So Mopsus and I went to a corner and had a talk, and we decided to show him the secret passage. Can you imagine, even Publius didn't know about it, the master's own son!'
'A secret passage?' said Eco. 'I think these boys are telling us stories, Papa.'
'No, it's true!' insisted Androcles.
'Yes, it's true,' said Mopsus, crossing his arms and sounding very adult. 'We're probably the only two people alive who know about it, except Publius, now that both the master and Cyrus are gone, because they were the only ones who were supposed to know, except of course for the slaves who did the actual building, but who knows where they are now? Not even Halicor or the foreman knew about it. I'll bet that even the mistress doesn't know.'
