Lustrum

head. Cicero knelt next to her and put his arm around her shoulder. 'My dear, you must leave now,' he said. 'Take Marcus with you, and spend the night at Atticus's house.' He glanced up at Atticus, and his old friend nodded. 'It's too dangerous to stay here beyond midnight.'

She pulled away from him. 'And you?' she said. 'What will you do? Will you kill yourself?'

'If that is what you want – if that will make it easier.'

'Of course it is not what I want!' she shouted at him. 'I want my life returned to me!'

'That, I fear, is what I cannot give you.'

Once again Cicero reached out to her, but she pushed him away and got to her feet. 'Why?' she demanded, glaring down at him, her hands on her hips. 'Why are you putting your wife and children through this torment, when you could end it tomorrow by allying yourself with Caesar?'

'Because if I did, I would cease to exist.'

'What do you mean, you would cease to exist? What stupid, clever nonsense of yours is that?'

'My body would exist, but I, Cicero, I – whatever I am – would be dead.'

Terentia turned her back on him in despair and looked at Atticus for support. Atticus said, 'With respect, Marcus, you are starting to sound as inflexible as Cato. What's wrong with making a temporary alliance with Caesar?'

'There would be nothing temporary about it! Does no one in this city understand? That man won't stop until he is master of the world – he more or less just told me exactly that – and I would either have to go along with him as his junior accomplice or break with him at some later stage, and then I would be absolutely finished.'

Terentia said coldly, 'You are absolutely finished now.'

'So, Tiro,' said Cicero, after she had gone to fetch Marcus from the nursery to say goodbye, 'as my last act in this city, I would like to give you your freedom. I really should have done it years ago – at the very least when I left the consulship – and the fact that I didn't was not because I set no value on your services, but on the contrary because I valued them too much, and could not bear to lose you. But now, as I am losing everything else, it's only fair that I should say goodbye to you as well. Congratulations, my friend,' he said, shaking my hands, 'you have earned it.'

For years I had waited for this moment – I had yearned for it and dreamed of it and planned what I would do – and now it had arrived, almost casually it seemed, out of all this ruin and disaster. I was too overwhelmed with emotion to speak. Cicero smiled at me, and then embraced me as I wept, patting my back as if I was a child that needed comforting, and then Atticus, who was standing watching, took my hand and shook it warmly.

I managed to say a few words of thanks, and added that of course my first act as a free man would be to dedicate myself to his service, and that I would stay at his side to share his ordeal whatever happened.

'I am afraid that is impossible,' Cicero responded sadly. 'Slaves can be my only company from now. If a freedman were to help me, he would be guilty under Clodius's law of aiding a murderer. You must stay well clear of me from now on, Tiro, or they will crucify you. Now go and collect your belongings. You should leave with Terentia and Atticus.'

The intensity of my joy was replaced by an equally sharp stab of grief. 'But how will you cope without me?'

'Oh, I have other slaves,' he replied, making a feeble effort to sound unconcerned. 'They can accompany me out of the city.'

'Where will you go?'

'South. To the coast – Brundisium, perhaps – and find a boat. After that – the winds and currents will decide my fate. Now fetch your things.'

I went down to my room and gathered together my few possessions into a small bag, and then I pulled out the two loose bricks behind which I had hollowed out a safe. This was where I kept my savings. Sewn into a money belt, I had exactly two hundred and twenty-seven gold pieces, which it had taken me more than a decade to acquire. I put on the belt and went upstairs to the atrium, where Cicero was now saying goodbye to Marcus, watched by Atticus and a raw-eyed Terentia. He loved that boy – his only son, his joy, his hope for the future – and with immense self-discipline he somehow managed to keep their parting casual, so that the lad would not be too upset. He held him in his arms and swung him round, and Marcus begged him to do it again, which he did, and when Marcus begged for a third time, he said no and told him to go to his mother. Then he embraced Terentia and said, 'I am sorry that marriage to me has brought you to such a sad state.'

'Marriage to you has been the only purpose of my life,' she replied, and with a nod in my direction she walked firmly from the room.

Cicero next embraced Atticus, and entrusted his wife and son to his care, and then moved to say farewell to me, but I told him there was no need, that I had made my decision, and that I would remain at his side at the cost of my freedom and if necessary of my life. Naturally he expressed his gratitude, but he did not seem surprised, and I realised he had never thought seriously for a moment that I would accept his offer. I took off my money belt and gave it to Atticus.

'I wonder if I might ask you to do something for me,' I said.

'Of course,' he replied. 'You want me to look after this for you?'

'No,' I said. 'There is a slave of Lucullus, a young woman named Agathe, who has come to mean a lot to me, and I wonder if you would ask Lucullus, as a favour to you, to free her. I am sure there is more than enough money here to buy her liberty and to provide for her thereafter.'

Atticus looked surprised, but said that of course he would do as I asked.

'Well, you certainly kept that secret,' said Cicero, studying me closely. 'Perhaps I don't know you as well as I think I do.'

After the others had gone, Cicero and I were left alone in the house, together with his guards and a few members of his household. We could no longer hear any chanting; the whole city seemed to have gone very quiet. He went upstairs to rest and put on some stout shoes, and when he came back down he took a candelabrum and moved from room to room – through the empty dining hall with its gilded roof, through the great hall with its marble statues that were too heavy to move, and into the bare library – as if committing the place to memory. He lingered so long I began to wonder if he had decided not to leave after all, but then the watchman in the forum called midnight, and he blew out the candles and said that we should go.

The night was moonless, and as we reached the top of the steps we could see beneath us at least a dozen torches slowly ascending the hill. Someone in the distance let out a peculiar bird cry, and it was answered by a similar shriek from a spot very close behind us. I felt my heart begin to pound. 'They are on their way,' said Cicero softly. 'He does not mean to miss a moment.' We hurried down the steps, and at the foot of the Palatine turned left into a narrow alley. Keeping close to the walls, we made a careful loop past shuttered shops and slumbering houses until we came out into the main street just by the Capena Gate. The porter was bribed to open up the pedestrian door, and waited impatiently as we exchanged whispered farewells with our protectors. Then Cicero stepped through the narrow portal, followed by me and by three other young slaves, who carried his luggage.

We did not speak or rest until we had walked for at least two hours and had got clear of the monumental tombs that line that stretch of road – in those days, notorious hiding places for robbers. Then Cicero decided it was safe to stop, and he sat down on a milestone and looked back at Rome. A faint red glow, too early for the dawn, crimson at its centre and dissolving into bands of pink, suffused the sky, outlining the low black humps of the city's hills. It was amazing to think that the burning of just one house could create such an immense celestial effect. Had I not known better, I would have said it was an omen. At the same time, faint on the still night air, came a curious sound, harsh and intermittent, pitched somewhere between a howl and a wail. I could not place it at first, but then Cicero said it must be trumpets on the Field of Mars, and that it was Caesar's army preparing to move off to Gaul. I could not make out his face in the darkness as he said this, which perhaps was just as well, but after a moment or two he stood and brushed the dust off his old tunic, and resumed his journey, in the opposite direction to Caesar's.

GLOSSARY

aedile an elected official, four of whom were chosen annually to serve a one-year term, responsible for the