I shivered. Perhaps I lurched a bit, for Zeno stepped forward again and said, “Are you unwell?”
“Quite well,” I managed to say. “But I couldn’t help but notice that you walk with a slight limp.”
He stiffened. From guilt, or merely in response to a stranger’s rudeness? “A battle wound,” he finally answered.
“From today’s battle? Or have you had that limp for several days?”
He had drawn so close that even by starlight I could see the frown on his handsome face. “Who are you to ask me such a question?”
“In Rome they call me the Finder. Even here, some of your fellow citizens have heard of me. One of them came to me the other day, a man named Arausio. He was grieving for his daughter. Her name was Rindel.”
Beyond Zeno, a figure moved from behind one of the concealing columns. The deep shadows of the colonnade still obscured her, but the misshapen silhouette of Cydimache was unmistakable.
“What do you want?” asked Zeno sharply, whispering. “Why are you telling me this?”
I lowered my voice to match his. “Does the name Arausio mean nothing to you? Or the name Rindel?”
Again he reached toward his dagger. I felt a tremor of fear, but his agitation emboldened me. “Listen to me, Zeno. Arausio thinks he knows what became of his daughter, but he can’t be sure—”
“What concern is this of yours, Roman?”
“When a father loses a child, he needs to know the truth. The pain of not knowing gnaws at a man, robs his sleep, poisons every breath. Believe me, I know! Arausio believes that only you can tell him the truth of what happened to his daughter.” I glanced at the figure of Cydimache, which remained in the shadows. “If you have nothing to hide, then why have we lowered our voices to keep your wife from hearing?”
“My wife—” Zeno seemed to choke on the word. “My wife has nothing to answer for. If you dare even to speak her name, I swear by Artemis that I’ll kill you where you stand!”
He had killed men already that day. I couldn’t doubt that he would kill one more. Did I dare to push him any harder? If he saw me reach into the little pouch at my waist, he might misinterpret the movement and draw his dagger; so I moved very slowly and said very softly, “I have something I want to show you, Zeno. It’s in this pouch. Here, I’m pulling it out now. Can you see it between my fingers?”
I found myself wishing that the light was stronger, the better for him to see the ring and for me to study his face. Did he recognize the ring or not?
Darkness obscured his face, but I heard him make a strange choking noise between a swallow and a gasp. He drew back. Alarm, or the lameness of his right leg, caused him to stumble. Cydimache lurched forward out of the deep shadows, clutching her robes to her breast; for all she knew, I had struck him a blow.
Zeno looked over his shoulder. “Stay back!” he cried, with a sob in his voice. He turned back to me and drew his dagger. The blade gleamed in the starlight.
His ears were sharper than mine. He suddenly stiffened and lowered his arm. Keeping his eyes on something behind me, he stepped back into the shadows of the colonnade. He slipped an arm around Cydimache, brought his face close to hers, whispered. The two of them withdrew into deeper darkness.
“Fatherin-law, here you are!”
I gave a start as Davus stepped up beside me. My heart pounded in my chest. I wasn’t sure whether to thank him or curse him. Had he spoiled the moment when Zeno might have weakened, or had he saved my life?
I let out a long sigh and stared at the darkness into which Zeno and Cydimache had vanished.
XVIII
“After tonight, three things are clear,” I said, raising a finger to tick the points off one by one. Had there been space in the tiny room I would have paced. Instead, I sat on my narrow bed with my back against the wall, idly tapping the floor with one foot. Davus sat across from me, knocking his cramped knees together.
“First, Zeno recognized this ring.” I rolled it between my fingers, studying the strange stone by the feeble lamplight. “His reaction was powerful and immediate.”
“Then the ring did come from Rindel, and somehow got left on the Sacrifice Rock when Zeno pushed her off,” said Davus.
I shook my head. “That doesn’t necessarily follow. We don’t know for certain that this ring belonged to Rindel; we still don’t know for certain that it was Rindel, or even Zeno, we saw on the rock that day; and we don’t know, despite your certainty, that the woman we saw was pushed.”
“But it must have been Zeno! We saw him limping tonight.”
“His limp could have another explanation. He told me it was from a battle wound.”
Davus snorted. “I’ll wager he had that limp long before he sailed off to battle this morning. That should be simple enough to find out. His fellow officers would know how long he’s been limping. Apollonides would know.”
“That’s easily resolved, then; I’ll just interrogate the First Timouchos at my convenience, shall I? But you’re right that his lameness isn’t something Zeno could hide from his comrades. It would be instructive to know just how long he’s exhibited that limp.”
I raised another finger and ticked it off. “The second thing we now know for sure is that Zeno truly loves Cydimache. Despite what Domitius told me about her ugliness and deformity, despite Arausio’s presumption that Zeno abandoned Rindel and married the First Timouchos’s daughter merely to better himself, the two newlyweds share a genuine affection for each other. Did you see them tonight? The way she drew closer to him, to calm him; the way he touched her, casually, almost without thought, yet tenderly. That wasn’t an act. I saw a man and woman physically at ease with each other, united by a bond of trust.”
Davus snorted. “You could say the same thing about a man and a horse.”
“Cydimache is a woman, Davus.”
“A woman, a horse—if Zeno is as calculating and ambitious as Arausio thinks, which woman he marries may matter to him no more, and no less, than which beast he takes for transport. All he’s looking for is a reliable means to get where he’s going, and marrying Cydimache took him straight to the top. But now that he’s arrived, he’s stuck with her, and he’ll have to get her with child if he’s to become a Timouchos. So he’s forced himself to do the act with her, and for that she’s grateful. Why shouldn’t she coo and comfort him? And in the process, he’s gotten used to her. A man can get used to just about anything in this world—any man who’s ever been a slave can tell you that. So Zeno is able to touch her without shuddering—what of it? Especially the way she keeps herself covered; probably she stays bundled like that when he makes love to her, and Zeno just shuts his eyes and thinks of pretty Rindel.”
“What! Pictures the girl whom, according to you, he cold-bloodedly pushed off the Sacrifice Rock?”
“‘Cold-blooded’—that’s exactly the word for a man like Zeno!”
I shook my head. “No, there’s more to this marriage between Zeno and Cydimache than you credit. The way they touched—it reminded me of the way that you and Diana touch, not even realizing it. Yes, exactly the same.”
Davus lowered his eyes. A frown pulled at his mouth. With his relentless good nature, it was sometimes easy for me to forget that Davus, too, was far from home, and homesick. He cleared his throat and asked, a little dully, “What was the third thing? You said you knew three things for certain now—that Zeno recognized the ring, that he truly cares for Cydimache…and what else?”
“That Zeno is no coward. The tale he told at dinner made my blood run cold. The things he saw today must have been terrifying, yet he kept his wits about him and brought his men safely home. And he didn’t hesitate to stand up to his fatherin-law. Zeno has nerve. He has courage. I have to ask myself: Is this the sort of fellow who would push a defenseless woman off a cliff?”
Davus crossed his arms, unimpressed. “He would if she was making trouble for him—the kind of trouble a mad, spurned woman might make for an ambitious climber.”
> “So you saw nothing good in Zeno? No good at all?”
“Not a thing.”
“You seem very sure of yourself,” I said quietly.
“Why not? I’ve met Zeno’s type before. Haven’t you?” Now it was Davus’s turn to tick points off his fingers one by one. “Does he love Cydimache? It certainly profits him to put on a show of pretending to, so he does.
“Is he heroic? Well, if his ship goes down in battle, he’ll drown like the rest, so why shouldn’t he fight as bravely as the next man?
“Does he have nerve? Undoubtedly. You seem to admire him for talking back to Apollonides in public, but I hardly think you’d like it if I showed that little respect for you, fatherin-law.
“Could such a fine fellow kill a woman he once loved, in cold blood? Zeno happens to be good-looking and he comes from a good family, so why shouldn’t he be charming and likable? That makes it all the easier for him to get away with something truly outrageous, like pushing a troublesome old lover off a cliff.”
Satisfied that he had made his points, Davus tilted back his head, squeezed his eyes shut, stretched his arms over his head, and opened his jaw in a great yawn.
It was time for sleep. I doused the light. The room was so dark that I saw the same blackness whether my eyes were open or shut.
Had I judged Zeno’s character so wrongly? I felt weary and confused, like an old hound who can no longer trust his nose and who finds himself, at the end of a long day’s wandering, lost in fields far from home.
When I opened my eyes the next morning, I couldn’t tell if it was hunger that awakened me or the noise from my stomach, so loud was the growling it made. The windowless room was dim; the only light came from the open doorway and the shadowy hall beyond. Vaguely I heard distant voices, hurried footsteps, and indistinct clattering, the sounds of a great household stirring.
It occurred to me that my preoccupation with Zeno and the incident on the Sacrifice Rock was no more than a distraction, an indulgence to keep my mind off the trouble we were in. Massilia was on the verge of chaos, perhaps complete destruction. It was one thing to pass idle days in the comfort of the scapegoat’s house, quite another to face the prospect of house arrest, or worse, in the hands of Apollonides. Rather than twisting my mind around the sins of the First Timouchos’s son-in-law, I should probably have spent the previous night doing everything possible to ingratiate myself with Domitius, who might be induced, if I groveled enough, to offer his protection to Davus and me.
That idea was so repugnant that I found myself instead holding up the ring in the dim morning light and peering into the depths of the black skystone.
Davus stirred. His stomach growled even louder than mine, reminding me that our most immediate problem was finding food. It seemed hard to imagine that Apollonides, with all that was on his mind, had bothered to make any provision for feeding two Roman troublemakers who had become his unwanted and unwilling houseguests. We could, I thought, set out in search of the kitchens, though it seemed unlikely that the previous night’s grim travesty of a banquet had yielded much in the way of leftovers.
Davus sat up, stretched, and yawned. He stared at the ring in my hand. He blinked. His eyes narrowed. His nose twitched. As he turned and looked toward the doorway, I too caught the unmistakable scent of bread.
The loaf appeared first. The hand that held the flat, round disk was concealed behind it, so that it seemed to levitate, moonlike, of its own accord. It was followed by an arm, and then the smiling face of Hieronymus peering around the corner.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Famished,” I admitted. “I left Apollonides’s banquet last night hungrier than when I arrived.”
“Then his skills as a host exactly match his gifts as a military man and a leader of the people,” remarked Hieronymus dryly. “I brought a bit to drink as well,” he said, producing a bloated wineskin.
“May the gods bless you!” I said, not thinking.
“Actually, that’s the one favor I’m not allowed. But of earthly blessings, my cornucopia is filled to overflowing. Last night, while you starved at Apollonides’s banquet, I dined in seclusion on—would you believe it?—not one but two roasted quails, with a lovely olive and fish-pickle garnish. I’d have saved some for you, but sitting up on that rock all day and then promenading through the streets was hard work for a humble scapegoat such as I.” I remembered the ordeal of yesterday’s near-riot and wondered how he could make a joke of it. “And after the quail came the red mullets in almond sauce, the boiled eggs rolled in lemon zest and asafetida, followed by—well, suffice it to say that the priests of Artemis insisted I stuff myself. The worse the battle news, the more they give me to eat. I feel like a goose being fattened for a feast.” He patted the round belly that protruded incongruously from his tall, lanky frame. “When I woke this morning, I was still too stuffed to eat another bite—so when they brought me this freshly baked flatbread, I thought of you.”
I tore the soft loaf into semicircles and gave half to Davus. I forced myself to take small bites. Davus seemed to inhale his portion without even chewing.
“You’re allowed to move freely about the house, then?” I asked.
“No one dares restrain me. The slaves scatter before me like autumn leaves before Boreas. Of course, I do my best to be unobtrusive. I’ve no intention of barging into meetings of the war council or pestering the starry-eyed newlyweds. Otherwise, when Caesar crashes through the city gates and Cydimache produces a squalling monster, Apollonides will blame both catastrophes on me.”
“Will you be going back to your own house?”
There was a ripple in his glib composure, like a wind flaw on water. “I’m afraid not.”
“A punishment for trespassing on the Sacrifice Rock?”
“Not exactly. Not a punishment. A repercussion, you might say.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I convinced the priests I had every right to climb up on the rock yesterday; I told them I had heard a summons from Artemis to go and watch for the fleet. Well, they could hardly object to that, could they? I think I managed to talk them into forgiving your trespass as well, Gordianus. They might have briefly impressed the mob by making an example of you and Davus—burning you alive, say, or hanging you upside down and flaying you like venison—but I pointed out to them that in the long term, exacting gruesome punishments against our Roman guests might not be such a good idea, considering that it now appears almost inevitable that Massilia, if the city is allowed to continue to exist at all, shall have a Roman master. If not this year, then next; if not Caesar, then Pompey. Perhaps both shall rule Massilia, one after the other. I pointed out to the priests that you were friends of both men, and that friendship these days means more to a Roman than ties of blood.”
“In other words, you saved our lives, Hieronymus.”
“It seemed the least I could do. I’m supposed to be a savior, aren’t I? My death, in some mystical fashion, supposedly will rescue Massilia from her enemies at the last possible moment. It looks increasingly unlikely that the priests of Artemis will be able to pull off that miracle; and even if they do, I won’t be around to see the results! But one thing I can do is stand here in this hole of a room and watch my only two friends, alive and reasonably well, as they devour a flatbread for which I have no use—and that gives me a curious pleasure.”
“No bread ever tasted better,” I said quietly.
Hieronymus merely shrugged.
“But you said that you won’t be returning to your house. If you’ve placated the priests, why not?”
“Because it’s no longer there.”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that the scapegoat’s house no longer exists. The mob burned it down.”
“What!”
“It happened late last night. I suppose, buried down here, you didn’t hear the horns blowing the fire alarm. I certainly heard them, up in my room. They woke me from a deep sleep. I was dreami
ng about my mother; a happy dream, oddly enough. Then the horns woke me. I left my bed and went to the balcony. I saw a red glow in the direction of my house. Apparently a mob gathered there after dark. They demanded that I be brought out and marched at once to the Sacrifice Rock. Apollonides had posted guards at the door, but only a few. They explained that I wasn’t there, but the mob didn’t believe them. The mob overwhelmed the guards and broke into the house. When they didn’t find me, they ransacked the place and then set it afire.” He shook his head. “Committing arson in a city under siege is not only a grievous crime, it’s incredibly stupid. If the flames had spread out of control, can you imagine the result? People trapped inside the city walls, only a few ships left in the harbor to offer a means of escape, rioting, looting—a fate as terrible as anything Caesar may have in store for us!
“But the guards who had been overwhelmed summoned reinforcements and sounded the fire horns, and Apollonides’s men were able to contain the flames. My house was gutted, but those around it were spared. As a result, I find myself homeless once again—what irony!—and the heads of the twenty or so looters whom Apollonides’s men managed to capture are mounted on spikes amid the smoking embers. The headless bodies were dumped into the sea.”
The last crust of bread turned to ashes in my mouth. “Hieronymus, this is terrible!”
“Yes. We shall no longer be able to sit on my lovely rooftop terrace, watching the clouds over the sea, drinking Falernian wine, and debating fallacies.”
Last Seen in Massilia: A Novel of Ancient Rome Page 18