'Help us!' I managed to gasp. 'Caecilia Metella knows me. Two men are running after us — street criminals — murderers!'
The soldiers drew apart and held their swords ready, but made no move to stop me when I bowed my head and let Tiro slip from my shoulders onto his feet. He took one limping step and then crumpled with a moan in front of the door. I stepped past him and began beating on the door, then looked over my shoulder to see Magnus and Glaucia come to a skittering halt just within reach of the brazier's light.
Even the armed guards stepped back at the sight of them — Magnus with his wild hair, scarred face, and flaring nostrils, Glaucia with blood streaming down his forehead, both clutching daggers in their fists. I banged on the door again.
Magnus turned shifty-eyed, lowered his blade, and gestured to Glaucia to do the same. 'These two are thieves,' he said, pointing at me. Despite his wild appearance, his voice was measured and even. He wasn't even winded. 'Burglars,' he declared. 'Housebreakers. We caught them forcing their way into the home of Lucius Cornelius Chrysogonus. Hand them over.'
The two soldiers exchanged confused glances. They had been ordered to keep a prisoner inside, not to keep anyone out or to keep peace in the street. They had no reason to help two wild-eyed men with knives. Nor did they have any reason to protect two unexpected callers in the night. Magnus should have told them we were escaped slaves; that would have obligated the soldiers, as fellow citizens, to hand us over. But it was too late to change his story now. Instead, when the guards made no response, Magnus reached into his tunic and pulled out a heavy-looking purse. The guards looked at the purse and then at each other, and then, without affection, at Tiro and me. I beat on the door with both fists.
Finally a slit opened and through it peered the calculating eyes of the eunuch Ahausarus. His gaze shifted from me down to Tiro and then beyond us to the assassins in the street. I was still breathing hard, fumbling for words to explain, when he opened the door, ushered us inside, and slammed it shut behind us.
Ahausarus refused to wake his mistress. Nor would he allow us to stay the night. ('Impossible’ he sniffed haughtily, as if hosting Sextus Roscius and his family were taint enough on the household.) Magnus might still be waiting in ambush outside the house; even worse, he might have sent Glaucia for reinforcements. The sooner we left the better. After some hurried negotiations (mostly I begged while the eunuch arched his eyebrows and stared at the ceiling), Ahausarus was quite happy to see us off with a team of yawning litter bearers to carry Tiro, along with some gladiators from his mistress's personal bodyguard.
'No more adventures!' said Cicero sternly. 'There's no point in it. When she hears of it in the morning, Caecilia will be scandalized. Tiro's injured himself. And there's no telling what sort of repercussions might have come of it — spying on Chrysogonus in his own house, with Sulla in the very room! My own slave and a disreputable henchman — forgive me, Gordianus, but it's true — caught wandering about a private home on the Palatine during a party to honour Sulla. It wouldn't be hard to make that out as some sort of threat to the security of the state, would it? What if they'd caught you and dragged you before Chrysogonus? They could have called you assassins as easily as thieves. Do you want to see my head on a spike? And all for nothing — you didn't learn anything new from the whole escapade, did you? Nothing of importance, as far as I can see. Your work is done, Gordianus. Give it up! Everything depends now on Rufus and me. Two more days — tomorrow, and the day after, and then the trial. Until then no more of these absurd adventures! Stay out of the way, and try to stay alive. In fact, I forbid you to leave this house.'
Some people are not at their best when roused from bed in the middle of the night. Cicero was snappish and rude from the moment he arrived in the vestibule, summoned by a slave to witness the bizarre nocturnal visitation of tramping bodyguards and a slave borne in a litter. His eyes were hollow with dark pockets beneath; I suppose in his dreams there was no friendly goddess handing out thunderbolts. Weary or not, Cicero talked constantly, mostly to deride me, while he hovered like a brooding hen near Tiro, who lay belly-down on a table as the household physician (who was also the head cook) examined his ankle, turning it this way and that. Tiro winced and bit his lip. The physician nodded gravely, his eyes red and puffy from interrupted sleep.
'Not broken,' he finally said, 'only sprained. He's lucky; otherwise he might have had a limp for the rest of his life. The best thing's to give him plenty of wine — thins the clotted blood inside and keeps the muscles loose. Soak his ankle in cool water tonight, the cooler the better — keeps down the swelling. If you wish, I can send someone after fresh spring water. Wrap it up tight tomorrow and see that he stays off it until the pain's completely gone. I'll have the carpenter carve him a crutch in the morning.'
Cicero nodded, relieved. Suddenly his jaw began to tremble. His mouth quivered. His chin dimpled. He opened his mouth in a gasping yawn, trying to keep it shut. He blinked, already falling asleep. He gave me one last disparaging glare through heavy-lidded eyes, shook his head disapprovingly at Tiro, and then returned to his bed.
I slunk wearily to my room. Bethesda was sitting wide-awake in bed, waiting for me. Listening through the door, she had been able to make out only the bare bones of the night's adventure. She asked question after question. I kept answering, long after my mumbled replies stopped making any sense at all. At some point I began to dream.
In my dream I lay with my head in the lap of a goddess who stroked my brow. Her skin was like alabaster. Her lips were like cherries. Though my eyes were closed, I knew she smiled, because I could feel her smile like warm sunshine on my face.
A door opened and, the room was filled with light. Apollo of Ephesus entered, like an actor stepping onto a stage, naked and golden and blindingly beautiful. He knelt beside me and. put his mouth so close to my ear that his soft lips brushed my flesh. His breath was as warm as the goddess's smile, and smelled of honeysuckle. He whispered words of sweet comfort, like a murmuring brook.
Invisible hands played an invisible lyre, while an unseen chorus sang the most beautiful song I had ever heard — verse after verse of love and praise, all in my honour. At some point a wild giant with a knife ran blindly through the room, his eyes clotted with blood from a wound in his head; but nothing else occurred to spoil the absolute perfection of that dream.
A cock crowed. I gave a start and bolted upright, imagining I was back in my house on the Esquiline and thinking I heard strangers prowling in the grey dawn. But the noise I heard was only the sound of Cicero's slaves getting ready for the day ahead. Beside me Bethesda slept like a stone, her black hair spread like tendrils about the pillow. I lay back beside her, thinking I couldn't possibly fall asleep again.
I was unconscious almost before I closed my eyes.
Sleep spread around me in all directions — featureless, dreamless, devoid of any landmarks. Such a sleep is like eternity; with nothing to measure the passage of time and no markings to show the volume of space, an instant is no different from an aeon and an atom is as large as the universe. All the diversity of life, pleasure and pain alike, dissolves into a primal oneness, absorbing even nothingness. Is this what death is like?
And then, all at once, I woke.
Bethesda sat in the corner of the room, stitching up the hem of the tunic I had worn the night before. At some point, perhaps when I jumped, I had ripped it. Beside her was a half-eaten piece of bread smeared with honey.