She glared at me. 'A monster, that's what you are. Just like the rest. I despise all of you.'
The answer came effortlessly to my lips, but I paused for a long moment before saying it, knowing that after it was spoken there would be no turning back. 'But your father most of all.'
'I don't know what you mean.' There was a catch in her breath, and the anger that shielded her face abruptly vanished to reveal the pain beneath. She was a child after all, despite her craftiness. She fumbled about, trying to cover herself with that bitter shield and only half succeeding, so that when she spoke again it was as if she were half-naked, brazenly hostile, but with her vulnerability painfully exposed
'What is it that you want?' she whispered harshly. 'Why did you come here? Why can't you just leave us alone? Tell him, Tiro.' She reached for the arm that held her wrist and tenderly caressed it, glancing at Tiro and then casting her eyes demurely to the ground. The gesture seemed both calculating and sincere, manipulative and yet truly longing for tenderness in return. Tiro blushed to the roots of his hair. From the whiteness of his knuckles and the sudden grimace on Roscia's face, I saw that he was squeezing her wrist painfully tight, perhaps not even knowing it.
'Tell him, Tiro,' she gasped, and no man could have said for certain whether the tears in her voice were genuine or not.
'Tiro has already told me enough.' I looked straight at her but shut my eyes to the pain on her face. I made my voice cold and hard. 'Whom do you meet when you leave Caecilia's house — I mean, besides Tiro? Is it here on this spot that you give your father's secrets to the wolves who want to see him flayed alive? Tell me, you foolish child! What sort of bribe could convince you to betray your own flesh?'
'My own flesh!' she shrieked. 'Betray my own flesh? I have no flesh! This is my father's flesh, this!' she tore her hand from Tiro's grasp, pushed up her sleeve and pinched a handful of the flesh on her arm. 'This flesh, this is his flesh!' she said again, pulling up the hem of her gown to show me her bare white legs, pinching at the taut flesh as if she could tear it from the bone. 'And this, and this! Not mine, but his!' she shouted, tearing at herself, at her cheeks and hands and hair. When she pulled at the neck of her gown to bare her breasts, Tiro stopped her. He would have embraced her, but she slapped him away.
'Do you understand?' She shook as if she wept, but no tears came from her sparking, feverish eyes.
'Yes,' I said. Tiro sat beside her, shaking his head, still confused.
'Do you really understand?' A single tear sprang from one eye and threaded its way down her cheek. -
I swallowed and slowly nodded. 'When did it begin?'
'When I was Minora's age. That's why — ' Suddenly she sobbed and could not speak.
'Minora — the little one, your sister?'
She nodded. Tiro at last understood. His lips quivered. His eyes grew dark.
'So this is your revenge — to help his enemies however you can.'
'Liar! You said you understood! Not revenge — Minora.. ' 'To save your sister from him, then.'
She nodded, turning her face in shame. Tiro watched her with a look of utter helplessness, moving his hands as if to touch her but afraid to. I could not bear to watch them both at once and turned my face to the empty, endlessly burning sky above.
A breeze wafted through the park, causing the leaves to hiss and then subside. Somewhere far away a woman shouted, and then all was quiet. Deep within the silence one could still make out the distant murmur of the city below. A single bird flew high overhead and bisected the heavens.
'How did they come to you? How did they know?'
'A man… it was here. . one day.' She no longer sobbed, but her voice was thin and broken. 'I've come here every afternoon since we came to the city. It's the only place that reminds me of home, of the country. One day a man came — they must have been watching Caecilia's house, they knew I was his daughter. He scared me at first. Then we talked. Gossip, he called it, trying to make it sound innocent when he started talking about my father, as if he were just a curious neighbour. He must have thought he was so subtle, or else he thought I was an idiot, the way he started asking questions. He offered me a stupid little necklace, the kind of thing Caecilia would throw out with the rubbish. I told him to put it away and stop insulting me. I told him I wasn't stupid and I knew just what he wanted. Oh, no, no, he says, and put on such a show I wanted to spit in his face. I told him to stop it, just to stop it! I knew what he wanted. I told him I knew he came from old Capito or Magnus, and he acted as if he'd never heard of them. I don't care, I told him. I know what you want. And I'll help you however I can. Finally he got it through his head. You should have seen his face.'
I stared into the ivy above her head, into the dense, dust-choked darkness, the domain of wasps and snails and the myriad smaller forms of life devouring and redevouring one another. 'And you still come here every afternoon.'
'Yes.'
'And the same man always comes.'
'Yes. And then I send him away, so I can be alone.'
'And you tell him everything.'
'Everything. What my father ate for breakfast. What my father said to my mother in their bed last night while I listened at the door. Every time Cicero or Rufus visits and what they say.'
'And all the little secrets you can worm out of Tiro?'
She hesitated for just an instant. 'Yes, that too.'
'Such as my name, and the reasons Cicero hired me?'
'Yes.'
'Such as the fact that I asked Cicero to hire a guard for my house?'
'Oh, yes. That was just yesterday. He questioned me very closely about that. He wanted to know very precisely what Tiro had told me, the exact derails.'
'And of course you're very good at getting the exact details and remembering them.'
She looked straight at me. Her face had grown hard again. 'Yes. Very good. I forget nothing. Nothing.'
I shook my head. 'But what can you gain from it? What about your own life? What future can you have without your father?'
'No worse than the past, no more horrible than all the years he made me… all the years I was his. . '
Tiro again tried to comfort her, and again she pushed him away.
'But even if you hate him with such a murderous hatred, what life will you have, you and your mother and little Minora, if this thing runs its course? With no one to turn to, reduced to beggars—'
'We're beggars now.'
'But your rather may be acquitted. If that happens, there's a chance we can restore his estates.'
She looked at me hard, considering what I said, weighing it while her face showed no expression. Then she delivered her judgment. 'It makes no difference. If you offered me the choice of doing what I've done, or going back to the way things were before, then I'm still not sorry for it. I'd do it all again. I would betray him in every way I could. I would do anything to help his enemies put him to death. Already he's begun to move on her. I can see from the way he watches her when, my mother leaves the room. The look in his eyes — sometimes he looks at Minora, and then at me, and he smiles. Can you imagine? He smiles to show me that he knows I understand. He smiles to remind me of all the times he's taken his pleasure with me. He smiles, tliinking of all the pleasure over all the years that he could take from Minora. Even now, with his life almost over, he still thinks about it. Perhaps it's all he thinks about. So far I've kept her away from him — by guile, by lying; once I even threatened him with a knife. But do you know what I think? If they condemn him to death, it's the last thing he'll manage to do. Even if he has to do it in front of his executioners, he'll find some way to rip off her clothes and put himself inside her.'