"What about me?" asked Belbo. "Shall I try to follow again, like I did this morning?"
I shook my head and looked nervously at the open door of the warehouse.
"But you'll be in danger," said Belbo. "A man needs a bodyguard. Make the pirates take both of us."
"Hush, Belbo! Go hide with the others. Now!" I pushed him with both hands, and realized I would probably have better luck pushing over a yew tree. At last he gave way and lumbered off, looking unhappy.
A moment later Cleon appeared at the open door, followed by the wagon with its driver and two other young men. Like Cleon, they looked Greek to me.
I showed him the chests of gold and opened the lid of each one in turn. Even in the dim light, the glitter seemed to dazzle him. He grinned and looked a little embarrassed. "So much! I wondered what it would look like, but I couldn't picture it. I kept trying to imagine ten thousand golden minnows…"
He shook his head as if to clear it and set to work with his companions loading the heavy chests into the wagon. A group of bloodthirsty pirates might be expected to dance a gleeful jig at the proximity of so much booty, but they went about their work in a somber, almost fretful manner.
The labor done, Cleon wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow and indicated a long, narrow space between the trunks in the bed of the wagon. "Room enough for you to lie down, I think. He looked uneasily into the shadows of the warehouse and raised his voice. "And I'll say it again: No one had better follow us. We have watchers posted along the way. They'll know if anyone comes after us. If anything happens to arouse our suspicions, anything at all, I can't be responsible for the outcome. Understood?" He posed the question to the empty air as much as to me.
"Understood," I said. As I stepped into the wagon I gripped his forearm to steady myself and spoke in his ear so the others couldn't hear. "Cleon, you wouldn't really hurt the boy, would you?"
He gave me a strangely plaintive look, like a man long misunderstood who suddenly finds a sympathetic ear. Then he hardened his face and swallowed. "He won't be hurt, as long as nothing goes wrong," he said hoarsely. I settled myself in the gap between the trunks. The sail cloth was thrown over the wagon bed. The wagon lurched into motion, moving ponderously under its heavy load.
From this point, I thought, there was no reason for anything to go wrong with the ransoming. Marcus had agreed not to follow. Cleon had the gold. Soon I would have Spurius. Even if my assumption about the kidnapping was wrong, there would be no reason for his captors to harm the boy or myself; our deaths could profit them nothing. As long as nothing went wrong…
Perhaps it was the cramped, suffocating darkness that set my thoughts spinning into the awful void. I had taken Marcus's muttering as an agreement to postpone his pursuit, but had I read him rightly? His men might be following us even now, clumsily showing themselves, alerting the watchers and sending them into a panic. Someone would cry out, there would be an assault on the wagon, swords would clash and clang! A blade would rip through the sail cloth, heading straight for my heart-
The fantasy seemed so real that I gave a jerk as if waking from a nightmare. But my eyes were wide open.
I took a breath to steady myself, but found my thoughts spinning even more recklessly out of control. What if I had completely misjudged Cleon? What if his soulful green eyes and uncertain manner were a crafty deception, a deliberate disguise for a hardened killer? The petulant, beautiful boy I had seen that morning might already be dead, his bravado cut short along with his throat. The wagon would return to the stable where they had murdered him, and as soon as the pirates were sure that no one had followed, they would pull me from the wagon, stuff a gag into my mouth, tie me up and lug me off to their ship, laughing raucously and dancing the jig they had suppressed while they loaded their booty. Cilician pirates, the crudest men ever born! I would be taken off to sea, kicking and screaming into my gag. By the light of the moon they would set my clothes afire and use me for a torch, and when they were tired of hearing me scream they would toss me overboard. I could almost smell the stench of my own burning flesh, hear the hiss of the flames expiring as the hard water burst open and then slapped shut above me, taste the stinging salt in my nostrils. What would be left after the fishes made a feast of me?
In the cramped space I managed to wipe my sweaty forehead on a bit of my red tunic. Such morbid fantasies were nonsense, I told myself. I had to trust my own judgment, and my judgment decreed that Cleon was not the sort of fellow who could murder anyone, at least not in cold blood. Not even Roscius the actor could mime such innocence. A strange sort of pirate, indeed!
Then a new fear struck me, more chilling than all the rest. Belbo had said that Quintus Fabius wanted the pirates to be slaughtered. We're not to kill the boy in the process, of course-but was he only inferring this? He could hardly be expected to know every secret order that his master had given to Marcus. Spurius was not of his own blood; Quintus Fabius spoke of him with contempt. What if he actually wanted his stepson dead? He had sent the ransom, yes, but he could hardly have refused to do that, if only to placate Valeria and to save face in public. But if in the end the boy were to be murdered by the pirates, or if it could be made to look that way…
It was even possible that Quintus Fabius himself had arranged to have his stepson kidnapped-a clever way to get rid of Spurius without drawing suspicion to himself. The idea was monstrous, but I had known men devious enough to concoct such a scheme. But if that were the case, why had he engaged my services? To demonstrate his conscientious concern by calling in an outsider, perhaps. To prove to Valeria and the rest of the world that he was quite serious about rescuing his kidnapped stepson. In which case, part of his plan for getting rid of Spurius would have to include the unfortunate death of the Finder sent to handle the tragically botched ransom…
The journey seemed to go on forever. The road became rockier and rougher. The wagon rattled and lurched. My extravagant fantasies of treachery and death suddenly paled beside the imminent danger of being crushed if one of the heavy trunks should be pitched onto me. By Hercules, the wagon bed was hot! By the time the wheels ground to a halt, my tunic was as soaked as if I had taken a dip in the sea.
The sail cloth was thrown back. I was chilled by a salty breeze.
I had expected that we would return to the stable where I had seen Spurius. Instead, we were on a strip of sandy beach beneath low hills somewhere outside the city. The tiny cove terminated in boulders at both ends. A small relay boat was drawn up in the shallows. A larger vessel was anchored out in the deeper water. I sprang from the wagon, glad to breathe fresh air again.
Cleon and his three companions hurriedly began to move the trunks from the wagon into the relay boat. "Damned heavy!" grunted one of them. "We'll never be able to move it all in one trip. It'll take at least two-"
"Where's the boy?" I demanded, grabbing Cleon's arm.
"Here I am."
I turned and saw Spurius approaching from a group of sheltering boulders at the end of the little beach. In the heat of the day he had stripped off his tunic and was wearing only a loin-cloth. It was all he usually wore, if he wore even that; his lean, chiseled torso and long limbs were deeply and evenly bronzed by the sun.
I looked at Cleon. His brows were drawn together as if he had pricked his finger. He stared at the boy and swallowed hard.
"It's about time!" Spurius crossed his arms and glared at me. Petulance made him even more beautiful.
"Perhaps you'd like to put on your tunic," I suggested, "and we'll be on our way. If you'll point the way to Ostia, Cleon, we'll begin walking. Unless you intend to leave us the wagon?"