Steven Saylor - Last seen in Massilia

"As for why I think it must have been Rindel… There was a catch in Arausio's voice. He cleared his throat and pressed on. "That morning she went missing again. Out for another of her long walks, I thought. But I had other things to worry about. That was the day the Romans brought up the battering-ram. For all we knew, the walls of the city might come down at any moment. As it turned out, the walls held; our soldiers even captured the battering-ram for a trophy. But Rindel… He cleared his throat. "Rindel never came home. Night fell, and the curfew, and still no sign of her. I was angry, then worried, then frantic. I sent slaves to search for her. One of them came back with the rumor about a girl who had been seen on the Sacrifice Rock pursued by a soldier-an officer in a blue cape." His eyes bored into mine. "Is it true? Is that what you saw?"

"The man wore a pale blue cape," I acknowledged. I remembered it fluttering in the wind.

"Zeno! It must have been him. I knew it! Rindel must have found him and confronted him. He'd led her on, betrayed her, broken her heart-married that monster instead. Who knows what Rindel said to him, or what he said to her? And it ended with him driving her up the rock, and then-"

"No one drove anyone," objected Hieronymus. "The woman we saw led, and the man chased after her. He was clearly trying to stop her. The tragedy is that he failed. The woman jumped."

"No, Arausio is right," insisted Davus. "The woman was trying to get away from the man. Then he caught up with her. He pushed her over."

Arausio looked at me. "What do you say, Gordianus?"

Both Hieronymus and Davus looked to me for vindication. I turned my gaze to the Sacrifice Rock. "I'm not sure. But both versions can't be true."

"It matters, don't you see?" Arausio leaned forward. "If Zeno pushed Rindel, then it was murder. The heartless beast!"

"If the woman was Rindel; if the man was Zeno."

"But it must have been them! Rindel never came home. She couldn't simply disappear, not in a city as small as Massilia, with every exit blocked. It was her on that rock. I know it was! And the man was Zeno, wearing his blue officer's cape; you saw that for yourself."

"And if it was your daughter and Zeno, and if the only witnesses to the event were the three of us on this terrace, then there are at least two different opinions of what may have occurred-and no way to reconcile them."

"But there is a way. There's someone who knows the truth," insisted Arausio. "Zeno!"

I nodded slowly. "Yes, if it was Zeno we saw in the blue cape, then he alone can tell you exactly what happened, and why."

"But he never will! He lied to my daughter about loving her. He'll lie about this as well."

"Unless he could be compelled to tell the truth."

"By whom? His father-in-law, the First Timouchos? Apollonides controls the city police and the courts. He'll stop at nothing to protect his son-in-law and avoid a scandal." Arausio lowered his eyes. "But there will be a scandal. Word is already out. Everyone knows there was a death at the Sacrifice Rock. No one knows yet who it was, but word will spread soon enough. `I heard it was the daughter of that Gaulish merchant Arausio,' they'll say. `Rindel was her name. She went crazy after Zeno spurned her. Her father should have seen it coming.' And I should have. I should have locked her in her room! How could she bring such shame on her family? Unless I can show that Zeno pushed her, everyone will assume that she killed herself. An illegal suicide, unsanctioned by the Timouchoi-an offense to the gods at the very moment they sit in judgment on the city, deciding whether Massilia lives or dies! How can I bear it? This will be the ruin of me!"

I felt a sudden chill toward the man. He had come to us grief-stricken at the disappearance of his daughter. Now he seemed more concerned about damage to his own reputation. But the scapegoat had a different reaction. Hieronymus knew what it meant to suffer the onus of public humiliation and ruin in Massilia, to be outcast for the sins of others. He looked at Arausio with tears in his eyes.

"That's why I've come to you, Finder," said Arausio. "Not just because you witnessed the thing, but also because of what they say about you. You find the truth. The gods guide you to it. I know the truth-my daughter didn't jump; she must have been pushed-but I can't prove it. Apollonides could squeeze the truth out of Zeno, but he'll never do it. But maybe there's some other way to bring out the truth, and if there is, you're the man to find it. Name your fee. I can afford it." As proof, he slipped one of the thick bracelets from his wrist and pressed it into my hand.

The yellow gold was worked with images of a hunt. Archers and hounds pursued an antelope, and overseeing all was Artemis, not in her guise as the strange xoanon of the Massilians, but in the traditional image of a robust young woman with long, graceful limbs, armed with a bow and arrow. The workmanship was exquisite.

"What did your daughter look like?" I asked quietly. Arausio smiled weakly. "Rindel's hair was blond. She wore it

in braids, like her mother. Sometimes her braids hung free. Sometimes she wound them about her head. They shimmered like ropes of gold, like that bracelet in your hand. Her skin was white, as soft as rose petals. Her eyes were blue, like the sea at midmorning. When she smiled…" He drew a shuddering breath. "When Rindel smiled, I felt like a man lying in a field of flowers on a warm spring day."

I nodded. "I, too, have lost a child, Arausio."

"A daughter?" He looked at me with tears in his eyes.

"A son. Meto was born a slave and not of my flesh, but I adopted him and he became a Roman. When he was a boy, he was full of mischief and laughter, bright as a newly minted coin. He grew quieter as he grew older, more thoughtful and withdrawn, at least in my presence. I sometimes thought he was more reserved and somber than a young man his age ought to be. But every now and then he still laughed, exactly the way he'd laughed when he was a boy. What I would give to hear Meto laugh again! The sea below the walls of Massilia claimed him, as you say it claimed your daughter. I came all the way from Rome to find him, but he was gone before I arrived. Now there's nothing more I can do to help my son…"

"Then help my daughter!" begged Arausio. "Save her good name. Help me to prove that she never jumped from the Sacrifice Rock. Prove that Zeno murdered her!"

Davus cleared his throat. "As long as we're stuck here in Massilia, father-in-law, we could use the money…"

"And surely," added Hieronymus, "you need something to occupy you, Gordianus. You can't go on as you have been, sitting and brooding on this terrace from sunrise to sunset."

Their advice had no influence on me. I had already made up my mind.

"Ever since we saw the incident on the Sacrifice Rock, there's something I've been wondering about." I spoke slowly, trying to choose my words carefully, although there was no delicate way to speak of the matter. "Others have fallen from the Sacrifice Rock before-scapegoats… suicides. Were their remains never found? I should think they might eventually have… washed up on shore." I was thinking of the woman we had seen. I was also thinking of Meto.

Hieronymus lowered his eyes. "My parents were never found," he whispered.

Arausio cleared his throat. "The current can be very strong, depending on the season and the time of day. Yes, sometimes bodies have washed up on shore, but they never enter the harbor; the current won't allow that. Bodies have been found miles from Massilia-or never found at all, because so much of the coastline consists of steep, jagged rocks. A body washed onto the shore is likely to be torn to pieces among sharp rocks, or hidden in some inaccessible grotto, or sucked into a sea cave where even the eyes of the gods can't see."