Steven Saylor - Last seen in Massilia

He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame, examining our little cubicle with a sardonic expression. "I'm afraid yesterday's developments have landed you and Davus in considerably reduced circumstances. One lamp, two narrow beds, and a single chamber pot between you. There's not even a door or a curtain to give you privacy."

"It could be worse," I said. "There might be a door-with a lock on it. I'm not sure whether we're free to go or not."

"I suspect, considering the tide of events, that Apollonides has forgotten all about you. His plate is full, if you'll pardon a bad pun. You probably won't cross his mind until the next time you cross his path. These accommodations are Spartan, to say the least, but since you've nowhere better to go, I'd suggest you take advantage of his hospitality for as long as you can. Keep quiet when you're in this room. Find out where to empty that chamber pot. Ingratiate yourself with the household slaves-drop a few hints that you're a friend of Caesar's and therefore worth cultivating, though not such a good friend that you ought to be murdered in your sleep-and otherwise come and go as unobtrusively as you can."

I nodded. "The hardest thing will be finding enough to eat. I heard Milo complaining to Domitius last night about a new reduction in rations. Every portion in every household is to be cut back."

"Except for mine. Don't worry about food, Gordianus. As long as I'm about, I won't let you starve."

"Hieronymus, truly, I don't know how to-"

"Then don't, Gordianus. There's no need. And now I have to leave you. There's some tiresome ceremony or other that the priests of Artemis feel obliged to perform this morning here in the house of the First Timouchos; honoring those lost at sea yesterday, I suppose. For some reason I'm expected to make an appearance, looming in the background." He turned to go, then remembered something and reached into the small pouch he carried. "I almost forgot. Here, take these-two boiled hen's eggs, still in the shell. You can eat them for your lunch."

We had solved the problem of food, at least for the moment. But how were Davus and I to leave the house and get back in? Come and go unobtrusively, Hieronymus had advised-but how? We had entered Apollonides's compound the previous night through a heavily guarded gate. I could hardly expect to pass back and forth through a guarded gate without being vetted by the First Timouchos himself or at least showing some sort of documentation.

I took another bit of Hieronymus's advice and sought out the young slave who had escorted us to the banquet the previous night. The boy took it for granted that we were his master's guests and men of some importance, and that we were also, as was clear from my accent, from somewhere else and thus in need of simple guidance. When I asked him the easiest way to come and go, he didn't hesitate to show me the entrance the slaves used, which was a gate in a section of the wall at the back of the compound between the kitchens and the storehouses. This small gate was manned, not by an armed guard, but by an old slave who had had the job all his life. He was a garrulous, simple fellow, easy to talk to if not very easy to understand, on account of his toothlessness. When I asked him to repeat himself, I pretended it was due not to his mumbling but to my own poor Greek.

The guards at the front gate were something new, the old gatekeeper told me, called up in response to the chaos of the previous night. Ordinarily, the house of the First Timouchos required no more security than the house of any rich man, and probably less; what sneak-thief would dare to steal from the city's foremost citizen?

"Any other day this is the safest house in Massilia!" he insisted. "Still, we can't let in just anyone, can we? So when you come back, knock like this on the gate," he said, tapping his foot three times against the wood. "Or never mind that, just call out your name. I'll remember it-you've got a funny Roman name; never heard it before. Mind you be careful out in the streets. Things are getting strange out there. What kind of errand is so important you have to leave the safety of this house, anyway? Never mind, it's none of my business."

Davus stepped first through the open door into what appeared to be a narrow alley. Following him, I thought of something and turned back. "Gatekeeper," I said, "you must know the First Timouchos's son-in-law."

"Young Zeno? Of course. Uses this gate all the time. Always in a great rush, coming and going. Except when he's with his wife, of course. Then he slows his pace to match hers."

"He goes out with Cydimache?"

"Her physicians insist that she take long walks as often as she can. Zeno goes with her. It's a touching sight the way he hovers over her and dotes on her."

"I noticed last night that he was walking with a slight limp. Has he always been lame?"

"Oh, no. A fit young man. Very fit. Won races at the gymnasium when he was a boy."

"I see. Perhaps he was limping because of a wound he suffered in yesterday's battle."

"No, he's had that limp for a while. It's gotten much better."

"When was he injured?"

"Let me think. Ah, yes, it was the day Caesar's men tried to batter down the walls. A crazy day that was, with everybody running every which way. Zeno must have hurt himself running back and forth along the battlements."

"No doubt," I said. I stepped out to join Davus, who awaited me in the alley with a smug look on his face.

"The house of Arausio? You're close. Turn down this street to the left. After a while you'll come to a house with a blue door. Go down the little alley that runs alongside it, and when that comes to a dead end, you'll be in what they call the Street of the Seagulls, on account of the crazy old woman who used to put out fish for seagulls; some days, when I was a little girl, they were so thick in the street that you couldn't get past the nasty creatures. To your right, the street runs up a little hill. You'll find Arausio's house at the top. I always thought that house must have a wonderful view of the harbor…"

The speaker was a pale, thin, young woman, whose Greek was as heavily accented as mine, though with a Gaulish, not Latin, accent. Her fair hair was pulled back from her gaunt face, tightly bundled at the nape of her neck with a leather band, and hung in a tangle down her back, unwashed and badly in need of combing. She wore no jewelry, but bands of pale flesh around several fingers showed where she customarily wore rings. Had distress driven her to sell them, or did she fear to wear them in public? Her voice had a slightly hysterical edge. She seemed glad to have someone to talk to, even two strangers asking for directions. "Those seagulls! When I was a girl, I remember helping my mother carry food home from the market-in a basket just like the one I'm carrying today, perhaps the very same one; this basket is older than I am-and once we took that street, and it was a terrible mistake, because the gulls attacked us. Horrible creatures! They flew at me and knocked me down, stole what they wanted from my basket, and scattered the rest all over the street. Oh, my basket must have been filled with all sorts of food, olives and capers and flatbread, but of course it would have been the fish that attracted them…" I glanced at the straw basket she carried at her side. The handle was of leather, and the Gaulish design featured a spiral pattern around the rim. No seagulls would attack her today for what her basket contained. It was empty.

"Down this street to the left, did you say? Thank you." I gestured for Davus to move on. A glint of madness had entered the woman's eyes.

"There, you see, Davus? I told you it would be a simple thing to find the house of Arausio. Just a matter of asking the locals."