Steven Saylor - Last seen in Massilia

"It was my father who was behind it. My father destroyed Hieronymus's father and took his fortune. All that followed-the father's suicide, the mother's suicide, Hieronymus's ruin-came about because of what my father did. He never regretted it. And when I grew old enough to examine the family ledgers and eventually discovered the truth, he told me that I shouldn't regret it, either. `Business is business,' he said. `Success shows the favor of the gods. Failure is a mark of the gods' disfavor.' The very fact that he had succeeded so spectacularly meant that he had nothing to atone for, and neither had I. My father died an old man in his own bed, without regrets.

"But when Cydimache was born…" Apollonides sighed. "The first moment I saw her, I thought: this is the gods' punishment for what my father did, that this innocent child should be so hideously disfigured. I should have disposed of her before she drew another breath; any other father would have done so, simply as an act of mercy. But I had my own selfish reasons for letting her live. Over the years she was often sickly, but she survived. She grew, and with every year became… even more hideous. She was a constant reminder of my father's sin. And yet… I couldn't hate her. Don't the philosophers tell us that to love beauty and hate ugliness is natural and right? Yet against all my expectations, against all reason, I came to love her. So I hated Hieronymus instead. I let myself blame him, not just for his own ruin, but for my daughter's deformity. Can you understand that, Finder?"

I said nothing and merely nodded.

"When the priests of Artemis came to the Timouchoi clamoring for a scapegoat, it was I who arranged for the choice to be Hieronymus. I thought that was very clever of me, to finally rid myself of the pest without having to bloody my own hands, and in a way that would not offend the gods, but in fact would be pleasing to them! It seemed fitting that he should be made to follow his father, be forced to step off the Sacrifice Rock into oblivion and out of my guilty dreams forever. Instead… it was my Cydimache who fell from the Sacrifice Rock! Could the gods make their will any more explicit, than to punish me with her death from the very spot where the father of Hieronymus died? My father always told me that the gods loved us. All along, they despised us!"

How strange, I thought, how typical of the gods and their devious sense of humor. I had come to Massilia seeking a lost child who was not lost at all, while Apollonides had lost a child and did not even know it, and we had both discovered the truth in the same instant.

"Finder, when you told me, on Hieronymus's terrace, that you had seen a man and woman on the Sacrifice Rock and that the woman had fallen-how aloof I was, how uncaring, not knowing… it was my Cydimache!" He sucked in a shuddering breath. "Hieronymus said she jumped. Your son-in-law said she was pushed. Which was it, Finder?"

"I don't know."

"But Zeno knows."

I shifted nervously. "Do you intend to torture him, First Timouchos?"

"Why, when I have you to find out the truth for me?"

"Me, First Timouchos?"

"They call you Finder, don't they? Domitius told me all about you; how men are compelled by some strange power to tell you the truth. This was a gift the gods gave you."

"Gift, or curse?"

"What do I care, Finder, so long as you compel Zeno to tell you exactly what happened on the Sacrifice Rock? Do that for me… and then you may speak to your son."

In the small room where Zeno was being held, as in the room where Apollonides had interviewed me, a single window looked out on the distant silhouette of the city wall and the dying fires beyond. But this window, unlike the other, had bars across it. Apollonides had accounted for that when he chose this room for Zeno.

If, indeed, I possessed some unique skill at ferreting out the secrets of others, I had little need to call upon it with Zeno. Or perhaps it was as Apollonides suggested, and the baring of secrets was not so much a skill on my part as a compulsion placed upon others by the gods when I was present. However it was, Zeno was not reluctant to talk. It seemed to me that he desperately needed to talk.

"I should have had you killed, I suppose," was the first thing he said, staring out the window.

I was not quite sure how to answer that.

"I knew that you had witnessed… what happened on the

Sacrifice Rock-you and your son-in-law and the scapegoat. I overheard some of the soldiers talking about it, saying they'd been sent to question people in the vicinity of the rock, on account of what the scapegoat and his Roman guests had seen. Later that same night, I passed Apollonides in the front courtyard, and he mentioned it in passing, looked me straight in the eye and told me about some nonsense the scapegoat had reported about seeing an officer in a blue cape and a woman on the Sacrifice Rock. I thought my heart would leap from my mouth. But he wasn't testing me. He had no idea. He had too much on his mind. He never suspected."

"I thought it was Rindel on the rock with you, because Arausio thought so. But it was Cydimache."

"Yes."

"The scapegoat thinks she jumped."

"Does he?"

"Yes. My son-in-law holds a different opinion."

For a long moment, Zeno made no reply. He stared out the window and was so still that he seemed hardly to breathe. "I should never have fallen in love with Rindel," he finally said. "I never meant to. I desired her, of course, but that's not the same thing. It was impossible not to desire her. Any man would. You saw her tonight."

"Very briefly."

"But well enough to see how beautiful she is."

"Very beautiful."

"Extraordinarily beautiful."

"Yes," I admitted.

"But Rindel is a Gaul, and her father is of no account."

"According to Arausio, he's wealthier than your own father." Zeno wrinkled his nose. "Arausio may have money, but he'll never be a Timouchos. He's not the right sort. If I had married Rindel, I'd never have been anything more than a rich Gaul's son-in-law."

"Would that have been so terrible?"

He snorted derisively. "You're an outsider. You can't understand."

"I suppose not. But if you fell in love with Rindel despite yourself, I think I can understand that."

"I had almost reconciled myself to… marrying her. Then I saw… another opportunity."

"Cydimache?"

"The First Timouchos invited me to a dinner at this accursed house. It was a great honor; or so I thought, until my friends began to tease me. `You fool! Don't you know he's fishing for a son-in-law?' they said. 'You're not the first prospective suitor he's invited. All the rest-the monster gobbled up! Mind she doesn't get her fangs and claws into you! Or worse, drag you off to her bed!' They all had a hearty laugh at my expense.

"I dreaded that dinner. Sure enough, my place was next to Cydimache. She wore her veils, of course. I was nervous, at first. Cydimache said little, but when she spoke, she was actually quite witty. After a while I thought: This isn't so bad. I began to relax. I ate and drank. I looked around the garden. I saw the way they lived. I began to think: Why not?"

"You're hardly the first young man to marry for position," I said quietly.

"It's not as if I despised Cydimache! I came to care for her… a great deal."

"What about her ugliness? Her deformity?"

"We… dealt with that." He smiled ruefully. "Do you know the image of xoanon Artemis? Every Massilian boy is taught to revere that image, strange as it is. I told Cydimache that she was my very own xoanon Artemis. That pleased her immensely."

"And what about Rindel?"

He sighed. "As soon as I was betrothed to Cydimache, I made a vow to myself that I would never see Rindel again. No good could come of trying to explain myself to her; better to make a clean break, let her think the worst and forget me. I would have kept that vow, but Rindel wouldn't let me. As long as I stayed in Apollonides's house, I was safe from her. But once the siege began, my duties took me all over the city. Rindel sought me out. She stalked me like a huntress."