Steven Saylor - Last seen in Massilia

"I see. And Meto would have been left to perform the role of your bereaved widow full time, conveniently struck mute with grief, no doubt. So much deceit!" I rubbed my eyes wearily. "Meto revealed himself to you, put his trust in you-yet he never showed himself to me, never gave me a sign that he was still alive. Outside Massilia, at the shrine of xoanon Artemis-it was Meto I met that day, wasn't it, in his disguise as the soothsayer Rabidus? He deceived me."

Zeno shrugged. "If Meto thought that revealing himself to you posed too great a risk, I think you should defer to his judgment. He's kept himself alive this long, against enormous odds. He knows what he's doing."

"Does he?" I shook my head. I stirred and made ready to leave. "Haven't you forgotten something, Gordianus?"

"I don't think so."

"You never asked me what happened on the Sacrifice Rock."

"I thought you answered that already. You chased Cydimache to the summit. I suppose she pulled off the ring-the skystone ring you gave her on your wedding day-and threw it down. A gesture of renunciation, before killing herself. Is that right?"

"Yes. Almost."

"What do you mean?"

"She pulled off the ring. She threw it down. I should have remembered to pick it up later, but it all happened so quickly. Then she lurched toward the precipice."

I frowned. "But there was a bit of a struggle, wasn't there? We all saw that."

"Yes. Her cloak and her veils were loose upon her; it was hard to get hold of her. Even so, I did my best to stop her. I managed to grab her-"

"But she slipped from your grasp."

"Not exactly." His voice abruptly changed timbre, became deeper and slower. It seemed almost as if a third presence had entered the room, as if someone else were speaking through his lips. "Cydimache wanted to die. I'm sure of that. What else could she have intended when she climbed up the rock? She wanted to die, and I tried to save her. You see, she was-she had shown the first signs-no one else knew yet. We hadn't even told her father."

"What are you saying?"

"Cydimache was pregnant with my child."

I drew a sharp breath. No wonder he had tried to stop her! She was carrying the child that would purchase his membership in the Timouchoi.

"I did my best to save her-and she wanted to die-up until the instant I had hold of her. Her veil dropped, and I saw her eyes. She'd changed her mind. She wanted to die; and then, at the last possible instant, she changed her mind…"

"But it was too late. She was too far over the edge."

"No! Don't you understand? Her veil dropped. I saw her eyes-and her face. That hideous face! She changed her mind, and so did I. She wanted to die, then decided to live. And in that same instant…"

"You decided… not to save her."

"Yes."

"You pushed her."

His voice seemed to come from a deep well. "Yes. I pushed her."

I drew a deep breath. Hieronymus had been right, up to a point. So had Davus.

I had discovered what Apollonides had sent me to discover. My reward would be a reunion with my son in the next room. Zeno's voice returned to its normal timbre. He ended the conversation as he began it. "I should have had you killed, I suppose. You were a dangerous witness. But early on, Meto explained to me who you were. His father, come to look for him here in Massilia! That complicated matters. You can thank your son that you're still alive. Give him my regards." He flashed a sardonic smile and then turned to gaze out the window.

The window in Meto's cell also looked out on the breached wall and also had bars across it. What sort of man, I thought, has a home with prison cells on the upper floor? A man like Apollonides. The kind of man who rises to become first citizen of a city-state.

The fires amid the Roman siegeworks had died even lower, but because of the particular angle of the view from Meto's window, the breach in the wall appeared brightly lit, its jagged edges seeming to glow as if traced with a fiery nimbus. The wall itself and the silhouettes of pacing archers were utterly black.

When Meto had unveiled himself in Cydimache's room, I had not cried out in jubilation, had not embraced him. Why not? Because the moment had been too shocking, I thought. And yet the parents of Rindel, equally stunned, had immediately gathered their daughter into their arms and wept tears of joy.

In Cydimache's room, I had restrained my emotions, I told myself, because the circumstances had been so strange, the presence of others too inhibiting. But now I was alone with Meto. Why did I not rush to embrace him?

Why, for that matter, did he not embrace me and weep for joy? Because he had not feared for me as I had feared for him, I reasoned. He had known my whereabouts from the moment I arrived at the shrine of xoanon Artemis outside Massilia. He never thought me lost, never had cause to believe that my life was in immediate danger. But was that true? I easily could have died-by any reasonable expectation should have died-in the flooded tunnel. The priests of Artemis might have had me executed for climbing onto the Sacrifice Rock. Apollonides might have had me killed at any time, on a whim. I had been in some degree of danger every moment since I had left Rome, and so had Davus. What did Meto have to say about that? Was he so inured to danger that it counted for nothing, even when it threatened his own father?

He smiled broadly at the sight of me, stepped forward and clapped his hands on my shoulders, but he did not embrace me. Instead, he reached for a great lump of fabric on the floor and picked it up, grinning as he had when he was a boy and had something to show off. He was dressed only in a light tunic, I noticed. The thing in his hands was the costume he had worn in his guise as Cydimache.

"Look at this, Papa. It's really ingenious. I made it myself. Amazing what you can do when you have to rely on your own resources." He held the thing up so that I could see that the sumptuous, voluminous gown and the veils were all sewn together in one piece. "It slips over my head, you see, and everything instantly falls into place, even the hunch on my back-that's just a bit of extra padding. No tucking or tying or bothering with veils coming loose. One minute, I'm Cydimache the hunchback, and the next-" He snapped the garment in the air and turned it inside out. Now it was a ragged cloak with a cowl. "Now I'm Rabidus the soothsayer, who comes and goes as he pleases."

"Very impressive," I said, and coughed. My throat was dry. "You could use some wine, Papa. Here, I'll poor you a cup. It's good stuff. Falernian, I think."

"I'm surprised Apollonides has supplied you with wine at all, let alone a fine vintage."

"Apollonides may be a fool, but even he has begun to realize that it's only a matter of time-hours, maybe-before Massilia belongs to Caesar. It will behoove him to hand me over to Caesar alive and well."

"You're relying on his shrewdness as a politician to keep you alive, then? Apollonides is also a father who's just received a terrible shock."

"And so are you! To Caesar!" Meto clinked his wine cup against mine and grinned, and seemed oblivious of the cruel difference between the shocks that had buffeted Apollonides and me. I had never seen him in such a reckless, giddy mood. It was because Caesar was coming, I thought. Soon Caesar would be here, and Meto's beloved mentor would be very pleased with all that Meto had done on his behalf.

I drank the wine and was glad for its warmth.

Meto paced the room, too excited to be still. "You must have a thousand questions, Papa. Let me think; where to begin?"

"I'm not Caesar, Meto. You don't have to report to me."

He smiled as if I had made a weak joke, then proceeded as if I hadn't spoken. "Let's see; how did I get in and out of Massilia? By swimming, of course. I grew up by the sea; I've always been a strong swimmer. It's really nothing to swim across the harbor here, or even from the harbor all the way out to the islands offshore."