Steven Saylor - A murder on the Appian way

All the more shocking, then, was the sudden devastation we encountered in the very heart of those woods. We rounded a bend in the path, ducked beneath a low branch, and found ourselves in a clearing where only stumps remained. It was not a small clearing, but a whole hillside that had been denuded, as if some rapacious devourer of trees had gorged itself at this place.

"This must be what the priest Felix was talking about," I said.

" "They cut them down by tens and twenties,' he said. But it looks even worse than that to me." Eco shook his head. "What sort of woodsmen would inflict such a scar on a sacred grove?"

"What sort of workers would carelessly knock over a statue of Vesta and leave the broken pieces where they lay? Clodius was known to recruit many of his free labourers from among the hungry rabble in Rome. Not a very skilled bunch, I imagine, but loyal."

"And not very pious, from the way they desecrated these holy places."

"Ah, but these places weren't holy once Clodius was through with them. I'm sure he attended to all the legal formalities to see that the House of the Vestals and this section of the grove were duly desanctified before he plundered them."

"Surely a place either is holy or it isn't, Papa."

I had to smile at my son's sudden passion for things sacred. "Eco, you know better than that. A place is sacred or not depending on the judgment of the proper authorities. Some of those authorities no doubt are very sensitive to the mysterious signs of the gods, and as pious as men come. Others are not quite so pious, and more likely to see auspices in the glitter of a coin than in a flash of lightning. It is the Roman way, Eco, or at least it has been in my lifetime, and one of the reasons, I suppose, that so many men of your generation tend to have so little religious sentiment." We kept walking steadily as we spoke, for I felt no desire to stop and contemplate the devastation.

We came at last to the end of the clearing. The path took us into a dense stand of trees, where for a brief moment the sacred nature of the grove seemed to reassert itself amid the hushed shadows. But we had reached the farthest edge of the woods, and after only a few more steps we found ourselves again in bright sunlight. The band of woods we had just passed through had merely been left as a screen to hide the devastated hillside. We had arrived at Clodius's Alban villa, the destination of the lumber from all those felled trees.

Like his house in the city, Clodius's villa still had an unfinished look-the decorative stonework in some places was only partly done, scaffolding clung to sections of the facade, and the landscaping was interrupted here and there by piles of crushed stone and stacks of brick and lumber. But the villa was built on such a massive scale that even in its rough-hewn state it was impressive. The grove of Jupiter awed a man in one way; a building such as this was awesome in its own right.

The hillside on which it was situated was so steep that I would have thought it unsuitable for building. Clodius had given the architect Cyrus a difficult site on which to do his work, and Cyrus had responded with a building of daring innovation. No doubt the structure was fixed into.the earth by some sort of stilts, but any such supports were concealed behind solid walls. Viewed from the side, the villa appeared to perch precariously on the hillside. On the downhill side, a long covered gallery ran the entire length of the topmost floor. Its seaward views must have rivalled those of Pompey's villa. It was surely no coincidence that there were no windows or other means of ingress on the lower floors, which made the building practically impregnable to anyone approaching from below. The long gallery would not only afford spectacular views, but could be used to defend against attackers, like the parapet of a fortress.

The entrance to the villa was located on the opposite side of the topmost floor, which was the only part of the building visible from the eastern, uphill side of the building. A great mass of earth had been removed from the hillside to make a level courtyard in front of the entrance. Materials for constructing a wall were stacked around the courtyard's perimeter, but the wall had not yet been erected. Clodius and his architect must have realized the vulnerable nature of the villa's entrance, and had intended to do something about it. Neither of them would finish the job now.

We came to the entrance, a double door made of solid oak, ornately carved and darkened by age. I wondered if it had come from the House of the Vestals. I rapped on it politely with my foot. When there was no answer, I rapped again.

"I wonder what sort of reception we should expect," said Eco, casting a wary eye at the nearby stable and the silent courtyard. There was not a person or animal in sight. "Where is everyone?"

"Fulvia told me she's shut the villa for the time being." "You mean there's no one here?"

"A place as big as this can hardly have been abandoned entirely; there must be some staff in residence. No, I took her to mean that she's cancelled construction, closed the kitchen and shut off the visitors' quarters. I'm sure we'll find someone here."

I had no sooner spoken than the door to the stable opened and a boy stepped out, carrying a heavy basket with both arms. He saw us, let out a scream and ran back into the stable, dropping his burden behind him. The basket tipped over, spilling its contents. I tried to make out whether it was millet or oats…

Then a giant wasp buzzed by my head. That was what it seemed like, at least, for a brief, paralysing instant: a sudden, malicious whirring in front of my face, so close it tickled my nose with the wind of its passing and left a sharp rushing sound in my ears. Then there was a thud of collision and the music of vibrating wood, and the sight of a shuddering spear in front of my face, impaled in the door.

Which surprised me more — the spear from an unknown quarter that barely missed my nose, or the blinding speed with which Davus reacted?

However stiff-muscled and slow-witted he might appear, Davus had the reflexes of a chasing hound. He was across the courtyard and scrambling over a pile of bricks before I had time to blink. Even Eco, as quick and nimble as I was in my prime, was left looking after him like a dazed runner left at the starting block.

Davus reached the top of the brick pile and leaped open-armed into space. An instant later there was a sound of two bodies colliding and a sharp exhalation that turned into a yelp of pain. Then Davus called out, "Master! Come quick, I can't hold him!"

Eco raced across the courtyard. I followed behind. He went one way around the brick pile, I went the other. I heard another collision, a grunt, a spray of flying gravel. I came upon Davus on the far side of the pile, just getting to his feet Together we ran to find Eco, who stood clutching his middle, the breath knocked out of him. Lying flat on his back in front of Eco, his eyelids flickering, was a boy who could hardly have been more than ten years old.

"I didn't touch him," saidEco, catching his breath. "He ran straight into me, almost knocked me down. He fell back and must have hit his head…"

The boy was dazed but not seriously hurt. He gradually came to his senses and gave a start when he saw the three of us peering down at him. His first reaction was an attempt to scramble to his feet rendered impossible by the fact that Davus stood with a foot on each sleeve of the boy's tunic, pinning him down.

"You needn't struggle, young man," said Eco. "It doesn't look like you're going anywhere."

The boy stuck out his jaw and narrowed his eyes, but his mask of defiance was all too easy to see through. His chin quivered and his eyes shifted constantly from face to face.