Steven Saylor - A murder on the Appian way

"Oh, shut up," said Mopsus. "He's remembering what Milo's men did to Halicor and the foreman. That's not how the mistress would punish drunken guards, stupid. She'd have them whipped a bit. She wouldn't cut their limbs off"

"How do you know?" The child sniffed.

"Because I'm not stupid like you."

"Androcles doesn't seem stupid to me," said Eco, putting his hands on his hips. "He's not the one who threw a spear at three perfectly peaceable strangers." How like him to take the underdog's side, I thought; was this how he kept peace between the twins at home? But it occurred to me that the boys' squabbling was also a way of skirting the ugly subject of Halicor and his fate, even as they kept bringing it up. What exactly had they witnessed?

"You were here on the day of the battle, then? You remember it well?"

"Of course we were here, tending the stable as always," said

Mopsus. "It turned into a busy day, what with the master and his men getting packed and ready to go."

"What time of day was that, when your master set out for Rome?"

"In the afternoon."

"What hour?"

The boy shrugged.

"Closer to the ninth hour, or later, around the eleventh hour?" Androcles tugged at my hand. "The ninth hour." "You're sure of that?"

"There's a sundial behind the stable. After the master set out, I went to look at it because I was hungry and I wondered how long until dinner."

"And when your master set out, did it seem that he had planned to leave at that time?"

"Not at all," said Mopsus, before his brother could answer ahead of him. "He was going to stay another day or two. He left because the messenger came."

"And what was the messenger's news?"

"About the old architect, Cyrus. He was dead, and the mistress wanted the master back in Rome."

"You seem to know a lot about your master's business for a stableboy," said Eco, who seemed determined to needle him.

"I've got eyes and ears. Besides, who do you think is the first person a messenger on horseback sees when he arrives at the villa? Me, because I'm the one who takes his horse."

Eco looked sceptical. "And this messenger felt compelled to share his news with you, even before he'd delivered it to Clodius?"

"He said, 'Better get the horses ready for your master and his friends,' and I said, 'Why?' And he said, 'Because the mistress wants him back in Rome,' and I said — "

"Yes, I think we understand," said Eco.

"So your master received the message," I said, "decided to head back to Rome and rounded up his retinue. But wasn't his son with him, the boy, Publius Clodius? I suppose he must be about your age, Androcles."

"Of course Publius was here," said Androcles. "With his tutor, Halicor. Halicor kept him busy most of the time, but sometimes Publius would slip away and come to find Mopsus and me. We told him we had work to do, but he said as long as he was with us, it was all right to go off with him. So we'd go to play in the woods, or over at the ruins of the witches' house." "Witches?"

"I think he means the Vestals, Eco. That day, after the messenger came, did Publius set out with his Either?"

"No, he stayed behind with Halicor. Mopsus and I were glad, because that meant he'd be wanting to play with us and we wouldn't have to work so much, and the foreman and Halicor might get angry, but so what, because Publius was always getting into trouble and then getting out of it again."

"Taking after his father," said Eco under his breath.

"And as soon as the master and his men rode off, Publius came and found us in the stable — "

"We had a lot of work to do," said Mopsus, "cleaning up after they were gone. Quite a few of the men had slept in the stable, and men make more of a mess than beasts."

"But Publius came and wanted to play. Mopsus told him we had work to do, but Publius said he was hiding from Halicor and we had to help him hide. So Mopsus and I went to a corner and had a talk, and we decided to show him the secret passage. Can you imagine, even Publius didn't know about it, the master's own son!"

"A secret passage?" said Eco. "I think these boys are telling us stories, Papa."

"No, it's true!" insisted Androcles.

"Yes, it's true," said Mopsus, crossing his arms and sounding very adult. "We're probably the only two people alive who know about it, except Publius, now that both the master and Cyrus are gone, because they were the only ones who were supposed to know, except of course for the slaves who did the actual building, but who knows where they are now? Not even Halicor or the foreman knew about it. I'll bet that even the mistress doesn't know."

His brother scoffed, but I thought young Mopsus might be right. Fulvia had said nothing of a secret passage to me, nor had she mentioned these two boys; she had only said that her son somehow managed to elude Milo's men when they came to the villa and terrorized the slaves. Possibly her son had been unformcorning with details, and she had not wanted to press him; or perhaps young Publius was as good at keeping secrets as his father.

"So you took Publius off to the secret passage, to hide from Halicor. I wish that you could show me. Of course, if the house is locked — "

"Oh, but that's the wonderful thing about the secret passage," said Androcles. "You don't have to go into the house to use it. You can enter the passage from, outside the house. Come, I'll show you." He took my hand. His older brother looked dubious, and shot a wary glance at Eco, but followed along, persuaded by a newfound trust, or else by his fear of being chased down and tackled again by a laughing Davus.

Androcles led us around the comer of the house and down the steep hill into the woods at the base of the house. From a distance, this side of the house appeared almost featureless except for the long portico along the top. Closer at hand, I could see numerous openings set in rows, not so much windows as apertures for ventilation and light, set too high in the wall to be reached and too small for even a child to climb through. The foundation was largely hidden by trees and dense thickets. It was amid this growth that Androcles showed us a path, and at the path's end, in what appeared at first sight to be a featureless wall, was a hidden entrance. A section between two upright posts appeared to be immovable but in fact was a sliding panel that could be opened just enough to allow a man to slip inside. I have seen several examples of hidden doors in my life, especially in my early travels, but seldom had I seen one as well concealed. Most so-called secret entrances are not really hidden, but are daunting because the means of opening them is secret. This door was simple to open, but would have been almost impossible to detect unless one knew of its existence.

The opening led to an ascending stairway, and then through a very narrow, dark hall that seemed to run through the very heart of the lower floors of the villa, those subterranean sections which had been constructed in the excavated hillside. The way was lit only by tiny openings which served as spyholes into the various rooms we passed. The rooms themselves were mostly undecorated and empty except for a few crates and odd pieces of furniture. Some were pitch black. Some had not yet been properly finished by the carpenters. Like Clodius's house in the city, the villa had been in a state of expansion at the time of its master's death, full of the promise of his grandiose schemes for the future. -

"All these gloomy underground chambers-what did Clodius need them for?" said Eco.

"This was obviously to be more than a simple country villa," I said. "More of a stronghold, I imagine — a place to store treasure, stockpile weapons, house a private army of gladiators…"

"Or keep prisoners?"

"I hadn't thought of that. Yes, it's not hard to imagine these rooms as cells or torture chambers."