Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

"That's silly. You know I can always find you.'

'Really? Then I hardly need to answer when you call, do I?'

'Papa!' She rolled her eyes, imitating Bethesda again, then collapsed on the grass beside me as if suddenly exhausted. While I drew, she contorted herself into a wheel and pulled at her toes, then lay flat again and squinted up at the sunlight that filtered through the oak canopy above. 'It's true that I can always find you, you know.'

'Can you? And how is that?'

'Because Meto taught me how. Meto says that you taught him. I can follow your footsteps in the grass and always find you.' 'Really?' I said, impressed. 'I'm not sure that I like that.' 'What are you drawing?'

'It's called a mill. A little house with a great wheel that dips into the water. The flowing water turns the wheel, which turns other wheels, which will grind corn, or stones, or a little girl's fingers if she isn't careful.'

'Papa!'

‘Don't worry, it's just an idea. A problem, if you like, and probably too complicated for me ever to solve it,'

'Meto says that you can solve any problem'

'Does he?' I put the tablet aside. She squirmed and rolled on the grass and laid her head in my lap. The broken sunlight spangled her hair, jet black in shadow and shot through with lustrous rainbows, like oil on water, where the light struck it I had never seen a child with hair so black. Her eyes were also black, very deep and clear as only a child's eyes can be. A bird flitted above us. I watched Diana follow it with her gaze, amazed at the beauty of her least movement.

She reached for the tablet and stylus, stretching her body awkwardly, and held them, above her.

'I don't see a picture at all,' she said.

'It's not very good,' I admitted.

'Can I draw over it?'

'Yes.'

She did a thorough job of obliterating my tentative lines with her small hand, then set to drawing. I stroked her hair and studied my imaginary millby the stream. At length, across the water, two women emerged from the woods. They were kitchen slaves carrying clay jugs. They saw me and gave a start, conferred for a moment with their heads close together, then disappeared back into the woods. A little later I glimpsed something farther down the stream and saw them stepping down to the water's edge at a less convenient place. They dipped their jugs into the current, hoisted them onto their shoulders, and struggled up the steep bank and into the woods. Had Publius Claudius told them I was a monster who would eat them?

'This is you!' announced Diana, turning the tablet about and thrusting it towards me. Among the squiggles and curlicues I could barely make out a face. She was an even poorer draftsman than myself, I thought, but not by much.

'Extraordinary!' I said. 'Another Iaia Cyzicena is among us!'

'Who is—' She stumbled over the unfamiliar name.

'Iaia, born in the city of Cyzicus, on the Sea of Marmara far away. She is a great painter, one of the greatest of our day. I met her down in Baiae, when your brother Meto first came into my life.'

'Did Meto know her?'

'He did’

'Will I ever meet her?'

'It is always possible.' Nine years had passed since the events in Baiae, and Iaia had not been so very old. She might yet live long enough for Diana to know her. 'Perhaps one day you and Iaia may meet and compare your drawings.'

'Papa, what is a Minotaur?'

'A Minotaur?' I laughed at the abrupt change of subject. 'So far as I know, there was only ever one, the Minotaur. A terrible creature, the offspring of a woman and a bull; they say it had a bull's head and a man's body. It lived on a faraway island called Crete, where a wicked king kept it in a place called the labyrinth, a great maze.'

'Amaze?'

'Yes, with walls like this’ I wiped the tablet clean and set about drawing a maze. 'Every year the king gave the Minotaur young boys and girls to eat. They would make the children enter here, you see, and the Minotaur would be waiting for them here. This went on for a very long time, until a hero named Theseus entered the Labyrinth and slew the Minotaur’

'He killed it?'

'Yes’

'Are you sure?' 'Quite’

'Completely sure?'

•Yes’

'Good!'

'Why do you ask about the Minotaur?' I said, anticipating the answer.

'Because Meto has been saying that if I'm not good, you'll feed me to it. But you've just said that it's dead’ 'Ah, so it is’

'So Meto is wrong!' She rolled out of my lap. 'Oh, Papa, I almost forgot! Mama sent me to fetch you. It's important.'

‘Yes?' I raised an eyebrow, imagining some dispute with the unskilled slaves who were overseeing the kitchen in Congrio's absence.

‘Yes! There's a man who's come to see you, a man on horseback all the way from Rome, all covered with dust.'

It was not one man, but three. Two of them were slaves, or more precisely bodyguards, to judge from their size and the daggers at their belts. The slaves had not entered the house, but stood outside with their horses, drinkingwater from a jug. Their master awaited me just inside the house, in the little formal courtyard with its fishpond and flowers.

He was a tall, strikingly handsome young man with dark eyes. His wavy black hair was trimmed short over his ears but left long on top, so that black curls fell carelessly about his smooth forehead. His beard was trimmed and blocked so that it was no more than a black strap across his chin and upper lip, accentuating his high cheekbones and red lips. As Diana had said, he was dusty from his journey, but the dust did not hide the fashionable and expensive-looking cut of his red tunic or the quality of his riding shoes. He looked familiar; a face from the Forum, I thought.

A slave had brought him a folding chair to sit on. He stood up as I entered and put down the cup of watered wine from which he had been drinking. 'Gordianus,' he said, 'it's good to see you again. Country life agrees with you.' His tone was casual, but it carried the polish of an orator's training.

'Do I know you?' I said. 'My eyes fail me. The sunlight is so bright outside, here in the shade I can't see you clearly

'Forgive me! I'm Marcus Caelius. We've met before, but there's no reason you should remember me.'

'Ah, yes,' I said. 'I see you more clearly now. You're a protege of Cicero's-and also of Crassus, I believe. You're right, we've met before, no doubt at Cicero's house or in the Forum. Memories of Rome are so irrelevant here, I sometimes have a hard time recollecting. And the beard fooled me. The beard is definitely new.'

He reached up and stroked it proudly. 'Yes, I was probably clean-shaven when we met. You've grown a beard, as well.'

'Mere laziness — not to mention cowardice. At my age a man needs every drop of blood he has to keep his bones warm. Is that the fashion in Rome these days? The way you trim it, I mean.'

'Yes. Among a certain set.' There was a trace of smugness in his voice that put me off.

'The girl has already brought you some wine, I see.'

'Yes. It's quite good.'

'A modest vintage. My late friend Lucius Claudius was rather proud of it. Are you on your way from Rome to some point farther north?'

'I've come from Rome, yes, but this is my destination.'

'Really?' My heart sank. I had hoped he was merely passing through.

'I have business with you, Gordianus the Finder.' 'It's Gordianus the Farmer now, if you don't mind.' 'Whatever.' He shrugged. 'Perhaps we could retire to another room?'

"The courtyard is the coolest and most comfortable place at this time of day.'

'But perhaps there's another place more private, where we might be less likely to be overheard,' he suggested. My heart sank again.