Robert Harris: Lustrum

The intensity of my joy was replaced by an equally sharp stab of grief. 'But how will you cope without me?'

'Oh, I have other slaves,' he replied, making a feeble effort to sound unconcerned. 'They can accompany me out of the city.'

'Where will you go?'

'South. To the coast – Brundisium, perhaps – and find a boat. After that – the winds and currents will decide my fate. Now fetch your things.'

I went down to my room and gathered together my few possessions into a small bag, and then I pulled out the two loose bricks behind which I had hollowed out a safe. This was where I kept my savings. Sewn into a money belt, I had exactly two hundred and twenty-seven gold pieces, which it had taken me more than a decade to acquire. I put on the belt and went upstairs to the atrium, where Cicero was now saying goodbye to Marcus, watched by Atticus and a raw-eyed Terentia. He loved that boy – his only son, his joy, his hope for the future – and with immense self-discipline he somehow managed to keep their parting casual, so that the lad would not be too upset. He held him in his arms and swung him round, and Marcus begged him to do it again, which he did, and when Marcus begged for a third time, he said no and told him to go to his mother. Then he embraced Terentia and said, 'I am sorry that marriage to me has brought you to such a sad state.'

'Marriage to you has been the only purpose of my life,' she replied, and with a nod in my direction she walked firmly from the room.

Cicero next embraced Atticus, and entrusted his wife and son to his care, and then moved to say farewell to me, but I told him there was no need, that I had made my decision, and that I would remain at his side at the cost of my freedom and if necessary of my life. Naturally he expressed his gratitude, but he did not seem surprised, and I realised he had never thought seriously for a moment that I would accept his offer. I took off my money belt and gave it to Atticus.

'I wonder if I might ask you to do something for me,' I said.

'Of course,' he replied. 'You want me to look after this for you?'

'No,' I said. 'There is a slave of Lucullus, a young woman named Agathe, who has come to mean a lot to me, and I wonder if you would ask Lucullus, as a favour to you, to free her. I am sure there is more than enough money here to buy her liberty and to provide for her thereafter.'

Atticus looked surprised, but said that of course he would do as I asked.

'Well, you certainly kept that secret,' said Cicero, studying me closely. 'Perhaps I don't know you as well as I think I do.'

After the others had gone, Cicero and I were left alone in the house, together with his guards and a few members of his household. We could no longer hear any chanting; the whole city seemed to have gone very quiet. He went upstairs to rest and put on some stout shoes, and when he came back down he took a candelabrum and moved from room to room – through the empty dining hall with its gilded roof, through the great hall with its marble statues that were too heavy to move, and into the bare library – as if committing the place to memory. He lingered so long I began to wonder if he had decided not to leave after all, but then the watchman in the forum called midnight, and he blew out the candles and said that we should go.

The night was moonless, and as we reached the top of the steps we could see beneath us at least a dozen torches slowly ascending the hill. Someone in the distance let out a peculiar bird cry, and it was answered by a similar shriek from a spot very close behind us. I felt my heart begin to pound. 'They are on their way,' said Cicero softly. 'He does not mean to miss a moment.' We hurried down the steps, and at the foot of the Palatine turned left into a narrow alley. Keeping close to the walls, we made a careful loop past shuttered shops and slumbering houses until we came out into the main street just by the Capena Gate. The porter was bribed to open up the pedestrian door, and waited impatiently as we exchanged whispered farewells with our protectors. Then Cicero stepped through the narrow portal, followed by me and by three other young slaves, who carried his luggage.

We did not speak or rest until we had walked for at least two hours and had got clear of the monumental tombs that line that stretch of road – in those days, notorious hiding places for robbers. Then Cicero decided it was safe to stop, and he sat down on a milestone and looked back at Rome. A faint red glow, too early for the dawn, crimson at its centre and dissolving into bands of pink, suffused the sky, outlining the low black humps of the city's hills. It was amazing to think that the burning of just one house could create such an immense celestial effect. Had I not known better, I would have said it was an omen. At the same time, faint on the still night air, came a curious sound, harsh and intermittent, pitched somewhere between a howl and a wail. I could not place it at first, but then Cicero said it must be trumpets on the Field of Mars, and that it was Caesar's army preparing to move off to Gaul. I could not make out his face in the darkness as he said this, which perhaps was just as well, but after a moment or two he stood and brushed the dust off his old tunic, and resumed his journey, in the opposite direction to Caesar's.

aedile an elected official, four of whom were chosen annually to serve a one-year term, responsible for the running of the city of Rome: law and order, public buildings, business regulations, etc auspices supernatural signs, especially flights of birds and lightning-flashes, interpreted by the augurs; if ruled unfavourable no public business could be transacted

Carcer Rome's prison, situated on the boundary of the forum and the Capitol, between the Temple of Concord and the senate house carnifex the state executioner and torturer century the unit in which the Roman people cast their votes on the Field of Mars at election time for consul and praetor; the system was weighted to favour the wealthier classes of society chief priest see pontifex maximus consul the senior magistrate of the Roman republic, two of whom were elected annually, usually in July, to assume office in the following January, taking it in turns to preside over the senate each month comitium the circular area in the forum, approximately 300 feet across, bounded by the senate house and the rostra, traditionally the place where laws were voted on by the people, and where many of the courts had their tribunals curia in its original form, the main assembly of the Roman tribes (of which, prior to 387 BC, there were thirty), consisting of a senior member of each curule chair a backless chair with low arms, often made of ivory, possessed by a magistrate with imperium, particularly consuls and praetors dictator a magistrate given absolute power by the senate over civil and military affairs, usually in a time of national emergency equestrian order the second-most senior order in Roman society after the senate, the 'Order of Knights' had its own officials and privileges, and was entitled to one-third of the places on a jury; often its members were richer than members of the senate, but declined to pursue a public career

Gaul divided into two provinces: Nearer Gaul, extending from the river Rubicon in northern Italy to the Alps, and Further Gaul, the lands beyond the Alps roughly corresponding to the modern French regions of Provence and Languedoc haruspices the religious officials who inspected the entrails after a sacrifice in order to determine whether the omens were good or bad imperator the title granted to a military commander on active service by his soldiers after a victory; it was necessary to be hailed imperator in order to qualify for a triumph imperium the power to command, granted by the state to an individual, usually a consul, praetor or provincial governor legate a deputy or delegate lictor an attendant who carried the fasces – a bundle of birch rods tied together with a strip of red leather – that symbolised a magistrate's imperium; consuls were accompanied by twelve lictors, who served as their bodyguards, praetors by six; the senior lictor, who stood closest to the magistrate, was known as the proximate lictor manumission the emancipation of a slave