In short, I let my guard down completely. I realize this sounds like the utmost folly, but a life lived cautiously is a dull one. All the really careful and cautious men I ever knew were drab wretches, while those who eschewed caution had interesting if brief lives.

Before long, I had our serving-girl, or one just like her, seated in my lap, while a faun-boy occupied the same place on Hypatia. They sang and popped grapes into our mouths as general liberties were taken by all. I learned more ways to drink someone's health in Greek than I ever dreamed could exist. Versatile language, Greek.

At some point during the night I found myself standing behind Hypatia, my hands on her lissome hips, and someone else's on mine. This might have been alarming, but it turned out that we were all doing the crane dance under the tutelage of the Argive youths and maidens. Like the bird for which it is named, the crane dance is a blend of grace and awkwardness. Hypatia supplied one and I the other. I had never danced before. Roman men never dance unless they belong to one of the dancing priesthoods. It seemed to me that these Greeks had happened upon a good thing.

The moon was very low when the whole reveling crowd poured out of the Daphne and wound its way up the spiral path of the Paneum. Live creatures mixed with the bronze ones along the path, cavorting and disporting themselves in the time-honored fashion of rural worshippers. In the heat of their exertions, many had divested themselves of clothing along with their inhibitions and sense of decorum.

In the sanctuary we all sang traditional hymns to Pan in the Arcadian dialect. The flickering light of the torches played over the bronze god and I thought I saw him smile, a real smile, not the fraudulent grimacing of Baal-Ahriman. The women draped their garlands around his neck and over his outsized phallus, and a few of the masked ladies begged him to help them conceive. If the fervor of the worship were of any help, they would all surely bear twins.

It was an easy walk from the Paneum to the Palace, but I was sorry to see the place again. I was weary of its plots and intrigues, and for all its luxuries it seemed a grim place after a magical night spent in the Daphne.

"I must leave you here," Hypatia said as we approached the gate nearest the Roman embassy. "My protector keeps me in a house close by. It is forbidden for women to be housed in the Parthian embassy."

"How will you come to me tomorrow?" I asked, reluctant to see her go despite my better instincts.

She pushed back her mask, came into my arms and kissed me. She was like a sack of wriggling eels, and I was ready to carry her into a doorway and make good on the offer I had turned down in the Necropolis. But she pulled away and placed her fingers across my lips.

"It is too late now, the time is past. But look for me to come tomorrow evening. One with the right friends can go about freely within the Palace, and I have more friends than most. I will bring the book, and you will help me to establish myself in Rome."

"I have given my word," I said.

"Good night, then. Until tomorrow." She turned and was gone.

With a sigh I staggered toward the gate. I remembered to take off my mask and stuck it inside my tunic. The guard at the gate sleepily returned my equally sleepy salute. The Palace was as lifeless as the Necropolis as I made my way across its elaborate pavements.

The embassy was, if anything, even more devoid of life, not even a slave stirring. That suited me perfectly. I was sure that, by this time, my appearance must confirm Creticus's worst fears about me. I made my way to my quarters undetected and dropped my cloak to the floor, let my weapons clank onto a table, then thought better of that and locked them away in my chest. The mask I hung on the wall.

I left my tunic where it fell and brushed the vine leaves from my hair before collapsing into my bed. It had been one of the most eventful days of my life. Had it really started out with my visit to Baal-Ahriman? It seemed more like weeks ago. First the fine intellectual exercise of deciphering the trickery of Ataxas, then my flight through the Rakhotis, culminating in the Salt Market riot.

Then the night, which had begun in a city of the dead and ended in a veritable Arcadian fertility rite. Even at my most adventurous, I was unaccustomed to so many changes of venue and circumstance. In this place death lurked in many places and took many guises, but I would never die of boredom.

The memory of Hypatia writhing against me was unsettling, but I knew that I would see her again the next night. Perhaps there was some other site of exotic debauchery we could try. And perhaps what she was to bring me would solve the mysteries surrounding the death of Iphicrates.

I was well pleased with the events of the day and the prospects for the morrow. It was just as well that I could go to sleep in such a state of complacency, because when I woke up, there was a dead woman in bed with me.

Chapter XI

I could not understand why a legion of cocks was crowing in my ear. Surely, with all their strange tastes, these pseudo-Egyptian Macedonians didn't keep livestock in the Palace. Then my head began to clear and I realized that it was the embassy slaves raising the racket. Some of them were eunuchs and these added a falsetto quality to the uproar. What on earth had them so upset?

I struggled to a sitting position, rubbing my eyes to get them into focus. Right away, I knew that I had the sort of hangover that makes you certain that the gods robbed you of your youth in your sleep. My mouth tasted like the bottom of a garum vat. The resin from the Greek wine lent a certain dockside element to the foulness, as if my mouth had been tarred and caulked.

I glared blearily at the slave who stood in the doorway pointing at me and gabbling something in Egyptian. Others behind him stared wide-eyed.

"What are you pointing at?" I demanded. I intended to sound forceful, but my voice came out in a croak. "Have you all gone mad?"

Then I realized that he was not pointing at me. He was pointing just to one side of me. With a prickling scalp I turned to see, then squeezed my eyes shut. It didn't help. When I opened them again, she was still there. It was Hypatia, and she was quite dead. Were I a poet, I would say that her staring eyes were full of reproach, but they expressed nothing at all. The eyes of the dead never do.

She was naked, and the bone hilt of a dagger pro-traded from just below her left breast. There was a small wound below her left ear, and her lovely black hair was matted with blood. I saw her bloodstained gown on the floor by her.

"What is this?" Creticus came storming in and went pale when he saw the little tableau. Behind him were Rufus and the others.

"It isn't:" I cursed my thick tongue.

Creticus pointed at me. "Decius Caecilius Metellus, I arrest you. Bind him and throw him in the cellar."

A pair of burly, shaven-headed men came forward and aid hands on me. These were the Binder and the Whipper, the slave disciplinarians belonging to the embassy. They didn't often get a chance to practice their skills on a free man and they made the most of it. They jerked my arms behind me and slapped manacles around my wrists. Then they hauled me to my feet.

"At least let me get dressed!" I hissed.

"Decius, you are not only a degenerate but a madman," Creticus said. "I will go to talk to the king. Since you are part of the embassy, he can't call for your head, but rest assured I'll have you tried before the Senate and banished to the smallest, most barren island in the sea!"

"I'm innocent!" I croaked. "Bring Asklepiodes!"

"What?" Creticus said. "Who?"

"Asklepiodes, the physician! I want him to examine that body before these Greeks cremate it! He can prove that I am innocent!" Actually I was confident of no such thing, but I was desperate. "Rufus! Go to the Museum and fetch him." His shocked face nodded minutely. I was not even sure he understood my words.