Eco and I stepped cautiously towards it, with Olympias following. At one time most of the thing had been submerged in the pit, where the greater part of it had been eaten away by the boiling, caustic sludge. The remains were drained of colour, spattered with mud, and rapidly beginning to decay. We looked at what was left of a human head attached to shoulders still covered by bits of discoloured cloth. The face was turned downward into the mud. On the back of the corpse's head a ring of grey hair swirled around a bald spot. Eco stepped back in fright and stared into the lake beyond, as if he thought the thing had emerged from the pit rather than fallen into it.

I found a stick and prodded at the shoulders to turn the thing over, at the same time keeping my nose covered. It was not easy; the flesh of the face seemed to have become melted somehow into the mud. When at last I succeeded, the sight was hard to bear, but enough of the features remained for Olympias to recognize him. She drew in a shuddering breath and wailed into her sleeve: 'Zeno!'

Before I could think of what to do with the thing, Olympias decided for me. With a piercing shriek she stooped, picked up the head by its remaining hair and cast it into the lake. It flew through the mists, causing them to furl and flutter in its wake, and landed not with a splash but with a slap. For an eerie moment time stopped and the head remained afloat on the bubbling cauldron. A hissing vent of steam opened beneath it. Through the vapour I thought I saw the eyes of the thing open and peer back at us, like a drowning man looking desperately to those on shore. Then it sank beneath the mud and vanished altogether.

'Now the Jaws of Hades claims him for good,' I whispered to no one, for Olympias was mnning headlong back to the path, tripping and weeping, and Eco was on his knees, vomiting on the beach.

Part Three

Death in a Cup

XIV

'Will this day never end?' I peered at the ceiling above my bed and rubbed my face with both hands. 'My backside will ache tomorrow from all this riding. Up hill and down, through the woods and across the wastes.' I babbled, the way that weary men do when given a chance to rest in the course of a long day and they find themselves too overwrought to relax. It might have helped if I closed my eyes, but whenever I did I saw the horribly decayed face of Zeno staring at me from a gaping mouth of flame.

'Eco, could you pour me a cup of water from that ewer on the windowsill? Water!' I slapped my forehead. 'We still have to find someone who can dive down into the shallows around the boathouse to see what was dropped from the pier last night.' I sat up to accept the cup from Eco, and peered past his shoulder through the window. The sun was still up, but not for long. By the time I found Meto, assuming he was fit for the task, and trundled down to the water's edge, the shadows would be growing longer and the evening chill would have begun to settle. We needed bright sunlight piercing the water if we were to find something amid the rocks on the bottom. The task would have to wait.

I groaned and rubbed my eyes – then quickly snatched my hands away when the face of Zeno loomed up before me.

'Not enough time, Eco, not enough time. What's the point of all this scurrying about when we can never hope to get to the bottom of things before Crassus has his way? If only Olympias hadn't cast the head into the lake and then raced back to the villa alone, we would at least have had something to show Crassus – proof that we had found one of the slaves. But what would that have served? Crassus would see it as just another proof of Zeno's guilt – what better way for the gods to show their fury at a murderous slave than for Pluto himself to swallow the miscreant feet first?

'For all our work, all we have are questions, Eco. Who attacked me on the pier last night? What was Olympias up to today, and why was Dionysius following her? And what part does Iaia play in all this? She seems to have some agenda of her own, but towards what end, and why does she play her part behind a veil of secrecy and magic?'

I stretched my arms and legs and suddenly felt as heavy as lead. Eco dropped onto his bed, his face turned toward the wall. 'We shouldn't he here any longer,' I murmured. 'We have so little time. I still haven't spoken to Sergius Orata, the businessman. Or Dionysius, for that matter. If I could catch the philosopher off his guard…'

I closed my eyes – for just an instant, I thought. Around me it seemed that the room itself sighed wearily. Perched atop the villa with an east-facing terrace, it captured the heat of the morning and stored it all through the day, but now the walls began to give up their warmth. A coolness seeped in from the window and pervaded the air. The back of my body, pressed into the bed, felt deliciously warm, while my hands and feet were slighdy chilled. I could have used a light blanket, but I was too tired to bother. I lay on the bed, exhausted, alert to every sensation and yet beginning to doze.

The dream began in the bed on which I lay, except that I seemed to be at my house in Rome, for I lay on my side with Bethesda pressed against me, face to face. With my eyes closed I ran my hands over her warm thighs and up her belly, amazed that her flesh was still as firm and supple as when I first bought her in Alexandria. She purred catlike at my touch; her body writhed against mine and I felt myself grow achingly stiff between the legs. I moved to enter her, but she stiffened and pushed me away.

I opened my eyes and saw not Bethesda but Olympias looking back at me with aloof disdain. 'What do you think I am,' she whispered haughtily, 'a slave, that you could ever use me so?' She pushed herself up from the bed and stood naked, bathed in the soft glowing light from the terrace. Her hair was a golden aureole about her face; the full, sleek curves and the subtle hollows of her body formed a beauty that was almost unbearable to look at. I reached for her and she started back. I thought she mocked me, but suddenly she covered her face with her hands and ran weeping from the room, slamming the door behind her.

I rose from the bed and followed. I opened the door with a sudden foreboding, and felt a breath of hot air on my face. The door opened not into a hallway, but onto the shelf of rock above Lake Avernus. I could not tell whether it was day or night; everything was lit with a harsh, blood-red glow. On the edge of the rock a man sat in a low chair, draped in a crimson military cape. He leaned forward, his chin on his hand and his elbow on his knee, as if he watched the progress of a battle far below. I looked over his shoulder and saw that the whole of the lake was a vast pool of belching flames, filled from shore to shore with the writhing bodies of men, women, and children trapped waist-deep in the burning mud. Their mouths were wrenched open in agony, but the distance muffled their screaming so that it was like the roar of the sea or the sound of a crowd in an amphitheatre. They were too far away for their faces to be distinct, and yet among them I recognized the slave boy Meto and the young Apollonius.

Crassus looked over his shoulder. 'Roman justice,' he said with grim satisfaction, 'and there is nothing you can do about it.' He looked at me oddly, and I realized I was naked. I turned about to return to my room, but I could not find the door. In confusion I stepped too close to the edge. Part of the rock began to crumble and give way. Crassus seemed not to notice as I fell backward, desperately trying to scramble onto the rock even as it fell with me, plummeting into the empty void-

I woke in a cold sweat to see the boy Meto standing over me with a look of grave concern on his face. From across the room I heard the gentle sawing of Eco's snore. I blinked and wiped my hand across my forehead, surprised to find it beaded with sweat.