We walked quickly down the hall, down the stairway, and through the atrium. We stepped through the front doorway into the courtyard. The sun had just begun to sink behind the low hills to the west.

We found Meto in the stables, attending to the horses for the night. I told him to prepare mounts for Eco and me.

'But it's getting dark,' he protested.

'It will get even darker before I find my way back.'

We were mounted and ready to begin, pausing in front of the stables, when Faustus Fabius and an armed cordon of guards passed through the courtyard. Between the ranks of soldiers, in single file, walked the last of the household slaves on their way to the annexe.

They walked silently, meekly. Some had their heads bowed, weeping. Others looked about with wide, frightened eyes. Among them I saw Apollonius, who walked with his eyes straight ahead, his jaw tightly clenched.

It seemed to me that the villa was being drained of its lifeblood. All those who gave the great house its animation, who kept it in motion from dawn to dusk, were being emptied from its corridors – the barbers and cooks, the stokers of fires and openers of doors, the servitors and attendants.

'You there, boy!' yelled Fabius.

Meto shrank back against my mount, clutching at my leg. His hands trembled.

My mouth went dry. 'The boy is with me, Faustus Fabius. I'm on an errand for Crassus, and I need him.'

Faustus Fabius waved for the contingent to continue to the annexe and stepped towards us. 'I hardly think that's the case, Gordianus.' He gave me one of his aloof, patrician smiles. 'The story I hear is that you and Marcus have parted ways for good, and he'd just as soon see your head on a platter as on your shoulders. I doubt you should even be allowed to take his horses from the stables. Where are you headed, anyway – just in case Crassus should ask.'

'Cumae.'

'Is it as bad as that, Gordianus, that you need to ask the Sibyl for help, and with night falling? Or does your son want a last look at the beautiful Olympias?' When I made no answer, he shrugged. An odd expression crossed his face, and I realized that a bit of the bloodstained cloak, folded and concealed beneath my own cloak, had slipped into view. I moved to cover it with my elbow.

'At any rate, the boy comes with me,' Fabius said.

He grabbed Meto's shoulder, but the child refused to let go of my leg. Fabius pulled harder and Meto began to squeal. Slaves and guards turned their faces towards us. Eco grew agitated; his mount began to neigh and stamp.

I whispered through my teeth, 'Have mercy on the boy, Faustus Fabius! Let him come with me – I'll leave him with Iaia in Cumae. Crassus will never know!'

Fabius relaxed his grip. Meto, shivering, released my leg and reached up to wipe his eyes. Fabius smiled thinly.

'The gods will thank you, Faustus Fabius,' I whispered. I reached down to scoop the child onto the horse's back, but Fabius swiftly pulled him away and stepped back, gripping him tightly.

Fabius shook his head. 'The slave belongs to Crassus,' he said. He turned and pushed Meto, stumbling and looking desperately back over his shoulder, toward the other slaves.

I watched dumbly until the last guard disappeared around the corner of the stables. Twilight covered the earth and the first stars glimmered above. At last I spurred my mount and set out. To any god who might happen to be listening, I said a prayer that morning would never come.

XXI

We would have been wiser, I chided myself afterwards, to have taken the road to Cumae rather than the shortcut through the hills that Olympias had shown us. It was on such nights, I imagine, that lemures escape from Hades, rise like vapour from Lake Avemus, and go walking through the fog, spreading the chill of death through the forest and across the barren hills. The presence of the walking dead is attenuated and weak when compared to the vivid, blood-rich fecundity of living matter, like the paleness of a candle when seen beside the sun. But in certain rimes and places, as on battlefieids or around the entrances to the underworld, the spirits of the dead are so concentrated that they can become as palpable as living flesh – or so the phenomenon has been explained by those wiser than myself in such matters. I only know that death stalked the way to Cumae that night, and that those it claimed would not have far to go to be sucked into the mouth of Hades.

It was not hard to find our way, at first. We had no difficulty reaching the main road from the villa, and Eco's sharp eyes spotted the narrow trail that branched towards the west. Even in twilight the way looked familiar. We passed through the stand of trees onto the bald ridge. Off to the north I saw the camp fires of Crassus's soldiers clustered around Lake Lucrinus. Faint sounds of singing rose from the valley below. Beneath the rising moonlight I could make out the hulking mass of the arena. Its high wooden walls

shone dully, like the hide of a slumbering behemoth; tomorrow it would awaken and devour its prey.

It was after we entered the woods and darkness fell that I became less certain of our way. I had forgotten how faint the path became, and how quickly. Without sunlight there was no way to be certain of the direction. The full moon was still low in the sky, and the blue glow it cast through the woods created a strange, confused jumble of light and shadow. Wisps of fog coiled around us, whether sea fog or vapours rising from the damp earth, I could not tell. Perhaps the wisps were not fog at all, but the wavering, half-glimpsed spirits of the uneasy dead.

The stench of sulphur grew heavy on the dank air. Far away a wolf howled. Another joined it, and then a third, so near us that I gave a start. Three voices howling, like the three heads of Cerberus. The night was colder than I had expected. I pulled my cloak more tightly around my shoulders. I thought of the cloak I carried under my arm, and worried that the wolves could smell the blood that stained it, and that it drew them nearer. For a brief moment I thought I heard horses behind us, then decided it was only our echo.

I pressed on, less and less certain that I knew the way. At last we came to a vaguely familiar spot where the sky opened above and the horses' hooves clacked against hard stone. My horse hesitated but I urged him on. He hesitated again, then Eco grabbed my arm from behind and made a gulping noise of distress. I let out a gasp.

We stood on the verge of the precipice overlooking Lake Avemus. A gust of sulphurous heat blew against my face, like the foul breath of Pluto himself. In the stillness I heard the wheezing and belching of the fumaroles, and in my mind's eye I saw the hapless dead struggling like drowning men amid the scalding muck far below. The moon rose above the treetops and cast a sickly blue light across the waste. In that illusory glow I saw the pocked, scarred face of a monster too huge to comprehend, and then, as the light shifted imperceptibly and the fumaroles opened and closed, I saw a vast bowl teeming with maggots the size of men. From the distant woods across the lake, visible only in jagged silhouette, I heard the barking of three dogs together.

'Cerberus is loose tonight,' I whispered. 'Anything might happen.'

Eco made an odd, stifled noise. I bit my tongue, cursing myself for frightening him. I took a deep breath, despite the stench of sulphur, and turned towards him.

The blow descended and sent me flying head first from my hone.

Eco's stifled noise had been a warning. The blow came from behind and landed square between my shoulder blades. Even as I fell, I wondered why the assassin chose to cudgel rather than stab me, and I could only conclude that Eco had somehow managed to deflect his blow. Perhaps it was an elbow that struck me, or the pommel of a sword.