'And yet Gelina still wanted a baby. She wouldn't be denied. You've seen her; you know that she could hardly be called demanding or domineering. In many ways she's more retiring and acquiescent than befits a woman of her station. But in this one thing she would have her way. And so, against all my advice but with the full knowledge of her husband, she asked Crassus to give her a child.'

'When was this?'

'During Crassus's last visit, in the spring.' 'Why did Lucius allow it?'

'Don't many husbands quiedy allow themselves to be cuckolded, because to protest would only aggravate their humiliation and shame? Beyond that, Lucius had a perverse penchant for making choices that would harm him. And Gelina appealed to his family pride – Crassus would at least give them an heir with the blood of a Licinius.

'But no child resulted. The only result was the coolness that developed between Lucius and Gelina. She had done exactly the wrong thing, of course. Had she approached any man but Crassus, Lucius might have kept a shred of dignity. But for his all-powerful cousin to be invited into his wife's bed – for Crassus to be asked to bring a child into the household he already dominated – these humiliations preyed on his soul.

'You see, then, that there was more than financial deception and fraud to spark a murder between the two cousins. Crassus can be quite cold and brutal; Lucius's shame pricked at him like a crown of thorns. Who knows what whispered words passed between them that night in the library? Before it was over, one of them was dead.'

I looked heavenward. 'And now a whole household of slaves will die. Roman justice!'

'No!' Alexandros jumped to his feet. 'There must be something we can do.'

'Nothing,' whispered Olympias, reaching for his arm and grasping at thin air when he drew away.

'Perhaps…' I squinted at the edge of sunlight that blazed along the scalloped tile roof. Time was fleeting. The games might already have begun. 'If I could confront Crassus directly, with Gelina as witness. If Alexandros could see him and identify him for certain-'

'No!' Olympias interposed herself between us. 'Alexandros cannot leave Cumae.'

'If only we had the cloak – the bloodstained cloak from which Crassus tore his seal before he discarded it along the road! If only I hadn't lost it to the assassins last night. The assassins… oh, Eco!'

And then the cloak appeared, wafting out of the dark shadows of the house into the bright sunshine, held aloft by the outstretched arms of Eco himself, who smiled and blinked the sleep from his eyes.

XXIV

'But I thought you knew,' Iaia kept saying. 'I thought that Olympias must have already told you.' She was forgetting that on the night before, before Eco had come breathlessly beating on her door, Olympias had already slipped down to sleep with Alexandros in the sea cave and so had no way of knowing, as I had no way of knowing, that all the while we debated and deduced on the terrace, Eco was fast asleep within the house, clutching the filthy, bloodstained cloak he had saved from the assassins.

'How foolish I feel, Gordianus. Here I've sat, trying to impress you with my deductions, when all along I should have been telling you what you most wanted to know – that your son was safe and sound here under my roof!'

'The important thing is that he's here,' I said, swallowing to clear the sudden hoarseness in my voice and blinking back the tears that made Eco's beaming, dirt-smudged face swim before my eyes. I squeezed him tightly in my arms and then stepped back, sighing from a sudden shortness of breath.

'When he came to me last night I could see that he was frightened and exhausted but not hurt,' said Iaia. 'He was frantically trying to tell me something – I had no way of understanding. I gave him a special brew to calm him. At last he mimed using a wax tablet and stylus; I went to fetch them but when I came back he was fast asleep. I roused two of the slaves to carry him to bed. I looked in on him once or twice; he slept like a stone through the night.'

Eco looked up at me. He gingerly touched the bandage around my head.

'This? Nothing at all; a little bump to remind me to be more careful in the woods.'

The smile abruptly faded from his lips. He averted his eyes and looked deeply troubled. I could guess the root of his shame: he had failed to warn me of the assassins' approach, failed to rescue me last night, and instead of sending aid to me in the forest he had fallen asleep against his will.

'I fell asleep myself,' I whispered to him. He shook his head gloomily, angry not at me but at himself. He grimaced and pointed to his mouth. His eyes brimmed with tears. I understood as clearly as if he had spoken: If only I could speak as others can, I could have shouted a warning to you on the precipice. I could have told Iaia that you were hurt and alone in the woods. I could say all that I need to say at this moment!

I put my arms around him to hide him from the others. He shivered against me. I looked over his shoulder and saw that Olympias and Alexandros were smiling warmly, seeing only the joy of our reunion. Iaia smiled, but her eyes were sad. I released him, and while Eco turned towards the empty sea to compose his face, I pulled the bloodstained cloak from his trembling fingers. 'The important thing now is that we have the cloak!'

'That changes nothing,' protested Olympias. 'Tell him, Iaia.'

Iaia looked at me sidelong and pursed her lips. 'I'm not sure…'

Alexandros stepped forward. 'If there is any way to stop Crassus from killing the slaves-'

'Maybe,' I said, trying to think. 'Maybe…'

'I would never have stayed in the cave all this time had I known what was happening,' Alexandros said. 'You shouldn't have deceived me, Olympias, even to save me.'

Olympias looked from his face to mine and back again, at first desperately and then shrewdly. 'You won't leave me behind,' she quietly insisted. 'I shall go with you. Whatever happens, I must be there.'

Alexandros moved to embrace her, but now it was she who shrank back. 'If it's to be done, we should move now,' she said. 'The sun is getting higher. The games will have already begun.'

The slave who fetched our horses gave me an odd look, puzzled at the bandage around my head. When he saw Alexandros he let out a gasp and turned pale. Iaia and Olympias had managed to deceive even their household slaves. Iaia did not bother to bind the man to secrecy; soon all the Cup would know that the escaped Thracian was still among them.

'Iaia, are you coming?' Olympias asked.

'Too old, too slow,' Iaia insisted. 'I shall go on to the villa at my own pace and wait there for news.' She stepped beside me and gestured for me to bend down from my mount, then spoke softly into my ear. 'Are you sure of yourself, Gordianus? To challenge Crassus like this… to box the lion's ears in his own den…'

'I think I have no choice, Iaia. It is how the gods made me.'

She nodded. 'Yes, the gods give us gifts, whether we ask for them or not, and then they give us no choice but to use them. We can blame the gods for many things.' She lowered her voice. 'But I think you should know that the gods did not make your son a mute.'

I frowned at her, puzzled.

'Last night I looked in on him a number of times, to see that he slept soundly. He kept calling for you.' 'What? Calling? In words?'

'As clearly as I speak to you now,' she whispered. 'He said, "Papa, Papa.'"

I sat upright and looked down at her, baffled. She had no reason to deceive me or to delude herself, and yet how could such a thing be? I turned and glanced at Eco, who looked gloomily back at me.

'What are we waiting for?' said Olympias. Having made up her mind, she was determined to begin. Alexandros, on the other hand, seemed to be having second thoughts. A shadow of doubt crossed his face, then his features resolved themselves into a mask of perfect acquiescence to the will of the gods, such as any Stoic would have envied.