Crassus glared at me, as heavy-lidded as a lizard, but his voice was steady. 'You look quite terrible, Gordianus. Does he not look terrible, Gelina? Like something spat up half chewed by the Jaws of Hades. You've hurt your head, I see – from banging it against a wall, I imagine. Is that vomit on your tunic?'

I might have answered, but my heart was beating too fast in my chest, and the throbbing in my head was like thunder.

Crassus pressed his fingers together. 'You ask me, what is the meaning of this? I take it you mean: what is happening here? I will tell you, since you seem to have arrived late. The gladiators have already fought. Some have lived, some have died; the shade of Lucius is well pleased, and so is the crowd. Now the slaves have been ushered into the arena – armed, as you can see, like the ragtag army they are. In a moment I shall step out onto that little platform behind you, so that the crowd can see and hear me, and I shall announce a most splendid and sublime amusement, a public enactment of Roman justice and a living parable of divine will.

'The slaves of my household here in Baiae have been polluted by the seditious blasphemies of Spartacus and his kind. They are complicit in the murder of their master; so all the evidence indicates, and so you have been unable to disprove. They are useless now, except to serve as an example to others. In the spectacle I have planned, they shall represent – they shall embody – that which the crowd most fears and despises: Spartacus and his rebels. Thus I have armed them, as you see.'

'Why don't you give them real weapons?' I said. 'Weapons like the swords and spears I found in the water off" the boathouse?'

Crassus pursed his Lips but otherwise ignored me. 'A few of my soldiers shall represent the power and glory of Rome – ever vigilant and ever conquering under the leadership of Marcus Licinius Crassus. My soldiers are readying themselves, and as soon as I have made my announcement they shall enter through that gate opposite, with blaring of trumpets and banging of drums.'

'A farce!' I hissed. 'Useless and monstrously cruel! A bloody slaughter!'

'Of course a slaughter!' Crassus's voice took on an edge like flint, cutting and brittle. 'What else could transpire, when the soldiers of Crassus meet a band of rebellious slaves? This is only a foretaste of the glorious battles to come, when Rome grants me supreme command of her legions and I march against the rebel slaves.'

'It's an embarrassment,' muttered Mummius in disgust. His face was ashen. 'A disgrace! Roman soldiers against old men and women and children with wooden toys! There is no honour in it, no glory! The men are not proud, believe me, and neither am I-'

'Yes, Mummius, I know your sentiments.' Crassus's voice burned like acid. 'You allow yourself to be blinded by carnal lust, by decadent Greek sentimentality. You know nothing of true beauty, true poetry – the harsh, austere, unforgiving poetry of Rome. You understand even less about politics. Do you think there is no honour in avenging the death of Lucius Licinius, a Roman killed by slaves? Yes, there is honour in it, and a kind of merciless beauty, and there shall be political profit for me, both here and in the Forum at Rome.

'Asforyou, Gordianus-you have arrived just in time. I certainly hadn't intended to seat you in my private box, but I'm sure we can find room for you, and for the boy. Is Eco, too, unwell? He sways on his feet, and I seem to see a feverish glimmer in his eyes. And this other person – a friend of yours, Gordianus?'

'The slave Alexandros,' I said. 'As you must already know.'

Alexandros put his mouth to my ear. 'Him!' he whispered between the drumbeats in my head. 'I'm certain of it! I must have seen his face more clearly than I thought; I recognize him now that I see him again – the man who killed the master-'

'Alexandros?' said Crassus, raising an eyebrow. 'Taller than I expected, but the Thracians are a tall people. He certainly looks strong enough to crack a man's skull with a heavy statue. Good for you, Gordianus! It was wise of you to bring him directly to me, even at the last possible moment. I will announce his capture and send him down to die with the others. Or shall I save him for a special crucifixion, to climax the games?'

'Kill him, Crassus, and I will scream at the top of my lungs the name of the man who really murdered Lucius Licinius!'

I produced the bloodstained cloak. I threw it at his feet.

Gelina lurched forward, clutching the arms of her chair. Mummius turned pale and Fabius looked at me in alarm. Orata squinted down at the lump of cloth. Metrobius bit his Lips and put a protective arm around Gelina's shoulder.

Only Crassus seemed unperturbed. He shook his head as if he were a pedagogue and I a pupil who could not keep my grammar straight, no matter how many times he corrected me.

'On the night of the murder, before he fled for his own life, Alexandros saw everything,' I said. 'Everything! The corpse of Lucius Licinius; the murderer who knelt beside the body, scraping the name of Spartacus in the stone to deflect suspicion from himself; the murderer's face. That man was not a slave. Oh, no, Marcus Crassus, the man who killed Lucius Licinius had no other motive than devouring greed. He traded arms for gold with Spartacus. He poisoned Dionysius when Dionysius came too close to the truth. He threw me off the pier and tried to drown me on my first night in Baiae. He dispatched assassins to kill me in the woods last night. That man is not a slave but a Roman citizen and a murderer, and there is no law on earth or in the heavens that can justify the wholesale slaughter of innocent slaves for his crimes!'

'And who would this man be?' Crassus asked mildly. He poked his toe at the crumpled, bloodstained tunic. He wrinkled his nose, then frowned with dawning recognition.

I opened my mouth to speak, but Alexandros was quicker. 'It was him!' he shouted, and raised his arm. He pointed – but not at Crassus.

Murnmius bared his teeth and grunted. Gelina cried out. Metrobius held her tighdy. Orata looked slighdy queasy. Crassus clenched his jaw and made a face like thunder.

All eyes turned toward Faustus Fabius. He blanched and took a step backwards. For just an instant his imperturbable patrician mask slipped to reveal an expression of pure desperation. Then, just as quickly, he recovered his composure and stared catlike at the finger pointing towards him.

Beside me, Eco swayed and crumpled onto the red carpet.

XXV

Eco fell unconscious into a burning fever. As soon as I could, I took him to the villa, where Iaia was already anxiously waiting for news. She took the matter into her hands and insisted that Eco be brought to her room, where she brooded over him, sending Olympias to the house in Cumae to fetch unguents and herbs. The air in the room was quickly filled with smoke from braziers and vapour from tiny boiling pots. She roused Eco from his uneasy sleep to pour her strange concoctions between his lips and rubbed a foul smelling salve behind his ears and around his lips. For me she prescribed a strong dose of nepenthes ('For a few hours, at least, it will take you far away from this place, which is what you need'), but I refused to drink it.

Day turned to night without formalities to mark the hours. Dinner was never served; people slipped into the kitchens to pick at leftover portions from the previous day's feast, or nibbled at delicacies brought back from the games. Without slaves to tend to the beds and light the lamps, to indicate the hours with the unending cycle of their labour, time seemed to stop; yet darkness still descended.

That night Morpheus passed over the villa at Baiae. His spell covered all the rest of the world, but he overlooked the inhabitants of that house; there was no sleep for anyone, only the darkness and stillness of the long night. With Iaia and Gelina I kept a vigil in Eco's room, listening in amazement as he muttered a fitful stream of names and incoherent phrases. What he said made no sense, and the sounds were often crude and slurred, but there was no denying that he spoke. I asked Iaia if she had put a spell on him, but she claimed no credit.