That moment had brought me directly, inevitably, to this moment. I was prepared for whatever happened next. I resigned myself to the Fates.

Davus was rescued. I had seen Meto alive and well. Bethesda and Diana and Eco and their children were all safe, or as safe as anyone could be in a broken world. If it was true that Numerius had other documents that compromised Meto hidden away somewhere, my only regret was that I had not been able to find them and destroy them, for Meto's sake.

In my mind, along with my confession, I had also pictured what would follow. I had imagined Pompey summoning henchmen to dispose of me, out of his sight. I had never imagined him leaping on me like a wild beast, his hands tearing at my face. I covered my eyes. He seized me by the hair and knocked my head against the mast. My ears rang. I tasted blood in my mouth. He threw me to the deck. He screamed and kicked me wildly.

I somehow scrambled to my feet. I ran blindly, stumbling and tripping over coils of rope, colliding with cold armor, cutting my cheeks and arms and shoulders on arrows and spears. Amid the smoke and sea spray, faces looked back at me aghast. They were frightened, not of me but of the madman behind me. Every man on the ship teetered on the sword's edge of Mars, poised between life and death. The sight of their commander reduced to an insane rage unnerved them.

A fireball flew over the ship. It grazed the mainsail, tracing a fringe of flame along the top edge. Soldiers panicked. Scribonius cried out, "Cut it loose! Cut it loose!" Men scurried up the mast, daggers flashing between their teeth.

Hands clutched my shoulders. I gave a start, then saw it was Tiro. "Gordianus, what have you done? What did you say to him?"

By the light of the leaping flames above our heads, I saw Pompey no more than five paces distant. The look on his face turned my blood to water. In another instant he would be close enough for me to see my reflection in his eyes; it was a dead man I would see there.

I broke from Tiro, turned and ran. Somehow I sprouted wings. How else can I explain the leap that took me over the heads of the men who stood in close formation along the ship's rail? For a moment I thought I would fall short and be impaled on their spears. A spearpoint did pierce my shin and rip through the flesh, scraping the bone. I screamed at the pain. An instant later I plunged face-first into water so cold it stopped my heart and froze the scream between my lips.

A powerful current sucked me deep beneath the surface. This was the end. Neptune, not Mars, would claim me. My crime would be purified by water, not fire.

The cold was excruciating. The darkness was infinite. The current twisted me this way and that. It spun me about almost playfully, as if to prove I was powerless to resist. I lost all sense of direction. Suddenly I was startled to see brightly flickering spots ahead of me, like sheets of yellow flame. Had the current sucked me all the way down to the seabed, to a fissure that opened into Hades? That seemed impossible, for my senses told me that I was traveling upward, not down. The frigid current drew me closer and closer to the flames, until I felt the heat of the burning flotsam on my face.

Done with me, the hand of Neptune expelled me from the water. I emerged into a scorching, airless void of flame. I sucked in a desperate, burning breath.

I was to be purified by water and fire alike.

PART THREE

XXIII

Hunched forward in a chair pulled close to my bedside, Davus propped his chin on his hands and stared at me. I wondered what profound thought was crossing his mind.

"Speak," I said.

The single word exacted an excruciating price. Bubbles of molten lead seemed to burst in my throat. I felt an urge to cough and struggled against it. Coughing caused unspeakable agony. I swallowed instead. Swallowing was a torment, but bearable.

Davus tilted his head and frowned. "I was only thinking, father-in-law, how much better you looked when you had eyebrows."

During endless hours of drifting in and out of consciousness, I had noticed a little mirror of polished silver hung on one of the walls, the room's only ornament. I had not yet asked Davus to take it down so that I could have a look at myself. Perhaps it was just as well.

I closed my eyes and drifted back into oblivion.

When I opened my eyes, Davus was just as he had been before.

I breathed in through my nose. My sinuses seemed to be lined with suppurating blisters. Still, it was less painful than breathing through my mouth. "How long-?"

Davus cocked his head attentively.

"… since I was last awake?" I managed to say. The pain of speaking brought tears to my eyes. Nonetheless, it seemed slightly less painful than before.

"Yesterday," Davus said. "Yesterday, you woke up for a while. You said, 'Speak.' That's the most you've said since they pulled you out of the harbor."

"When was that?"

Davus counted on his fingers. "One… two… three days ago."

Three days had passed, and I remembered nothing, not even dreams. Nothing! Except-

Endless water, black and cold. Flames. Smoke. A floating plank. Fireballs careening overhead. The stench of singed hair and burning flesh. Men screaming. A sudden jolt. Jagged rocks beneath the water. Coming to rest, half in the water, half out. The sky above cold and black and endless, but mantled with stars, growing lighter each time I woke from fitful dozing- iron gray, then palest blue, then oyster pink. Voices. Arms lifting me aloft.

Useless, someone said. Why bother? He's not one of ours.

That big fellow knows him. And the big fellow's got silver in his pouch.

Wrapped in linen. Laid in a wagon. Other bodies in the wagon- alive or dead? Davus leaning over me, looking down, his face almost unrecognizable; I had never seen him weep before. An endless journey of bumps and jolts, then finally coming to rest upon a bed unimaginably soft, in a cool, dim, quiet room. A woman's voice: If you need anything else- Another voice: I could use something to eat. That was Davus. I felt hungry, too, but was too weak to speak, and when the food came, the smell of charred flesh sickened me.

What else could I remember? Pompey's face, contorted with rage. Tiro's face, alarmed and confused. I tried to push those images aside and see other faces. Bethesda… Diana…

"Meto," I said.

"No, it's me." Davus, misunderstanding, leaned over me and smiled.

I shook my head. "But where-?"

"Ah!" Davus understood. "He's with Caesar. On their way back to Rome."

"When?"

"They left the day after Pompey fled. Caesar made a speech in the town forum, thanked the citizens for their help, left a garrison in charge, and then headed north on the Appian Way. Meto went with him. That was three days ago."

"You saw Meto?"

"Oh, yes. Should I tell you about it? Are you up for listening?"

I nodded.

"Well, then. After I left you, not half an hour passed before I found Meto. Easy enough, since he was with Caesar. Hard to miss that red cape! I met them coming from the forum, on the same street we took with Pompey. Caesar's bodyguards might have killed me, but I did as you said and threw down my sword. Meto was glad to see me. I told him what you'd done, leaving with Pompey. Caesar was in a hurry to get to the port. I showed them how to avoid the traps. We got to the quay just as the last of Pompey's men were casting off."

"From the end of the quay, I recognized Pompey's ship, just starting to sail out the harbor entrance. I pointed it out to Meto. He pointed it out to Caesar. We watched the ship run the gauntlet. For a while it looked like Pompey was in big trouble, veering toward the southern breakwater. I said a prayer to Neptune for you. It was hard to see much on account of the darkness and the smoke- but I could swear I saw someone jump overboard! Meto didn't see it. Neither did anybody else. They told me I imagined it, that no one could have seen such a thing at that distance. But I was sure. Would you like some water?"