"That's why I've come to you, Finder," said Arausio. "Not just because you witnessed the thing, but also because of what they say about you. You find the truth. The gods guide you to it. I know the truth-my daughter didn't jump; she must have been pushed-but I can't prove it. Apollonides could squeeze the truth out of Zeno, but he'll never do it. But maybe there's some other way to bring out the truth, and if there is, you're the man to find it. Name your fee. I can afford it." As proof, he slipped one of the thick bracelets from his wrist and pressed it into my hand.

The yellow gold was worked with images of a hunt. Archers and hounds pursued an antelope, and overseeing all was Artemis, not in her guise as the strange xoanon of the Massilians, but in the traditional image of a robust young woman with long, graceful limbs, armed with a bow and arrow. The workmanship was exquisite.

"What did your daughter look like?" I asked quietly. Arausio smiled weakly. "Rindel's hair was blond. She wore it

in braids, like her mother. Sometimes her braids hung free. Sometimes she wound them about her head. They shimmered like ropes of gold, like that bracelet in your hand. Her skin was white, as soft as rose petals. Her eyes were blue, like the sea at midmorning. When she smiled…" He drew a shuddering breath. "When Rindel smiled, I felt like a man lying in a field of flowers on a warm spring day."

I nodded. "I, too, have lost a child, Arausio."

"A daughter?" He looked at me with tears in his eyes.

"A son. Meto was born a slave and not of my flesh, but I adopted him and he became a Roman. When he was a boy, he was full of mischief and laughter, bright as a newly minted coin. He grew quieter as he grew older, more thoughtful and withdrawn, at least in my presence. I sometimes thought he was more reserved and somber than a young man his age ought to be. But every now and then he still laughed, exactly the way he'd laughed when he was a boy. What I would give to hear Meto laugh again! The sea below the walls of Massilia claimed him, as you say it claimed your daughter. I came all the way from Rome to find him, but he was gone before I arrived. Now there's nothing more I can do to help my son…"

"Then help my daughter!" begged Arausio. "Save her good name. Help me to prove that she never jumped from the Sacrifice Rock. Prove that Zeno murdered her!"

Davus cleared his throat. "As long as we're stuck here in Massilia, father-in-law, we could use the money…"

"And surely," added Hieronymus, "you need something to occupy you, Gordianus. You can't go on as you have been, sitting and brooding on this terrace from sunrise to sunset."

Their advice had no influence on me. I had already made up my mind.

"Ever since we saw the incident on the Sacrifice Rock, there's something I've been wondering about." I spoke slowly, trying to choose my words carefully, although there was no delicate way to speak of the matter. "Others have fallen from the Sacrifice Rock before-scapegoats… suicides. Were their remains never found? I should think they might eventually have… washed up on shore." I was thinking of the woman we had seen. I was also thinking of Meto.

Hieronymus lowered his eyes. "My parents were never found," he whispered.

Arausio cleared his throat. "The current can be very strong, depending on the season and the time of day. Yes, sometimes bodies have washed up on shore, but they never enter the harbor; the current won't allow that. Bodies have been found miles from Massilia-or never found at all, because so much of the coastline consists of steep, jagged rocks. A body washed onto the shore is likely to be torn to pieces among sharp rocks, or hidden in some inaccessible grotto, or sucked into a sea cave where even the eyes of the gods can't see."

"After the naval battle with Caesar, there must have been scores of bodies in the waters offshore," I said.

Arausio nodded. "Yes, but not one of them was recovered. If they were cast onto the shore, and if they could be seen and reached, it was the Romans who claimed them, not us. The Romans control the shoreline."

"So, even if the woman we saw was washed back to the shore-"

"If anyone found her, it would have been the Romans. Here in Massilia, we would never hear of it."

"I see. Then we should give up any hope that we might yet identify the woman by her… remains." My thoughts turned again to Meto. What had become of his body? Surely, if it had been found and identified by Caesar's men, Trebonius would have known, and would have told me. It seemed most likely that Meto, like Rindel-if indeed the woman was Rindel-had been swept out to sea beyond recovery, swallowed forever by Neptune.

I sighed. "Then we must determine the woman's identity by some other means. We can begin with practical considerations. For example, what was the woman on the Sacrifice Rock wearing

When we saw her that morning? And was it the same as what your daughter was wearing the last time she left your house?"

It was Hieronymus's recollection that the woman on the rock had worn a dark gray cloak. Davus thought it was more blue than gray. I remembered it as more green than blue. As far as Arausio could recall, none of his daughter's garments fit any of those descriptions, for she preferred bright colors, but he couldn't be certain. His wife and household slaves knew Rindel's wardrobe better than he did; perhaps one of them could either remember or, by elimination, deduce exactly what Rindel had been wearing on the day she left home for the last time.

We talked a bit more, but Arausio was wrung out and unable to think clearly. I told him to go home and see what else he could learn from his wife and slaves.

After he left, I sat on the terrace, idly fingering the gold bracelet and studying the changing light on the Sacrifice Rock and the sea beyond. Suddenly I noticed that Davus was looking at me sidelong, a smile of relief on his lips.

XII

Apparently it was my day for receiving visitors. No sooner had Arausio left, than a slave came running to tell Hieronymus that two more callers had arrived, again asking for Gordianus the Finder.

"Greeks or Gauls?" asked Hieronymus.

"Neither, Master. Romans. They call themselves Publicius and Minucius."

The scapegoat raised an eyebrow. "I thought you had no friends in Massilia, Gordianus."

"I've no idea who they are. Perhaps it's another inquiry about what we saw on the Sacrifice Rock."

"Perhaps. Will you see them?"

"Why not?"

A few moments later two men slightly younger than myself were shown onto the terrace. The taller, balding one was Publicius; the shorter, curly-headed one Minucius. Even without their names I would have known them for Romans by their dress. In Massilia, the Greeks wore the knee-length chiton or the draped chlamys, while the Gauls wore tunics and sometimes trousers; but these men were dressed in togas, as if outfitted for some formal event in the Roman Forum. But what sort of man, even a Roman, dons a toga on a warm day in a foreign city under siege?

Their togas looked freshly washed and had been impeccably draped across their shoulders and folded over their arms. I wondered if they had helped each other to arrange their garments; could one find a slave this far from Rome who knew the proper way to drape a toga? Despite their gravity, there was something comical about them; they might have been a pair of wide-eyed farmers come to the city to petition a magistrate in the Forum. It seemed absurd, especially given the state of affairs in Massilia, that they should have dressed so formally merely to call on Gordianus the Finder.

Their manner was stiff. When Hieronymus introduced me, they stuck out their jaws and gave me a military salute in unison, striking their fists against their breasts.