He followed my gaze and wriggled his finger, making the stone flash in the light. "A tight fit, even on my little finger. What do you make of it, Gordianus?"
"A woman's ring, obviously. I don't think I've ever seen a stone quite like it."
"No? I suppose they're more sought after in Massilia than elsewhere, on account of the xoanonArtemis. It's a bit of skystone; fallen from the heavens, just as thexoanon Artemis fell to earth long ago. Skystones aren't necessarily pretty. Sometimes they're quite ugly, in fact, but this one is rather interesting; not solid black, you see, but with smoky swirls of silver shot through it, and as smooth and shiny as polished marble. Quite valuable, I imagine."
"The sort of ring a Massilian might give to his lover?"
"I suppose, if the man were rich and the lover beautiful enough to wear such fine jewelry." With a bit of effort he twisted it off his finger and handed it to me.
"What was it doing on the Sacrifice Rock?" I asked. "We've seen how difficult it is to get to the summit. No one goes there casually, especially now, with everyone banned from climbing the rock. So how did this ring come to be there?"
Hieronymus pursed his lips. "We do know of two people who were on the rock not long ago. The officer in the light blue cape and the woman who jumped."
"Who was pushed," corrected Davus.
I nodded. "Apollonides dispatched his men to have a look in the vicinity of the Sacrifice Rock, but he explicitly forbade them to climb onto the rock itself. We must assume that the summit of the Sacrifice Rock was never searched. This ring may have been there ever since."
"Perhaps," conceded Hieronymus. "But how did it get there in the first place? It seems unlikely that it could have slipped accidentally from the woman's finger, unless she had very small hands indeed."
"Perhaps she pulled the ring off her finger before she… went over the edge," I said.
"Or perhaps the man pulled it off," suggested Davus. "We saw them struggle for a bit, remember? Perhaps he pulled it off her finger, then dropped it when he pushed her-"
"When she jumped," insisted Hieronymus.
"In either case, if this ring did come from the woman's finger…" I left the thought unfinished. "Do you mind, Hieronymus, if I keep it for a while?"
"You can cast it into the sea for all I care. I've no use for it." He pressed a hand to his belly. "Do you suppose we can expect anything resembling a meal this evening?"
Davus's stomach growled sympathetically.
As if on cue, a young slave appeared in the shadowy hallway behind Hieronymus. "Dinner is served in the garden," he announced.
"A dinner under the stars-delightful!" said Hieronymus, turning to smile at the slave.
By the lamp's feeble glow I saw the boy's look of surprise. His eyes grew wide, then he stepped back and averted his face. "Not… not for you," he managed to stutter. "I've come for the two Romans."
"Then where am I to eat?" demanded Hieronymus.
"In… your rooms," the slave stuttered, his voice hardly more than a whisper, his face turned away from the scapegoat.
"Of course," said Hieronymus dryly. "What was I thinking? The scapegoat dines alone."
The garden was dimly lit. In the few lamps scattered about, the flames burned low. Oil, like food, had become scarce in Massilia. The light was so uncertain that I had trouble estimating how many people had gathered in the garden; perhaps fifty or more. If this had been intended to be a celebration dinner, whom would the First Timouchos have invited? The most exalted of his fellow Timouchoi; the priests of Artemis; military leaders; perhaps a few important Roman exiles; certainly the Roman military commander. Sure enough, I noticed Domitius reclining on one elbow on a dining couch, sipping from a cup of wine. The slave escorted us to the empty couch next to him.
Domitius peered at us blearily. If anyone should have felt betrayed by the day's events, it was him. In Italy he had disregarded Pompey's advice, made a stand at Corfinium against Caesar, and even before the siege was underway had been handed over to Caesar by his own men. Now, once again trapped in a city besieged by Caesar, he had desperately looked to Pompey for relief-and the ships sent by Pompey had sailed past Massilia and into the sunset.
His speech was slurred. "There you are, troublemaker. I suppose you know you've caused me considerable embarrassment today. A fellow Roman-my personal responsibility-trespassing on sacred ground! What were you thinking, Gordianus?"
"Davus and I wanted to watch the fleet sail out," I said blandly. "The walls were very crowded. The Sacrifice Rock seemed to offer the best vantage point."
"You knew it was forbidden."
"Can a visitor be expected to remember every local custom?" Domitius took this fiction for what it was worth and snorted cynically. "You can climb up the Sacrifice Rock and take a piss off it for all I care. Better yet, take a leap into the sea. It's probably the only way to get out of this godforsaken place." He held up his empty cup. A slave appeared from the shadows and refilled it. "Only thing they seemed to have stockpiled in adequate amounts-good Italian wine. And slaves to pour it. What a wretched little town this is!" He made no effort to lower his voice. I looked about. Guests were still arriving. The mood of the place was somber and the conversations quiet. Quite a few heads turned our way in response to Domitius's outburst.
"If you're not careful," I said quietly, "your own tongue shall cause you more embarrassment than I ever could."
He laughed bitterly. "I'm a Roman, Gordianus. I have no manners and no fear. That's how we've managed to conquer the world. How some of us have managed to conquer it, anyway. Ah, but here's another glorious loser-Milo! Over here!"
Out of the shadowy crowd Milo appeared, looking as glum and bleary-eyed as Domitius. He dropped onto the couch next to Domitius and snapped his fingers. When the slave brought more wine, I declined; it seemed a night to keep my wits about me.
The garden was a square surrounded by a colonnade. In the center there was a dry fountain with a conventional statue of Artemis. Couches were gathered in U-shapes, alternately facing in or out from the center so that in rows they formed a sort of Greek key pattern of the type one often sees along the hem of a chiton. In this way guests faced in all four directions and there was no true center or focus; the layout also made it possible to overhear conversations from parties that were nearby but faced another direction. Our immediate vicinity seemed to be reserved for Romans. I heard the low murmur of Latin all around. Looking over his shoulder at me from a nearby couch, I saw Gaius Verres, who had the temerity to wink at me.
The guests included both sexes, though men greatly outnumbered women. The women, I noticed, following Massilian custom and in marked contrast to Rome, took no wine.
Apollonides and his retinue were the last to arrive. Everyone stood (some, like Domitius and Milo, not steadily) in deference to the First Timouchos. The grim-faced men surrounding Apollonides I took to be his closet advisors. Also in the party was a young couple. I had heard much about them. Now at last I saw them together: Apollonides's only child, Cydimache, and her husband, Zeno.
The girl wore a voluminous gown made of fine material shot through with gold and silver threads. The colorful veils that hid her face were of some gossamer stuff. On another woman such expensive and elaborate clothing might have made one think of wealth and privilege, but on Cydimache they seemed a sort of costume meant to distract curious onlookers from the misshapen, hunchbacked form within. Even her hands were concealed. Without a single, recognizable human feature for the eye to connect to, one might almost imagine that some bizarre animal had entered our midst beneath those mounds of veils.