Antipater frowned. “Are you still going on about the ritual? What we witnessed was a divine transformation, Gordianus, not a mime show. It’s a wonder to be marveled at, not a puzzle to be figured out.”

I rose from my chair and began to pace. “The grotto has all sorts of recesses and fissures; there must be a chamber under the water, large enough to contain the girl, with enough air for her to breath. One twin enters the pool, takes the place of his sister in the underwater cave, and the other twin emerges.”

“Gordianus, do you really imagine there’s such an abundance of twins that the priests can come up with a new pair every year, never before seen by the worshippers? Besides, boy and girl twins are never identical.”

I frowned. “I suppose they don’t have to be twins. They merely have to look alike—the same size, the same hair. It’s awfully dim in that cave, and the firelight plays tricks with your eyes, and the far side of the pool isn’t that close—”

“Do be quiet, Gordianus. I’m trying to compose a poem.” Antipater closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sun.

“What makes the females of Halicarnassus so possessive?

To drink a husband’s ashes is surely obsessive.

To emasculate a god, as did Salmacis,

Joining her sex with his … joining her sex … with his…”

Antipater’s voice trailed off. He mumbled for a bit, then began to snore.

“How my cousin loves his naps,” said Bitto, joining me on the balcony. “It’s so warm today—such a lazy afternoon. Perhaps we should take a nap, too.”

“In the middle of the day? I’m not sleepy.”

“You will be.”

“I will?”

“After I’ve tired you out.” She raised an eyebrow, then turned and headed toward her room.

I followed.

*   *   *

An hour or so later, I woke in a cold sweat, though the room was stifling hot.

I had been dreaming. In my nightmare, armed men broke down the doors of the house next door—the house where the widow Tryphosa and her daughter-in-law lived. Their slaves were rounded up and dragged screaming into the street, then loaded into a wagon that was to take them to a place of torture. Tryphosa, resisting arrest, ran to her balcony and threatened to jump. Corinna was driven into a corner, where the mocking soldiers cruelly laughed and tore away her black veil, then ripped the black garments from her body.…

I got out of bed without waking Bitto and quickly dressed. Out on the balcony, Antipater was still snoring, with his head thrown back and his mouth wide open.

I slipped out the front door and headed down the winding street to the residence of the two widows. I knocked on the door.

I explained to the gruff doorkeeper that I was a houseguest next door, and that I needed to see his mistress. He told me, in surprisingly crude language, to move on. I insisted that I had something of the utmost importance to discuss with Tryphosa. He slammed the door in my face.

I returned to Bitto’s house and stepped onto the balcony. Antipater continued to sleep soundly, though his snoring had ceased. I paced for a while, then leaned over the balustrade and looked down at the neighbors’ empty balcony. It occurred to me that, by traversing a couple of narrow ledges and taking a short leap at the end, it might be possible for a surefooted young man to climb from Bitto’s balcony to that of the neighbors—or else fall and break his neck.

There are things a man will do at the age of eighteen that he will balk at doing later in life, when he has more sense. This was one of those things.

More than once, poised on my toes, slowly shifting sideways and clinging to small declivities in the wall with my fingertips, I came very near to losing my balance and tumbling backward into empty space. At last I took the final leap and landed safely on the neighbors’ balcony.

The brush with danger only served to exhilarate me, so that I felt emboldened to take the next and potentially more dangerous step, to enter a house where I had no right to be. So far as I knew, Halicarnassian law would permit the occupants to kill a trespasser on the spot. But I was learning to follow my nature—to willingly take small risks when greater consequences were at stake. If what I suspected was true, the widows might be guilty of fraud, but not of murder, and I had no intention of allowing the hothead at Bitto’s party to destroy the lives of two women simply to impress a third.

Insofar as I had a plan, it was to encounter one or both of the widows, very quickly reassure them of my peaceful intentions (so as to forestall them from having me bludgeoned or hurled from the balcony), then inform them of the danger facing them, and only then to let them know that I suspected the truth. But I was learning that plans, however carefully or carelessly made, have a way of playing out in unexpected ways. Thus it was that the thing I thought would happen last happened first.

From the balcony I passed through a small but beautifully appointed dining room. Finding that room empty, I moved on to a short hallway, where I stepped into the first room I came to, which happened to be the dressing chamber of young Corinna. Because she happened to be naked when I entered—about to step into her undergarments, assisted by her mother—I knew at once that my suspicions were correct. Corinna was no one’s widow and no one’s daughter-in-law.

*   *   *

I never said a word to Antipater about what I had done, but I saw no way to avoid telling Bitto everything, since it was upon Bitto that I staked my hopes, and the hopes of her neighbors, to stop the hothead from taking action.

After dinner that night, Antipater retired to the library. Bitto could see I was bursting to share something with her. First I made her vow, before the statue of Aphrodite in her garden, to reveal to no one what I was about to tell her, then we withdrew to the balcony and sat under the stars.

First I told her what I had surmised—she raised her eyebrows but did not say a word—and then I explained how I had confirmed it, by trespassing.

“But how is it that you’re still alive?” said Bitto, when I told her of my encounter in Corinna’s dressing room. “The punishment Actaeon received when he saw Artemis naked is nothing compared to what I should do if a stranger suddenly appeared in my room while I was undressed!”

“The two of them were not pleased to see me,” I said, vastly understating the uproar of their initial reaction. “So I had to talk very fast—while dodging vases and other things they threw at me—to convince them that I was there to help them. It was actually a good thing that I came upon Corinna naked. If I had encountered her in her black mourning garb, and stated what I believed about her, she and her mother would almost certainly have denied it, and might have continued to deny it, no matter what I said. But since I had seen the truth with my own eyes, there was no use trying to convince me I was wrong. And when I made them see the threat posed by your hotheaded friend, and told them I wanted to stop him, they realized that I was their friend, not their enemy. They’ve built such a wall of secrecy around themselves, they’re not used to trusting anyone other than their slaves and each other. When Tryphosa finally decided to tell me everything, she wept with relief. I think she’s wanted desperately to share the truth with someone for a long time. So—can you do it, Bitto?”

“Do what?”

“What I promised them: throw your hotheaded friend off the scent, make him back off his pledge to lodge an accusation against them.”

Bitto dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. “It will be no problem. I’ll tell Straton that we’ve all been mistaken about the two widows, that I had a long talk with them to clear the air, and I now see that all those rumors of murder are completely unfounded.”