He shrugged. 'Papa, I am your son. Aren't you glad I've come? Isn't it what you wanted?'

'Yes. Yes, I'm glad you're here. I do need someone to talk to.' I sat down on the stump and picked up the wineskin.

Eco tossed his hat onto the ground and sat beside me. 'Interesting,' he said, slipping the palm of his hand beneath his buttocks. 'This stump is rather warm, despite the fact that it's in the shade. Was someone else sitting here before me?'

I shook my head and sighed. 'Oh, for better or worse, you are the Finder's son!'

'No wonder I found you wearing such a long face,' said Eco. He sat with his bare feet in the grass, warming his legs in the late afternoon sun. While we talked, the sunlight and shadows had shifted around us. I had told him everything I could think of that had happened in the last month, and several things I had forgotten, thanks to his persistent questioning. Between us on the grass the wineskin lay flattened and empty. At the foot of the hill the horses were tethered to a rock, and Belbo dozed against a tree trunk.

'So you assume that it was Marcus Caelius who put the headless body in the stable, as a message?' Eco said, gazing thoughtfully down at the farmhouse.

'Who else?’

'Perhaps someone on the other side,' he suggested. 'Which other side? That's the problem'

"Then you don't believe that Caelius truly represents Cicero?'

'Who knows? When I told him I would require assurances from Cicero himself, he flatly refused, though not without giving me reasons. He wants no link between Cicero and myself.'

'We can find a way around that,' said Eco. 'You needn't do it yourself. I can get a message to Cicero so that no one will know, and convey it here to you.'

'And then what? Let us suppose that Cicero assures us that Caelius is indeed his spy in Catilina's camp — even so, can Cicero see into the young man's heart? Caelius claims to be merely posing as Catilina's ally while secretly working on Cicero's behalf But what if his treachery doubles back on itself? What if he truly is Catilina's man? Then, if I go along with what he requests, I still have no way of knowing whose interests I'm ultimately being forced to serve. Oh, it's like being thrown into a snake pit — some are more poisonous than others, but all have a bite. What a choice, choosing which snake to let bite you! And just when I thought I had climbed out of the pit for good.. '

'But the body,' Eco said, pressing on. 'You're sure it was a message, then, from one side or the other?'

'That much seems clear. Catilina's riddle — a head without a body or a headless body, so Caelius said, and if I would submit to his wishes I was to send a message: "The body without a head." I hesitated — and then the very thing appears in my stable! That was only five days after Caelius returned to Rome. Not much time before he began to strong-arm me, was it?'

'Unless, as you say, the message came from a different quarter.'

'But the message means the same thing, no matter which side sent it. I am to do as I was told, to welcome Catilina into my house. I postponed giving an answer, and in return I was intimidated, my daughter frightened, my household turned upside down.'

'You think it was Catilina who did this?'

'I can't believe that Cicero would stoop to such a tactic.'

'Caelius might have done it without Cicero's knowledge.'

'What does it matter who did it? Someone has gone to considerable lengths to show me that I'm at his mercy.'

'So you acquiesced and had me send your reply to Caelius.'

'I saw no choice. I sent it through you because I knew I could trust you, and because an indirect approach seemed wise — and yes, perhaps because in my heart I wanted you to come so that I could confide in you. I didn't count on my message to Caelius being delayed on account of your absence from Rome. Strange, that there have been no further repercussions. Barely five days passed after Caelius's visit before the body appeared. Now twice that much time has passed; you sent my message on to Caelius only yesterday, and yet there has been no further incident in the interval.'

'The consular election approaches. The politicians and their cohorts are in a mad rush, canvassing the voters. Perhaps they've just forgotten you for the moment.'

'If only they'd forget about me for good!'

'Or else…'

‘Yes, Eco?'

'Perhaps the message — the body — came from another quarter altogether.'

I nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I've considered that. From the Claudii, you mean.'

'From what you say, they're already conspiring against you, and they have no scruples. What was it that Gnaeus Claudius said about assassins?'

‘Something about hiring men from Rome to come and 'leave a bit of blood on the ground", or so it was reported to me. But like most hotheaded young men, he's more talk than action, I imagine.'

'And if he's not? He sounds like just the sort who'd leave a corpse in the stable to frighten you.'

'But why a headless corpse? No, the coincidence would be too great. And if he wanted to murder someone to make his point, why Nemo, whom I can't even identify? Why not one of my slaves, or even me? No, I've considered the possibility that one or more of the Claudii might be behind the incident, but there's simply no evidence.'

Eco was thoughtful for a moment, 'You questioned your slaves?'

'Indirectly. I don't want them to know about Nemo if I can help it. Disastrous for discipline.'

'Why are you so discreet? Most men wouldn't care if the slaves knew. Most men would have every slave on the farm tortured until the truth came out,'

'Then perhaps most men could afford to replace a whole farm of slaves; I can't. Besides, terror is not my way to the truth. You know that. I asked what I needed to ask. Not one of them had seen or heard anything that I could connect with the body's appearance.'

'How could that be? To put the body in the stable without anyone seeing, one would have to know when and where the slaves would be sleeping or working, and to know that would in itself require some collusion on the part of one of your slaves, or so I should think. Have you been betrayed?'

I shrugged. 'I've told you about my quarrels with Aratus.'

Eco shook his head. 'You've sat through more trials than I have, Papa. Imagine Cicero making shreds of your suspicions of Aratus. They're groundless. You simply don't like him.'

'I don't accuse him,' I said. 'I accuse none of the slaves. Roman slaves do not turn on their masters, not since Spartacus was put down.'

We sat in silence for a while and passed the wineskin between us. Eco finally hardened his jaw and pulled his eyebrows together, a gesture which I knew presaged a decision.

'I don't like it, Papa. I think you should leave the farm and come to the city. You're in danger here.'

'Ha! Leave the countryside and go to Rome for safety's sake? Would you advise a swimmer to leave the backwater for the rapids?'

'There can be dangerous undercurrents in the backwater.'

'And sharp rocks hidden in the rapids. And eddies that suck you down into darkness and whirl you around and around.'

'I'm serious, Papa.'

I looked down at the farm. The sun was sinking rapidly, casting an orange haze across the fields. The slaves were driving the goats into their pen. Diana and Meto emerged from the deep green shadows of the trees along the stream bank, heading towards the house. 'But summer is a busy time on the farm. I have plans to build a water mill—'

'Aratus can run the farm, Papa. Isn't that what he's for? Oh, I know you dislike him, but nothing you've told me has given you any true cause to distrust him. Bring Bethesda and the children to the city. Stay with me.'

'In the house on the Esquiline? Hardly big enough for all of us.' 'There's plenty of room.'