Meto shuddered. He stared raptly at the dancing flame of the lamp. 'And then I was no longer in the field. I was back in Baiae. Not in the villa but in the arena that Crassus built especially to put his slaves to death. It was like being in a well, hemmed in by high walls all around with the sun beating on us. The sand was dick with blood. The mob leaned over the rail and jeered down at us. Their races were hideous, all twisted with hate — and then the crows again! Thousands of crows, so many that the sky was black with them. They swarmed over everything. They beat their wings in my face and pecked at my eyes, and I tried to scare them away but I couldn't even lift my hands — oh, Papa!'

I poured more water. Meto put the cup to his lips and drank greedily.

'It was only a dream, Meto’ 'But so real—'

'You're in Rome, not Sicily, not Baiae. You're in our house, surrounded by your family—'

'Oh, Papa, do I really have a family?' 'Of course you do!'

'No. This is the dream This is what can't be real. I was born a slave, and that never changes.'

'That's a lie, Meto. You are my son, just as surely as if you had my blood in your veins. You're free, just as free as if you had been born a Roman. Tomorrow you become a man, and after tomorrow you must never look back. Do you understand me?'

'But in my dream, Crassus, and the farmer in Sicily—'

'Those men owned you once, but that was long ago. They have no power over you now, and never will again.'

Meto stared blankly at the wall and bit his lip. A tear spilled down his cheek. A good, stem Roman father would have slapped the tear away, shaken him until his teeth rattled, and then made him go stand in the courtyard and keep watch all night, to face up to his fears and beat them down, and the more miserable the lesson the better. But I have never claimed to be a good father by Roman standards. I embraced him for a long moment, pressing him hard against me until I felt him shudder and relax. I squeezed him tightly, knowing it was the last time I could ever hug him like a boy.

I offered to leave him the lamp, but he said he did not need it. I stepped into the hallway and let the curtain drop, then walked restlessly about the courtyard. It was not long until I heard the quiet sound of his snoring — the dream as much as the long day had worn him out.

Diana was with Bethesda, and the bed was not large enough for all three of us, so I returned to the garden and reclined on one of the dining couches. I watched the constellations swirl slowly, slowly across the sky, until my lids grew too heavy to stay open and Morpheus caught me in his gentle snare.

XVI

The day of Meto's majority dawned bright and clear. In the garden I was up at daybreak, with the first blush of sunlight on my face and all around me the sounds of the early-rising slaves going about their chores.

It had been more than ten years since we had celebrated Eco's toga day. That had been the year before the trials of the Vestals and the outbreak of Spartacus's slave revolt. My purse had been leaner then, and the provisions had been quite humble. Eco's toga day had been a respectable affair, but not the sort of thing to make the neighbours gossip with envy. Perhaps it was for this reason that Eco seemed determined to make sure that his younger brother enjoyed a sixteenth birthday that he would not soon forget.

It was unthinkable that the event should take place anywhere but Rome, and since Eco's house was the logical place, he had offered early in the year to organize the details. That role in itself would have been a sufficient gift for Eco to give his brother, I thought. Eco had worked out the expenses and had asked me for a sum which I thought generous but reasonable. I discovered only later that he had more than matched the sum himself.

The day began with the erection of a yellow canopy over the garden. Slaves trotted about on the roofs of the porticos, hoisting the edges of the canopy and pulling the corners tight to fit them onto hooks. Below, more slaves began assembling tables and covering them with cloths and setting dining couches all about. Many of the couches were quite exquisite, with finely carved legs and plush pillows of many colours; the best of the couches (as well as the best of the serving slaves) Eco had borrowed from some of his well-heeled clients. From the kitchen came the clanging of pots and the bustling sounds of slaves hard at work.

Our morning meal, however, consisted humbly enough of fresh figs and bread. I watched Meto as he hungrily bit into his handful of bread, and saw no evidence of the doubt and dismay that had visited him the night before. He seemed rested, quietly excited, and only a little nervous. Good, I thought; let nothing spoil this day.

After eating, the family departed for the baths. Two women slaves came along to attend to Bethesda and Menenia. The slave whose dudes included grooming and barbering Eco would also be joining us. On this day Meto would receive his first shave.

We did not travel on foot, for Eco had rented a team of three litters and litter bearers for the day. They were waiting for us at the foot of the little trail leading down from the house to the Subura Way. Diana squealed with delight when she saw the broad-shouldered slaves and the long, elegant Utters. Bethesda tried to hide her surprise behind a cosmopolitan moue. Menenia smiled knowingly. Meto blushed and looked almost embarrassed at being offered such a luxury.

'Eco,' I said under my breath, 'this must have cost—'

'Papa, it's only for one day! Besides, it's a special rate. I arranged it over a month ago. At the time the owner thought, of course, that on this date the elections would just be over and the out-of-towners would have already gone back to the countryside, leaving no one to hire his Utters. I got them for next to nothing.'

'Still—’

'Climb in! Here, you can share this one with Diana. I'll ride with Meto, and the women can ride together. The slaves will follow behind on foot.'

And so I took a ride through the streets of Rome with Diana on my lap. I would be a liar if I said that it was anything less than an absolute delight. Even at that early hour traffic was beginning to thicken, but what did it matter that we had to pause at every street corner, when everything we passed held such fascination for Diana? The smell of baking bread delighted her as much as the scents that wafted from me perfume seller's shop; she clapped her hands and laughed at a group of bleary-eyed rustics emerging from a brothel, finding them quite as absurd and amusing as a team of half-naked acrobats who had decided to practise their handstands and cartwheels in a little square off the Subura Way. She bestowed a smile and a friendly wave on two grey-haired slave women who smiled but did not wave back, too burdened with their morning shopping, and then she did the same to a pair of gaunt, unshaven brutes whom I knew to be paid assassins; the two looked rather chagrined and waved weakly back. All things were equal in Diana's eyes; everyone and everything was equally fascinating. That, I thought, is what it means to be a child and why we long for childhood in our dreams; later on we are forced to choose and discriminate at every turn. Being a man and a citizen and a grown-up meant, for example, having to choose at times between the likes of Catilina and Cicero — and what fun was that, compared to Diana's simple delight in looking and laughing and accepting without question each moment of being alive?

After a while we veered off the Subura Way and took a series of smaller streets that skirted the foot of the Oppian Hill and eventually intersected with the Sacred Way. Here we turned right and shortly came to a halt just outside the Forum, at the steps leading up to the Senian Baths.