'Or very sure of his success,' I said.

'Or both,' said Meto gravely.

XXI

After the Senate dispersed, the space in front of the Senate House became almost impassable as the various senators' retinues regrouped around their leaders. I had no desire to press into the throng to make our way through the Forum. Instead we retreated into the maze of narrow, winding side streets just north of the Forum until we emerged at the place where we had left the women.

No excuses for the length of our absence were needed, for Bethesda herself had just returned from shopping at the various markets all around the Forum. For Diana she had purchased a clay doll with eyes of green glass, for Menenia a blue and yellow scarf, and for herself a small ivory comb. I groaned inwardly at these small extravagances, thinking of all the hay that had been lost to rust and wondering how I would manage the finances of the farm through the winter. But how could I deny Bethesda the pleasure of an afternoon of shopping when she had been away from such opportunities for so long?

The litters carried us back to the house on the Esquiline, where Eco dismissed the bearers. Our dinner that night was eaten in formal courses, on couches gathered in the dining room beside the garden. Only the family was there. The women wore their stolas, and we men kept on our togas. Meto was given the place of honour. He had never reclined upon a couch and eaten a meal in formal dress, but he managed with hardly any awkwardness and did not spill a drop of wine on his toga.

The conversation was chiefly of family matters — Menenia's and Eco's refurbishment of.the house, how things were faring on the farm, Eco's relations with his in-laws. There was some discussion of the augury that afternoon, which we all agreed was uncommonly auspicious — all except Bethesda, who has always professed to find Roman religion simplistic compared to her own Egyptian sensibilities. Graciously, she did not criticize the ceremony; her only comment on the appearance of the eagle at the Auguraculum was to ask if it had any human features. Menenia, equally gracious, hid her smile behind a papyrus fan.

There was no talk of Cicero or Catilina, no mention of elections or of bodies without heads. For this I was glad.

After the rest of the household went to bed, I was wakeful and restless and went to the garden instead. The yellow canopy had been removed and the garden was filled with bright moonlight. I listened to the soft splashing of the fountain and studied the broken moon and wavering stars reflected in the black water. The moonlight turned the hard paving stones to shimmering silver and seemed to cover the flowers with a soft coating of grey ash.

How many nights had I found peace and escape from the cares of the city in this garden? In a way I felt as far from the turmoil of the Forum in this place as I did at the farm in Etruria; in some ways I felt even safer and more removed. I sat on a stone bench beside the fountain and leaned against a pillar. I gazed up at the moon and the dome of stars all around it.

I heard the sound of bare feet from the portico, so familiar that I did not have to look. 'Meto,' I said quietly.

'Papa.' He stepped into the garden. His toga had been put away, and he wore only a loincloth about his hips. He stepped nearer and I indicated that he should sit beside me, but instead he sat on a bench a few feet away, facing me.

'Can't you sleep, Meto? Or is it too hot?'

'No, it's not the heat.' The angle of the moonlight obscured his face, casting his eyes in shadow, glancing off his nose and making his cheeks and lips look as if they were carved from marble.

'The excitement of the day, then,' I suggested.

He was silent for a long moment 'Papa, I'm a man now.'

'I know, Meto.'

'I'm not a boy any longer.'

'Yes, Meto, I know.'

'Then why do you still treat me like a boy?' 'Because — what do you mean?'

‘You hide things from me. You talk behind my back. You tell Eco everything; you share everything with him.' 'Because Eco is…'

'Because Eco is a man, and I am a boy.'

'No, Meto, it's not that.'

'Because Eco was born free and I wasn't.'

'Not that, either,' I said, wearily shaking my head.

‘But I am a man, Papa. The law says so, and so do the gods. Why don't you believe it?'

I looked at his smooth, unblemished cheeks, the colour of white roses in the moonlight, which the barber had shaved for the first time that day. I looked at his slender arms and narrow chest, as smooth and hairless as a girl's. But his arms were not really as slender as I had thought; in a year's time the work of the farm had put some muscle into them. Nor was his chest any longer the flat, narrow chest of a child; it had begun to broaden and take shape. The moonlight clearly etched the square prominence of his pectorals and the ridges of his belly. His legs were still long for his body, but they were not spindly; his calves and thighs were hard with muscle.

When had this happened? It was as if I gazed at a stranger beneath the moonlight, or as if the moon itself had transformed him in that moment before my eyes.

'You treat me like a child, Papa. You know this is true. This whole matter of not wanting me to go inside the Senate House—'

"That had nothing to do with you, Meto. It was my own aversion.'

'But what about the body we found in the stables? You treated me the same way you treated Diana.'

'I did not. I sent her away, but to you I showed what one could learn from observing the corpse — although, as I remember, you were almost too squeamish to look.'

'But I did look! And I'm not talking about letting me study the body with you. I'm talking about afterwards, when you began to brood over it. You never confided in me. You sent for Eco to come all the way from Rome so that you could share your thoughts with him.'

‘I didn't send for Eco.'

"That's not what he says.'

'Oh, I see, the two of you have been talking behind my back.' 'Confiding in each other, Papa, as brothers should. And as I wish you would confide in me. Because I am a man now.

Because you need me, to help protect you and Mother and Diana—'

'Protect me!’ The image of the little boy I met in Baiae protecting me from some hulking assassin was so absurd that I shook my head. It was my duty to protect him, as I always had. Of course, he was not really so little any more. But I was still stronger than he was, at least I thought so, though he might be faster, and his stamina might be greater than mine.

'Your body has changed, Meto, that's true, but in other ways—'

'In other ways I'm still a child. I know that's what you think, but where is your evidence?' These words rang strangely in my ears. Where had he picked them up? 'It's just not true, Papa. You don't know what sort of things I think about when I'm alone. I worry, too, about the body we found, and Catilina coming to our house, and the terrible things happening in Rome. I saw Marcus Caelius talking to you at the party today. I saw the look on your face. What were you talking about? What did he want? Why don't you tell me, so that I can help? You'll tell Eco, won't you?'

'Oh, Meto, how can I ask for your help when I don't know myself what needs to be done?'

'But that's just it, Papa Perhaps ‘ might think of something.'

He lifted his face into the moonlight-and in that moment he no longer looked transformed at all. He was a mere child again, gangly and awkward, earnest and innocent and eager to please. I could barely resist an urge to reach out and tousle his hair. How could I treat him as something he was not?

'Papa, I ask for your respect. Whatever danger faces us, I want to know about it. I want to do my part. I want to be included. I have the right to expect that, now that I'm a man. Can't you understand?'