'You're mistaken, Gordianus. The enemy of Rome is not finished. Not yet.' In Cicero's eyes I saw a predatory gleam. 'What is more dangerous in the woods than a boar, Gordianus?'

'Please, not a riddle, like Catilina!'

'A wounded boar. Today Catilina was wounded, but he's far from finished. His resources are greater than you imagine. His "allies", as you call them, are more dangerous than you know. You're right, after today hell be cut off from the more legitimate sources of finance, but it's steel that he's counting on now, not silver.'

'Cicero, you must not ask me for another favour’ I said wearily. 'Why not? Do you not love the farm I secured for you?' 'Cicero, gratitude can go only so far.'

'I'm not talking about gratitude, Gordianus. I appeal not to your sense of obligation but of self-interest. If Catilina isn't stopped, you're exactly the sort of landowner who stands to suffer most.'

'Cicero—' I shook my head and held up my hand.

'And you love your family, don't you? Think of them, and their future.'

'That's precisely what I am thinking of!' I checked myself and lowered my voice. 'I'm tired of putting them in danger. And I'm very tired of being threatened and intimidated.'

"The threat comes from Catilina.'

'Does it?’

Cicero wrinkled his brow, finally perceiving that while he spoke in vague generalities, I was referring to something quite specific. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean the headless body that was left in my stable when I failed to respond to Caelius's demands quickly enough.'

'Ah, yes, the headless body. Caelius told me you said something about this to him yesterday, but he didn't know what you were talking about, and neither do I. It must have been something thought up by Catilina—'

'But if Catilina was responsible, and Caelius poses as his agent, then why didn't Caelius know about it?'.

‘Because, I suppose…' Cicero frowned.

'Or could it be that Caelius knows things that he doesn't tell you? In that case, how can you really trust him? And if you can't trust him, then neither can I!'

Cicero thought for a long moment before he answered. 'Gordianus, I understand your concern in this matter'—'

'Or perhaps it's Catilina who doesn't trust Caelius. Could that be it? Could it be that Caelius's pretence of loyalty has failed to fool Catilina, who knows that Caelius is your spy, not his? That would mean that Catilina knows that I'm your agent, as well. That puts my family in even graver danger.'

'Clearly, Gordianus, these are deep waters. But there is no way to stay afloat unless you kick! Do nothing and you'll sink — well aU sink! The state is a life raft. I am steering that raft. The rudder has been entrusted to me. Catilina will set fire to it if he isn't stopped, dooming us all. I must do whatever I can to keep it afloat. But I need your help. I am reaching out to pull you aboard, if only you'll give me your hand.'

'What a lovely metaphor. Such fluid rhetoric—'

'Gordianus! You try my patience!' I had angered him at last. I could impugn his courage and satirize his pompous demeanour and he remained aloof, but he would not stand for me to beHtde the mastery of his tongue. 'Whether you like it or not, whether or not you understand its importance, you must continue to do what I ask of you. Catilina is too vicious a threat for me to bow to your apathy.'

'Is he so vicious, really? Under my roof I sometimes thought he seemed more sentimental than seditious.'

'Gordianus, you cannot be so naive!' Suddenly his smile returned. 'Oh, I begin to see the problem. You like Catilina! But of course, we have all liked Catilina at one time or another, everyone has, and eventually, inevitably, to their regret. Ask the shade of his murdered brother-in-law, or the shade of his murdered son, or the miserable families of the young men and women he's corrupted. Before he destroys his victims, Catilina must always make sure that they like him.

'Oh, Gordianus, I know that you find your old friend Cicero a bit pompous and vain; you always have. You have a sharp, unforgiving eye for anything pretentious — that's one of your gifts — and I confess that in my success I have grown perhaps a bit too overbearing and self-important. You see through the veils of men's vanity. How can you not see through Catilina at once? Could it be that his conceit is so enormous, so monstrous, that you simply can't perceive it, the way that a man who looks at the sea cannot see a drop of water? Has he seduced you, Gordianus?'

'You're talking nonsense, Cicero. But at least your metaphors are consistent — you have me completely at sea.'

He paused and looked at me shrewdly. When he lowered his head that way, the thick fold of fat in his neck pressed up against his chin like a pillow, and his eyes seemed to recede into the puffiness of his cheeks. I thought of how he had looked when I first met him — thin, almost frail, with a neck that seemed barely sturdy enough to hold up his broad-browed head. His girth had grown with his ambition.

'Oh, I can imagine how he went to work on you, Gordianus. Catilina can see into other men's hearts. He senses their needs and desires, and he plays on that knowledge like a piper. Tell me if I hit the mark. He sees at once how to flatter you — he compliments your farm and family. He takes note of your unorthodox household, senses you have a soft spot for the disenfranchised and dispossessed, and so he tells you he is a man of the people, too, and wants to shake things up at Rome to give the wretched masses a better chance in life. He rails against the unfairness of the Optimates and their devious ways — never mind that Catilina would be an Optimate himself if he hadn't squandered his reputation along with his fortune and earned the disdain of every decent man in the Senate. Having insinuated himself into your personal life and warmed you with his politics, especially tailored to suit your own, he then confides some personal secret to you and you alone, letting you see that he trusts you implicitly, that you are very special to him.'

I thought of Catilina's confession regarding the Vestal Fabia and felt a prickle of discomfort.

'Catilina will tell you whatever you want to hear. Catilina will be your special confidant, Catilina will cast his spell over you with your eyes wide open, if you let him. I admit it: Catilina is channing. For years I thought so myself, until I saw through him.

'While I, alas, am utterly without charm. Don'tyou think I know this? You have shown your hostility to me very clearly tonight, Gordianus. You find me irritating and overbearing, and you wish I would simply go away. I annoy you. I have no charm, and I never have had; I was born without it and it cannot be counterfeited. That's precisely why I must rely on rhetoric and persuasion — clumsy tools next to the natural charm of a man like Catilina, who is halfway to winning an argument before he says a word, thanks to that handsome face and that endearing, irresistible, infuriating smile of his. Beside him I must seem very crude and shrill. But think, Gordianus! What is the value of charm if it hides the ugly truth? I speak that ugly truth and you wrinkle your nose. Catilina smiles and murmurs pretty lies and you find him intriguing. Gordianus, you know better!'

What can be worse, for a man of my age, than to begin to doubt his own judgment? Had Catilina cast a spell over me, made me dull and dreamy? Or was it Cicero who was practising his own wicked magic, using what he knew of Catilina and of me to find the exact words that would disconcert me and bend me to his will?

'Do my words make sense to you, Gordianus? Do you hear the urgency in my voice? Will you not continue to render the single favour I ask of you, to play host to Catilina when he desires it? Do this for the good of Rome. Do this for the sake of your children.'