'Forfex?' I muttered, trying to place the name.

'The goatherd over on Mount Argentum. The slave of Gnaeus Claudius, the one who took us to see the old silver mine and hurt his head.'

"The one who took Catilina, you mean. We only went along as an afterthought.' I stared at the birthmark. 'No, I don't remember seeing this mark on the back of his hand.'.

'But I do! I noticed it that day. I remember thinking it looked like a spot of blood, as if he'd pricked himself. When I saw it yesterday I couldn't place the memory, but this morning I woke up remembering. I thought you surely would have noticed, too. You notice everything, Papa.'

'Forfex!' I remembered the slave's wheedling manner and the panic that had driven him from the mine, the blood streaming from his head and his master's displeasure. I shook my head doubtfully. 'Is there anything else to identify him?' I studied the body. It was roughly of the same age as Forfex, and roughly the same size, and of the right colouration. The dead flesh before us was so horribly different from the living slave who had taken us up the mountain that I could hardly reconcile the transformation, though the same might be said of any man and the corpse he becomes.

'And the marks on his back, Papa! Do you remember how Gnaeus Claudius began to beat him as we were departing? He's the type of master who would beat his slaves often, don't you think? So it's no surprise to see all those scars on Forfex's back.'

'Yes, I remember the beating. But not the birthmark…'

'Well, what does it matter, so long as one of us remembers it? The important thing is that now we know who he was, and where his body came from. It's Forfex, and somehow he came here from Gnaeus Claudius's estate.'

'If we could only be sure of that…'

'But we can be! How could two different men have exactly the same birthmark? It must be Forfex, don't you see?' He smiled at me expectandy, then frowned when he saw the lingering doubt on my face. 'You don't believe me, do you, Papa?'

'No, it's not that…'

'You don't trust my memory. You doubt my judgment.' 'If you truly remembered me birthmark, why did you not recall it last night?'

'Because last night was—' He sought for the words and could not find them 'Because I didn't, that's all! But I do now.'

'Meto, memory changes over time and can't always be trusted—' 'Oh, Papa, you always have a saying for everything.' He was quite angry. 'If it were Eco telling you this instead of me, you'd believe him in an instant! You wouldn't doubt him at all'

I took a deep breath. ‘Perhaps.' Because Eco is Eco, and you are you, I wanted to say.

'You're jealous!' said Meto. 'What?’

'Yes, because you don't remember it yourself. You never noticed the birthmark at all, you weren't observant enough, but I was. Or else you noticed and then you forgot, but I noticed and I remembered! For once my eyes and my memory are sharper than yours, and you won't admit it!'

This accusation struck me as quite absurd. It only offered more proof, if any were needed, that Meto was still more a boy than a man. Even so, I felt a slight prickle of unease. What can be worse, for a man of my age, than to begin to doubt his own judgment?

It was possible, of course, that Meto was right — that he had seen the birthmark on Foxfex's hand, had forgotten it until this morning, and now had proof of the slave's identity. If that was so, then I would be obliged to demand an explanation from Gnaeus Claudius. But what if Meto was mistaken? What if he had seized upon a false memory and now clung to it out of pride? How far could I press my complaint against Gnaeus based on Meto's memory, which I myself mistrusted?

And if it was Forfex — what then? Had Gnaeus Claudius been responsible for putting Nemo in my stable, as well? Who among the slaves had helped him? Was his motive merely to harass me, to drive me from the farm? What of the link with Catilina's riddle — could it be mere coincidence? Or was the more inexplicable coincidence that fact that Catilina and Forfex had known and dealt with each other? Even if the body belonged to Forfex, the link might run not to his master but to Catilina — or by extension to Marcus Caelius — or to Cicero…

I found my thoughts racing in the same rutted circles they had worn since we discovered Nemo. Had I always been so helpless at thinking things through, and was Meto right to imply that I had become dull and careless? I was not a young man any longer, and while there are those whose minds grow sharper with age, there are plenty of people for whom the opposite is true.

I realized I had been staring intently for several moments at the purple mark on the corpse's hand. I looked up to see that Meto was watching me, his arms tightly crossed, his eyes narrowed, his foot tapping the ground, waiting for me to respond.

'For now,' I said quietly, 'we shall assume that Ignotus is Forfex. If

Gnaeus Claudius is responsible, we may expect that he will disclaim responsibility, so first we should attempt to get the truth from his slaves, if we can.'

I had not realized how tense Meto had been until he loosened his shoulders and stopped clutching his arms. I thought he might smile at his little triumph, but instead he looked closer to tears. 'You'll see, Papa,' he said in a very earnest voice. 'You'll see that I'm right and I do remember.'

'I hope so,'I said, but I still doubted.

XXV

"We could confront him directly,' suggested Meto, as he climbed onto his horse.

'Not before we try getting the truth from his slaves,' I said, gripping the reins and calming my mount.

'But how shall we avoid him? There's only the one road that leads from the Cassian Way onto his property. If Gnaeus is there, he may see us ride up, or else one of the slaves may run and inform him. He didn't seem like the sort of master whose slaves would let strangers onto the estate without telling him.'

'No? Forfex allowed Catilina and us to climb all over the mountain.'

'Yes, and now you see what's happened to Forfex.'

If indeed the corpse is Forfex, I thought. We rode away from the stable on the long, straight road to the highway. 'As for our approach,' I said, 'I have an idea. We won't take the main road that leads to the house of the goatherds and Gnaeus's villa.'

'What then? The rocky hills alongside the Cassian Way are too steep and rough to take our horses, and hard going on foot'

'But there's another way. Do you remember when we were on the hillside watching Catilina and Tongilius?'

'And Claudia came up and joined us?'

'Yes. Catalina knew from Forfex that another path, long disused and hidden from sight beneath the trees, cuts from the Cassian Way and winds up the mountainside. He must have found it, for after a bit of searching he disappeared and then reappeared high up on the hill. I think I remember where he disappeared among the rocks and trees.

I think we can find the path he took. We can avoid Gnaeus's house altogether and go hunting for a lonely goatherd among the rocks and brambles.'

We came to the Cassian Way and turned not left, which would have taken us to the main gate to Gnaeus's land, but right, towards Rome. We passed the ridge on our right, and I felt curiously vulnerable, knowing how visible we were to anyone up on the hill where I so often sat and gazed over the landscape. But no one would be there to see us, of course, except possibly Claudia, and Claudia would know what had transpired quickly enough if I discovered that Gnaeus had put Ignotus down my well.

There was no traffic at all on the Cassian Way. At the high point of the saddle where the road passed between the foot of the mountain and the foot of the ridge, I paused and looked around. Before us I saw nothing but the long ribbon of road disappearing towards the south. Behind us there was a smudge on the horizon that might have been a team of slaves or cattle being driven towards Rome, but it was too far away to worry about. We moved on. The ridge fell away on our right, but low hills still hid our view of Claudia's farm. On our left the land rose sharply. High trees and tumbled rocks obscured any view of the steep mountainside looming above.