'Somewhere close…' I murmured. We slowed our horses and together gazed into the underbrush. The tangle seemed impenetrable and undisturbed. We rode slowly on until I was certain that we had passed the place where Catilina and Tongilius had disappeared. The low hills on our right had fallen away, and I could see the slaves at work in Claudia's fields.

'We've gone too far,' said Meto.

'Yes. We'll double back.'

The view on our return was no different from before, and I began to think that we would have to give it up, or else go thrashing through the underbrush as Catilina had. Then I heard the clatter of hooves on paving stones and looked up to see a young deer on the road ahead. A swaying branch showed where it had emerged from the woods at the base of the ridge. It saw us and for a long moment stood as still as a statue, then bounded towards the mountainside. Off the road, its hooves made a crackling noise in the dry grass. It passed between some scattered young trees into a zone of dappled shadow and sunlight, then seemed trapped against a wall of dense brush. Nonetheless it disappeared into a narrow space between a great boulder and the thick trunk of an ancient oak. Had I blinked I would have thought it vanished in a beam of sunlight. It was a sign such as the poets speak of, a portent.

'Where the deer go,' I said quietly, 'there often is a trail.'

We rode to the boulder and dismounted. The passage was just wide enough for us to slip through and to pull our horses after us. A narrow, open space curved around the boulder and opened onto a small clearing behind it, completely hidden from the road. From this spot we were able to see traces of an old path that headed steeply up the lull.

'The boulder must have fallen at some time,' I said, 'loosened by rains or an earthquake, blocking the end of the path and hiding it completely from the Cassian Way. The path itself is strewn with rocks, suitable for deer perhaps, but not for horses. We shall have to tie the horses here and proceed on foot.'

The way was steep and rugged. Disused as a path, it had reverted to a runnel, and over the years the scouring water had left much debris and damage in its wake. In places the way was overgrown so that we had to stoop and bend and push branches out of the way. Here and there, small branches had recently been broken; someone else had been using the trail.

The path was steep at its beginning and then became absurdly steep. The rocks in the runnel were like steps carved for a Titan. Even Meto began to breathe hard and to sweat, though I could tell that he was holding back and could have been far ahead of me had he proceeded at his own pace. As it was, my heart was pounding and my feet had turned to lead by the time we came to the open space where I had first seen the path from its opposite end and Forfex had explained its existence. We were now on the road we had taken before with Catilina and Tongilius. To our left the narrow road would lead downwards back to Gnaeus's house and the house of the goatherds. To our right the footpath proceeded up the mountain, past the waterfall, and up to the mine.

My body protested the folly of taking another step uphill, but it was there that we would most likely find a wandering goatherd, preferably alone and off his guard.

It did not take long. As we approached the steep stone steps that led up to the head of the waterfall, amid the sound of rushing water I heard the bleating of a kid, and in counterpoint to it the voice of a goatherd calling in gentle tones. We stepped off the path, towards the sound of falling water. The splashing of the falls grew louder, but so did the bleating and the voice of the goatherd.

We stepped through a mass of hanging vines and leaves and found ourselves at the base of the waterfall, on the bank of a foaming green pool. The place was deeply shadowed by high trees and the cliff above. Scattered about in rocky crevices and caught in the tangles of great tree roots were the skulls and bones that we had previously seen from above. A shiver passed through me; the place was dank and cool, even on a hot summer day.

Only a few steps away we saw the goatherd. He was only a boy, younger than Meto, dressed in a ragged tunic and worn shoes barely held on his feet by scraps of leather. He had found the kid he was seeking. The animal was draped over his shoulders, its legs crossed over his chest and held tight in his fists. The sound of the waterfall had covered our quiet footsteps. When he saw us, the young slave gave a start and drew back, so suddenly that he almost lost his balance. For a moment he teetered on the edge of a rock and might have fallen into the pool if Meto had not stepped forward to grab his elbow.

The young goatherd recovered his balance and jerked free of Meto's grip. He drew back. The kid struggled and bleated. The slave tightened his grip on the beast's forelegs until his knuckles were as white as the animal's fleece. He stared from Meto's face to mine with fear in his eyes. 'Who are you?' he finally stammered. 'Are you alive or dead?'

A curious question, I thought, until I remembered that the pool with all its bones and skulls was haunted by the lemures of dead slaves. Forfex himself had told us so. 'We are very much alive,' I said, and meant it; surely lemures do not feel stiffness in their joints and soreness in their legs as living men do.

The slave looked at us from beneath drawn brows and kept his distance. 'I suppose your hand felt warm enough on my arm,' he said, glancing at Meto. 'But what are you doing here? Friends of the Master?'

'What are you doing here?' I countered.

"They made me come, because I'm the youngest. Somebody heard one of the kids bleating down here by the pool, so they made me come after it Sure enough, it had one of its hooves trapped between two rocks down by the water. Nobody likes to come down here, because of them' He looked about at the scattered bones.

'Who sent you?' I said. 'Was it Forfex?'

'Forfex?' He made the name into a stifled gasp.

'Yes, isn't Forfex chief among the goatherds?'

'Not anymore. Not after—' He looked at us with renewed suspicion. 'Does the Master know you're here?'

'Tell us what happened to Forfex,' I said, putting as much authority into my voice as I could. The slaves of Gnaeus Claudius were of the sort that responded to such a tone of voice — easily intimidated and unable to press their own questions, even against a trespasser. This said much about their master and the way he treated them.

'Forfex — the Master didn't mean to do it, not really. He gets around to beating all of us sooner or later, but he's never before — at least not with his own hands — or not since I've been here, and I've been here since I was a boy…'

'You're saying that Gnaeus Claudius killed Forfex, aren't you?' demanded Meto, glancing at me with a hint of a smile on his lips. He might have cause to feel vindicated, but his interruption was a mistake. He was neither old nor fearsome enough to make the young slave quail. The goatherd again drew back, unsure whether he was more afraid of answering or of not answering. The kid across his shoulders bleated pathetically.

'How did your master kill Forfex?' I asked sternly, stepping forward and pinning the goatherd with my gaze. He was only a boy, and a slave, and regularly abused by his master. He had no defence against a direct interrogation, even from a man who had no right to administer it, so long as I held him with my eyes and hardened my voice.

'His head — Forfex had already hurt his head not long ago…'

I remembered Forfex's striking his forehead against the rock in the mine — the blood streaming down his face, his visions of lemures, his pitiful moaning as we carried him down the mountainside. 'Yes, go on,' I said.

'After that he became a bit addled — slower than usual, not always making sense, with an ache in his head that came and went, sometimes so bad he woke up at night bleating like a kid.'