'And if I do, will you admit to this act?'

'No, but at least I might believe you when you say that it was Forfex you found in your well.'

'But how can I do that, when you yourself took steps to see that I couldn't prove the slave's identity by showing his face?'

'What do you mean? I may have crushed his skull, but he could still be recognized. You must have recognized him yourself since you say you knew him by sight.'

'I never said that.'

"Then how do you know it was Forfex?' he shouted, infuriated. 'I have my ways.'

'What do you mean? Have you been trespassing on my land again, talking to my slaves, putting lies in their ears?' He squinted, so fiercely that I could not see his eyes. 'How did you know that I killed Forfex? Who told you? Who dared?'

'I also know about the other body,' I said, partly to change the subject, partly to see his reaction. At the same time I glanced at Aratus, whose face remained impassive. I had not caught a single look exchanged between him and Gnaeus; if they shared some secret, or even knew each other by sight, their eyes and faces did not betray it.

^‘What other body?' cried Gnaeus.

'You proclaim your ignorance too quickly, Gnaeus Claudius — the sure sign of a guilty man. You know what I'm talking about. Furthermore, I have strong proof against you for that offence as well, and you shall regret your impudence.'

Gnaeus cocked his head and made a face. He spat on the ground and waved both hands at me. 'You're mad, utterly mad. You make no sense at all, and now you've begun to threaten me in front of my own home. Get out, now! Get out or I'll call the dogs on you. They can seize a man by the leg and pull him off his horse in an instant, and tear the throat out of his neck in the blink of an eye. If you don't believe me, just give me an excuse to prove it! And there's no law to keep me from doing it as long as you're on my land, as you well know. Now get out!'

I looked at him steadily for a moment, then reined my horse and turned around. 'But Papa—' Meto protested.

'Our business is done, Meto,' I said under my breath. 'And I think he means his threat about the dogs. Come!'

Reluctantly, and not before he cast a glowering look back at Gnaeus, Meto turned his horse around. Aratus and the other slaves had already done so at my signal. I set the pace, riding at a gallop across the little bridge, down the trail past the goatherds' house and through the rockstrewn woods. The dappled sunlight felt good on my face, but my spirits did not truly lift until we emerged into the full sunlight again, not far from the Cassian Way.

Meto rode up beside me. 'But, Papa, we left before Gnaeus Claudius admitted his guilt!'

'We would be a long time waiting for him to admit something he didn't do.'

'I don't understand.'

'You saw the man with your own eyes, Meto, and heard him speak with your own ears. Do you believe he knows anything about the body in the well?'

'He admitted to killing Forfex!'

'Without hesitation, which makes his protestations of ignorance all the more convincing. I believe him when he says he knows nothing about the body in the well. He killed Forfex and ordered his slaves to dispose of the body, and that is the last he knew of the matter. You noticed, I suppose, that I never mentioned that the body had no head, though I alluded to it.. He showed no comprehension at all, and assumed that we recognized Forfex by his face, not by his birthmark.'

'But he could have been lying.'

'The man is not much of an actor. He shows everything on the surface. I know his type. He was raised to have all the pomposity and pride of a patrician without any of the polish of his class. He threatens and bullies other men with impunity, because he thinks it's his birthright. Not a devious or even deceitful type; he has no use for lying, because he's never ashamed of anything he does, no matter how outrageous. He says whatever he wants because he always expects to get his way, and he probably does.'

'He didn't get his way about keeping you from having the farm.'

'True, but if he was serious about attacking us, I think he would do so in a less underhanded manner. And if he was involved in these outrages, I think he would admit his part when we accused him, don't you? He would boast about it. He's a crude man; he has no subtlety at all — you've seen the way he handles his slaves and his dogs. Whoever gave us Nemo and Forfex has a shrewd mind, almost playful, however wicked. That hardly describes Gnaeus Claudius.'

'I suppose not. But just before we left, you accused him outright of being responsible for Nemo, too. You said you could tell he was lying. You said you had proof!'

'A final bluff, a last effort to convince myself that he knows nothing at all about either of the bodies appearing on the farm. No, Gnaeus is not our tormentor. He killed Forfex, true, and for that I pray that Nemesis will punish him. Forfex somehow came to be in our well, with his head missing -1 give you credit for remembering the birthmark when I did not, and I confess to doubting you wrongly. But between the crude interment of Forfex's body and its decapitation and appearance in the well, someone else had a hand.'

'But who, Papa?'

'I don't know. Without some further crisis, we may never know.'

I could see by the look on his face that this was not good enough for Meto. Nor was it satisfactory for me, but the years had given me more patience. 'I still say we should bring charges against him,' said Meto.

'It's not worth bothering Volumenus. You've seen how long it's taking him to get a judgment on our water dispute with Publius Claudius. What is the point of bringing a suit where we have no evidence at all?'

'But we do have evidence!'

'A headless corpse with a birthmark? The testimony of a goatherd who could never be compelled to testify against his master? The complete denial of the charge by Gnaeus Claudius? The testimony of an old, senile farm slave who thinks he might have heard a splash and might have glimpsed a shadow one night when he got up to pass water? No, Meto, we have no evidence at all Granted, we might be able to bribe a jury, which is one way of winning a lawsuit in Rome when you have no case, but my heart would not be in it. I don't believe that Gnaeus Claudius was responsible.'

'But, Papa, someone must have done it. We have to find out who!'

'Patience, Meto,' I counselled wearily, and wondered if I should counsel resignation also, knowing all too well that many mysteries are never resolved. Men go on living anyway, in ignorance and fear, and though they may call their state of puzzlement intolerable, they seem able to tolerate it nonetheless, as long as their hearts keep beating.

Aratus gave me counsel on the purification of the well. Hardly a priest, he seemed nonetheless to take a practical view of the matter, and he had seen others purify wells polluted by rodents and rabbits, if not dead slaves. He thought it significant that Forfex had been properly buried, at least for a slave, before his remains were disturbed. This meant there was a good chance that Forfex's lemur had been put to rest before he was disinterred. If so, the lemur might have clung to the more familiar site of the waterfall on the mountainside, rather than follow the desecrated and beheaded corpse onto unknown soil. The arguments seemed to ring true with the slaves, who accordingly relinquished their newfound terror of the well. Whether Aratus himself believed the arguments he put forth I did not know, but I was grateful for their pragmatic effect and for his politic handling of the situation.

There remained the literal pollution of the well, for while a lemur might or might not have been involved, there was no doubt that a bloated corpse had been in contact with the water and had tainted it. A man or beast could grow sick and even die from dnnking such water. Aratus believed that the well would replenish and purify itself, given time, and meanwhile recommended that we drop heated stones into the well, to make the water boil and steam. This seemed to me like cauterizing a wound with a hot iron and made no sense in connection with a well, but I reluctantly took his advice. In the meantime, we had some water that had been stored in urns, and the stream was not completely dry. Still, there were dry days ahead.