'At this point even that would hardly surprise me. The whole business stinks. Give me a good, honest murder any day.'

'It's the times we live in, Papa.'

'Speaking of time, how imminent is this crisis?'

'Hard to say. Like a pot on a flame, it simmers. Catilina is cautious. Cicero bides his time, waiting for his enemies to make some slip that will give him irrefutable evidence against them. In the meantime, Marcus Caelius says you've agreed to do as you did before, letting Catilina stay here if he wishes.'

'I never agreed to that.'

'You refused Cicero when he came to you in the city?' 'In so many words,' I said.

'To Cicero anything but an outright "no" means "yes", and even "no" means "maybe". He must have misunderstood. Caelius seems certain that you agreed to continue as before. Papa, do what Cicero asks of you. Catilina may not return. Or he may, and when he does you need only give him shelter. It's such a simple request. It doesn't even require you to take sides. I've cast my lot with Cicero, Papa, and you should do the same, if only by your passive assistance. In the end it will be for the good of everyone you care about.'

'I'm surprised at you, Eco, advising me to put everyone on this farm in danger because it will somehow make them safer in the long run.'

"The course of the future is already set. You said it yourself) Papa: you can't completely avoid danger, any more than you can give up your search for the truth.'

'What about my search for justice? Where does that stand in the midst of all this confusion? How will I know it, even if I find it?'

To this he had no answer, or at least no opportunity to give one, for at the moment a strangely garbed visitor strode over the crest of the hill behind us. We both looked around and drew back in surprise. 'What in the name of Hercules!' I said, while Eco threw back his head and laughed.

Diana marched down the grassy slope with as pompous a gait as Cicero had ever affected, her chin held high. Her haughtiness was compromised by a few awkward missteps; the sandals she wore were much too big for her tiny feet. Wrapped around her and dragging on the grass behind was a thin coverlet from her bed, tucked and folded in imitation of a toga.

'It's my birthday!' she announced. 'Now it's my turn to put on a toga and take a walk.'

'Your birthday is not until tomorrow,' I said. 'As for a toga — well, you're nowhere near sixteen. Besides that—'

I was saved from delivering a lesson on the hard facts of male and female by the appearance of Meto above the crest of the hill, who bore down on his sister, glowering. 'My sandals, you little harpy!' he snapped. He grabbed her by the shoulders, lifted her out of the sandals, and set her down again. He didn't shove or pinch her, but his grip was not gentle. As her bare feet struck the grass, Diana started to cry.

Meto paid her no attention as he slipped the sandals onto his feet. Then he shot me a dark look, turned around, and disappeared over the crest of the hill.

The makeshift toga came apart and fell to the ground. Diana, dressed in her tunic, clenched her little fists and cried, striking such a shrill pitch that I put my fingers in my ears. Eco scrambled to his feet and ran to comfort her.

Where was justice, indeed?

XXIX

It had perhaps been a mistake to exclude Meto from my conversation with Eco; on the other hand, his childish behaviour with Diana seemed to contradict his own insistence that he was as grown-up as his brother. I brooded over this for the rest of the day, while Meto brooded over being slighted. Eco brooded over the appearance of Forfex, and his father's stubbornness; Menenia brooded over her husband's disquiet. Bethesda brooded over the general atmosphere of unhappiness on the farm. Ironically, once she stopped crying, Diana recovered her good humour at once. The general uneasiness seemed to confuse her, but it did not quench her spirits.

Diana'sbirthday passed without any outward unpleasantness. Congrio once again outdid himself. If our spirits were ill at ease, our bellies had no cause for complaint. Menenia had gone shopping in the markets at Rome, and Diana was showered with little gifts — a blue ribbon for her hair, a wooden comb, a blue and yellow scarf like the one Menenia had bought for herself on Meto's toga day, which Diana had coveted. As if to shut away our anxieties, we concentrated all our attention on Diana, who accepted this outpouring of affection as if it were no less than her due for the accomplishment of turning seven years old.

Eco returned to Rome the next day.

The few remaining days of the month of Sextilis passed quickly. In the blinking of an eye we were well into September. It was a busy time on the farm, with much tending to crops and preparations for the harvest. The long days afforded time to deal with the endless repairs and improvements that had accumulated in the winter and been put off through the busy spring and summer. Every day there was more work than could be accomplished before sundown. No longer did I while away my days on the ridgetop or in my library; instead I plunged wholeheartedly into the operation of the farm. Rather than feeling burdened by this ongoing labour, I felt liberated by it. Confronted by the mysteries of Nemo and Forfex and unable to resolve them, uneasy over Eco's involvement in the plots and counterplots afoot in Rome and yet unable to affect his fortunes, I found escape in the simple, physical exhaustion of working myself to the limit each day and falling into a dreamless sleep at night. The slaves seemed uncertain of what to think of a master who drove himself so hard; I can scarcely imagine that Lucius Claudius ever did so much as pick a single olive from a tree. By sheer energy I believe I finally began to earn Aratus's grudging respect, and by working beside him day by day, seeing how he handled the daily crises and the slaves in his charge, I finally began to trust both his judgment and his loyalty.

I tried to delegate as much responsibility as I could to Meto, thinking to assuage his complaints of being slighted, but whatever tasks I gave him ended up half-done. He was growing bored with the farm, I feared, or else had decided to shirk any task his father might give him, simply out of spite. The more I tried to include him in the running of the place, the more the rift between us seemed to widen. He became increasingly inscrutable to me.

My relations with Bethesda, however, entered a delightfully mellow phase. She has always loved hot weather, for it reminds her of her youth in Alexandria, and as the long summer wore on into September she became more and more her essential, sensual self. She took to leaving out the pins and combs from her hair and wearing it down, in long tresses that cascaded over her shoulders and down her back. There was more silver amid the black than there had been in past summers, but to me these silver strands were like the rippling face of the moon reflected in black water. My own newfound physicality seemed to please her; she liked the smell of sweat on my body, and the hardness of my arms after a day of strenuous work. Often, when I went to bed thinking I was completely exhausted, she would prove to me that there was indeed a measure of strength left in my body. She would summon it up and take it from me, leaving me limp and covered with a fresh sheen of sweat, drained of all anxiety and empty of every appetite, motionless, thoughtless, utterly at the mercy of Morpheus.

The stream continued to dwindle, and the water from the well remained impure, but Aratus expressed the opinion that we would last until the rains came in the autumn; as head of the household I was advised to pray to the gods to avert a dry autumn. As for the shortage of hay, which would loom large in the coming winter, I asked Claudia if I could purchase a quantity from her; unfortunately, she said, she had none to spare. To ask any of the other Claudii for help was, of course, out of the question. Other farmers in the region were not yet ready to sell their own private stocks, uncertain whether they had a surplus or not and preferring to wait until it was truly needed, when they could get a better price for it. I would have to solve the hay shortage when the time came; hopefully I would have the money on hand to buy what I needed, rather than see my livestock perish or face premature slaughter.