He fell silent and raised an eyebrow in mild surprise – at himself) I realized, for saying- more than he meant to.

"And what did Cicero make of your visit to Fulvia?" said Pompey, pressing on.

I cleared my throat. "He was curious – like yourself Great One."

"He wasn't somehow behind your visit to Fulvia, was he? No? I thought perhaps he'd set you up to be his spy. That would be so very like Cicero. Covert networks, unsigned letters,, messages sent in some secret code invented by Tiro, paid informers, one lurker keeping watch on the next. Like a spider casting webs in all directions. He'd have turned out differently if he'd had any talent as a military man. More action, fewer words. Are you Cicero's spy, Finder?" He disconcerted me again with his gaze.

"No, Great One."

"Perhaps you are and you simply don't know it."

The suggestion surprised me, then made me uneasy. "I think I know all of Cicero's tricks by now."

Pompey raised an eyebrow. "Really? Even I wouldn't make that claim! What do you make of Caelius's behaviour? Why is he standing up for Milo? What's in it for him?"

"Caelius has cast his lot with Cicero; Cicero has cast his lot with Milo."

"So by extension, Caelius is Milo's man?"

"I'm not sure that Caelius is anybody's man." "You speak the truth there, Finder. And what do you make of Milo himself?"

"As I said before, Great One -"

"Yes, I know: 'anxious, angry, uncertain'. But what do you make of him?"

"I met him for the first time only recently – since the death of Clodius."

"Really? No previous connection?" "None."

"But you do have some old connection with Clodius." "No. I did a bit of work for Clodius's sister a few years ago -" He nodded. "When she helped prosecute Caelius for murder. I spoke in Caelius's defence, you may recall." "Yes. I'm afraid I missed your speech."

"It wasn't a very good one. Just as well; a good speech would have been wasted. No one would have remembered it, not after the speech Cicero made that day for Caelius – or against Clodia, should I say? So, Finder, were you ever in Clodius's camp?"

"I was not and I am not."

"And you're not in Milo's camp, either?"

"No."

He appraised me for a long moment, then turned to Eco. "What about you? Like father, like son?"

Eco cleared his throat. "I helped my father when he worked for Clodia, but I never met her brother. I went with my father to Cicero's house today, but I have yet to meet Milo face to face."

"And your loyalties?"

"I'm my father's man."

Pompey smiled. "A loyal son makes the best partisan of all, eh, Finder? But what about your other son, the one who's off in Gaul? Has he not pulled the rest of the Gordiani into Caesar's orbit along with him?"

"My son Meto is a loyal soldier, but my family has no special allegiance to Caesar."

Pompey regarded me curiously. "How is it that you manage to navigate such an independent course, Finder, without being smashed on the rocks?"

"It seems to me, Great One, that if I let another man navigate for me, I would have been smashed on the rocks long before now." "Do you always steer your own course, Finder? But how? Do you have some special knowledge of the stars? Or do you sail blindly into the future?"

"As blindly as every other man, I suppose. Perhaps it's the stars that are steering us."

"Ah, yes, I know that feeling. You believe you have a destiny, then?"

"A very small one, perhaps."

"Better than none at all, I suppose." The Great One shook his head, as if the idea of having no destiny, or only a small one, was too difficult for him to imagine. "Destiny is a strange thing. Look at Clodius, ending as a bloody corpse on the great road his ancestor built; it's almost too appropriate, like a Greek tragedy. Look at Milo. I suppose the appropriate end for him would be to get caught in a trap of some sort and eaten alive by his enemies."

"I don't follow you, Great One."

"You know, like the legendary Milo of Croton."

"Is there a story attached to his death? Famous athletes have never been my particular interest."

"No? But you can't really understand our Milo unless you know about his namesake. What a man calls himself tells you what he thinks of himself, and sometimes where he's headed. Surely I needn't point that out to a man who calls himself 'Finder'."

"I understand… 'Great One'."

Pompey didn't even blink. "I shall tell you about Milo of Croton, then," he said. "Come, it's warmer on the balcony. We can sit in the sun. I'll have some heated wine brought. Alban or Falernian? I prefer Alban myself- a drier aftertaste…"

So we sat on the south-west balcony of Pompey's Pincian villa, sipping ten-year-old wine and looking out over the city. The fire on the Aventine Hill had apparently been extinguished. The great column of smoke had been cut off at the base and seemed to float above the rooftops like something from a nightmare. A new pillar of smoke, thicker and jet black, had appeared in the vicinity of the Colline Gate, far away to our left.

Pompey swirled the wine in his cup. "When our Milo was young, he was quite an athlete. Or so he says; after the third cup of wine he starts bragging about his athletic glory days the way a soldier brags about old battles. He won many competitions, especially as a wrestler. I don't know what sort of competition a boy has growing up in a village like Lanuvium, but Milo was always the strongest, the fastest, the most determined. Powerful as an ox. Stubborn as an ox, too – that's our Milo.

"He's still as vain as a Greek about his physique, you know. Not exactly the Greek ideal – too short and stocky – but he's certainly kept himself fit. I've seen him naked at the baths. Belly like a brick wall, shoulders like catapult stones. He could crack a nut between those buttocks!" Pompey let out a coarse laugh that was quietly echoed by the guard at the end of the balcony, who could hardly help overhearing. I realized that Eco and I had been admitted to a certain intimacy with the Great One. He was sharing with us the sort of manly talk a commander shares at ease with his subordinates.

"So when Titus Annius was casting about for a name to give himself, he settled on Milo. Do you remember the old schoolboy exercise about Milo of Croton?"

When I showed a blank expression, Eco, whose spotty education had nonetheless been more formal than mine, ventured to answer.

" 'Compose a recitation on the following theme and show how it might instruct us through life: Milo of Croton, having accustomed himself to carrying a calf every day for exercise, kept on carrying it until it was grown to a bull.' "

Pompey and Eco shared a nostalgic laugh. "The moral of the theme: as a boy grows into a man, so grow his burdens," said Pompey, "and if you're a fellow like Milo of Croton, you won't shrug them off, but just keep smiling through clenched teeth as you lug them forwards, grunting and groaning. I'm sure that our Milo had to write on the same theme. The lesson seems to have stuck with him."

He took a sip of wine, frowned and called for the steward. "Is this really the best Alban we have? It's gone off. It won't do. Bring the Falernian. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Feats of strength. Milo of Croton could hold a ripe pomegranate in his fist, they say, so firmly that no one could wrest his fingers apart, and yet so carefully that the pomegranate wouldn't bleed. He could stand on a discus covered with grease and maintain such perfect balance that no one could push him off. He could tie a cord around his head, hold his breath, and make the veins on his forehead bulge out until the cord broke – now that's something I should like to see!

"But Milo of Croton wasn't always graceful. Once at the games at Olympia when he was on his way to accept the laurel leaf crown for wrestling, he slipped and fell flat on his back. As he was scrambling to get up, some of the wags in the crowd started saying he shouldn't be crowned, having displayed such clumsiness. Milo said, 'That wasn't the third fall! I fell only once. Let's see one of you throw me two more times!" That shut them up in a hurry.