"What is the end of all this?"
"Ah, you're eager to jump ahead. Better to shun the future and live in the moment! But since you ask: when the moment is right-I'm not sure how the priests determine this, but I suspect the Council of Fifteen has a say-at the right moment, when all the sins of the city have attached themselves to the pampered, bloated, satiated person of the scapegoat, then it will be time for another ceremony. More incense and chanting, more onlookers dressed in black, more ululating mourners. But this time, the procession will end-down there." He pointed toward the finger of rock. "Suicide Rock, Sacrifice Rock, Scapegoat Rock. I don't suppose the name matters. My misery began there. There my misery will end."
He expelled a long sigh, then smiled wanly. "Surely, my friend, you've been wondering why I've asked you no questions about yourself, why I seem so curiously incurious about two Romans who bubbled up out of that inner moat? Here's your answer. I don't care who you are or where you came from. I don't care if you're here to murder the First Timouchos, or to sell Caesar's secrets to that motley colony of Roman exiles who've washed up in Massilia. I'm simply glad for the company! You can't imagine what it means to me, Gordianus, to sit here on this rooftop as the day wanes, sharing this splendid view and this splendid wine with another man, enjoying a civilized conversation. I feel… not so alone, not so invisible. As if all this were real, not merely a pretense."
I was weary from the day's ordeal and disquieted by the scapegoat's story. I looked sidelong at Davus, who was gently snoring, and felt envious.
While we had talked, the sun had slipped beyond the watery horizon. It was the darkling hour. The line between sea and sky blurred and dissolved. Ethereal patches of silver light hovered here and there on the face of the water. Nearer at hand, shadows deepened. Warmth still rose from the paving stones beneath our feet, but puffs of cooler air eddied from the tall trees on either side, shrouded deeply now in their own shadows.
"What's that?" whispered Hieronymus, leaning forward, his voice urgent. "Down there… on the rock!"
Out of nowhere, two figures had appeared about halfway up the face of the Sacrifice Rock. Both were climbing upward; one was substantially ahead of the other, but the lower figure was gaining.
"Is that… a woman, do you think?" whispered Hieronymus. He meant the upper figure, who wore a dark, voluminous, hooded cloak that flapped in the wind to reveal what had to be a woman's gown beneath. Her movements were halting and uncertain, as if she were weak or confused. Her hesitation allowed the lower figure to continue closing the gap between them. Her pursuer was certainly a man, for he was dressed in armor, though without a helmet. His dark hair was cut short and his limbs looked dark against the white stone and the pale blue of his billowing cape.
Beside me, Davus stirred and opened his eyes. "What…?"
"He's chasing her," I whispered.
"No, he's trying to stop her," Hieronymus said.
The twilight played tricks on my eyes. The harder I stared at the distant drama on the rock, the more difficult it was to discern the crabbed movements of the two figures. It was almost easier to watch their progress from the corner of my eye.
Davus leaned forward, suddenly alert. "That looks dangerous," he offered.
The woman paused and turned her head to look behind her. The man was very close, almost near enough to grasp her foot. "Did you hear that?" whispered Hieronymus.
"Hear what?" I said.
"She shrieked," agreed Davus.
"That might have been a seagull," I objected.
The woman put on a burst of speed. She gained the summit of the rock. Her cloak blew wildly about her. The man lost his footing and scrambled on the rock face, then recovered and scurried up after her. For an instant they merged into a single figure; then the woman vanished, and only the man remained, his figure outlined against the leaden sea beyond.
Davus gasped. "Did you see that? He pushed her!"
"No!" said Hieronymus. "He was trying to stop her. She jumped!"
The distant figure knelt and looked over the precipice for a long moment, his pale blue cape thrashing in the wind. Then he turned about and climbed down the rock face, not straight down the way he had come but angling toward the nearest connecting section of the city wall. As soon as he was close enough he leaped from the rock onto the battlement platform. He stumbled when he landed and apparently hurt himself. He broke into a run, limping slightly and favoring his left leg. There was no one else on the platform, the Massilians having earlier moved all their men to the other side of the city to deal with the assault from Trebonius's battering-ram.
The limping runner reached the nearest bastion tower and disappeared into the stairwell. The base of the tower was hidden from view. There was nothing more to see.
"Great Artemis! What do you make of that?" asked Hieronymus.
"He pushed her," Davus insisted. "I saw him do it. Father-in-law, you know how keen my eyes are. She tried to cling to him. He pushed her away, over the edge."
"You don't know what you're talking about," said Hieronymus. "You were asleep when I explained to Gordianus. That's the Sacrifice Rock, also called the Suicide Rock. He didn't chase her up the face of it. She went there to kill herself, and he tried to stop her. And he very nearly did-but not quite!" The hard lines around his mouth suddenly loosened. He covered his face. "Father!" he moaned. "Mother!"
Davus looked at me with a puzzled frown. How could I explain the scapegoat's misery?
I was saved from the attempt by the arrival of a breathless slave, a young Gaul with a red face and unruly straw-colored hair. "Master!" he cried to Hieronymus. "Men downstairs! The First Timouchos himself, and the Roman proconsul! They demand to see… your visitors." The slave cast a wary glance at Davus and me.
That was all the warning we had. The next moment, with a great tramping of feet, soldiers emerged from the stairway onto the rooftop terrace, their drawn swords gleaming dully in the gloaming.
VIII
Davus reacted at once. He jumped up from his chair, pulled me to my feet, pushed me to the far side of the terrace, then took a stance before me. He had no weapon, so he raised his fists. Back in his slave days, he had been trained to be a bodyguard. His trainers had done a good job.
"Look behind you, father-in-law," he whispered. "Is there any way to jump from the roof?"
I looked over the short railing of the terrace. In the courtyard. below I saw more soldiers with drawn swords.