"Something like that." Davus wrinkled his brow. Too many metaphors had worn him out.
"Tell me, Davus, do you see our two followers now?" He discreetly glanced over his shoulder. "No."
"Good. Because this must be the house with the blue door, and that must be the alley that runs alongside it. If we disappear around the corner fast enough, we may give them the slip."
The house of Arausio was exactly where the young woman had said it would be. We seemed to have eluded our two followers. Davus kept watch as I knocked on the door, but he saw no sign of them.
Arausio himself answered the door. Meto had once told me that this, was the custom among some of the Gaulish tribes, something to do with ancient laws of hospitality, for the head of the household and not a slave to greet visitors. Arausio looked haggard and pale. It had been only two days since I had seen him in the scapegoat's house, yet even in that short space of time he seemed to have lost some vital spark. The ordeal of the siege and his own personal tragedy had worn him down.
When he recognized me, his face momentarily lit up. "Gordianus! I wondered if you were still alive! They say there's nothing left of the scapegoat's house but ashes. I thought you might have…"
"I'm perfectly well. Lucky to be alive, but alive nonetheless."
"And you've come… with news? About Rindel?"
"No news; not yet. Only questions."
The light went out in his eyes. "Come inside, then."
It was a well-ordered house, clean and neat, with a few costly ornaments to demonstrate its owner's success-a collection of silver bowls ostentatiously displayed in one corner, a few small pieces of Greek statuary placed on pedestals here and there. Arausio's taste was more refined than I would have expected.
He led us to a room where a woman sat at a loom of some sort; the device was of a Gaulish design I had never seen before, as was the pattern of the garment she was weaving. I realized I knew very little of the Gauls and their ways. Meto had spent years among them, playing his part in Caesar's conquests, learning their various languages and their tribal customs, yet we had seldom talked about such matters. Why had I not been more curious, displayed more interest in his travels? He had always been in a rush, and so had I; there had never been time enough to really talk. Now there never would be.
The woman seated at the loom stopped what she was doing and looked up at me. I drew in a sharp breath. She was beautiful, with piercing blue eyes, and wore her blond hair as Arausio had described Rindel's hair, braided like ropes of spun gold. Was it possible that the missing Rindel had returned? But no, Arausio had been anxious for news of her, and his mood, if his daughter had come back, would have been entirely different.
The woman was not Rindel then, but Rindel's mother. From ' looking at Arausio's red cheeks and drooping mustache, I had formed no clear picture of the beautiful daughter who could have tempted a youth like Zeno; but if Rindel took after her mother-indeed, if she was half as beautiful-I could well imagine how Zeno might have fallen for her.
"This is my wife," Arausio said. "Her name is Rindel, too; we named our daughter for her." He smiled wanly. "It leads to all sorts of confusion, especially as they look so much alike, and my wife looks half her age. Sometimes, when we're out among strangers, people mistake the two of them for sisters. They think I'm an old man showing off his two beautiful daughters-" His voice caught in his throat.
The woman stood and acknowledged us with a slight nod. Her lips were tightly compressed and her jaw was clenched. Her eyes brimmed with sudden tears. "My husband says that you can help us."
"Perhaps, if finding the truth is of help."
"We want to know what's become of Rindel. We need to know."
"I understand."
"My husband says that you may have seen her… at the end."
"We saw a woman on the Sacrifice Rock. Perhaps it was Rindel. When you last saw her, what was she wearing?"
She nodded. "Arausio told me that you wanted to know this, so I've thought about it and looked through her clothes. I can't be sure, but I think she must have been wearing a simple yellow gown, not her best but fairly new."
"And a cloak of some sort? With a hood?" She frowned. "I don't think so."
"The woman we saw wore such a cloak. It was dark, possibly green-"
"More blue than green," said Davus, interrupting.
The woman nodded. "Rindel owns such a cloak; I'd call the color a gray-green, myself. But I'm almost certain-wait here." She left the room for a moment, then returned, bearing a cloak over her arms. "Here it is. I found it among her clothes. She couldn't have been wearing it, then, not if you saw her…" She lowered her eyes, then raised them. "If the woman you saw was wearing such a cloak, perhaps it wasn't Rindel you saw after all!"
Arausio took her hand and squeezed it, but when she tried to look into his eyes he pulled at his mustache and turned his face away. "Wife, you mustn't raise your hopes. We both know what happened to Rindel. There's no use-"
"Perhaps this will be more conclusive." I held up the ring with the skystone.
The two of them gazed at it curiously but made no comment. "Did this belong to your daughter?"
"I never gave her such a ring," said Arausio.
"Not all rings given to a beautiful young woman are gifts from her father."
He frowned at the insinuation. "I never saw her wear it."
"Neither did I." His wife shook her head. She seemed fascinated by the stone, unable to take her eyes off it. "Why do you show it to us? Where does it come from?"
"It was found yesterday on the summit of the Sacrifice Rock." Arausio's face went blank for an instant, then became twisted with rage. "He gave it to her! The filthy swine! He thought he could placate her-flatter her, buy her silence-with a ring! She must have thrown it at his feet in disgust. And that's when he-"
His wife put a fist to her lips and sobbed. Arausio put his arms around her and shuddered, his features torn between fury and grief.
I was in no hurry to return to Apollonides's house. We walked aimlessly about the city. Davus saw no sign of our followers. "What do you think, Davus? If it wasn't Rindel we saw on the Sacrifice Rock, then perhaps it wasn't Zeno, either."
"Oh, no, it was Zeno we saw. And Rindel, too."
"What about the cloak she was wearing?"
He shrugged. "Maybe Rindel owned more than one such cloak, and her mother is confused. Or perhaps Rindel took her mother's cloak, and her mother simply hasn't noticed yet. It's a tiny detail."
"And the ring? Is it as Arausio said-Zeno tried to give her the ring as some sort of consolation, and when she refused it, he decided to put an end to her?"
"Not necessarily." Davus frowned. "I think Zeno must have given her the ring a long time ago, when they first became lovers."
"But her parents never saw it."
"She kept it a secret from them. That's what the ring was, a lovers' secret, shared just between her and Zeno."
"I see. And that's why she made a show of taking it off on the Sacrifice Rock-to spurn him in return?"
"Unless…" Davus furrowed his brow. "This is what I really think happened. It was Zeno who pulled the ring off her finger, against her will. I think that's why he was chasing her in the first place, to take back the ring."
"Why would he do that?"
"Who knows how the mind of such a fellow works? If the ring stood for a promise he'd made to Rindel before he spurned her, then as long as she possessed it, it was a reminder of his own lies and betrayal. Perhaps Rindel threatened to confront Cydimache with it, to flaunt the fact that Zeno really loved her, not his deformed wife."
"So taking the ring from her not only retrieved the tangible evidence of his pledge, it marked a break with the past." Davus nodded. "Once he'd done that, he found the nerve to push her off the rock and never look back."
I shook my head. "The man you're describing is a complete monster, Davus."