I was not satisfied. "Surely, Meto, you could have made contact with me at some point. After Domitius told me that you were dead, I went through… a very bad time. I didn't leave Hieronymus's house for days. If you couldn't come to me in the flesh, then you might have sent a message. Not even a written message, merely some sign that you were still alive. The anguish I felt-"
"I'm sorry, Papa, but it was simply too dangerous. And frankly, I've been too busy. You have no idea!" He smiled at me indulgently. "That day, when you and Davus stepped inside the temple of xoanon Artemis outside the city-where I was accustomed to leave certain secret reports for Trebonius, if you must know-and I heard two voices babbling on and realized it was you, I thought: What in Hades is Papa doing here? Well, obviously, you'd come to find me. But there was nothing for you to do here except get in the way. So I tried to warn you off, tried to send you back to Rome."
"While still disguised as the soothsayer!" I snapped, a flash of anger finally creeping into my voice.
"I could hardly have revealed myself to you in front of those two guards. They'd have told everyone in the camp-and who knows what spies the Massilians have among our own men? No one but Trebonius knew of my mission and my disguise. Absolute secrecy was essential."
"You could have revealed yourself to me, Meto!"
He sighed. "No, Papa. My only thought was to send you back to Rome where you'd be safe. After I left you on your way to the Roman camp, I doubled back and went directly to Trebonius; he promised me that he'd send you straight home. Even if you managed to thwart him, at the very worst I thought you'd simply spend the rest of the siege in the Roman camp, pestering Trebonius. I never imagined you'd actually find a way to get inside Massilia! And yet, here you are. I have to give you credit for ingenuity. Like father, like son, eh? Perhaps Caesar should use you as a secret agent."
At that moment, the very idea filled me with such loathing that the great thundercrack that abruptly shook the room seemed, for a peculiar instant, to be a manifestation of my own fury. But the thunderous booming and the earthshaking vibrations came from outside the room. Meto rushed to the window. "Great Venus!" he muttered.
Billowing clouds of dust, weirdly backlit by the lingering flames, rose from the wall-or more precisely, from the places where sections of the wall had previously stood. The fissure now gaped far wider than before. On either side of the original breach more sinkholes had abruptly given way, swallowing all the rubble piled into the breach, along with the makeshift structures meant to shore up the wall and any of the engineers who were still working there. Then, as we watched, a bastion tower caved in on one side of the growing breach, to the sound of crashing stones and the screams of archers on the collapsing battlements.
Where before there had been a breach that by some supreme effort might have remained defensible, now there gaped an enormous opening in the wall, leaving the main square of the city completely vulnerable. The walls of Massilia were hopelessly breached.
From within the house of Apollonides there were sounds of men shouting and running through the hallways. Abruptly the door opened and the First Timouchos stood staring at us, wearing a stunned expression.
My time alone with Meto was over.
XXIV
His face pale, his hands trembling, Apollonides ordered me to leave Meto's cell. He stepped into the room, followed by several bodyguards, then slammed the door behind him. With the collapse of the wall, my son-Caesar's agent-was the first person Apollonides wanted to talk to.
I wandered down the hall. Around a corner I came upon a group of furiously whispering guards. They scarcely noticed me and made no effort to stop me as I stepped into the main part of the house. I wandered through the hallways until I heard a cry of joy and turned to see Davus, who likewise had been released and apparently forgotten. He laughed for joy and hugged me so hard he squeezed the breath from me.
Tired and confused and at a loss for what to do next, I decided to look for Hieronymus. The door to his quarters stood open. We stepped into the small anteroom, then into the bedchamber beyond. There was another room beyond that, with a balcony looking out on the street. There was no one in any of the rooms, not even a slave. Exhausted, I reclined amid the plush cushions strewn across the scapegoat's bed, thinking to rest for only a moment. I fell fast asleep. Davus stood guard in the anteroom for a while, until exhaustion overcame him as well. He joined me on the bed and he, too, fell asleep.
We woke at dawn in a house where confusion reigned. No one seemed to be in charge. Slaves seemed to come and go as they pleased, with no one to give them orders. But when I tried to enter the wing where Apollonides had questioned me the previous night, two very unhappy guards blocked my way. When I tried to speak, they brandished their swords and shouted me down.
I tried to find Hieronymus again, without success. In the foyer, I saw that the front door of Apollonides's house stood wide open. I stepped onto the porch and saw that the courtyard gates were open as well, with no soldiers standing guard.
The walls of Massilia were hopelessly breached, yet throughout the long night the Romans had held back. Dawn had come, and still Trebonius did not mount an assault.
But overnight, the rumor of Caesar's imminent arrival had spread throughout Massilia. He was expected the next day… the next hour… the next minute. Fits of panic convulsed the city. Tearful worshippers thronged the temples. I had experienced something similar in Brundisium, but there the people had awaited Caesar as their deliverer. The Massilians awaited him as their destroyer. They knew too well the atrocities he had visited upon their neighbors, the Gauls-villages burned, men executed, women raped, children enslaved.
Chaos ruled the streets. What madness had possessed the sober people of Massilia, famed for their staid academies, their love of order, their bland equanimity? Massilians were said to love money above all else and to exemplify the concomitant virtues-diligence, shrewdness, patience. Yet in the streets that day I saw staggering drunkards, bloody fistfights, a naked corpse hanging from a tree, a man in rich banker's robes chased down and stoned by an angry mob. In the final moments of a great city, some citizens had descended to barbarism and could think only of their last chance at retribution against a neighbor. Massilia was tearing itself apart before Caesar had the chance.
I saw a troop of gladiators marching toward us and gestured to Davus to hide, fearing trouble. But the man commanding the gladiators had already seen us. He ordered his men to halt and strode over to us. It was Domitius, dressed in full battle regalia, his cape thrown back to show the copper disk embossed with a lion's head on his breastplate. Behind the cordon of gladiators, slaves wheeled carts piled high with trunks. Evidently, Domitius was leaving Massilia as he had arrived, with his ragtag band of gladiators, his household slaves, and whatever was left of his six million sesterces. At the siege of Corfinium, rather than fall into Caesar's clutches, he had attempted suicide-and failed. Caesar had forgiven and released him. Now, once again facing the same prospect, Domitius apparently had no stomach for a second suicide attempt and did not trust that Caesar would be as merciful a second time.
I couldn't resist a sardonic jab. "Leaving us so soon, Domitius?" He glared at me. "I understand that bastard son of yours is alive after all. So Milo was right."
"Yes. But Meto's not a bastard. He was a slave whom I adopted."