She shook her head. "No, I could never have them in the house. But I can't bear to think of anyone else reading them. Burn them." She turned and rejoined her bodyguards.
I followed them through the house. Just before we reached the foyer, little Aulus appeared from nowhere and went stamping across the atrium, laughing and clapping his hands, directly in front of Aemilia. Mopsus and Androcles came running after him, but not before Aemilia gave a shudder and fled weeping through the foyer and out of the house, her guards trailing after her.
• • •
That night I tossed and turned. At last Bethesda rolled toward me. "Can't you sleep, husband?"
The moonlight picked out glints of silver in her undone hair but left her eyes in shadow. "I'm thinking about the girl who came to visit me today." I had told her Aemilia's story over dinner.
"Very sad," said Bethesda.
"Yes. I was wondering… I don't know much about how it's done."
"What?"
"How a baby is gotten rid of."
Bethesda sighed in the darkness. "It's one of those things most men don't care to know much about. There are several ways. Sometimes a willow wand…"
"Willow?"
"With the bark stripped off. It needs to be thin and flexible to reach into the uterus."
I nodded.
"Or the girl may take poison."
"Poison?"
"Something strong enough to kill the child and expel it from her body. You brew a strong tea, using roots and herbs and fungi. Rue, nightshade, ergot…"
"But isn't that likely to kill the mother as well?"
"Sometimes that happens. I saw the girl on her way out. She looked rather frail to me." Bethesda sighed wearily and rolled away.
I stared at the ceiling. Aemilia believed that the killer of Numerius was equally responsible for the destruction of her unborn child. If Aemilia died, aborting the baby, would Numerius's killer then be responsible for three deaths?
I wondered, did men like Caesar in the cold, dark hours of the night ever ponder such chains of responsibility? To kill a man on the battlefield Caesar would consider an honorable act. But what of the man's widow and child left to starve, or the parents who die of grief, or the lover who kills himself in despair, or the whole villages that perish to famine and disease in the wake of war? How many such chains of suffering and death radiated from every battlefield in Gaul? How many such casualties would there be in Italy now that Caesar had crossed the Rubicon?
I tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
X
The next day, taking Mopsus and Androcles with me, I made my way to the Carinae district. I had forgotten exactly where the Street of the Basketmakers was located. Mopsus thought he knew. So did Androcles. To the right, said Mopsus. To the left, said Androcles. While they squabbled, I asked directions of a slave who passed by carrying an armload of baskets. He pointed straight ahead. I followed and was nearly around a bend when the boys noticed and came running after me.
The narrow, curving street was lined with shops, all with doors flung open and wares on display. Baskets spilled out onto little tripod tables. More baskets hung suspended from ropes that crisscrossed overhead. Many were local products, but the best and most expensive came from Egypt, made of Nile reeds, with dyed strands woven into the fabric to make intricate patterns and repeating pictures. I made the mistake of pausing to look at a curious specimen decorated with a circular band of Nile river-horses. The shop owner descended on me at once.
"Those are called hippopotami," he said.
"Yes, I know. I lived in Egypt for a while when I was young."
"Then you'll want the basket as a souvenir. It was made for you!"
I smiled, shook my head and hurried on. The man followed me down the street, badgering me and waving the basket. When I refused to bargain, he threw down the basket with a curse. Times were hard on the Street of the Basketmakers.
It was not hard to locate the mottled red and yellow tenement Aemilia had described. It had a seedy, run-down appearance, with chipped plaster and broken shutters hanging from the windows. Someone was stewing cabbage inside. A baby was crying. The sound made me think of Aemilia.
Some tenement landlords post a slave at the front door to keep out thieves and troublemakers, but there was no slave at the entrance, and when I tested the door I found it had no lock, either. It was hard to imagine anything inside such a building to tempt a burglar.
"Mopsus," I said, "I want you to stand across the street while Androcles and I go inside. Try not to look like a runaway slave up to no good."
"I'll stand watch!" said Mopsus eagerly. "If anybody dangerous-looking goes in after you, I'll run up and tell you."
I shook my head. "No, Mopsus. I imagine any number of dangerous-looking men, and women for that matter, are likely to live in this building; this is a dangerous neighborhood. But tenement dwellers must come and go. How could you possibly know who has legitimate business in this building and who does not?"
Mopsus scratched his head.
"And if some assassin were to enter this building, intending to do me harm, how could you get past him to warn me?"
Mopsus frowned. Androcles covered his mouth, laughing at his older brother's consternation. I put my hands on their shoulders and walked them both across the street.
"Mopsus, I want you to stand precisely here. Now, do you see that corner window up on the fourth floor? The one with the shutters intact? I want you to watch that window. In a moment, if all goes well, I'll open those shutters and give you a wave. Don't wave back. But keep watching the window. If something should go wrong, you'll see me or Androcles at that window again. If we scream for help, I want you to run to Eco's house and tell him. Do you think you could find your way to Eco's house from here? It's just up the Esquiline Hill."
Mopsus nodded mutely, his eyes wide at the gravity of his post.
"Good. Now keep your eyes on that window!"
I crossed the street with Androcles and entered the tenement. The narrow hallway was deserted and, except for the crying baby, quiet. The tenants, like most people in Rome, were out in the markets searching for the necessities of life, which became harder to find each day.
A stairway at one end of the hall led to the upper floors. I ascended and Androcles followed. "We shall be visiting a secret room, Androcles, where we have no business being. I shall need you to keep watch in the hall outside."
He mimicked his brother's grave nod.
"And I may need you for something even more important."
"What, Master?"
"I shall be searching for something. It may be well hidden and hard to reach. A pair of tiny hands could turn out to be very useful."
"My hands are smaller than Mopsus's," he boasted, holding them up for me to see.
"So they are."
We reached the landing of the third floor. The sound of the crying baby receded. The smell of cabbage grew stronger, mingled now with other smells- onions, perfume, lamp oil, stale urine. What had the daughter of Titus Aemilius thought of such a place?
We came to the top floor. The hallway was empty and dim. I motioned to Androcles to tread quietly.
I located the loose floorboard, just where Aemilia had described it. Wedged in a narrow space beneath was the key. It was not one of those stout keys with notches, to be inserted into a lock and given a strong turn, but a thin bronze rod which curved eccentrically this way and that, as if it might have been accidentally bent beneath a wagon wheel. At one end there was a tiny hook.
Finding such a key is only half the trick in using it. The eccentric shape allows it to slip through the equally eccentric passage inside the keyhole. Once through, the hook at the end needs to find the eye it was fashioned for, which, unless the user has used that particular lock before, can require a considerable amount of trial and error.
I replaced the floorboard and stepped to the door. The lock was a bronze box bolted to the wood from inside. In such a neglected, insecure building, the elaborate mechanism seemed conspicuously out of place.