I dropped my flint box. I reached for the knife. I rose to my feet and braced myself, my heart pounding.
"Master, I can't stop him!" cried Androcles.
Slowly but steadily the door opened, until the sunlight from the window fell upon the quizzical, artificially darkened face of my old friend Tiro.
XI
"A rather good view of the Capitoline," Tiro noted, gazing out the window. "I wonder how much an apartment like this lets for on the open market?"
After stepping inside and patting a startled Androcles on the head, Tiro had made a leisurely circuit of the room, noting the emptied trunk and stepping over the mattress and pillows strewn on the floor, and came to rest at the window.
"Tiro, what are you doing here?"
He lowered his gaze. "That boy down there, staring up at me as if I were a gorgon- isn't he one of yours, Gordianus?"
I walked to the window and waved to Mopsus to show that all was well. Visibly relieved, he pantomimed coming up to join us, but I shook my head and signaled that he should continue keeping watch.
"Androcles," I said, "go back to the head of the stairs and stand guard, as you did before. Perhaps we can avoid being surprised a second time."
"But, Master," Androcles protested, "isn't this the assassin you had us follow for you the other day?"
Tiro raised an eyebrow.
"I never told them any such thing. The boys have more imagination than common sense. Go, Androcles."
"But, Master-"
"I shall be perfectly safe. At least, I think I will be." It was my turn to raise an eyebrow at Tiro. Once Androcles was out of the room, I repeated the question I had asked him before. "What are you doing here?"
He tapped his nose. "The same thing you are, I imagine. Following my nose."
"Following me, you mean."
"Perhaps."
"Do you make a habit of trailing after me every time I leave the house?"
"No more often than you follow me, I imagine."
"Why today, then?"
"Because yesterday Numerius's young lover paid you a visit."
"How do you know they were lovers?"
"I know all sorts of things."
"And how did you know she came to see me yesterday? Were you watching my house, or were you following her?"
He shook his head. "Gordianus, you can't expect me to tell you everything, any more than I expect you to tell me all you know. Still, I think it might serve both our interests if we were to pool our knowledge. About Numerius, I mean."
"You're looking for the documents he told you about, aren't you?"
"Aren't you, as well, Gordianus? Since we're looking for the same thing, why not help each other find it?"
I didn't answer.
Tiro stepped to the middle of the room and knelt beside the bowl with Aemilia's poems. The flint box lay beside it. "You were about to burn these before I arrived," he observed. "What are they?"
"Nothing to interest you."
"How can you be sure of that?"
I sighed. "They're erotic poems copied out by a lovesick girl. Aemilia told me they were here. She asked me to burn them. I see no reason to do otherwise."
"But they might not be what they seem."
"They're not what either of us is looking for, Tiro."
"How do you know that?"
"I know!"
"But you'll let me take them, won't you? What harm could there be in that, Gordianus? I'll burn them myself, once I've had a chance to thoroughly examine them. No one else will ever see them."
"No, Tiro!"
We looked at one another for a long moment, neither willing to look away. At last he rose to his feet and stepped away from the bowl. "Very well, Gordianus. I can see that you won't be swayed. What obligation do you owe to this girl?"
I didn't answer, but knelt by the bowl and recommenced striking the flint. A spark flew into the bowl. The dry parchment ignited. The flame was tiny at first, then spread along the edge of the parchment. I watched the words catch fire: A thin flame runs under my skin. I see nothing…
I looked up to see the glow reflected off Tiro's swarthy features. "Nothing is as fascinating as fire, don't you think?" he said, smiling faintly. "After the flames, nothing is left but a bit of ash, which crumbles to nothing if you touch it. Where does the flame come from? Where does the parchment go? No one knows. Now it will be as if the girl never copied those poems, and Numerius never heard her read them. Numerius might as well never have existed."
"But he did. And Aemilia loved him." Inside her a part of Numerius still existed, I thought, at least for a while. The baby, too, soon would be ashes.
Tiro made a scoffing noise. "She loved him? Perhaps. But did he love her?"
"He was determined to marry her, despite Pompey's wishes. Aemilia was certain of that."
"Was she? No doubt she imagined all sorts of things, lying on that bed with him after an hour of making love, gazing out the window at the temples on the Capitoline. No doubt he told her all sorts of lies- whatever he needed to tell her to keep her coming back to meet him here."
"A life spent with Cicero has made you a stodgy moralist, Tiro."
"Nonsense! But when I see a love nest like this, and I've seen just how young and tender the girl was, it's no mystery what sort of young man Numerius must have been. A perfect specimen of his generation- selfish, without morals, out to take whatever he can, with no thought to the consequences. If it weren't for his kinship to Pompey, he'd have been just the sort to join Caesar."
I looked at Tiro steadily. "You make him sound the sort of man that no one should regret killing."
Tiro gave me a sour look. "Don't mock me, Gordianus. And don't accuse me of murder, even in jest."
"I wasn't."
"I'm only saying that if Numerius really loved the girl, he'd have done the right thing and taken her for a wife, with or without the Great One's blessing, instead of taking her for a lover in a squalid hole like this."
"Tiro! Have you forgotten the love affair that you were carrying on behind Cicero's back when I first met you? You were a slave then, and she was the daughter of your master's client, and the consequences could have been terrible for both of you- not to mention for any child that might have resulted."
"Unfair, Gordianus! I was young and stupid-"
"And Numerius wasn't?"
Tiro stared at the ashes in the bowl.
" 'Every man likes to remember youthful indiscretions, but no man likes to be reminded of them.' " I said quietly.
"Ennius," said Tiro, recognizing the quotation. He managed a weak smile. "You're right. We're not here to pass judgment on Numerius. We're here to discover his secrets. Shall we work together, Gordianus, or not?"
"There are two knives," I said, holding up the one I had brought and offering him the one I had found in the trunk.
"I brought my own," he said, "but this one looks sharper." Together we set to cutting open the pillows and the mattress.
They contained at least one surprise. Instead of common straw or wool, they were stuffed with swan's down, mixed with enough dried herbs to faintly scent the whole room; I had been wondering where the smell came from. Numerius had not been one to stint himself of luxury when it came to lovemaking.
Each time we cut into a pillow, feathers came bursting out. Soon the room was adrift in white fluff. Bits of down floated in the air like snowflakes. The absurdity of it made us both laugh. The tension between us leaked away. Perhaps it would have been otherwise if we had found what we were seeking, but as we sifted and searched it quickly became evident that nothing was hidden among the stuffing.
"I've searched everywhere I can think of," I told Tiro. "Why don't you have a look yourself, starting with the trunk. Perhaps you'll notice something I've overlooked."
He carefully examined every item in the room, including the bedposts, searching for hollow chambers. Together we examined every floorboard, looking for one that might be loose. We ran our hands over the plastered walls and poked at the ceiling. We found nothing.