One by one the men gave up the chase. I watched them grow distant and dwindle, like the Capena Gate beyond them, like the shrines of Clodius and the elder Pompey. The stele of Numerius Pompeius was lost amid so many others.
Alongside me, Fortex suddenly laughed and gave a whoop. A moment later, Tiro broke into a grin and did the same. What excuse had they for joy? What had just occurred could be read as an omen, and a very bad omen at that. Only moments into a journey of many days, we had let down our guard and very nearly lost out lives. The gods had pointed me to the tomb of Numerius Pompeius and then unleashed a desperate horde upon us. It had been a grim episode, ending in bloodshed and death.
But the exhilaration was contagious. A moment later I began to laugh and whoop along with them. It was the morning of a new day, the sun shone brightly across the fields, and we were alive! Not only alive, but putting Rome behind us- leaving behind Numerius's mourning mother and his pregnant lover, leaving behind my weeping daughter and scolding wife, leaving behind the glum shopkeepers and the daily panics in the Forum, shaking off the chilly gloom of the city and galloping into the future with the bracing wind in our faces.
I knew that such a feeling of freedom couldn't last; it never does. But I knew, too, that it might be the last time I ever tasted such exhilaration. I urged my horse to gallop even faster. I drew ahead of Tiro and Fortex, until I had the illusion of being alone on the road, a single rider, invincible, unrestrainable. I threw back my head and cried out to heaven.
• • •
Past the tomb of Basilius we slackened our pace to rest the horses. As the plain began to slope upward into the foothills of Mount Alba we came to the village of Bovillae, and passed the spot where Clodius had been killed. The terrain grew hillier, the way less straight. We passed the road leading up to Clodius's fortresslike mountain villa, never to be finished now, the place where I first met Mopsus and Androcles.
In the town of Aricia we obtained fresh mounts at the local stable, where Tiro produced an official document, a diplomatic courier's passport signed by Pompey himself and stamped with the Great One's seal ring. The piece of parchment entitled the bearer to exchange horses at no charge, by order of the Senate's Emergency Decree. While Tiro haggled over the quality of horses the stabler offered in exchange, I heard my stomach growling and noticed there was a tavern across the way. Crossing the road, I looked toward the hills and caught a glimpse of the villa of Senator Sextus Tedius, where the secret of Clodius's death had been revealed to me. Over stale bread and mutton stew, I struck up a conversation with a local freeholder. I asked him what old Senator Tedius was up to.
"Gone off to fight with Pompey," the man said.
"You must be mistaken," I said. "Sextus Tedius is far too old and feeble. The man's a cripple."
"No mistake, citizen," said the man, laughing. "He's left his spinster daughter in charge of the villa and gone off to war. I know that for a fact, because before he left, he called everyone together at the town forum and made a long speech saying we all ought to do the same, and shame on any man who stayed behind. And us no more than farmers, and the planting season almost on us! Who does he think feeds the soldiers? Crazy old coot!" The man shook his head and lowered his voice. "Maybe things will be different when it's Caesar in charge. What do you think, citizen?"
Past Mount Alba, the way sloped steadily downward. As twilight was falling, Tiro led us off the main road to a trading post called Forum Appii on the edge of the Pontine Marshes. I thought he intended to seek accommodations for the night; the courier's passport entitled its bearers to room and board as well as fresh horses. But we rode past several inns and didn't stop until the road ended at the terminus of a broad canal, where a cluster of buildings included warehouses, stables, a tavern, and a boarding platform for the canal barge.
Tiro explained that the canal ran through the marshes with an elevated road alongside it. The barge was a long, flat vessel with a waist-high railing all around. It was pulled by a team of mules on the road, guided by boatmen with stout poles.
"There's a pen for livestock at the back of the barge, so we can bring the horses with us," Tiro explained. "We'll pay our fare, get settled on board and set out at nightfall. We'll eat dinner at our leisure and travel while we sleep. In the morning we'll be almost to Tarracina, rested and ready to push onto Formiae. It's the most civilized way in the world to travel."
It sounded reasonable enough. There were only a few drawbacks that Tiro failed to mention, such as the exorbitant price of bread and wine at every nearby tavern (provisions sold on the barge turned out to be even more expensive, and doubled in price after it started moving); the crammed conditions (the ticket seller kept loading more and more passengers until the head boatman finally drove away some of the latecomers, saying they might swamp the vessel); the incompetence of the mule driver (who took an hour to hitch up his team after the last passenger was boarded); the near impossibility of eating amid the combined smells of swamp and barnyard (the animals were penned at the rear, and the wind was at our backs); the invisible, buzzing insects (gnats in the nose, midges in the eyes); the torturous sleeping conditions (everyone side by side and head to toe, like corpses laid out after a battle, except that corpses do not fart, snore, or drunkenly sing all night); and the sheer perversity of the boatmen, who seemed to think it amusing if they could jolt everyone awake every few minutes by banging the barge against the side of the canal, and even better if they could get us well and truly snagged, which meant an hour of hammering, banging, and yelling back and forth in the darkest hour of the night.
I managed to get about an hour of sleep that night. When we docked the next morning, I stumbled off with everyone else to bathe at a spring in a nearby grove sacred to the nymph Feronia, patron goddess of freedmen. The water revived me a little. Then we were off again.
At Tarracina we rejoined the Appian Way. I felt the pains of the previous days' ride in my buttocks and thighs, and so did Fortex, I think, for I kept seeing him wince and scowl. Perhaps he was simply testing ferocious faces, in case we encountered more bandits. Tiro, well broken in to the rigors of travel, was in high spirits. In a matter of hours he would see Cicero.
We arrived at Formiae that afternoon. Tiro, not wanting to be observed, avoided the town and the main road to Cicero's villa. Instead we took an alternative route through uncleared woodland. The road dwindled to a bridle path, the path to a trail, the trail to a faint trace amid briars and brambles. Twilight was falling. Shadows gathered in the woods. I feared we might become lost, but Tiro knew the way. Just as the sun was sinking, we emerged from the woods into a vineyard. Beyond the vines I caught glimpses of a handsome villa with white walls and a red roof.
There was a little covered porch along the back of the house, where a man in a long white tunic sat with a scroll on his lap. He was turned sideways in his chair with a hand raised, instructing a young slave where to hang a lamp so that he might continue reading. The slave saw us approaching through the vineyards. He gave a shout and pointed. The man turned about and rose with a start. The scroll tumbled to his feet and unfurled.
I had never before seen such a look of panic on any man's face, nor such a complete transformation when he recognized his visitors. He smiled and laughed and strode out to greet us, leaving the slave to gather up the scroll.