XXI

We would have been wiser, I chided myself afterwards, to have taken the road to Cumae rather than the shortcut through the hills that Olympias had shown us. It was on such nights, I imagine, that lemures escape from Hades, rise like vapour from Lake Avernus, and go walking through the fog, spreading the chill of death through the forest and across the barren hills. The presence of the walking dead is attenuated and weak when compared to the vivid, blood-rich fecundity of living matter, like the paleness of a candle when seen beside the sun. But in certain times and places, as on battlefields or around the entrances to the underworld, the spirits of the dead are so concentrated that they can become as palpable as living flesh – or so the phenomenon has been explained by those wiser than myself in such matters. I only know that death stalked the way to Cumae that night, and that those it claimed would not have far to go to be sucked into the mouth of Hades.

It was not hard to find our way, at first. We had no difficulty reaching the main road from the villa, and Eco’s sharp eyes spotted the narrow trail that branched towards the west. Even in twilight the way looked familiar. We passed through the stand of trees onto the bald ridge. Off to the north I saw the camp fires of Crassus’s soldiers clustered around Lake Lucrinus. Faint sounds of singing rose from the valley below. Beneath the rising moonlight I could make out the hulking mass of the arena. Its high wooden walls shone dully, like the hide of a slumbering behemoth; tomorrow it would awaken and devour its prey.

It was after we entered the woods and darkness fell that I became less certain of our way. I had forgotten how faint the path became, and how quickly. Without sunlight there was no way to be certain of the direction. The full moon was still low in the sky, and the blue glow it cast through the woods created a strange, confused jumble of light and shadow. Wisps of fog coiled around us, whether sea fog or vapours rising from the damp earth, I could not tell. Perhaps the wisps were not fog at all, but the wavering, half-glimpsed spirits of the uneasy dead.

The stench of sulphur grew heavy on the dank air. Far away a wolf howled. Another joined it, and then a third, so near us that I gave a start. Three voices howling, like the three heads of Cerberus. The night was colder than I had expected. I pulled my cloak more tightly around my shoulders. I thought of the cloak I carried under my arm, and worried that the wolves could smell the blood that stained it, and that it drew them nearer. For a brief moment I thought I heard horses behind us, then decided it was only our echo.

I pressed on, less and less certain that I knew the way. At last we came to a vaguely familiar spot where the sky opened above and the horses’ hooves clacked against hard stone. My horse hesitated but I urged him on. He hesitated again, then Eco grabbed my arm from behind and made a gulping noise of distress. I let out a gasp.

We stood on the verge of the precipice overlooking Lake Avernus. A gust of sulphurous heat blew against my face, like the foul breath of Pluto himself. In the stillness I heard the wheezing and belching of the fumaroles, and in my mind’s eye I saw the hapless dead struggling like drowning men amid the scalding muck far below. The moon rose above the treetops and cast a sickly blue light across the waste. In that illusory glow I saw the pocked, scarred face of a monster too huge to comprehend, and then, as the light shifted imperceptibly and the fumaroles opened and closed, I saw a vast bowl teeming with maggots the size of men. From the distant woods across the lake, visible only in jagged silhouette, I heard the barking of three dogs together.

‘Cerberus is loose tonight,’ I whispered. ‘Anything might happen.’

Eco made an odd, stifled noise. I bit my tongue, cursing myself for frightening him. I took a deep breath, despite the stench of sulphur, and turned towards him.

The blow descended and sent me flying head first from my horse.

Eco’s stifled noise had been a warning. The blow came from behind and landed square between my shoulder blades. Even as I fell, I wondered why the assassin chose to cudgel rather than stab me, and I could only conclude that Eco had somehow managed to deflect his blow. Perhaps it was an elbow that struck me, or the pommel of a sword.

The palms of my hands struck the hard rock and went scraping over it. Some other part of me struck next, probably my hip, to judge from the bruises I noticed later. I scrambled forward, to the very brink of the precipice.

A hard kick landed against my ribs and sent me lurching halfway over the stone lip. Then I knew why I hadn’t been stabbed, as I could have been so easily, caught unawares: why leave evidence of murder when you can simply throw a man over a cliff to his death? Or perhaps it didn’t matter how they killed me; if they intended to dispose of me afterwards by casting my body into the fiery lake, I would be swallowed whole by Pluto, bones and all.

I felt the breath of Pluto hot on my face, and reared back from the precipice. I was kicked square on the buttocks. I held my ground and was kicked again. From somewhere behind me came a noise like the bleating of a slaughtered sheep – Eco, crying out to me.

I rolled to the left, not knowing whether the shelf ended there or not and steeling myself to plunge into empty space. Instead I rolled onto hard stone and scrambled to my feet, spinning toward the assassin. Steel glinted in the moonlight and I dipped my head, just in time; the blade whooshed above me, and the wake of its passing blew through my hair. I reached for the assassin’s arm and caught him off-balance. I never saw a face or even a body, only the forearm I gripped with both hands and twisted at a cruel angle.

He gasped and cursed. He reached with his other arm to take the blade from his useless hand. I kneed him in the groin. His free hand flailed aimlessly, clutching at the sudden pain, and I felt him weaken. There was no way for me to take his knife or to reach for my own. I lurched backwards, pulling him with me, and when I sensed that I had reached the edge of the cliff I spun about with all my strength, forcing him to spin with me, like an acrobat swinging his partner.

There was a sound of feet scuffling against bare rock, and then his forearm was jerked from my grip, as if something incredibly strong grabbed his feet and pulled him straight down. I held him almost too long, and felt myself jerked downward with him. The blade in his fist whipped by and cut my hand. I cried out and then staggered for a long, dizzy moment on the verge. I held out my arms like those of a crucified man, reaching for balance. My knees turned to water.

At that moment the barest shove would have sent me flying over the cliff, or the barest backward tug on my cloak could have pulled me to safety. Where was Eco?

I wheeled my arms wildly in the air and finally folded backwards, landing with a grunt on my backside. I twisted onto my hands and knees and sprang to my feet. My horse stood a little to one side, having backed away from the precipice, but Eco and his mount were nowhere to be seen. Nor was there any sign of another assassin.

The night fog had grown thick, diffusing the growing moonlight and obscuring everything. I stared into the gloom and whispered, ‘Eco?’ I said his name louder, and then shouted: ‘Eco!’ But there was no answer – neither the pitiful, half-human murmur I had heard him make in our room, nor the stifled, strangling sound he had made to warn me. There was only silence, broken by the soughing of the wind in the treetops.

‘Eco!’ I shouted, heedless of alerting whatever other assassins might be lurking in the darkness. ‘Eco!’

I thought I heard noises from far away, or else from nearby but muffled by fog and dense foliage – the clang of metal on metal, a shout, the snorting of a horse. I ran to my horse and mounted him.

I felt abruptly dizzy, so dizzy that I almost fell. My head throbbed. I reached up to press my temple, and felt a slick wetness. Even in the thickening gloom, I could see that the stuff on my fingers was blood. From the cut on my hand, I thought, and then realized that the blade had cut my other hand. Somehow I had struck my head without feeling it – or else the assassin’s blade had swung closer to my scalp than I had realized.

Blood made me remember the cloak. I had dropped it when I fell. I looked about the bare stone and saw it nowhere.

There were more noises from the forest – a whinnying horse, a man shouting. I was confused and unable to think. I rode into the woods, towards the distant noises, but all I could hear was a rushing in my head, louder than the wind in the trees. The fog closed around me like gauze draped over my face.

‘Eco!’ I shouted, suddenly fearful of the silence. The world seemed vast and empty around me.

I rode forward. For all my watching and listening I was as helpless as a man without sight or hearing. The rushing in my head became a roar. The moonlight grew dimmer, pierced by bright, vaporous phantoms that darted in and out of the darkness. Death comes as the end, I thought, remembering an old Egyptian saying Bethesda had taught me. Death came for Lucius Licinius and for Dionysius, as it came for the beloved father and brother of Marcus Crassus, as it had come for all the victims of Sulla and the victims of Sulla’s enemies, as it had come for Sulla himself and for the wizard Eunus, both eaten alive by worms, and would come for Metrobius and Marcus Crassus, for Mummius and even for haughty Faustus Fabius. Death would come for beautiful Apollonius even as it had come for old Zeno, who ended up a half-eaten corpse on the shores of Lake Avernus. Death would come for little Meto, who had hardly lived – if not tomorrow, then another day. I found a curious, cold comfort in these thoughts. Death comes as the end. . . .

Then I remembered Eco.

I could not see or hear – I was blind and deaf, or else the night had turned black and the wind was howling. But I was not mute. I cried out his name: ‘Eco! Eco!’ If he answered, I did not hear. But how could he answer, when he was mute? Something trickled down my cheeks – not blood, but tears.

I fell forward and clutched my horse. He stopped his pacing and stood very still. The howling of the wind died down, but the world was still dark, for I held my eyes tightly shut. At some point everything turned upside down and I found myself lying on the ground amid the drifted leaves and twigs.

Some passing god had heard my prayer, after all. This night would be unending, and morning would never come.