Catilina's riddle

Another cheer went up, echoing between the hills on either side. It was ended by blaring trumpets, calling for the troops to take up their battle formations. All around us men began to move with quick determination. Meto seized my arm with a bruising grip.

'Go now! If you take your horse, you may be able to escape the way you came, or else head up towards the pass and find some trail to lead you back down again when the battle's over.'

'Come with me, Meto. Show me the way.'

'No, Papa! My place is here.'

'Meto, the cause is hopeless! Never mind Catilina's speech. If you could have heard the way he spoke to me in the tent—'

'Papa, there's nothing you know that I do not. My eyes are open.'

And fixed on the heavens, I thought. 'Very well, then. Can you equip me with some sort of armour?' 'What?’

'If I'm to stay here and fight beside you, I'd like to have something more suitable than the dagger in my belt, though many of these wretches don't appear to have anything better.'

'No, Papa, you can't stay!'

'How dare you say that to me! Would you stand your ground and deny me the same honour?'

'But you've given it no thought—'

'No, Meto, on the journey here I had many hours to think. I imagined this moment long before it came. In my imagination it sometimes turned out considerably more to my liking, but sometimes it turned out much worse -1 thought I might find you dead without ever seeing you again, or find only a pit filled with dead bodies, with nothing to show me which was yours. This is better than that, and not as bad as I had feared. For one thing, I'm not as frightened as I thought I would be, at least not yet. No, Meto, this is my deliberate and premeditated choice, to fight beside my son.'

'No, Papa, it must be for Catilina, for what he represents, if it's to mean anything!'

'That is your cause, Meto; but very well, I'll fight for Catilina. Why not? The truth, Meto: if I had the power of Jupiter I'd wave a thunderbolt and give Catilina everything he wants. Why not? I'd resurrect Spartacus from the dust and let him have his way as well. I'd roll back time and see that Sulla was never born, or Cicero for that matter. I'd change the world in the blink of an eye, for better or worse, merely to see it changed into something different. But I ca

Meto looked at me for a long time with an unreadable expression in his eyes. He must believe I'm mad, or lying, or both, I thought. But when he finally spoke, he said: 'You are my father.'

'Yes, Meto. And you're my son.'

Men ran madly around us. Horses neighed, metal clanged on metal, officers shouted, trumpets blared. At last Meto took my arm. 'Come, hurry, I think there's enough spare armour in Catilina's tent to put something together for you!'

And so at the age of forty-seven I became a soldier for the first time in my life, outfitted in scraps of cast-off armour, wearing a coat of mail with half the scales missing and a much-dented helmet shaped like a hewn-off pumpkin, wielding a blunted sword for a hopeless cause under a doomed commander. I felt I must be approaching the very heart of the Labyrinth; I could almost smell the Minotaur's hot breath upon my face.

There is not much I can do to describe the battle, as I never knew quite where I was or quite what was happening. It seems that Catilina arrayed his forces in three parts, with Manlius on one side, another commander on the other, and himself in the centre surrounded by his ardent young followers and a picked body of well-armed fighting men, along with Meto and myself. We marched forward with Tongilius carrying the eagle standard until Catilina chose the spot where he would make his stand, and there Tongilius planted the standard in the ground. There was no cavalry, only infantry, for before the battle Catilina saw that all the horses were driven back towards the mountains. By doing this he showed his men that their commanders could not flee, and that their danger was shared by all alike.

The danger approached like a great crimson and silver tide, drawing towards us with a roar unlike anything I had ever heard. I know now how it must be for the enemies of Rome when they see their doom approaching. I was awed and horrified, and yet not frightened. Fear seemed pointless in the face of such catastrophe. Why should a simple man cringe with fear for his simple life, when the whole world was about to end in screaming madness?

I felt no regret, but I did feel something of a fool, for I could not help thinking to myself: stupid man, Bethesda will never forgive you for this. And it was that I feared, more than the jagged wall of steel bearing down on us.

I stayed close beside Meto, who stayed close beside Catilina. There was a great deal of ru

I remember foaming blood sprayed upon my face like the pounding surf of the ocean. I remember seeing Catilina, his face contorted into a terrible grimace, his sword arm slashing, with an arrow projecting from his left shoulder and blood spilling down his glistening breastplate. I remember seeing Meto rush to Catilina's side with grim determination on his face, hewing a path with his sword as if he had been doing such things all his life. I hurried after him but tripped over something solid and fleshy. As I spun around, I glimpsed Tongilius in the throng behind me, bringing up the eagle standard, for with Catilina leading we had cut our way deep into the enemy's line. I gained my footing again and looked frantically for Meto, who had disappeared in the chaos.

Then, from the comer of my eye, I saw the spear approaching. I remember watching, transfixed, as it came hurtling straight towards my forehead. It seemed to move very slowly, and everything in the world, including myself, came to a sudden stop awaiting its arrival; so slowly did it approach that I felt like a man on a pier waiting for a boat to arrive. It drew closer and closer, and when it was very, very close the world abruptly jerked back into frantic motion. The absurd thought struck me that I really should be doing more than I was to get out of the thing's way — then the spear struck its target with a peculiar sound of crumpled metal and all at once I was flying backwards through the air. Behind or above me — direction lost all meaning — I caught a glimpse of the eagle ba

XXXIX

I sat on a hard rock surrounded by rough-hewn walls of black stone, with black stone underfoot and above my head. I thought at first that the place was a cave, but the walls were too angular to be natural, and the air was warm, not cold and clammy. Perhaps it was the old silver mine up on Mount Argentum, I thought, but that was all wrong. I was in the famous Labyrinth of Crete, of course, for peering at me from around a corner, its horns making a vast shadow on the wall beyond, was the Minotaur itself.

The thing was quite close to me, so close that I could see the glistening flesh of its great black nostrils and the glint in its great black eyes. I should have been mad with fear, but strangely I was not. All I could think was that the beast's nostrils, moist and porous and sprouting a few coarse hairs, looked very delicate and sensitive, and that its eyes were rather beautiful in a bovine way. It was a living creature, and amid so much hard, bloodless stone anything made of living flesh seemed precious and rare, something to be cherished, not feared. Even so, as the beast stepped from around the corner and drew closer, its two hooves clicking on the stone, I was a bit u