Catilina's riddle

Eco called out and his men came ru

'Attack me and I won't be responsible for what follows, Gordianus,' said Claudia, breathing hard. - Do you really want a blood feud with the Claudii?’

'Say the word, Papal' said Meto, gripping his dagger so hard that his knuckles turned white.

'No, Meto! No bloodshed! Retribution can wait. The only thing that matters now is finding Diana, and I think I know where she is. Eco, stay here with your men. Make sure that Claudia stays where she is until we return. Meto, mount your horse and come with me.'

Claudia must have known of the mine all her life. As a place of remote concealment, it would have come to her mind at once. So I reasoned as we went thundering up the Cassian Way. So I hoped, and dreaded.

We rode past the hidden trail Catilina had used. It would be too slow, and I had no cause for concealment. Instead we took the open way onto Gnaeus's land, up into the foothills and the woods, past the house of the goatherds where poor Forfex had dwelled, past Gnaeus's gloomy villa, where his hounds stirred and howled to a

We came to the end of the road, tethered our horse and proceeded on foot. Neither of us spoke a word. Our thoughts were too close, and what we were thinking we did not dare to say aloud.

The stream above the waterfall flowed quick and cold. The water came to our knees. When I stepped onto the farther bank, my feet were numb with pain, but I forgot it quickly enough as we rushed up the gruelling series of switchbacks and then across the flank of the mountain.

What if she wasn't there? My heart was pounding too hard and my breath was too laboured to think of what we would do next. And what if she was there? Surely she could have survived a single night, I told myself. She could go without eating, and she would have been out of the wind, shielded from the worst of the cold. But in what condition had they left her, and what sort of terrors had she faced alone in the darkness? What if she had gone wandering, and stepped over an abyss—

Every step I took became a greater and greater torment, until I could no longer tell whether the anguish came from exhaustion or dread. Meto ran on ahead of me. For a moment I wanted to drop to my knees, to wait passively, to let him find what there was to find and come back to tell me. But to stop now was impossible. I trudged on, cursing Claudia, hating the gods and whispering prayers to Fortune.

At last the entrance to the mine came in sight. Meto was not to be seen. He must have already scrambled over the wall that had been built to keep out wandering goats and that would easily keep a little girl prisoner inside. I began to run, though I thought my chest would explode. You've become an old man and a fool, I told myself You turned your back on the world, and look how the world struck back at you! Everything you love has been brought to the edge of disaster through your own neglect and your stubborn refusal to see clearly. Your vanity overwhelmed your judgment, and now you pay the price. You laid down your wits like a gladiator lying down his weapons; but a gladiator has no choice but to fight or else die, and you have no choice but to go on finding your way through the deceits of this vicious world or else be destroyed. What folly, fleeing from Rome, when this is where the flight led you. Diana!

I came to the wall. I wanted to shout out her name, and Meto's, but I was afraid of the answer. I reached the top of the wall and fell against it, too tired to pull myself over. I took a deep breath and hoisted myself to the top. On the other side I looked down on Meto, holding something in his arms. He turned his face up to me, and I saw tears glittering in his eyes.

'Oh, no, Meto!' I wailed.

'Papa, Papa, you've come for us! I knew you would!' The thing in Meto's arms began to wriggle wildly until Diana freed herself from his embrace and reached up to me. I dropped from the wall and fell to the ground, holding her.

'I told them you'd come, I told them!’ she cried. I held her away from me to have a look at her. She was filthy and her clothes were torn, but there was nothing wrong with her. I held her close to me and sat back against the wall, my face covered with tears, so weary and relieved that I thought I might melt into the stone.

'I told them, I told them,' she kept saying, until I asked her whom she meant.

"The others!' she said. 'Others?’

"The other little boys and girls.' In the gloomy twilight of the mine, she pointed to a collection of skulls carefully stacked against one wall, the remains of long-dead slaves.

'I don't remember seeing them stacked up like that when we were here with Catilina, do you, Meto?' I said, puzzled.

'No,' he whispered.

'I did it,' said Diana. 'I gathered them all up.' 'But why?' I asked.

'Because they were lonely, and so was I.I was cold last night, Papa, but imagine how cold they must have been, without their skins.'

I looked at her carefully. 'Who do you think they are, Diana?'

"The other little boys and girls, of course. The ones that the wicked king brought for the Minotaur to eat. Look, he ate them all up and left only the bones! Poor little boys and girls. When Claudia's slaves brought me here yesterday, I knew this must be the labyrinth. They dropped me over the wall and wouldn't help me back over, even though I screamed and told them they'd be sorry. Do you suppose they thought the Minotaur would eat me?'

'Oh, Diana,' I said, holding her tight, 'you must have been so frightened!'

'Not really, Papa.’

'No?'

'No. Meto probably would have been frightened, because Meto would have been afraid of the Minotaur, but not me.' 'Why not, Diana?' 'Because the Minotaur is dead!' 'How did you know that?'

'Because you told me so, Papa. Don't you remember?'

'Yes. Yes, I do remember,' I said, thinking back to a hot summer day when Diana had come to fetch me because an unexpected visitor had arrived from Rome, and we fell to talking about the Minotaur because Meto had been teasing her. 'I told you that a hero named Theseus slew the Minotaur.'

'Exactly. And that's why I wasn't frightened, only cold, and a little lonely, because the other poor children couldn't talk to me. And hungry. Papa, I'm so hungry. Can't we get something to eat? But not from Congrio — Congrio wants to poison us…'

XLI

Meto was of the opinion that we should carve Congrio into fillets and make a banquet of him I pointed out that the di

As for Claudia, no punishment could be severe enough. Numerous ideas were bandied about. Most of these elaborate fantasies began with kidnapping her in the middle of the night and ended with visions of exquisite cruelty and horror to rival the worst abuses of Sulla. Bethesda was especially creative in devising torments, which I thought odd, for the Egyptians are a relatively civilized and easy-going people compared to the Romans. She was truly a Roman matron now, plotting the destruction of another Roman matron, as surely as Meto had proved himself a Roman soldier on the battlefield of Pistoria. We were all Romans now; and so, I argued, why not take recourse in that great Roman institution, the law?