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Unlike her mother, Diana seemed to receive the news with enthusiasm. Anything that might result in the return of Davus was a welcome development. But that night, as I packed a saddlebag with things I would need for the journey, Diana came into the room. She spoke without looking at me.

"I think it's a brave thing you're doing, Papa, going off like this. The countryside must be terribly dangerous."

"No more so than the city these days, I imagine."

She watched me fold a tunic. I did such a poor job that she felt obliged to take it from me and fold it herself.

"Papa, I know that you're doing this for me. Even though ... I mean to say, I know that you were never ... pleased ... by my marriage. Yet now you're willing to ..." She fought back sudden tears. "And I worry that I may never see either of you again!"

The folded tunic came undone in her hands. I put my arm around her. She reached up to touch my fingers on her shoulder. "I don't know what's wrong with me, Papa. Every since Davus left ..."

"Everyone's nerves are as frayed as a beggar's cloak, Diana. What do you want to bet that Cicero breaks out in tears twice a day?"

She smiled. "I doubt that Caesar does."

"Perhaps not. But Pompey may. There's a picture for you: Davus yawning outside the Great One's tent, and Pompey inside, crying like a baby and tearing his hair."

"Like a scene from Plautus."

"Exactly. Sometimes it helps to think of life as a comedy on a stage, the way the gods must see it."

"The gods can be cruel."

"As often as not."

We were silent for a while. I felt a great sense of peace, standing next to her with my arm around her.

"But Papa," she said quietly, "how will you manage to get Davus from Pompey? If you haven't discovered who killed Numerius, Pompey will never let him go."

"Don't worry. I have a plan."

"Do you? Tell me."

"No, Diana."

She shrugged my arm from her shoulder and stepped away. "Why not, Papa? You used to tell me everything."

"You don't need to know, Diana."

She pursed her lips. "Don't tell me your plan, then, Papa. Perhaps I don't believe you have one."

I took her hands and kissed her forehead. "Oh, I assure you, daughter, I do have a plan." And I did— although using it might mean that I would never come back from Brundisium alive.

Horses were hard to come by. The best had been taken by those who fled the city in the first wave of panic or requisitioned by Pompey's forces. Tiro promised to meet me outside the Capena Gate before dawn the next day with fresh mounts, but what could possibly be left in the stables? I had visions of myself atop a swaybacked nag with knobby joints and a hide worn to leather, but I underestimated Tiro's resourcefulness. I found him waiting for me with Fortex, the bodyguard, both of them mounted. A third horse stood idly by, munching at the grass between two moss-covered funeral shrines alongside the road. All three beasts were as sleek and fit as any rider could wish.

We set out at once. The sun was no more than an intimation of fiery gold not yet cresting the low hills to the east. Patches of darkness lingered like vestiges of Night's trailing shroud. In such uncertain light, there was something eerie about that stretch of road, flanked on either side by so many tombs of the dead.

The Appian Way itself is as smooth as a tabletop, with polygonal paving stones fitted so tightly that not a grain of sand could be passed between them. There is something reassuring about the solid immutability of a Roman road. Meto once told me of venturing on a reconnaissance mission into the wild woods of Gaul. Alien gods seemed to peer from gnarled roots. Lemures flitted among shadows. Unseen creatures scurried amid moldering leaves. Then, in a place where he never expected it, Meto came upon a road built at Caesar's instigation, a gleaming ribbon of stone cutting through the heart of the forest, letting in fresh air and sunlight.

The Appian Way is surrounded not by wilderness but by tombs for miles along either side. Some monuments are large and elaborate, like miniature temples. Others are no more than a simple marker, an upright stone pole with a bit of engraving. Some fresh-scrubbed and beautifully tended, surrounded by flowers and shrubbery. Others have fallen into disrepair, with columns knocked askew and cracked foundations choked by weeds.

Even in broad daylight, there is something melancholy about a trip down the Appian Way. In that tenuous predawn light, where unsettled spirits seemed to lurk in the shadows, the road beneath our feet meant more than Roman order and ingenuity. It was a path by which the living could traverse the city of the dead. Every clop of our horses' hooves against the stones was a note of reassurance that we were just passing through.

We came to the shrine of Publius Clodius, set among those of his ancestors. The last time I had traveled any great length on the Appian Way, it had been to investigate the murder of Clodius. He had been the darling and the hope of the urban rabble. His assassination sparked riots in Rome; a mob with torches made the Senate House his funeral pyre. Desperate for order, the Senate had called on Pompey, and the Great One had used emergency powers to instigate what he called judicial reforms. The result had been the prosecution and exile of a great many powerful men who now saw in Caesar their only hope to ever return. The ruling class was irreparably fragmented, the rabble more disaffected than ever. In hindsight, was the murder of Clodius on the Appian Way the true beginning of civil war, the opening skirmish, the first casualty?

His shrine was simple, as befitted a patrician with pretensions to the common touch. Atop a plain pedestal sat a ten-foot-tall marble stele carved with sheaves of wheat, a reminder of the grain dole that Clodius established. The sun cleared the hills. By the growing light I was able to see that the pedestal was littered all about with humble votive offerings— burnt tapers and plugs of incense, bouquets of sweet herbs and early spring flowers. But there was also a pile of something that looked and smelled like human excrement, and a graffito smeared in the same stuff on the base of the pedestal: Clodius fucked his sister.

Tiro wrinkled his nose. Fortex barked out a laugh. We rode on.

A little farther, on the opposite side of the road, we passed the Pompeius family plot. The tomb of Pompey's father was a gaudy, elaborate affair. All the gods of Olympus were crowded into the pediment, as if jealous of the honor, painted in lifelike colors and surrounded by a gilded border that glimmered red in the rays of the rising sun. The tomb looked recently painted and refurbished but lately neglected; weeds had grown about the base in the time since Pompey and his household had fled south. Otherwise, everything seemed perfect, until I noticed that heaps of horse dung, easy enough to collect on the road, had been deposited on the bronze roof. By midmorning of a sunny day, as this promised to be, travelers would smell the shrine to the elder Pompey long before they saw it.

Fortex snickered.

"Outrageous!" muttered Tiro. "When I was young, men fought for power just as viciously as they do today, but nobody would have dared to desecrate a tomb, not even as an act of war. What must the gods think? We deserve whatever misery they thrust upon us. Here, you! Climb up there and get rid of that stuff."

"Who, me?" said Fortex.

"Yes. Do it at once."

Fortex made a face, then dismounted, muttering, and looked about for something to use as a shovel.

While we waited, I let my horse wander idly along the edge of the road, looking for tender grass amid the tombs of the Pompeii. I shut my eyes, feeling the warmth of morning sunlight on my eyelids and enjoying the casual, uncontrolled movements of the beast beneath me. Behind me I heard the slave climb onto the brazen roof, then the sound of scraping, followed by the soft impact of dung hitting the road.

I must have dozed. The moment slid out of ordinary time. When I opened my eyes, before me I saw the tomb of Numerius Pompeius.

It was a simple stele of the ready-made sort, engraved with a horse's head, symbol of death's departure. It was a little way off the road, behind a row of more conspicuous tombs. Compared to its neighbors, it was small and insignificant. I would never have noticed it, passing by on the road. How strange that the horse should have brought me directly to it, and that the first thing I should see when I opened my eyes were the words newly chiseled in the narrow, five-line space reserved for personalizing the monument:

NUMERIUS POMPEIUS

GIFT OF THE GODS

WHO JEALOUSLY RECLAIMED HIM

AFTER TWENTY-THREE YEARS

AMONG THE LIVING

Those words would have come from his mother. Having no one else to blame for his death, Maecia blamed the gods. I felt a twinge of shame.

I looked down. It was not so inexplicable after all that my mount had wandered to this spot. At the foot of the stele someone— Maecia, of course— had planted flowers, not yet budding. The horse found the tender foliage to his liking and had already eaten most of it to the ground.

I pulled on the rein and scolded him. At the same moment I saw a movement from the corner of my eye. A figure emerged from behind a nearby monument.

My heart lurched inside my chest. The shadows had lifted with the dawn, but something uncanny seemed still to lurk amid the tombs. Perversely, it seemed somehow appropriate that the lemur of Numerius would emerge from the underworld to confront me just as birds began to sing and the whole world stirred to life.

But the ragged creature who emerged from behind the monument was not a lemur. Nor were the others, three at least, who quickly joined him. I wheeled my horse about in the difficult space between the crowded monuments. "Tiro!" I shouted. "Bandits!"

Certain stretches of the Appian Way are notoriously unsafe. The area around the tomb of Basilius, situated far beyond the city wall and marking the true beginning of the countryside, is especially dangerous; I myself had been ambushed there once and kidnapped. But we had not gone nearly that far, and I had never heard of bandits this close to the Capena Gate. How desperate men were these, and how little order was left in Rome, that they should dare to attack travelers practically within shouting distance of the city! It was our own fault. Tiro should never have sent our single bodyguard on a fool's errand to shovel horse dung. I should never have shut my eyes and allowed my horse to wander. The bandits saw us lower our guard and decided to strike.

I frantically attempted to guide my mount back onto the road. Just a moment before, I had been scolding him for eating Maecia's flowers. Now he balked, confused. A hand gripped my ankle. I kicked and lost my balance. I swayed, nearly fell, and grazed my head against a stone obelisk. Another hand gripped my foot. I turned and saw an ugly, gap-toothed face glaring up at me. There is a certain look a man has when he's worked himself up to kill, if necessary. I saw that look in his eyes.

An instant later, a scrap of dung, sun-hardened to make a suitable missile, struck the man square between the eyes. He gave a squeal and released his grip on me. Finally sure of himself, my mount galloped between the monuments and onto the road.

Tiro was wheeling about, a long dagger in his hand. Fortex gave a whoop, leaped off the roof of the shrine, and mounted his horse in a single fluid motion. One of the bandits came up behind him. The startled horse kicked the man in the chest. He flew through the air like a thrown doll, struck his head against the wall of the shrine, and crumpled lifeless to the ground.

They came at us from both sides of the road, a gang of ten men at least, maybe more. In the next instant they might have swarmed over us and pulled us from our horses. But they seemed to have no leader, and the sight of one of their number lying dead caused them to hesitate. As one, the three of us turned our horses and set off with a great clattering of hooves.

Some of the bandits ran after us. One of them managed to grab Tiro's ankle. I saw a glint of steel, felt drops of blood strike my face and heard a scream that rapidly receded. I turned my head. The stricken man stood clutching his arm. Several of his companions kept running after us. None of them seemed to have weapons, except stones, one of which struck Fortex's mount on the rump. The beast neighed and lurched, but never slowed its pace.

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.