'Then tell me.'
The Minotaur shook its head. 'Speak!'
The beast snorted through its great, black, steaming nostrils and said nothing. It raised a human arm and pointed at something on the ground beside me. I looked down and saw a sword. I picked it up and weighed it in my grip, pleased by the way it gleamed beneath the starlight. 'Speak, or I shall make you join them,' I said, pointing with the sword to the three headless witnesses.
The Minotaur remained mute. I stood and brandished the blade. 'Speak!' I said, and when the beast refused, I swung the sword with all my strength and cut clear through its great bullish neck. As its head tumbled away, I saw that the Minotaur was hollow inside; its body was only a costume, and its head a mask. The true head began to emerge from within. I stepped back, my temples aching from the suspense.
Then I knew the truth…
* * *
And then I awoke, with a hammering, blinding pain in my head. Someone touched my shoulder and spoke in a low voice. 'It's all right, don't move. You're safe. Can you hear me?'
I opened my eyes and shut them against the brutal light. If I kept still, the pain receded. I caught my breath and heard myself groan. I put my hand over my face and cautiously opened my eyes again, not to harsh sunlight as I had thought, but to the soft, filtered light of a tent. For a moment I thought I was back in Catilina's tent, and wondered how I had got there. If his tent still stood, if his camp was intact, then — I lowered my hand and saw a face so unexpected that I was cast into utter confusion. A shock of red hair, a spangling of freckles across a handsome nose, and a pair of bright brown eyes looking into my own: my friend the augur, Marcus Valerius Messalla Rufus.
'Rufus?'
'Yes, Gordianus, it's me.' 'Are we in Rome?'
'No.’
'Then where?'
'Far to the north, near a town called Pistoria. There was a battle—'
'Are we in Catilina's camp?'
He sighed in such a way that I knew no such place existed any longer. 'No. This is the camp of Antonius.' 'Then—'
'You're very lucky to be alive, my friend.' 'And Meto?' My chest constricted. 'It was Meto who saved you.' 'Yes, but—'
'He lives, Gordianus,' said Rufus, seeing my fear. "Thank the gods! Where is he?'
'He'll be here soon. When I saw you were stirring, I sent a man to fetch him.'
I sat up, clenching my teeth at the pain in my head. My limbs and torso appeared to be intact. I looked around and saw that there was no one in the tent but Rufus, unless one counted the clucking chickens who inhabited the cages stacked near the tent flap. Looking at them suddenly made me feel hungry.
'How long since the battle?'
"That was yesterday.'
'How did, I get here?'
'Your son is a very brave young man. When he saw you had fallen, he rushed to you and carried you out of danger, behind the lines, beyond the camp, up among the boulders in the foothills. He must have been utterly exhausted. Can you imagine how much you both weighed, wearing that armour? And you a dead weight? And of course he was bleeding from his own wounds—'
'His wounds?'
'Never fear, Gordianus, they were minor. He made sure you were far from the danger; then he must have collapsed from exhaustion. He was found unconscious beside you.'
'By whom?'
'After the battle Antonius's reserves were sent to scour the hills. They were ordered to take any man prisoner who was willing to give himself up, and to offer battle only to those who offered it first. Do you know how many prisoners they came back with? Exactly two: yourself and Meto, both unconscious. Of all Catilina's army, only you two survived — such a curious omen that it was thought an augur should come to see it. I was summoned, and once I saw who it was, I put you under my protection and had you brought to my tent. When he awoke, Meto explained to me how you both came to be in Catilina's camp. He went out just a short while ago to look for something to eat.'
"Then I hope he brings something back with him,' I said, clutching my stomach. 'I don't know which feels emptier, my stomach or my head! Only we two, you say; then Catilina — '
'Gone, with all the rest. To a man, they died bravely, and took many lives with them. All morning the soldiers here in camp have been talking about it, saying they never before encountered so much resistance from such an outnumbered foe. Catilina's commanders all died in the front ranks. Each position was held fast until every man defending it was dead, and all their wounds were in front. They exacted a terrible toll: before it was over, all of Antonius's best fighters were dead or severely wounded.'
'And Catilina? How did he die?'
'He was found far from his own men, deep within enemy ranks among the bodies of his adversaries. His garments and armour and flesh were all the same colour, soaked red with blood. He was pierced by more wounds than could be counted, yet he was still breathing when they found him. They called me to hear his testament if he should speak; he never opened his eyes or uttered a word. But by his face you could see that he was himself to the end. Until his final breath he wore that expression of haughty defiance that caused so many men to hate him.'
'And made others love him,' I said quietly.
'Yes.'
'I know that expression. I should like to have seen his face.'
'You still may,' said Rufus. Before I could ask him what he meant, from outside we heard a sudden wail of grief so wrenching that it froze my blood. 'That's been going on all morning,' sighed Rufus. 'No cries of jubilation and victory, only lamentations. Men have been wandering about the battlefield, some to strip armour from the dead, others to see the scene by the next day's light, as men like to do in places where they've fought. They turn over the mangled corpses of the enemy and what do they find? The faces of friends and relatives and boys they grew up with. This has been a terrible and bitter victory.'
'Why did you come, Rufus?'
'To serve as augur, of course. To take the auspices before the battle.'
'But why you?'
'The Pontifex Maximus appointed me to do so,' he said, then looked at me shrewdly. 'Which is another way of saying that I came at Caesar's behest.'
'To be his eyes and ears.'
'If you like. As augur I can be privy to all that happens without staining my own hands with Roman blood. I sit in on the councils of war, but I do not make war. I only interpret the mood of the heavens.'
'In other words, you're here as Caesar's spy.'
'If a man can be a spy when everyone knows his role.'
'Does the intrigue never end?'
'Nunquam,' he said, gravely shaking his head. Never.
'I don't suppose Antonius ever showed the slightest hesitation about destroying his old colleague. Catilina had hoped he might waver.'
'He did, in his way. He was struck by a bad case of gout just before the battle, and put one of his lieutenants in charge. During the actual fighting Antonius was in bed with his tent flap tied shut. No one can say he failed to pursue his old friend Catilina, as he was charged to do by the Senate; nor can anyone say, strictly speaking, that he took part in Catilina's destruction. Soon the old goat will be off to enjoy the lucrative governorship in Macedonia he finagled from Cicero, and Rome will have one less hypocrite to clutter up the Forum.'
I shook my head, then winced at the lightning behind my eyes. 'My head feels like an overripe gourd.'
'And looks like one, too.' Rufus smiled. 'You have a knot on your forehead the size of a walnut.'