I felt Petronius shift his bulk alongside me. He reached behind us so he could return the same knock with a dagger pommel. Someone then shoved the heavy door inwards against our backs, so we tumbled in a heap. Familiar voices came in with the cool air. Hands reached to pull us out on to the roadway. Fusculus and some of the vigiles were our rescuers. Wiping the sweat from my brow as I cooled down, I caught Petro's eye. Pre-arranged bolthole!" I applauded his forethought. Angry noise was still coming back up the track from the funeral site. With nervous glances, Fusculus quickly arranged for the women to be taken under escort to Petronius" house; the escort would stay there on guard. Rhodope was a valuable witness. On the excuse that her father had reported her missing, she would be kept secure, whether she wanted it or not. I kissed Helena and promised to be a good boy. Don't make promises you can't keep, Marcus!" Petro and I, with Fusculus and the remaining men, walked back to the party scene. As I had hoped, the undertakers were true professionals. They had rebuilt the pyre, lashed down the corpse as if he had never jumped up for a look around, and rekindled the flames amidst a fresh douche of scented oil. The priest was busy at his altar while the rest ensured that Theopompus would go down to the underworld with somebody paying him attention. But all around this sombre, stoical group, chaos raged. The Illyrians and the Cilicians had each decided their blood brothers were bastards. Fusculus wondered what took them so long to fall out; Petro pretended to be a romantic who thought it was just a lovers" tiff; I had never believed they were sincere in the first place. Now they had torn up their pact and were pounding each other like true marriage partners on the brink of divorce. The fight was as good as any last night brawl after a tense series of games at a provincial amphitheatre, a melee when one set of locals thinks the other bragging bullies have been cheating all summer with the magistrate's connivance, while the others have just found out that the first side's chief gladiator accepted their bribe but then failed to throw his fight. And his over-sexed brother never turned up for training because he was too busy getting their trainer's wife in pod… Petronius, Fusculus and I found ourselves a mixed platter of finger food from the remains of the buffet, and watched in admiration as we chewed. These men who-must-not-be-called-pirates really knew how to create fighting theatre. Fists flew. That was only the start of it. Weapons were used, including knives; free-flowing blood soon told its story there. In addition, fingers, feet, elbows, knees and heads were all part of the action. Several times, Lygon produced his speciality. he launched himself high in the air, then floored some unfortunate opponent with a two-footed kick. Cratidas was head-butting all comers, going at it like a demented woodpecker. Some of the women must have fled. The remaining few egged on their favourites. We were just in time obtaining our eats; the table went over. Three men, locked in a passionate knot, demolished the shaky construction. Now food was squashed and slimed underfoot on the grey thorough fare slabs, adding to the risk of skidding and falling. Petronius advised the caterers" slaves to go home. Like any sensible skivvies, they took the wine with them. We let it go. We already knew the flavour was merely adequate. I, for one, was to be grateful for my abstemiousness later. Members of the vigiles tiptoed around unobtrusively, retrieving those who could be tidied out of the way. After bodies had been sorted by nationality they were laid in neat lines on either side of the road, Illyrians to the left, Cilicians to the right. A particularly pedantic trooper then sorted them into further categories. dead, dying and comatose. In his free time he checked that he had placed all in each category satisfactorily in height order. This must have been to assist identification afterwards. An Illyrian [or Cilician] flew out of the fighting centre and staggered backwards into our group. Petronius quickly wiped his mouth on a napkin, then propelled this seaman back into the fracas by applying a boot to his backside. The fight was thinning out. Among those still on their feet, Cratidas and Lygon were the most prominent. Even they reeled uncertainly. They could still summon up physical resources, but like all the rest, they were starting to fade. Petro decided the fighters had tired themselves out enough. He gave a whistle. What followed was brief and methodical. His men entered the action and set to, me among them, finishing off whoever was left standing. Before long, they had all either run away or lain down in surrender. Petronius and Fusculus had Cratidas and Lygon under arrest. Orders were given for dealing with the dead and immovable. We set off along the roadway, taking the prisoners who could still walk. Behind us, I heard the mournful swoosh as the priest doused the pyre with water from a ritual vessel. Theopompus had now travelled with full Roman pomp to whatever barbaric gods he honoured. Only his ashes remained. Sealed in their black-figure urn, they would remind his young lover of their fleeting time together and the innocence she had so eagerly given away. At least, as the past gradually came to be an embarrassment, Rhodope would always know that her dream lover had had a spectacular send-off. If it turned out that he had left her pregnant, she would think of Theopompus in his halo of green fire every time she was combing her child's hair.