Free Rubicon by Steven Saylor Page B

thought I saw Tiro.
    I couldn't see the man's face, only the back of his head. The climb had apparently warmed him, for he was in the process, never breaking his stride, of pulling a dark cloak from his shoulders, revealing a green tunic beneath. It was something about the way he moved that seemed to stir my memory, keying that unsettling, powerful yet fleeting sensation that one sometimes has of reliving a moment already experienced. Had I once walked up the Ramp behind Tiro, perhaps thirty years ago, and seen him shrug off a cloak in that exact same way? Or was my mind playing tricks? You're an old man, I told myself, slightly out of breath with spots before your eyes, looking at the back of someone under the shade of a dense tree on an overcast day. The idea that I was seeing an old friend who was supposed to be hundreds of miles away across the sea was hardly worth a second thought. Still, if only I could see the man's face, I could at least be satisfied of my mistake.
    I quickened my stride. The path grew steeper and my breath shorter. More spots danced before my eyes. Other pedestrians blocked my view. I lost sight of the man ahead of me, until I thought I had lost him entirely. Then I caught a glimpse of the green tunic, farther ahead of me than before.
    "Tiro!" I called out.
    Did the man pause for a moment, cock his head, then hurry on? Or did I imagine it?
    "Tiro!" I shouted, gasping for breath.
    This time, the man in the green tunic didn't pause. If anything, he walked faster. He reached the top of the Ramp well ahead of me. Before he vanished, it seemed to me that he turned to the right, in the direction of Cicero's house.
    I reached the top of the Ramp and sat heavily on a yew stump. The stately tree had stood in that spot for years, since long before I came to live on the Palatine; I had been able to see the top of it from my garden courtyard. Early that winter, a particularly violent storm had blown the tree over. The limbs had been cut up for firewood, but the stump had been left as a convenient spot to sit and rest after the climb from the Forum. Poor old yew, I thought, not good for much but still good for something. I would have laughed, had I breath to spare. Pompey expected me to track down a killer for him. I couldn't even follow a man up the Ramp.
    •        •        •

    Begrudgingly, a glowering Cicatrix admitted me to my own house. "You've got a visitor," he said in a surly voice, breathing garlic at me.
    In the garden, I found Bethesda, Diana, and little Aulus waiting for me. They had been joined by Eco.
    "Papa!" He gave me a forlorn look and a bruising hug. "I've heard the news about Davus. Damn Pompey to Hades!"
    "Not so loud. Pompey's man is only a few steps away."
    "Yes, I saw him on the way in. Mother and Diana explained about that, too. Pompey is such a bully."
    "Lower your voice."
    Instead Eco spoke louder, as if intentionally pitching his voice for Cicatrix to hear. "Absurd, that a citizen in his own home should have to whisper every time he makes reference to the so-called Great One!"
    I couldn't remember the last time I had seen my even-tempered son in such a belligerent mood. The crisis was provoking reactions in all of us. "Did you bring Menenia and the twins with you?" I asked.
    "Through that mob in the Forum? No, they're safe at home."
    "How are they taking things?"
    "Titus and Titania are old enough to know that something's very wrong— you can't hide much from two eleven-year-olds. But they don't really understand what's happening, or likely to happen."
    "I'm not sure anyone does, not even Caesar or Pompey. And their mother?"
    "Serene as the face of Lake Alba, even though the Menenii are as divided as any family in Rome— some for Pompey, some for Caesar, the rest trying to find a hole to hide in till it's all over. But don't worry about us, Papa. After the Clodian riots, I put a lot of effort and expense into making the old family house secure. It's practically a