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came to see you, and then to see me."
    "What of it?"
    "Numerius never left my house alive. He was murdered in my garden."
    Cicero looked aghast. His reaction seemed almost too extreme. I reminded myself that he was an orator used to performing to the farthest person in a crowd, and was prone to overact by force of habit. "But this is terrible! Murdered, you say. But how?"
    "Strangled."
    "By whom?"
    "That's what Pompey would like to know."
    Cicero tilted his head back and raised his eyebrows. "I see. The old hound has been put to the scent again."
    "The first place the scent leads is back to this house."
    "If you think there's any connection between Numerius's visit here and ... what happened to him later, that's preposterous."
    "Still, you were one of the last people he spoke to. One of the last ... besides myself ... to see him alive. Did you know him well?"
    "Numerius? Well enough."
    "From the tone of your voice, I take it you didn't care for him."
    Cicero shrugged. Once again, the gesture seemed too broad. What was Cicero really thinking? "He was likable enough. A charming young fellow, most people would say. The apple of Pompey's eye."
    "Why did he come to visit you this morning?"
    "He brought news from Pompey. 'The Great One is vacating Rome, heading south. The Great One says that any true friend of the Republic will do the same at once.' That was his message for me."
    "It sounds almost like a threat," I said. "An ultimatum."
    Cicero looked at me warily but said nothing.
    "And then Numerius left?"
    "Not immediately. We ... talked a bit, about the state of the city and such. Pompey hasn't called on all his allies to leave immediately. The consuls and some of the magistrates will stay on, a sort of skeleton government, enough to keep the city from falling entirely into chaos. Even so, the treasury will be closed, the bankers will flee, everything will come to a standstill ..." He shook his head. "We talked a bit ... and then Numerius left."
    "Was anyone with him?"
    "He came alone and he left alone."
    "Odd, that he should go abroad in the city on Pompey's business without even a bodyguard."
    "You've just done the same, Gordianus, and after dark. I suppose Numerius wished to moved as quickly and freely as he could. There must have been plenty of other senators he had to call on, all over the city."
    I nodded. "There were no harsh words between you, then?"
    Cicero glared at me. "I may have raised my voice. Those damned guards! Did they tell you they heard me shouting?"
    "No. Did you shout at Numerius that loudly? What was the altercation about?"
    He swallowed hard. The knob in his throat bobbed up and down. "How do you think I felt, when Numerius told me to leave the city by daybreak? I've been away from Rome for a year and a half governing a miserable province, and now that I'm back I hardly catch a breath before I'm told to pack up and flee like a refugee. If I raised my voice, if I shouted a bit, what of it?"
    "You're raising your voice now, Cicero."
    He pressed a hand against his chest and took several deep breaths. I had never seen him so overwrought; it unnerved me. Whatever their flaws, Pompey and Cicero represented models of Roman self-assurance and self-discipline, the military giant and the political genius. Both had known setbacks, but always triumphed in the long run. Now something was different, and both seemed to sense it. Born the same year, they were a few years younger than I, yet I felt like the child who sees his parents in a panic: if they have lost control, then all must be chaos.
    He went on at a lower pitch. "It's a mistake for Pompey to flee. If Caesar is allowed to enter the city without opposition, he'll break into the treasury and squander the wealth of our ancestors to bribe the street gangs. He'll call together whatever's left of the Senate— debtors, discontents, rabble-rousers— and claim it's the legitimate government. Then it will be Pompey and those who fled who are outlaws."
    "Have