angry.”
“Well, not with you,” I said, as I entered the house. I had come across the grass and left scarcely any footprint on the marble floor.
“Boys, do stop sobbing! You don’t even have to plead with him to believe you. Isn’t that true? He’ll read the truth in your thoughts?”
This startled each in his own way. They looked at me warily.
I stopped just past the threshold. Something emanated from the house, not loud enough to be called a sound, but very like the rhythmic precursor of a sound. I had heard this very soundless rhythm before. When was it? In the Temple? When first I entered the room where Marius had hidden behind the screen?
I walked on marble floors from room to room. Breezes everywhere played with the hanging lamps. There were many lamps. And the candles. How many candles. And lamps on stands. Why, when this place was lighted up, it must have been bright as day!
And gradually I realized the entire lower floor was a library, except for the inevitable sumptuous Roman bath, and an enormous wardrobe of clothes.
Every other room was filled with books. Nothing but books. Of course there were couches for lying and reading, and desks for writing, but every wall had its prodigious stack of scrolls or shelves of bound books.
Also there were strange doors. They appeared to open onto concealed stairwells. But they had no locks and seemed to be made of polished granite. I found at least two of these! And one chamber of the first floor was totally enclosed in stone and locked in the same way, by impenetrable doors.
As the slaves trembled and sobbed I went outside and up the stairs to the second floor. Empty. Every room simply empty, except the room that obviously belonged to the boys! There were their beds, and their little Persian altars and gods, and rich rugs and tasseled pillows and the usual Oriental swirl of design. I came down.
The boys sat at the main door, as if positioned like marble statues, each with his knees up, head down, weeping softly, perhaps getting a bit worn out.
“Where are the bedrooms of this house? Where is Marius’s bedroom? Where is the kitchen? Where is the household shrine?”
One of them let out a soft choking cry. “There are no bedrooms.”
“Of course not,” I said.
“Our food is brought to us,” wailed the other. “Cooked and most delicious. But I fear that, unwittingly, we have enjoyed our last meal.”
“Oh, do take it easy. How can he blame you for what I’ve done? You’re merely children and he’s a gentle being, is he not? Here, put these pages on his desk, and weight them down so that they don’t fly away.”
“Yes, he is most gentle,” said the boy. “But most set in his ways.”
I closed my eyes. I sensed the sound again, the emanating encroaching sound. Did it want to be heard? I couldn’t tell. It seemed impersonal, like the beat of a sleeping heart or the flow of the water in the fountains.
I walked over to a large beautiful couch, draped in fine silk with Persian designs. It was very wide and seemed to bear, despite much straightening, the imprint of a man’s form. There was the pillow there, all fluffed and fresh, yet still I could see the indentation of the head, where the man had lain. “Does he lie here?”
The boys leapt to their feet, curls flying.
“Yes, Madam, that is his couch,” said the speaker of the two. “Please, please, don’t touch it. He lies there for hours and reads. Madam, please! He is most particular that we do not lie on it playfully in his absence, though he gives us free rein in every other regard.”
“He’ll know if you even touch it!” said the other boy, speaking up for the first time.
“I’m going to sleep on it,” I said. I lay down and closed my eyes. I rolled over and brought up my knees. “I am tired. I want only sleep. I feel safe for the first time in so long.”
“You do?” asked one of the boys.
“Oh, come here and lie by me. Bring pillows for your heads, so that he will see me before he sees you. He knows me well. The pages I have brought, where are they, yes, on the desk, well, they will make it clear why I have come in. It’s all changed now. Something is wanted from me. I have no choice. There is no road home. Marius will