After this guard walked our entire Senate, and, as the Emperor and Senate acknowledged the acclamations of the onlookers, passing amid thunders of cheering, behind we saw a long serpent ribbon of Illyrian legionaries, every man fully armed and armored as for instant battle, their even tramp sounding grim and monotonous when the cheerers paused for breath, their resistless might manifest. Indubitably Rome belonged to Severus, he was our master.
Falco, hopeful, yet awed, said little. Once inside his housewalls he fled to his beloved gems and solaced himself with them till it was time for his bath, which he took in his private bathrooms. He and I dined alone and talked chiefly of our hopes of the new Emperor. Falco particularly remarked his appearance of hard commonsense, ruthless decision and flinty resolve.
Next day, soon after dawn, we heard many rumors of disorders by the Illyrian troops, of their having used temples for barracks that night, of cook-shops forced to feed them without payment, of shops plundered and pedestrians robbed. Naturally the entire household kept indoors, except such slaves as went out for fresh vegetables, fruits and fish. I solaced myself by reading the Tragedies of Ennius. I read parts of his Hector, Achilles, Neoptolemus, Ajax and Andromache, with much emotion, and especially the Bellerophon, forgetting everything else. Then I slept until late in the afternoon.
Waking I bathed unhurriedly and then went to call Falco, who liked to bathe at the last possible moment before dinner. I walked round the rear gallery of the peristyle, sure of finding him among his jewels. The door of the middle room was not shut, and barely ajar. Against the sill of the door, on the brown and white mosaic pavement of the gallery, a glint of color caught my eye. I stooped and picked up a fine uncut emerald, one of Falco's chief treasures.
A qualm of apprehension shot through me. I pushed the door, entered and swept the room with a glance. A confusion of jewel-trays cluttered the floor, no sign of Falco. Nor was he in the left-hand room, which had been similarly rifled.
But, when I turned and peered through the right-hand inner door I saw, across the marble center-table, horridly sprawled, what I instantly knew for his corpse, so unmistakably did the head hang loose, the arms dangle, the legs trail: he was manifestly a corpse, even without sight of the dagger-hilt projecting from his back.
I rushed to him and touched him.
He was yet warm, the blood still trickled from about the dagger, driven deep under the left shoulder blade, slanting upwards, the very stroke Agathemer had drilled me in early in our flight, the stroke with which I had slaughtered two of the five bullies at Nona's hut!
I plucked out the dagger, gazing at it in horror.
As I did so I heard footsteps behind me and turned to face Casperius Asellio, and Vespronius Lustralis, two of the most persistent of the toadies who hung about Falco, both of whom hated me consumedly.