"It is not hard to die," Quintilian said.

We all looked at him. "It is not hard to die," he repeated. "That's what the Sybil said."

"So it is," Vespasian remembered.

"When Nero was escaping the mob he hid himself in this palace for a day and pleaded with the head of his guards, to save him. The guard declined, saying, 'Is it so hard, then, to die?' which is a line from one of Virgil's plays, I believe. Upon which, Nero fled to the countryside."

"The theatre does not interest me," Vespasian said. "But it might explain the Sybil's quote," Domitian offered.

"How?"

"I don't know yet," Quintilian said. "Give me some time."

Vespasian and Domitian left us alone in the room. Domitian said that he would arrange for the centurion to be waiting outside for us when we were ready.

Quintilian examined the corpse slowly and carefully, from head to foot, taking an oil lamp from its fixture on the wall to give himself better light. I watched as best I could, but I confess I am not yet hardened to the sight of dead bodies. "Notice how little blood there is," he commented.

"Indeed," I agreed.

He rolled the body over. "The back is completely clear of wounds, and of blood. The boy was attacked only from the front."

"Even so," I agreed.

"He has a small sheath here on his belt," Quintilian commented, "but the knife is missing."

"Perhaps he was killed by his own knife," I suggested.

"Perhaps," Quintilian said, "but I think a larger weapon was used, judging by the size of the wounds. I would that you could take notes but, as that is forbidden, try to remember what you see and what I tell you."

"Yes, mentor," I said. "I will do my best."

"The boy was not killed here," Quintilian said. "He died elsewhere, and was carried here. If he had been stabbed repeatedly here, the strokes of the knife would have splattered blood over the floor and walls."

"But both entrances were watched."

"No one was assigned the task of actually watching the entrances to this room," Quintilian said. "Besides, he came here somehow, alive or dead, despite the possible watchers."

"True," I said.

Quintilian went to the door and opened it. The young centurion was waiting patiently outside with two guardsmen, who snapped to attention when they saw Quintilian emerge. My master was, if only for the moment, a person of some stature in the palace. "Sabatinus," Quintilian called.

The centurion came over to the door and looked curiously at the body lying inside.

"Did you know about this?" Quintilian asked, indicating the corpse.

"Oh, yes," Sabatinus said. "News travels fast within the palace walls. There are, I believe, few secrets."

"I assume no bloody room has been noticed about the palace this morning?"

Sabatinus thought for a second. "It could be that some of the servants found such a room, and thought to clean it up without mentioning it to anyone. I will have enquiries made."

"Also there is a small knife missing from the dead lad's sheath. See if anyone found it."

"I didn't notice the missing knife. I shall have a search made."

We left the room and closed the door behind us. "Do you know of the ghost said to be wandering these corridors?" Quintilian asked the centurion.

"Great Caesar's ghost? Yes, I have heard tell."

"But you have never seen it yourself?"

"No."

"What do you think of the stories?"

Sabatinus thought for a moment. "I thought it was an amusing thing for us to have our own personal ghost - and that of Great Caesar, at that. But when it was reported that the spectre had begun to speak, then I began to wonder if it might have greater portent."

"Then you believe the stories?"

"No, in truth I can't say I believe them." Sabatinus smiled. "But were I to come face-to-face with this spectre, I might rapidly change my opinion."

Quintilian nodded. "Can you gather the people who claim to have actually seen this wraith and send them in to speak with me?"

"I will make a list of names, and then send some of my guardsmen in search of the people you require."

"Fine. Let not status be considered in your search. From slave to senator; if the person claims to have seen the spectre, I would like to speak with him - or her."

"Very good. It will take some time."

"Also bring me whoever saw this page last when he was alive, and someone who knows what he was supposed to be doing at the time. They may well be the same person."

"Very good. I will put some men on it."

"Find me a suitable room in which to wait, provided with chairs, a desk of some sort if possible, and refreshments. We have not yet eaten this morning."

"It shall be as you wish."

"And tell - whoever - to remove that poor young man's body."

"And clean the blood from the floor. That, also, shall be done."

Centurion Sabatinus showed us to a room about the size of a large bedroom. It was lit by a skylight, and had wide benches strewn with cushions around three of the walls. What it had originally been intended for, I have no idea. After a few minutes a couple of guardsmen brought in a slab-top desk, much like the one Vespasian had been working on, and several folding chairs. And some time after that two serving girls came in bearing trays of food: dried fish and several sorts of olives and bread and olive oil and little pastries filled with lentils and spinach and figs and slices of melon, and a pitcher of a good Falernian wine. My master was hungry. He ate. After a moment he pushed a plate my way. I was hungry. I ate.

"How do you suppose," I asked my mentor, who was staring thoughtfully at a fig, "the Sybil knows what she knows?"

Quintilian turned to stare thoughtfully at me. "What, exactly, does she know?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said.

"Neither do I." He ate the fig.

The first witness was brought in shortly after that. A short, round man who worked in the kitchens, he was very nervous and kept fiddling with his white cap, dropping it several times during the brief interview.

"Your name?" Quintilian asked.

"Osterius, if it please your Excellency."

"Relax, Osterius; you have been brought here merely to tell us what you saw."

"About the ghost, your Excellency?"

"Just so. About the ghost."

"I didn't see nothing I shouldn't have seen, your Excellency." He dropped his cap and bent over, trying to snare it without looking down.

"Of course not," Quintilian said, waiting patiently for him to retrieve the cap. "But, just what did you see?"

"It wasn't my fault. I didn't want to see it. It was just there."

"Yes. Where?"

"What?"

"Where did you see it? Where were you when you saw it?" "In the storeroom sir, where we keep the jars of pickled foodstuffs."

"Ah. You saw it in the storeroom?"

"Well, I was, like, in the storeroom. The ghost was outside, in the corridor."

Quintilian nodded and smiled an encouraging smile. "Very good. You're very observant. What was it doing?" "Eating, sir. A chicken leg, I think."

"And then what happened?"

"Well, he saw me about when I saw him. He looked just like the great Julius Caesar looked on some of them old coins, and on the busts in the Forum. And he looked kind of ghostly. He kind of smiled, and waved at me. And then he went around the corner. But when Scullius and me went around the corner - he was gone."

"Scullius?"

"Yes, your honour. My mate who was waiting for me in the small preparation room."

"So you didn't go right after this ghost?"

"No way, your Excellency. I went to get Scullius first. Then the two of us, we went back and followed him around the corner. And he was gone. And there wasn't no place for him to go. The only room around that corner is locked with a special lock, to which only the wine master has the key, 'cause it contains the amphorae of Greek wine what come in special wagons from way up North."

"Ah!" Quintilian said. "When was this?"

Osterius thought for a moment. "About six weeks ago." "Did you ever see the ghost again?"

"No, sir. Once were enough."

"Indeed. Thank you for your help."

Osterius was our interviewee number I, and his story was not that different from numbers II, III, IV or V. Man or woman sees figure who looks like what they imagine Julius Caesar to look like standing in some place where no human ought to be standing - down an empty corridor, or sitting on a bench in a closed courtyard, or at the far end of a deserted room; and they stay frozen in astonishment, or sheer fright, while the figure ambles out of sight, often going into some area from which there is no exit, and disappears.

Number VI, a stocky overseer named Lipato, had the first real variant to the usual story. "It was about two weeks ago," he told my master, helping himself to one of the smoked sprats that were heaped on the food tray. "We were in the third courtyard, which has been turned into a garden, planting some flowers, or I think maybe vines of some sort. It was at night because the gardener says that these particular horticultures has got to be planted at night to grow right. Then I hears it."

"What?"

"This voice. High and squeaky, it was. 'Vespasian,' it says. Beg pardon, and I hope his mightiness the emperor will forgive me, but that's what it says. 'Vespasian - oh woe unto you Vespasian! Beware the Ides of October,' it says. Fairly scared me so much I couldn't eat my breakfast."

"And did you see anything to connect with this voice?"

"Oh, yes. Otherwise it might have been like a joke, you know. But there he was, standing there, as clear as daylight. Julius Caesar himself, in the flesh. Well, maybe not the flesh, but in the whatever-he-was-in. Big nose, laurel wreath around his head, and everything. His toga looked kind of loose and Happy, like maybe there wasn't too much flesh under it."

"This was at night?"

"Yes, but we had maybe a dozen torches stuck in the ground all around - so the slaves could see what they were planting, after all."

"So it was you and some slaves -"

"That's right. Maybe half a dozen slaves. And Master Funitus, the assistant to the chief assistant head gardener." "And you all saw and heard this?"

"Indeed."

"And you didn't run after this apparition and try to grab it?"

"Couldn't."

"You couldn't?"

"That's right. It was on the balcony which runs around the courtyard. And by the time Master Funitus yelled something - he claims he yelled, 'let's get it,' but it sounded more to me like, 'let's get out of here.' Anyways, when he yelled, the thing, whatever it was, took a step backwards, gave out with another squeaky, 'Beware the Ides of October!' and disappeared."

Quintilian leaned back in his chair and stared across the desk at the stocky foreman. "I take it that you were not overly impressed with this phantom. Don't you believe in ghosts?"

Lipato shrugged. "Might have been a ghost, might not. At any rate, it wasn't any danger to me, nor was it going to do me any good, as I saw it. Anyway, if it was a ghost, and it wanted to talk to the emperor, why didn't it just flit through a couple of walls and do it properly? It don't make sense."

"The ways of the spirit world are beyond human understanding," Quintilian said. "Or so I've always heard."

"It did put the fear of the gods in the slaves that were in the garden, I'll tell you that," Lipato said.

Lipato left and was replaced by a slim young man who, by the drape of his toga and the inclination of his chin, pro claimed himself to be from an old and noble family. His bearing and attitude filled me with an instant dislike, but the feeling was as instantly dispelled by his first words.

"You're the famous Marcus Fabius Quintilianus," he said, with a sweeping bow. "I am the orator Aopilis Romulus Laius, and I tremble with delight to meet you."

"Tremble with delight?" Quintilian asked, looking slightly startled.

"It is a Greek pleasantry," Laius said. "Perhaps a bit effulgent when translated into Latin, but the emotion is sincere. I teach oratory and rhetoric and whenever I hear that you are going to speak, in a trial or a public debate, I hasten to be in the audience so that I may learn from the master."

Quintilian frowned, but I think it was to disguise a pleased smile. "You have a school here in Rome?" he asked.