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Why should he make changes, he used to say, when all was as he liked? But the world has changed. We cannot go on as we were.’
    I looked at her face, trying to work out what it was that stirred my memory. And then, with a surge of anger, I knew. These were not her words I was hearing. They were Caecilius’s.
    ‘Let the world change!’ I cried at her. ‘We have the farm. We can manage, you and I.’ I began to talk about the coming harvest, which showed promise; and the olives; and the vines. She let me go on for a while, but then I saw her gently shake her head. ‘What then, Mother?’ I said, gesturing angrily. ‘Is it not enough?’
    She gave a thin, sad smile. ‘If it were a case of hard work, we should be wealthy beyond measure. Do you think I have not seen you? But all this comes from long ago, when Hannibal’s army was ravaging Italy. Times were hard then; your father fell into difficulties, and Caecilius gave us help. He was generous when no one else would be, and now he is calling in his debt.’
    I stared at her. ‘His debt ?’ I cried. ‘And what are you? The payment? By all the gods, what does he take you for?’
    ‘That is enough!’ she said sharply. She walked to the window and looked out. Without turning she said, ‘I will not lose the farm. That is what matters.’
    It was no use. I sat down heavily in my father’s chair and pushed my hands through my hair. My mind burned with anger. I drew my breath to rage against her, and against cruel Fate that had brought us to this. But then the words she had spoken pierced my consciousness, like light through stormclouds, and I nearly cried out with the pain of it. I stared at the papers strewn on the desk in front of me. The accounts. She must have been through them many times before she came to me. What was I doing except making it worse? She would not lose the farm. That was what she had said. Caecilius had made a request – a demand – and she was doing this to keep our home . . . and I, for all my effort, was no more than a useless child who could not help her.
    My anger drained from me, replaced by something worse. I looked up. She was still looking out through the window. Her back was straight, her face fixed and grave and full of pain. But for a moment I saw what she kept hidden best of all: her weakness, and my eyes stung with tears of impotent rage. She was like some great noble bird – a mighty she-eagle – old at last, broken by time, but proud to the end.
    I swallowed and blinked down at the floor. It was all I could do not to weep out loud, for the great injustice of the world. But I knew what she would have said: Tears do not stop the sun from rising, or make rivers run uphill. So I set my mouth firm as hers, and peered at the accounts spread out upon the desk, as if they meant something to me, and after a moment I said, ‘Whatever you do, Mother, you will always have my love.’
    An older man – or a wiser one – would have spared her such words at such a time. But I was young, and thought that feelings were all. I heard her catch her breath and saw her clutch at the window frame.
    ‘My dear, only son,’ she said, in a voice that cracked my heart.
    Later we talked of details, as, after a death, the members of a family might talk of arrangements for the funeral, concerning themselves with invitations and what to eat, while the body lies in the next room unmentioned.
    Caecilius was still in Rome, where his business, he said, had taken some months to complete. If his offer was acceptable, he had written that he would make the journey to Praeneste. She showed me the letter. I did not tell her it was not even in his own hand. He had got a secretary to write it.
    When all had been said, I went off into the hillside forest, up through the firs and stone-pines to a place I knew, a bare rock ledge that jutted out over the valley, where I could be alone.
    For a long time I stood, listening to the shifting wind stirring the branches, and the