They had traced a semi-circle to the rear of Pompey's Theatre and found themselves facing the old Curia where the original Caesar had met his bloody end a century earlier. The Curia sat purposefully abandoned and left to decay out of penance for its involvement in what the Senate claimed was the shameful murder of the former demi-god. A short distance away from it was an iron gate set within a protective wall that served to shield the theatre grounds from the outside world. To Marcus's stated consternation the gate was slightly ajar, certain that he had pulled it shut behind him when he had left the theatre in haste earlier that evening. Had someone else passed through the gate between then and now, was the brothers’ unspoken question, alarmed by the possible implications if this were true.

  With thoughts of Caesar and the Curia now forgotten, Baecr led the way into an open garden. He knew its layout well, aware that curving paths, rows of shrubs, and low bushes stretched a hundred paces or so to a short flight of steps leading into the theatre-proper. On summer days, he had visited the garden with Vetelia, sheltering together beneath shaded porticos, watching her name and admire the varicoloured flowers arranged in tidy borders running alongside the paths: red and yellow rosa, golden cartha and hyathincus, purple lavendula, and pink acanthus. Back then it had been a place of promenades, parties, and grape-fueled laughter, of other people’s jokes and families with young children—Phoebe included—a prelude to plays and festivals, music and dance. Even he had enjoyed some uncommon happiness there. Now it was sombre and empty, drained of life except their own, its snow-frosted path leading more towards a mausoleum than any place of entertainment.

   Baecr paused in his tracks and directed Marcus to lower his lantern to the ground. Marcus did as asked and closer to the snow the lantern’s small flame revealed series of footprints disturbing the white ground. 

   'These marks go in opposite directions,'  Baecr said quietly, using a finger to trace one of the impressions in the snow. 'See you can make out a heel. Curious, some are smaller than the others. Perhaps from a child, or a woman?'

   Marcus bent at his side. 'Or the light playing tricks', he responded. 

  'I don't think so. See, those prints there are larger. From a man's. Yours?'

  'Whose else could they be?'

 Baecr turned his gaze towards the theatre. 'The murderer’s obviously. Unless he’s still inside.'

  'Well that’s worrying if he is.' 

  'Or she. Women can murder as well.'

   Choosing to take the lantern from Marcus, Bacer continued to lead their cautious progress along the path before he ascended the final few steps to the building's entrance. Stepping through another arch into a broad covered corridor, the two men found themselves in near darkness. Baecr’s feeble light glazed over more statues with impassive looks, muted witnesses to whoever had passed before. Shadows stretched along the corridor, seemingly bringing life to the silent statues watching within the niches along the corridor. Fortunately for the brothers’ active imaginations it did not take them long to reach the cavea, emerging with some relief out into the vast, circular cavea, roofless and open to the sky. This usually noise-filled heart of Pompey's theatre now lay as still and silent as a forgotten grave. Whereas broken clouds had obscured the moon before, now a white, ethereal glow from the heavens above replaced the need for the lantern, its flame dying in any event to a redundant flicker. Rows of stone seats could be seen rising upwards on three sides of the cavea, whereas on the fourth side furthest away lay the proscenium, a wooden stage for actors to strut upon, giving voice to comedy or tragedy. Behind the proscenium, also mostly visible, stood the scaena frons, a three-story vertical backdrop with columns, doorways, windows, and pilasters. Within ordered niches, stood the lunar-lit figures of more gods, male and female, nymphs, centaurs and other mythical beasts, some majestic, others in grotesque form, all seemingly gazing down at something unnaturally shaped lying in the centre of the stage. At first, it appeared to be crumpled sacking left by a careless hand but on closer examination Baecr saw it was a strip of faded yellow curtain flecked with white. A darker stain haloed what he assumed was the unfortunate actor’s shrouded body lying within a ring of violent red.