The day after Cassandra's funeral, I spent the morning alone in the garden. The day was hot and the sky cloudless. I sat on a folding chair, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and watching my shadow recede until the sun was directly overhead.
Bethesda felt unwell and was spending the morning in bed. Every now and again I heard the sound of her gentle snoring from the unshuttered bedroom window that opened onto the garden. Diana and Davus had gone out to do the day's marketing. They had given up on finding radishes and were in search of fennel, which Bethesda was now certain would cure her. Hieronymus had gone down to the Tiber to fish, taking Mopsus and Androcles with him. No one had asked if I wanted to go along with them; they all sensed that I wished to be left alone.
At length I heard Diana's voice. She and Davus were back. I saw her hurry along the portico to the back of the house and step into the bedroom to look in on her mother. A little later she came to the garden and sat beside me.
"Mother's asleep. We should keep our voices low. I couldn't find any fennel, but can you believe it-there were radishes everywhere! So many they were practically giving them away. By Juno, it's hot out here! Papa, you shouldn't be sitting in the sunlight."
"Why not? I'm wearing a hat."
"Has it kept that brain of yours from overheating?"
"What do you mean by that?"
She paused and assumed an expression she had inherited from her mother, a look at once pitying and presumptuous. She might as well have said aloud: I know exactly how your sluggish, tortuous thought processes play out, dear Papa. I'm well ahead of you, but I'm resolved to be patient. I shall wait for you to catch up to your own inevitable decision.
Instead, she said, "You've been thinking about her all morning, haven't you?"
I sighed and readjusted my bottom on the folding chair, which was suddenly uncomfortable. "Your mother isn't well. Of course she's in my thoughts-"
"Don't be coy, Papa." My daughter's voice assumed a stern edge. "You know what I meant. You've been thinking about her. About that woman, Cassandra."
I took a deep breath. I stared at a sunflower across the way. "Perhaps."
"You're brooding."
"Yes."
"You must stop it. We need you, Papa. It's getting harder every day just to get by, and Mother's ill, and Davus does all he can to help, but still, sometimes I don't know what we're going to do…" Her voice became grave, but there was no self-pity in it. Always hardheaded, always practical and forward thinking and resourceful, never despairing, that was Diana. She was truly our child, the inheritor of what was best in both Bethesda and myself.
"What are you saying to me, Daughter?"
"I'm saying that you must leave her behind. She's dead now. You must stop thinking about her. It's your family who need you now." Her tone was not reproachful, merely matter-of-fact. How much, exactly, did she know about Cassandra and me? What did she know for a fact, and how much had she guessed, rightly or wrongly?
"Leave her behind, you say. Supposing that you're right, that I'm sitting here brooding about… that woman… how do you suggest I stop brooding, Daughter?"
"You know the answer to that, Papa! There's only one way. You must find out who killed her."
I gazed long and hard at the sunflower. "What good will that do?"
"Oh, Papa, you sound so hopeless. I hate to see you like this. It's bad enough that Mother's ill, but for you to be sick as well-sick at heart, I mean-and you've been this way ever since you came back from Massilia. We all know why. It's because of what happened between you and-"
I raised my hand to silence her. As a Roman paterfamilias, with the legal power of life and death over every member of my household, I was usually quite lax, allowing them all to speak their minds and do as they wished. But on this one subject, my break with Meto, I would allow no discourse.
"Very well, Papa, I won't speak of that. Still, I hate to see you this way. You're like a man who thinks the gods have turned against him."
And haven't they? I wanted to say, but such an expression of self-pity would have contrasted too glaringly with my daughter's stoicism, and not to my credit. Besides, I had no reason to believe the gods had singled me out to vent their displeasure. It seemed to me lately that the gods had turned against all man kind. Or perhaps they had simply turned their backs on us, allowing the most ruthless among us, like Caesar and Pompey, to wreak unchecked havoc on the rest.
"Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of men-and women-will die before this war is over, Diana. Not one of those restless lemures of the dead is likely to find anything resembling justice in this world or the next. If Cassandra was murdered-"
"You know she was, Papa. She was poisoned. She told you so."
"If she was murdered, what good will it do to find out who killed her? No Roman court-presuming the courts ever return to normal-would be interested in prosecuting such a crime, perpetrated on a woman nobody knew or cared about."
"You cared enough to give her a decent funeral."
"That's beside the point."
"And some of the most powerful women in Rome cared enough to come to her funeral. You saw them, skulking on the periphery, staying well away from the pyre as if the flames might scorch them-or show the guilt on their faces. It was one of them who killed her, wasn't it?"
"It might have been." Before her death, Cassandra had been courted by the highest circles of Roman society, summoned to the houses of the rich and powerful who had learned about her gift. Had she known the danger she might face by consorting with such women? What uncovered secrets from the past-or from the future-might have led one of those women to silence Cassandra forever?
"Shall I do it for you, Papa?"
"Do what?"
"Shall I do it in your stead-uncover the truth about her death?"
"What a ridiculous idea!"
"It's not so ridiculous. I know how you work. I've watched you since I was a child. I've listened to all your stories about snooping for Cicero, and uncovering chariot races that were fixed, and going off to Spain or Syracuse to look for a murderer at some rich man's behest. Do you think I'd be incapable of doing the same thing myself?"
"You make it sound like baking a batch of flat bread, Diana. Mix this list of ingredients, bake for a certain length of time-"
"Baking is harder than you make it sound, Papa. It takes skill and experience."
"Exactly. And you have neither when it comes to-well, to the sort of work you're talking about."
"It's because I'm a woman, isn't it? You don't think I could do it because I'm a woman. Do you really think I'm not as clever as a man?"
"Cleverness has nothing to do with it. There are places a woman can't go. There are questions a woman can't ask. And don't forget the danger, Diana."
"But I'd have Davus for all that! He's big and strong. He can go anywhere. He could twist arms or break down doors-"
"Diana, don't be absurd!" I took off my hat and fanned myself with it, squinting at the bright sunlight. "You've done some thinking about this, haven't you?"
"Perhaps."
"Well, stop any such thoughts at once, and abandon any ambitions you may have in such a direction-'Diana the Finder,' indeed!"
"No-Diana and Davus the Finders, plural."
"Double absurdity! I absolutely forbid it. You'll follow the example of your mother. She began with every disadvantage, yet look at her now-she's made herself into the very model of a Roman matron: modest, respectable, responsible, running a household, raising a family-"
"Is that how you'd describe those model Roman matrons who showed up at Cassandra's funeral?"
I thought of some of those women and the scandals that attended them, and I had to cede the point to Diana. In such times, did any real standard of Roman womanhood exist any longer? It was the same for men and women alike-virtues had turned to vices and vices to virtues.
I put on my hat and stood, listening to my knees crack as they straightened. "If your intention was to incite me to action, Diana, then you've succeeded. Fetch Davus for me, would you? I shall take him along with me-in case I have to break down some doors or twist some arms. And you, meanwhile, will stay home and tend to your ailing mother. I expect to smell radish soup bubbling on the hearth when I come home!"
The easiest place to begin was also the closest-at the house of Cicero, just down the street from my own.
With the assistance of Mopsus and Androcles, Davus and I put on our best togas. The two of us left the house and walked along the rim road that skirted the crest of the Palatine Hill, with a view of the Forum below and the Capitoline Hill surmounted by the Temple of Jupiter in the distance. It was a beautiful summer day.
At Cicero's house, Davus knocked politely on the door with his foot. An eye peered at us through a peephole in the door. I stated my name and asked to see the mistress of the house. The peephole slid shut. A few moments later the door opened.
I had visited the house of Cicero many times over the years. At the zenith of his fortunes, in the year he served as consul and quashed the so-called conspiracy of Catilina, this house had arguably been the very center of the Roman world, the site of the most important political meetings as well as the most dazzling cultural gatherings. Men of letters and men of affairs had passed through its portals; they had sipped wine and listened to one another's poems and monographs in its gardens; they had shaped the future course of the Republic in Cicero's study.
At the nadir of Cicero's fortunes, the house had been burned to the ground by Clodius and his gang, and its master had been sent into exile. But Cicero had eventually returned to Rome, regained his rights of citizenship and his place in the Senate, and rebuilt his house on the Palatine.
Now the master of this house was again in a kind of exile, far away in Greece with Pompey. For months after Caesar crossed the Rubicon, Cicero had procrastinated and vacillated, agonizing over his choices. Both sides had wooed him, not for his military skills, but for the political weight he carried; Cicero's endorsement of either side would do much to sway the sentiments of those who considered themselves steadfast upholders of the Republic. On principle, Cicero sided with Pompey from the start, seeing him as the only possible protector of the status quo; but for as long as he could, Cicero hedged his bets, sending letters back and forth to both Pompey and Caesar, desperately trying to hew a middle course. But there was no middle course, and finally, when exaggerated news of a temporary setback to Caesar's fortunes in Spain reached Rome in the month of Junius of the previous year, Cicero took the great leap and with his son Marcus, who was barely old enough to wear a manly toga, left Italy to join Pompey. A year had passed since then. I had to wonder if Cicero was now regretting his decision.
I had known Cicero for over thirty years. My assistance in the murder trial that made his early reputation had done much to further my own fortunes. It was not long after I first met him that he married. His wife, Terentia, ten years his junior, had come from a family of considerable social standing and brought with her a substantial dowry. She was said to be an excellent household manager and devoutly religious. Unlike the wives of many powerful men, she took no interest in legal matters or affairs of state. While the fortunes of the Republic ebbed and flowed within the walls of Cicero's house, and the fates of the accused men he represented hung in the balance, she went about her duties of honoring family ancestors, making sacrifices to household gods, and furthering the social advancement of their two children.
In all the times I had visited Cicero, I had exchanged only a few words with Terentia. On the rare occasions when circumstances obliged her to speak to me, she had been polite but haughty, projecting the unmistakable message that my social standing was too insignificant to warrant more than the bare minimum of conversation. I think she found it unfortunate that her husband had to deal with a character as unsavory as myself.
The last time I had been in the house, Caesar had just crossed the Rubicon, and Cicero and Terentia had been frantically preparing to leave Rome, ordering secretaries to pack up scrolls in the library and issuing last-minute instructions to the slaves who would look after the house in their absence. On this day the house was almost ominously quiet and still.
Davus and I waited in the foyer only a short time before Terentia herself appeared. She wore a simple yellow stola and no jewelry. Her gray hair was pulled back in a tight bun, a severe style that suited her austerely handsome face.
"Gordianus," she said, giving me a curt nod of recognition. "Isn't this your son-in-law?"
"Yes, this is Davus," I said.
Terentia appraised him coolly. She herself had so far been notoriously unlucky with sons-in-law. Her daughter, Tullia, still in her twenties, had already been once widowed and once divorced and was now on her third marriage, to a dissolute but dashing young aristocrat named Dolabella. The betrothal had taken place while Cicero was off governing a province and without his approval. Dolabella had apparently swept both mother and daughter off their feet. As I watched Terentia's eyes linger on my brawny son-in-law a little longer than necessary, I gathered that she was not immune to male charms. Cicero himself was said to have been heartbroken by the marriage, having once defended Dolabella on a murder charge and knowing what a vicious character the fellow was. To compound Cicero's embarrassment, Dolabella had since taken up arms for Caesar; he had been put in charge of Caesar's fleet in the Adriatic, where he had consistently been outmaneuvered and outnumbered by Pompey's navy. Like so many families of the ruling class, Cicero's had been split down the middle by the civil war. And if that were not enough, rumor had it that Dolabella had been utterly faithless as a husband, carrying on a dalliance with Marc Antony's wife, Antonia.
"You haven't come to talk about this business with Milo and Caelius, I hope?" She referred to the insurrection rumored to be developing in the countryside south of Rome led by two of Cicero's old associates, Marcus Caelius and Titus Annius Milo.
"As a matter of fact, no."
"Good! Because everyone thinks I should have an opinion about it, and I refuse to give one. Both of those fellows have brought my husband nothing but grief over the years, but at the same time, who can blame them for reaching the end of their patience? Of course they shall both get themselves killed, poor fools…" She shook her head. "Then I suppose you've come about Cassandra," she said, forestalling any apprehensions I might have had about coming directly to the point. Unlike her husband, who could speak for hours and say nothing, Terentia was not a woman to mince words.
When I nodded, she indicated with a gesture that we should follow. She took us to the same room to which Cicero had shown me on my last visit, a secluded little chamber off the central garden. But the room seemed different and strangely empty. What was it Cicero had told me? "This was one of the first rooms Terentia decorated when we came back and rebuilt after Clodius and his gang burned down the house and sent me into exile…"
Cicero had been quite proud of this room and its exquisite furnishings, but where were those objects now? I vaguely recalled a sumptuous carpet with a geometrical Greek design; now there was only cold stone underfoot. There had been several fine chairs carved from terebinth with inlays of ivory; now there were only a couple of folding chairs of the simplest sort. There had been a finely wrought bronze brazier with griffin heads; that, too, was gone. The only decorations that remained were the ones that couldn't be removed, the pastoral landscapes painted on the walls that depicted herdsmen dozing amid sheep and satyrs peeking from behind little roadside shrines.
Terentia sighed. "Ah, how Marcus loved this room! This was where he entertained his most important visitors-senators and magistrates and suitors for Tullia's hand. My husband brought you to this room the last time you called on him, did he not? His study was too crowded, as I recall-all those secretaries running about in a panic, packing up his confidential papers." There was a note of disapproval in her voice that implied the room was really too good for the likes of me and, at the same time, a note of resignation. Now that the room had been stripped of its exquisite furnishings and reduced to a shadow of its former luxury, why not meet with me here?
The portable furnishings were gone, and Terentia wore no jewelry. Was she really in such dire straits that she was having to sell her personal possessions? I myself had fallen into debt thanks to the hardships of recent months, but it was a shock to think of a woman like Terentia facing the same hard choices.
"Was she a kinswoman?" she said.
"I beg your pardon?"
"The woman called Cassandra. Was she kin to you?"
"No."
"Yet you conducted her funeral. There must have been some… relationship… between you."
I made no reply. Terentia shrugged knowingly. The presumptuous gesture reminded me of her husband, and I felt a pang of resentment that she should assume she understood my connection to Cassandra, even if she was correct.
"You must have known her as well," I said. "Why else did you come to see her funeral pyre?"
"Yes, I did have a slight acquaintance with her. I asked about your connection to her only because I wanted to thank you for conducting her funeral. It's good that someone took the time and went to the expense of giving her a fitting ceremony. And you showed good taste. Not too many musicians and mourners. It's unseemly when they outnumber the real friends and family."
"I could hardly afford the few I did hire."
"Ah, money…" She nodded understandingly. "And no longwinded speech before the funeral pyre. I always think that's rather pretentious when it's a woman, don't you? It's fitting to list the accomplishments of a man of the world, but if a woman's lived a proper life, what is there to say about her, really, at the end? And if she's led an improper life, the less said the better."
I cleared my throat. "If you came to her funeral, Cassandra must have been more than a passing acquaintance. How did you meet her?"
Terentia pulled back her shoulders and lifted her chin. She was not used to being questioned. In the courts her husband had become famous for his penetrating interrogation of witnesses; even the strongest men quailed before the fierce onslaught of Cicero's questioning. But in the daily course of married life, when Cicero had cause to question his wife and she had cause to remain silent-when the battering ram met the iron wall-which of them usually won that test of wills? Looking at that immovable jaw, I suspected it was Terentia.
Her demeanor gradually shifted. Her shoulders relaxed. She lowered her head. She had decided to answer me.
"If you know anything at all about Cassandra, you know that in the last few months she became something of a celebrity in society. I used the word 'society' loosely, since no such thing exists at the moment-we are all adrift, waiting for tomorrow. It was my sister Fabia who-for lack of a better word-'discovered' her. Cassandra appeared one day in front of the Temple of Vesta. Fabia was the senior Vestal on duty that day, tending to the divine flame. She heard a woman wailing outside. She went to see what was happening. These days, who knows? A woman might be raped or murdered in broad daylight on the temple steps. That was how Fabia came upon Cassandra, who was in the throes of one of her prophetic spells."
"Yes, I know."
Terentia gave me a curious look.
"Purely by cioncidence," I said, "I happened to be in the vicinity of the Temple of Vesta that day. I, too, heard Cassandra. I had never seen her before. I wasn't sure how to react. While I hesitated, I saw Fabia emerge from the temple with two other Vestals. I saw them take Cassandra inside. What happened next?"
Terentia gave me a long, hard look. "My husband calls you an honest man, Gordianus, 'the last honest man in Rome,' in fact."
"Cicero honors me."
"And don't think, just because I never had occasion to formally thank you, that I've ever forgotten the great favor you did for my sister all those years ago when you sniffed out the truth when some of the Vestals were accused of breaking their vows. Fabia would have been buried alive if her accusers had succeeded in convincing the court that she conducted an improper liaison with Catilina. Buried alive! It still pains my heart, just to think of it. My darling half-sister was so young back then. So beautiful. There were those who actually believed she might have committed such a foul crime, but you saved her life. Cicero called on you to investigate the matter, and you proved that Fabia was innocent."
This was not quite how I remembered the affair. At the time, it had seemed to me that Catilina-a dissolute and charming upstart not unlike Terentia's son-in-law Dolabella-might or might not have managed to seduce the tremulous young virgin Fabia within the very confines of the House of the Vestals. But that was twenty-five years ago, and a great deal had happened since; and if Terentia remembered one reality while I remembered another, only the gods-or Fabia herself-could have said which of us remembered the truth.
Terentia gave me a long, appraising look, then seemed to come to some decision. She clapped her hands. A slave came running. Terentia gave the girl a whispered instruction, and the slave ran off. A few moments later I heard the rustling sound made by the folds of a voluminous stola, and a moment later Fabia herself appeared in the doorway.
She was magnificently attired in the full costume of a Vestal. Her hair, shot through with gray now, was cut quite short. Around her forehead she wore a broad white band, like a diadem, decorated with ribbons. Her stola was white and plain, but cut to hang from her body with many folds. About her shoulders she wore the white linen mantle of a Vestal.
"Sister, I think you may recall Gordianus," said Terentia.
Fabia had grown older, but she was a striking woman. What had changed most was her manner. I had met her at a time of crisis, when she was young and confused and in terrible danger-and quite possibly guilty of the unspeakable crime of which she had been accused. She had survived that episode, and the travail had made her stronger. Presumably she had maintained her vow of chastity, whether she had briefly interrupted it with Catilina or not; and that sort of discipline, year in and year out, and the state of childlessness it ensured, was said to give a woman a special kind of strength. Fabia certainly looked imposing enough, standing there in the doorway, taking stock of her sister's two visitors. Her eyes swept over Davus with hardly a pause and settled on me. In her steady gaze I saw little to remind me of the frail girl I had once assisted at Cicero's behest.
"I remember you, Gordianus," she said, without emotion.
"Gordianus is here to ask questions about Cassandra," said Terentia.
"Why?" said Fabia.
"I believe she was murdered," I said.
Fabia drew in a breath. "We thought-because her mind was frail-that perhaps her body was frail as well. We thought perhaps she died of some… natural cause."
"She was poisoned," I said, trying to make my face as rigid as Fabia's to hide the pain the words caused me.
"Poisoned," whispered Fabia. "I see. But why have you come here? What do you want from me?"
"You were one of the first women in Rome to befriend her," I said.
"Befriend? Not exactly. I saw a woman in distress. When I approached her, when I heard the nature of her ranting, I sensed the truth-that she was a woman possessed of the gift of prophecy. I took her into the Temple of Vesta, where the goddess could keep her safe while the gift possessed her. I acted as a priestess, not a friend. I acted out of piety, not pity."
"Who was she? Where did she come from?"
"Of her earthly origins, I know nothing. She herself had forgotten."
"But how could you tell that she possessed this gift you speak of? How could you tell that she wasn't simply mad?"
Fabia smiled faintly. "You may be wise in the ways of the world, Gordianus, especially in the ways of men. But this was a divine matter-and a matter for women."
"Are you saying that men have no access to divine knowledge? The augurs-"
"Yes, the College of Augurs is made up of men, and for centuries they've passed down their own methods for reading omens-studying the flights of birds, listening to thunder, watching the play of lightning across the heavens. The sky is Jupiter's realm, and such signs come directly from the King of Gods himself. And the men elected to the College of Fifteen likewise look for signs of the future by consulting the oracles in the ancient Sibylline Books. But there are other, more subtle ways in which the gods make their will known to us, and by which they show us the paths to the future. Many of those methods fall outside the ken of men. Only women know. Only women understand."
"And it was your understanding that Cassandra possessed a true gift of prophecy?"
"When she was possessed, she saw beyond this world."
"The Trojan Cassandra heard messages from the other world."
"Our Cassandra's gift came to her mostly in the form of visions. What she saw, she didn't always understand and couldn't always put into words. She herself made no interpretation of her visions; she only related them as they occurred. Often she had no recollection of them afterward."
"I should think such a gift would be rather unreliable, producing more riddles than answers."
"Her visions required interpretation, if that's what you mean. Not a suitable job for your College of Augurs! But if a person listened to her closely, and if that person already possessed a genuine sympathy for the divine world-"
"A person like yourself," I said.
"Yes, I was able to make sense of Cassandra's visions. That was why I arranged for her to come here, to Terentia's house, on more than one occasion."
"And did she always prophesy?"
"Almost always. There was a method that helped to induce her visions."
"What was that?"
"If she sat in a still, darkroom and gazed at a flame, almost always the visions would come to her."
"And before or after, you would give her food and drink?"
"Of course we would," said Terentia. "She was treated as kindly in my house as any other guest."
"Even though you had no idea of who she really was or where she came from?"
"It was her gift that interested us," said Fabia, "not her family history or the name she was born with."
"And when Cassandra delivered these prophecies, what did you make of them?"
The two sisters exchanged a searching look, silently debating how much they should tell me.
Fabia finally spoke. "Cassandra had many visions, but there was one in particular-a recurring vision of two lions battling one another over the carcass of a she-wolf."
"How did you interpret this vision?"
"The she-wolf was Rome, of course. The lions were Pompey and Caesar."
"And which of them killed the other and ate the carcass?"
"Neither."
"I don't understand. Did they split the she-wolf between them?" I imagined the Roman world split permanently between two factions, Caesar ruling the West, Pompey ruling the East. "One world split between two Roman empires-could such an arrangement ever last?"
"No, no, no!" said Terentia. "You misunderstand. Tell him, Fabia!"
"The vision ended with a miracle," said Fabia. "The she-wolf sprang back to life, and grew until she towered over the lions, who gave up fighting and meekly lay down together, licking at each other's wounds."
"What did the vision mean?"
Fabia began to speak, but Terentia was too excited to remain silent. "Don't you see? It's the best possible outcome! Everyone assumes that Caesar and Pompey must come to blows, that one of them must destroy the other, with Rome as the prize. But there's another possibility-that both sides will come to their senses before it's too late. It's one thing for Romans to shed the blood of Gauls or Parthians, but for Romans to kill Romans-it's unthinkable. Such madness offends the gods themselves. Cicero knows that. It's what he's been trying to tell both sides all along. They must find a way to settle their differences and make peace! That's what Cassandra's vision foretold. For the moment Rome appears paralyzed and helpless; but the she-wolf only sleeps, and when she wakes she'll show herself greater than either Caesar or Pompey. They shall be awed by her shadow, and there shall be a reconciliation between the two factions." Terentia smiled. "It's my belief that Cicero himself will broker the reconciliation. It's the real reason the gods guided his footsteps to Pompey's camp. Not to fight-we all know my husband is no warrior-but to be on hand when the two sides finally do meet, and to make them see the madness of their ways. There shall be peace, not war. Every day I look for a messenger to arrive with a letter from my husband bringing the glorious news."
Fabia walked to her side and laid her hand on Terentia's shoulder. The look on both their faces was transcendent.
I took a deep breath. "How did you learn of Cassandra's death?"
"She died in the marketplace, didn't she?" said Fabia. "People saw. People recognized her. News travels fast in the city."
"Yet neither of you came to my house to pay your respects."
They both averted their eyes. "Well," said Terentia, "she was hardly of our… I mean, as you yourself pointed out, we didn't even know her true name, much less her family."
"Yet you came to see her burn."
"An act of piety," said Fabia. "The burning of the body is a holy rite. We came to witness that."
I lowered my eyes, then looked up at the sound of another voice from the doorway.
"Aunt Fabia! I was wondering where you'd gone. Oh-I didn't realize you had company, Mother."
Cicero's daughter, Tullia, had suffered the misfortune of inheriting her father's looks rather than her mother's, and had grown from a spindly girl into a rather plain young woman. The last time I had seen her had been at her parents' house down in Formiae the previous year, while Cicero was still trying to decide which way to jump. She had been pregnant then and just beginning to show. The child had been born prematurely and had lived only a short while. A year later Tullia appeared to be in good health, despite her slender arms and wan complexion.
Unlike her mother, Tullia wore several pieces of costly-looking jewelry, including gold bracelets and a silver filigree necklace decorated with lapis baubles. Despite the drastic economies the war had imposed on the household, I suspected that young Tullia would be the last member of the family called upon to make personal sacrifices. Cicero and Terentia had spoiled both their children, but Tullia especially.
"Actually," said Terentia, "my visitors were just leaving. Why don't you escort your aunt back to the sewing room, Tullia, while I show them out?"
"Certainly, Mother." Tullia took her aunt's hand and led her from the room. Over her shoulder Fabia gave me a long, parting glance in lieu of a farewell. Tullia's parting glance was at Davus, who reacted by shuffling his feet and clearing his throat.
I began to move toward the door, but Terentia restrained me with a hand on my forearm.
"Send your son-in-law on to the foyer," she said in a low voice, "but stay here a moment longer, Gordianus. There's something I want to show you, in private."
I did as she asked and waited alone in the room, gazing at the pastoral landscapes on the wall. A moment later she returned, carrying a scrap of parchment. She pressed it into my hand.
"Read that," she said. "Tell me what you make of it."
It was a letter from Cicero, dated from the month of Junius and headed From Pompey's Camp in Epirus:
IF YOU ARE WELL, I AM GLAD. I AM WELL. DO YOUR BEST TO RECOVER. AS FAR AS TIME AND CIRCUMSTANCES PERMIT, PROVIDE FOR AND CONDUCT ALL NECESSARY BUSINESS, AND AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE WRITE TO ME ON ALL POINTS. GOOD-BYE.
I turned the scrap of parchment over, but that was all there was to it.
I shrugged, not knowing what she wanted from me. "He advises you to recover. I take it you were unwell?"
"A trifie-a fever that came and went," she said. "You'll notice he doesn't even wish me a speedy recovery or the favor of the gods or any such thing. Merely, 'Do your best to recover.' As if reminding me of a duty!"
"And he charges you with conducting necessary business-"
"Ha! He expects me to run a household-two households, my own and Tullia's-on a budget of thin air! Just to make ends meet, I'm selling off the best furniture and the finest pieces of jewelry handed down from my mother-"
"I don't understand why you showed me this letter, Terentia."
"Because you know my husband, Gordianus. You've known him from the bottom up. You have no illusions about him. I'm not sure you like him-I'm not even sure if you respect him-but you know him. Do you detect in that letter one shred of love or affection or even goodwill?"
Perhaps it's written in code, I wanted to say, knowing from experience that Cicero was prone to such tricks in his correspondence. But Terentia was in no mood for jokes. If she had mustered the courage to bare her soul to me of all people, I knew she must be in genuine distress. "I hardly think it's for me to say what Cicero felt when he wrote this letter."
She took the letter from me and turned away, hiding her face. "The tensions in this household-you can't imagine! For months on end; for years, really. Fighting over what's to be done with young Marcus-his father insists he's to be a scholar, in spite of the fact that all his tutors say he's hopeless. And now the boy's off to fight, though he's barely old enough to wear a toga. And Dolabella, choosing to side with Caesar and carrying on with Antonia behind our backs-my husband could hardly stand the mention of his name even before this trouble began. How he hated the marriage! And when Tullia lost the baby, the pain we all felt was unbearable. But I could tolerate anything, stand any trial, if only I knew that Marcus still-" Her voice caught in her throat, and she shook her head. "The hard fact of the matter is, Marcus no longer loves me. He didn't love me when we married-no woman expects that at the outset of an arranged marriage-but he came to love me, and that love grew and lasted for years. But now… now I don't know what's become of it. I don't know where it went or how to get it back. Too much squabbling over money, too many fights about the children, the bitterness of the times we live in…"
"Terentia, why are you telling me this?"
"Because you knew her as well, didn't you? Better than you let on. You must have, if you made the arrangements for her funeral."
"Yes, I knew Cassandra."
"The prophecy Fabia mentioned-there was more to it… of a personal nature. Cassandra saw her vision of the she-wolf and the lions doubled, reflected in miniature, she said, as if in a distant mirror. It was my household she saw in that mirror-a reflection of the world at large. The she-wolf was our family, the thing that's nurtured and sustained us through even the hardest times. And the beasts were Marcus and myself, drawing blood from each other and fighting over the carcass of our own marriage. But just as Rome is greater than those who squabble over her, this family is greater than its parts. We shall make a reconciliation. Marcus… will love me again. Cassandra said as much!"
"Did she?"
"That was Fabia's interpretation."
"Fabia knows far more about such things than I."
"Yes, but you knew Cassandra. Was she genuine, Gordianus? Was she what she seemed to be? Can I trust the visions she saw in the throes of her gift?"
The interview had been reversed. Now it was Terentia seeking knowledge of Cassandra from me.
"I don't know," I said, and spoke the truth.
V
As I can place the first time I saw Cassandra, because on that day word reached Rome of Caesar's successful sea crossing, so I can place the second time I saw her and the first time I actually spoke to her, because of something significant that occurred on the same day. It was on the morning in late Februarius that Marcus Caelius set up a tribunal next to that of the city praetor Trebonius and commenced his campaign to flout Caesar's will and become the radical champion of Rome's downtrodden.
Before he left Rome, Caesar, by proclaiming edicts and bending the will of the Senate, had set in place a program to shore up the faltering Roman economy. The problems were many and daunting. With the commencement of the war, money had grown increasingly scarce even while prices soared. The treasury of Rome had been emptied to pay for Caesar's military campaigns. No taxes were flowing in. Pompey had cut off all revenues from the East as well as vital grain shipments from Egypt. Commerce was at a standstill; ships, horses, and even handcarts had been commandeered for the war effort. Tradesmen were in distress because no money was in circulation. Free laborers were unable to find employment. Hungry slaves were growing restive. Shopkeepers and tenants were unable to pay their rents. Families whose heads of household had fled Italy or joined Caesar's legions were being cheated by the bailiffs left to mind their masters' property. Bankers were demanding payment of old loans and refusing to make new ones. Unscrupulous profiteers were squeezing all they could from the anxious people of Rome.
I myself had gone increasingly into debt for the first time in my life. It seemed that only a handful of people had money, and that they had a great deal of it, and that the rest of us had to go to them begging for loans at whatever terms they demanded. Simply to pay for the daily expenses of life, I found myself indebted to the wealthy banker Volumnius to such an extent that I despaired of ever being able to repay him.
To address these problems, Caesar had ordered that all property values and rents should be rolled back to prewar prices. Debtors were allowed to deduct all interest paid from the principal they owed. Arbitrators were appointed to settle disputes over valuations and bankruptcies. An antihoarding law decreed that no one could keep more than sixty thousand sesterces of gold or silver out of circulation.
Caesar's efforts had been moderate and were moderately successful. Money began to circulate. Shops reopened, and vendors reappeared in the markets. The growing sense of panic among the general population began to subside and gave way to a grinding, day-to-day scrabble for sustenance.
There were those-some because they truly despised the status quo and wanted to see it overturned, and some because they themselves were hopelessly in debt and were desperate for a way out-who had hoped Caesar would enact a far more radical program. They wanted him to abolish all debts, refund rents, perhaps even confiscate the property of the wealthy and redistribute it to the poor. These people were bitterly disappointed.
The man whom Caesar had appointed to administer his economic program was Gaius Trebonius. I had met Trebonius the previous year in the Roman encampment outside Massilia, where he was the commanding officer in charge of the siege. He was a thoroughly competent and resourceful military man with a good head for figures and an intuitive sense of how the world works. Trebonius could look at a catapult and tell you why it wasn't working properly, calculate the load and trajectory, then watch the men loading it and pick the one best suited to give orders to the others. He had conducted an efficient and successful siege, and Massilia had been subdued at very little cost to Caesar's legions. In recognition of his competence, Trebonius was the man Caesar put in place to run the city of Rome in his absence.
Some called Trebonius's magistracy a reward for services rendered, but it was not a job I would have wanted. No doubt Trebonius was able to profit immensely by accepting bribes from the disputants who came before him, but I found it mind-numbing to imagine the endless caseload of property valuations and bankruptcy negotiations over which Trebonius had to preside.
Trebonius conducted this tedious business from a tribunal, a raised platform, in the Forum. He sat on his official chair of state, a particularly ornate specimen in the traditional shape of a folding camp stool but heavily decorated with ivory and gold, with four elephant tusks for legs. Secretaries and clerks hovered about him, fetching documents, consulting ledgers, and taking notes. On most days a long line of litigants awaiting their interview with Trebonius wound snakelike through the Forum. Among the contesting parties, tempers were short, and stakes were high. Not infrequently, fights broke out up and down the line. Armed guards would rush to quell these disturbances before they could expand into a full-scale riot.
It was on a morning in late Februarius that another magistrate, Marcus Caelius, strode into the Forum, carrying his own chair of state and attended by his own retinue of secretaries and clerks, who quickly erected a raised platform only a short distance away from that of Trebonius. Caelius mounted the tribunal and, with a flourish, unfolded his chair of state, which was a notably simpler affair than that of Trebonius-the ivory decorations were less ornate and without gold accents, and the legs were not of ivory but merely of wood carved in the shape of elephant tusks. By the example of his chair of state, Caelius was already proclaiming himself the standard-bearer of austere Roman virtue and the champion of the downtrodden.
Still in his thirties, slender as a youth, and as handsome and charming as ever, Marcus Caelius already had a long and checkered career in public life. I remembered him best as Cicero's unruly young protege, learning the arts of rhetoric at the feet of his prim and proper master by day, carousing and carrying on a debauched social life by night-much to the chagrin of all concerned, especially when Caelius found himself dragged into the courts by his ex-lover Clodia, who accused him of the murder-for-hire of a visiting Alexandrian philosopher. Cicero rushed to his protege's defense. The trial degenerated into a squalid exchange of name-calling, and ultimately Cicero managed to turn the tables on Clodia by picturing her as a wanton, incestuous whore out to ruin an innocent young man. Acquitted, Caelius had turned his back on the alluring Clodia, her rabblerousing brother Clodius, and the rest of their radical clique and had committed himself wholeheartedly to the cause of the so-called Best People, like Cicero and Pompey, until-tugged back and forth like all the other bright, ambitious young men of Rome-he finally cast his lot with Caesar. On the eve of Caesar's decision to cross the Rubicon and commit himself to civil war, Caelius had ridden out of Rome to join him-leaving Cicero once again much chagrined.
Caelius became one of Caesar's lieutenants and served him well in the Spanish campaign. Returning to Rome saddled with debts, he had hoped to be installed in the lucrative post of city praetor, and made no secret of his bitter disappointment when that magistracy had gone instead to Gaius Trebonius. Caelius had been stuck with a lesser praetorship, which put him in charge of adjudicating the affairs of foreign residents in the city. Perhaps Caesar thought it wise to tuck an ambitious fellow of shifting loyalties like Caelius in a safe niche, giving him a job of minimal importance with not much to do-but Caesar should have known that Caelius, with time on his hands, was a dangerous man.
I happened to be in the Forum along with Hieronymus and the usual chin-waggers when Caelius set up his mock tribunal next to that of Trebonius. I also happened to see the look of consternation on Trebonius's face.
What was Caelius up to? I stepped closer to his tribunal. The chin-waggers followed along. Caelius sat in his chair of state, slowly turning his head to take in the long line of litigants waiting to see Trebonius and the curious crowd that had begun to gather before his own tribunal. For a moment his eyes fell on me. Our paths had crossed many times in the past. He gave me a nod of recognition and flashed his dazzling smile-the smile that had once melted Clodia's heart and gotten him into endless other mischief over the years. Our eyes met for only a moment, but I had a premonition of all the trouble he was about to hatch for himself and so many others.
Caelius stood up from his chair of state. A hush fell over the line of litigants waiting to see Trebonius and the crowd that had gathered.
"Citizens of Rome!" cried Caelius. He had one of the best orator's voices in Rome, able to reach great distances with trumpet-like clarity. "Why do you stand there, lined up like obedient sheep in a fold awaiting your turn to be sheared? The magistrate from whom you are seeking redress can do absolutely nothing to help you. His hands are tied. The law as it stands gives him no power to do anything but inflict more damage. All the city praetor can do is look at the numbers you put in front of him, shift them around a bit-like one of those confidence tricksters who haunt the markets, shifting the cup that hides the nut-and then send you home with less than you had when you arrived here. The government of Rome should be able to do better than that for its hardworking, long-suffering citizens! Do you not agree?"
At this there were scattered cries from those in the line-some mocking and jeering at Caelius, but others raising voices in agreement. A few men at the back of the line, unable to hear, gave up their places to come see what was going on. Word quickly spread that Caelius was staging some sort of political demonstration, and the crowd rapidly grew as men arrived from all over the Forum. Trebonius, meanwhile, went on about his business, pretending to ignore Caelius.
"Citizens of Rome," Caelius continued, "think back and remember the situation just a little over a year ago, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon and drove out the smug, self-satisfied scoundrels who were running the state for their own advancement. Did you not feel, as I did, a rush of excitement, a thrill of anticipation when we were suddenly confronted by all the glorious possibilities of a bright future-possibilities that had been unthinkable only a day, even an hour before Caesar took that first step across the Rubicon? All at once, in the blink of an eye, anything could happen! How often in the course of a man's lifetime does such a prospect of boundless hope open before him? The world would be remade! Rome would be reborn! Honest men would finally triumph, and the scoundrels among us would be sent scampering off, their tails between their legs.
"Instead-well, you know the bitter truth as well as I do, or else you wouldn't be here today, begging for crumbs from the magistrate in charge of the city. Nothing has changed-except for the worse. The scoundrels have triumphed once again! Is this what men fought and died for-the rights of rich landlords and moneylenders to grind the rest of us beneath their heels? Why has Caesar not put a stop to this shameless situation? Citizens, think of your own circumstances exactly a year ago and tell me: are you better off today? If your answer is yes, then you must be a landlord or a banker, because everyone else is worse off, far worse! Our wrists have been slashed, and the blood drinkers are sucking us dry-and though I hate to say it, it was Caesar himself who put the knives in their hands!"
A few men in the crowd, most of them conspicuously wealthy, booed and jeered along with their entourages of secretaries and bodyguards. But these catcalls were drowned out by angry shouts of agreement that rose up from others. Some of those supporting Caelius may have been hirelings-seeding a crowd with vocal supporters was one of the first lessons he'd learned from Cicero-but the discontent he was tapping into ran deep, and the majority of the listeners were with him.
Trebonius was still ignoring the situation, trying to carry on his business, but even the litigants with whom he was dealing were giving him only one ear as they bent the other to hear what Caelius was saying.
"Citizens of Rome, Caesar did us all a great service when he crossed the Rubicon. By that bold action, he set in motion a revolution that will remake the state. I myself proudly joined the cause. I did my part on the battlefield, fighting with Caesar in Spain. Now the military struggle continues in a new arena where we have every expectation of success. But while we wait for news of the final victory, we cannot remain idle. We must continue to move ahead here in Rome. We must accomplish in his absence what Caesar, for whatever reasons, failed to accomplish while he was here. We must enact new legislation that will give genuine relief to those who truly need it!"
There was a fresh outburst from the crowd. "It's already been done! Shut up and go home!" shouted one of Caelius's critics. "Hooray! Hooray for Caelius!" shouted a rough fellow who had the look of an agitator-for-hire. The crowd grew so noisy that even Caelius had a hard time speaking above the hubbub. Trebonius gave up on trying to counsel the two litigants before him and sat back in his ornate chair of state, his arms tightly crossed, a scowl on his face.
"Toward that end," Caelius shouted, raising his voice to clarion pitch to make himself heard, "toward that end, I shall begin by proposing a new law to stop all debt payments for a period of no less than six years. I repeat, I will ask the Senate to impose a six year moratorium on all existing debts, with no interest to be accrued in the meantime! Those who have been crushed to their knees by debt will finally be given a chance to get back on their feet. And if the wealthy moneylenders complain that they'll starve, then let them eat the wax tablets on which those loans were recorded!"
There was a huge response from the crowd. Caelius, his face flushed with excitement-for I think the crowd had grown even larger and more enthusiastic than he'd expected-managed to make himself heard above the roar. "In anticipation of the passage of this law, I have set up my tribunal here today. I shall take up my post in my chair of state, and my clerks shall record the names and circumstances of all citizens who are currently in debt, so that their relief can be expedited immediately when the law goes into effect. Please form a line beginning on my right." And with that he sat down on his chair of state, looking quite pleased with himself.
The line of litigants waiting to see Trebonius evaporated in the rush to join the line to see Caelius. Why should any debtor waste his time haggling with the city praetor, when Caelius's legislation, if enacted, would supersede whatever settlement Trebonius decreed?
"What a pack of fools," grumbled one-armed Canininus in my ear. "There's not a chance in Hades the Senate will pass Caelius's legislation. If Caesar had wanted such a thing, he'd have enacted it himself. And if Caesar doesn't want it, the Senate won't even consider it. Caelius is just stirring up trouble."
"But why?" I said. "What's the point of setting off a riot?" For in fact a near riot had ensued. Angry cries and insults filled the air. Shoving matches and fistfights broke out. Snarling bodyguards formed cordons around their wealthy patrons, who rushed to escape the rabble. At a sign from Trebonius, glowering down at the chaotic scene from his chair of state, armed guards set about trying to restore order, though it was hard to know where to begin. The crowd was like a boiling caldron, bubbling over everywhere at once.
What was Caelius up to? Canininus was right; as long as the Senate was in the palm of Caesar's hand, Caelius had no hopes of enacting his own radical programs. Nor, as the praetor overseeing foreign residents, did he have any legitimate business to involve himself with debt settlements. Was he simply trying to make Trebonius's job harder, out of spite? Or did Caelius have a definite agenda in mind and a goal toward which he was moving?
Hieronymus and I, fearing the madness of the mob, made our way to the edge of the crowd. I acquired a couple of bruises from flying elbows, but otherwise emerged unscathed. At last we found a quiet place to catch our breaths, beside the Temple of Castor and Pollux. That was when I saw Cassandra for the second time.
The narrow platform that projected perpendicularly from the porch of the temple, flanking the steps, was just above our heads. I happened to look up, and saw her standing alone on the platform. She was watching the seething crowd beyond us and took no notice of the two of us below her.
Hieronymus saw the expression on my face and followed my gaze. "Beautiful!" he whispered. The word escaped from his lips as involuntarily as a breath.
And she was beautiful, especially when seen from that low angle-the vantage point of a suppliant looking up at a goddess on a high pedestal. To be sure, there was nothing remotely divine or regal about her threadbare blue tunica or her unkempt hair, but in her bearing there was a certain rare dignity that would command the immediate attention and respect of any man. In me it commanded more than that. I gazed up at her and felt my heart skip a beat. A vaguely remembered sensation from my youth, at once thrilling and painful, shot through me, and I suddenly felt like a man a third my age. I rebuked myself for such foolishness. I was an old, married man. She was a beggar, and a madwoman to boot.
She happened to look down and saw us staring up at her. That was the first time I looked into her eyes and saw that they were blue. Her face was blank, without expression-the face of Athena as molded by the Greek sculptors, I thought-and that in itself seemed odd, considering that she was watching a riot. I thought of a bird watching the activities of humans below her, apathetic to their violence against one another.
She gave a jerk. I thought that we had frightened her somehow, and that she was about to bolt. Instead, her eyes rolled back, and her knees buckled under her. She swayed, lost her footing, and tumbled forward.
To say that Cassandra quite literally fell into my arms would be true but misleading, lending the moment a romantic flair in no way evident at the time. In fact, when I saw that she was about to fall, I felt a quiver of panic-not for her, but for myself. When a man of my years sees a woman falling toward him from a considerable height, he thinks not of heroism but of his own frail bones. Still, I suspect that the instinct to catch a falling woman is strong in any man, no matter what his years. Hieronymus reacted just as I did, and it was into both our arms that she tumbled.
The moment was painfully awkward. Hieronymus and I essentially collided, and an instant later Cassandra fell onto us, and all three of us very nearly collapsed to the ground in a heap. If we had been actors in a comedy by Plautus, the staging could not have been more hilarious. By some miracle of balance and counterbalance, Hieronymus and I both stayed on our feet. Together we managed to lower our dazed cargo to her own unsteady feet, supporting her arms to keep her upright.
The breath was knocked out of me. A sharp pain shot up my spine. Spots swam before my eyes. None of this mattered when Cassandra fell swooning against me, one hand across her face and the other across her bosom.
To observe the form of a beautiful woman at a distance is one thing. To abruptly feel a warm, solid, breathing body enclosed within your arms is another thing altogether. It was precisely for this, to experience such moments of human contact, that the gods made us. That was what I felt in that instant, even if I did not consciously realize it.
Cassandra gradually came to her senses and drew back from me, but only slightly, still remaining in my embrace. Over her shoulder I saw Hieronymus looking rather envious of me. I looked in Cassandra's eyes and saw again that they were blue, but not quite the shade I had thought. There was a bit of green in them, or was that only a momentary trick of the light? Her eyes fascinated me.
"Was I… did I… fall?" she asked. It seemed to me that her Latin carried a slight accent, but I couldn't place it.
"You did. From up there." I nodded toward the platform.
"And… you caught me?"
"We caught you," said Hieronymus, crossing his arms petulantly. Cassandra glanced at him over her shoulder. She gently pulled herself from my embrace.
"Are you all right?" I said. "Can you stand?"
"Of course."
"What happened? Did you faint?"
"I'm perfectly all right now. I should go." She turned away.
"Go where?" I reached for her arm, then stopped myself. Where she went was none of my business. Perhaps she thought so too, for she made no answer. Yet it seemed to me that there must be more to say. "What's your name?"
"They call me Cassandra." She looked back at me. Her expression, briefly animated after she recovered from her daze, had become remote again-goddess like, birdlike, or simply the affectless face of a madwoman?
"But that can't be your real name," I said. "You must have another."
"Must I?" She looked confused for a moment, then turned and walked away with a slow, imperturbable stride, her head and shoulders erect, seemingly oblivious of the men who occasionally ran across her path in flight from the continuing melee before the tribunals of the rival magistrates.
"What an extraordinary woman," said Hieronymus.
I merely nodded.