A Mist of Prophecies

IV

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.