A Mist of Prophecies

VI

My interview with Terentia and the Vestal Fabia had yielded some new information about Cassandra, if not much. I decided next to consult Fulvia the twice-widowed; I had rendered her a service in the past by investigating the murder of her husband, Clodius-as partial payment she had given me Mopsus and Androcles-and I could expect at least a cordial welcome at her door. And so, after leaving Cicero's house and returning to my own for a frugal midday meal and a fitful nap during the hottest part of the day, I set out as the sun was lowering to the house of Rome's most famous widow.

As before, I took Davus with me for protection. As we walked down the familiar streets of the Palatine, I was reminded of the days when Davus first entered my household as a slave, only shortly after I first met Fulvia as a stunned and grieving widow. It seemed a memory from another age. Could it actually have been only four years ago that Clodius was murdered on the Appian Way? Rome had been wracked with riots. Clodius's radical supporters had burned the Senate House. Pompey had been called upon to restore order and given almost dictatorial powers; he had exploited the situation to engineer a series of trials that banished many of his enemies from Rome, upsetting once and for all the precarious constitutional balance between his interests and those of Caesar. In retrospect, the murder of Clodius had been the temporal fulcrum between the moment when civil war seemed unthinkable and the moment when it became inevitable. The murder of Fulvia's first husband had been the beginning of the end of our tattered Republic.

Her grief for Clodius had been deep and genuine. They had been true lovers, I think, as well as partners in a broader sense; for Fulvia, as a politician's wife, had always been the exact opposite of Cicero's Terentia. She was a woman with opinions, plans, projects, allies, and enemies. She plotted and schemed alongside her husband and served as his closest advisor. His death had robbed her not only of a husband and a father to their two children; it had robbed her of her role in the political sphere. Women can play no part in the Senate or the magistracies. Women cannot vote. By law they cannot even own property in their own names, although clever women find ways around such technicalities, just as women who care about the course of worldly events find ways to wield their influence, usually through their husbands. While Clodius lived, Fulvia had been one of the most powerful people in Rome, male or female. When he died, she was like a strong man suddenly paralyzed and stricken mute.

But a woman as intelligent, wealthy, and ambitious as Fulvia-who was also a striking woman, if not beautiful-did not have to endure the helplessness of widowhood for long. To a certain kind of man, her combination of qualities must have been almost maddeningly attractive. When she consented to marry Gaius Curio, many people thought that she had found the perfect match. He had been a part of her circle for many years, one of that coterie of ambitious, bright young men with voracious appetites and endless schemes to remake the world in their own image, men like Dolabella, Clodius, Caelius, and Marc Antony. Some said that Fulvia actually would have preferred Antony, had he been available and not already married to his cousin Antonia, and that Fulvia had settled on Antony's boyhood friend (some said lover) Curio as the next best thing; but most agreed that Curio was in fact the better choice because he was more malleable and less inclined to debauchery than Antony.

Like Antony, Curio early on allied himself with Caesar and never wavered in his devotion or relented in proselytizing on Caesar's behalf. Indeed, it was largely Curio's influence that had brought Marcus Caelius into the fold. On the eve of the war, Caelius and Curio had ridden out together to be by Caesar's side when he crossed the Rubicon. But while Caelius had ultimately been relegated to a minor praetorship in Rome, Curio had been given command of four legions. When Caesar headed for Spain, he dispatched Curio to take on the Pompeian forces led by Cato in Sicily. Cato, disorganized and unready like the rest of the Pompeians, abandoned the island without a fight. Curio, flush from an easy conquest, left two of his legions in Sicily and with his other two pressed on to Africa-and that was where Curio's troubles began.

Some said his conquest of Sicily had been too easy, that it led to overconfidence and rash judgment. Some said it was Curio's youth and lack of military experience that led him into King Juba's trap. Others said it was simply bad luck.

Curio's African campaign began well enough. First, he set about taking the rich seaport of Utica, which was held by the Pompeian commander Varus. A small band of Numidian soldiers dispatched by King Juba attempted to come to the city's aid, but Curio drove them off. He baited Varus to meet in battle outside the city. There Curio made his first mistake, which only by a stroke of good luck proved not to be fatal. He sent his foot soldiers into a steep ravine where they might easily have been ambushed; but in the meantime his cavalry managed to sweep away the enemy's left wing, and Varus's men-sent fleeing back to the city-missed an easy opportunity to destroy their enemy. Such a near miss might have given Curio pause, but instead it emboldened him. He prepared to lay siege to Utica.

In the meantime, King Juba had mustered his army and was marching to relieve Utica. Juba had close ties to Pompey, having been a patron of Pompey's father. And he had cause to hate Curio, who in recent years had proposed that Rome should annex Numidia by force.

Curio received news of Juba's approach. Alarmed, he sent to Sicily for his other two legions. But deserters from Juba's army told him that only a small body of Numidians were advancing. Curio sent out his cavalry, who skirmished with Juba's vanguard. From the intelligence he received, Curio thought that this vanguard was the whole Numidian force. Thinking to destroy it so that he could get on with the siege, he hurried out with his legions to do battle. The season was blisteringly hot; the march over burning sands. The Romans blundered into the entire Numidian army. They were surrounded and slaughtered.

A handful of Curio's men managed to escape. Curio, too, might have fled and saved himself, but he refused to desert his men. A survivor, bringing news of the disaster to Caesar shortly after Caesar's return from Spain, reported Curio's last words: "I've lost the army Caesar entrusted to me. How could I face him?"

Curio fought until the Numidians killed him. They cut off his head and sent the trophy to King Juba. Fulvia was once again a widow.

Pondering her situation, imagining her mood, I felt some hesitation as I approached her house. The structure itself presented a daunting aspect-the giant, fortress like monstrosity that Clodius had erected on the Palatine, the opulent headquarters from which he had directed the street gangs under his command. Steep terraces overgrown with roses and glimmering with many-colored marble veneers flanked the huge forecourt that had served as a rallying place for Clodius to address his supporters. The iron gate stood open, and as Davus and I strode across the forecourt, gravel crunching under our feet, I gazed ahead at the flight of steps leading up to the broad porch and saw a black wreath upon the massive bronze door. Nine months into her widowhood, Fulvia was still in mourning for Curio.

We mounted the steps. A huge bronze ring on the door served as a knocker. Davus lifted it and let it fall, delivering a dull, reverberating clang. We waited. So far as I could see, no peephole opened in the door, but I had the uncanny sensation of being observed. Clodius's passion for installing secret passages, concealed doors, and hidden spy holes had been notorious.

Eventually I heard the sound of a bar being thrown back on the other side of the door, and then it slowly opened, creaking slightly on its hinges. An athletic-looking slave ushered us inside, then quickly closed the door and let the heavy wooden beam fall back into place, barring it securely.

I had been in this foyer before, in the hours and days that followed the murder of Clodius. It appeared that Curio, in becoming the new master of the house, had made no changes. The floors and walls were of highly polished marble. Red draperies shot with gold threads framed the passageway that led to the atrium, where the ceiling, supported on soaring black marble columns, rose to the height of three stories. In the center of the atrium, a shallow pool was decorated with shimmering mosaic tiles of blue-black and silver, picturing the night sky and the constellations. The actual sky, visible through an opening far above, was just beginning to deepen to the rich blue of twilight.

I turned to the slave who had admitted us. "Tell your mistress that Gordianus-"

"The mistress knows who you are and why you've come," he said, with a sardonic smile. "Follow me."

He led us through halls and galleries decorated with wall paintings and statues. Slaves moved quietly about, lighting braziers and lamps set in sconces on the walls. I was fairly certain that I had traversed the same passageways before, but the house was so sprawling that I couldn't be sure. Eventually we mounted a flight of steps and were shown into a room with large windows, their shutters thrown open to admit the last of the day's light. The walls were stained green and decorated with blue-and-white borders in a geometrical Greek design. Through the windows I saw the golden light of the lowering sun glinting across Palatine rooftops and lending a warm glow to the west-facing temples atop the distant Capitoline Hill. The reflected glow flooded the room, giving it a cozy feeling despite its lofty ceiling and spectacular view.

Fulvia and her mother, Sempronia, sat before one of the long windows, dressed in stolas of darkest blue. A tiny child-Curio's son-was attempting to walk-on a blanket at the women's feet. Fulvia's other children, her son and daughter by Clodius, were not in the room.

"Your visitors, mistress," said the slave.

"Thank you, Thraso. You may go." As Fulvia turned her gaze to me, she lifted a stylus from the wax tablet upon which she had been writing and laid the stylus and tablet aside. There was a popular catchphrase regarding Fulvia and her ambition: "She was not born to spin." Indeed, it was hard to imagine walking into her presence and finding her in the midst of some common female occupation. Instead, like a man of affairs with numerous ideas and projects to keep track of, she kept a wax tablet and stylus about her.

Her mother, Sempronia, despite her hard features, seemed the more maternal of the two. She ignored Davus and me while she clucked and cooed and reached out to the little boy on the blanket, encouraging him to rise to his feet and attempt another faltering step.

"Thank you for seeing me, Fulvia. But I'm curious-how did you know it was me, when I never announced myself?"

She glanced at her son, who managed to stand upright for a moment before tumbling forward onto his hands and knees, then she turned her gaze back to me. "There's a hidden peephole at one end of the porch. Thraso took a good look at you, then ran to give me your description. It could only have been you, Gordianus. 'Nose like a boxer's; a full head of iron gray hair shot with silver, but eyes that sparkle like those of a man half his age; a beard trimmed by a wife to suit herself.' "

"Actually, my daughter, Diana, trims my beard these days. But I feared you might have forgotten me, Fulvia."

"I never forget a man who might be useful to me." She turned her gaze to Davus. "But I don't think I've met this other fellow. 'Shoulders like a Titan's," said Thraso, "but a face like Narcissus.' "

"This is Davus, my son-in-law. Thraso also told me that you know why I've come. Surprising, since I'm not sure of that myself."

She smiled. "Aren't you? I saw you at the funeral; you must have seen me. I've been half-expecting you to call on me. This is about Cassandra, I presume?"

Sempronia abruptly clapped her hands. A slave girl came running. Sempronia planted a kiss on her grandchild's forehead, then told the girl to take him from the room. As he was carried out, the boy began to cry. His wails echoed and receded down the hallway. Sempronia bit her forefinger and fidgeted, but Fulvia showed no reaction.

"I hope you didn't send the boy away on my account," I said.

"Of course not," said Sempronia, finally looking at me and raising an eyebrow at the notion that I could consider myself important enough to merit any action regarding her grandson. Since I had last seen her, one of her eyes had become cloudy white; if anything, it seemed to fix on me more penetratingly than the other. Under her gaze, I quailed a bit. Strange, that a woman who could be so tender to a child could be so intimidating to a grown man. "If we're going to talk about the witch, it isn't fitting for a man-child to be present," she said.

"Is that what Cassandra was? A witch?"

"Of course," said Sempronia. "Did you think she was a mere mortal woman?"

"She was most certainly… mortal," I said quietly.

"She was murdered, wasn't she?" said Fulvia. With both of them now looking at me, I realized that the daughter's gaze was no less piercing than her mother's, yet somehow it gave me no displeasure to be looked at so openly by Fulvia. Sempronia's gaze was caustic; it stripped a man naked. Fulvia's gaze seemed cleansing, as if its purpose was to strip away whatever veils of confusion or misunderstanding might intervene between us. Her eyes were intelligent, lively, inviting. No wonder she had secured two of Rome's best and brightest, if unluckiest, to become her husbands.

"Why do you think Cassandra was murdered?" I asked.

"Because I know the curious circumstances of her death. How she died suddenly… in the marketplace… in your arms. Was it poison, Gordianus? They say she was wracked with convulsions."

"They?"

"My eyes and ears."

"Your spies?"

Fulvia shrugged. "There's very little that happens in Rome that doesn't reach me."

"What else do you know about her murder?"

"If you're asking me who might have done such a thing or how or why, I can't tell you. I don't know. But a woman like Cassandra might have been dangerous to any number of people. She couldn't just see the future, you know; she had visions of faraway events."

"Could she see the future?"

"She was a witch," said Sempronia, interrupting. Her tone implied that I had already received my answer and should pay closer attention.

"A witch, you say? Did she cast spells, place curses, heal the sick?"

"She did none of those things in this household," said Sempronia, "but who can say what powers she possessed? She most certainly was able to see beyond the present moment and the four walls surrounding her."

"How do you know that?"

Sempronia opened her mouth to answer, but Fulvia raised a hand to silence her. "Let me tell him, Mother."

Sempronia huffed. "Why should we tell this fellow anything?"

"Have you forgotten, Mother? When Clodius was murdered, Gordianus was among the first to come to this house to pay his respects. He cared enough to seek out the truth."

"But he's an old lackey of Cicero's!" Sempronia spat the name.

Fulvia's eyes narrowed. She and Cicero were old and very bitter enemies. "It's true that you made your reputation working for Cicero, isn't it, Gordianus?"

"I wouldn't say that. I would say, rather, that Cicero made his reputation while I was working for him. I was never his lackey. Over the course of many years, we've had our ups and downs. Of late, I've lost touch with him completely. I haven't heard from him in months."

"Yet you visited his house only today," noted Fulvia. I raised an eyebrow. "I told you, Gordianus, there's little that happens in Rome that I don't know about."

"Yes-your eyes and ears. Yet you don't know who killed Cassandra?"

Fulvia smiled ruefully. "I'm not omniscient. I do have… blind spots."

I nodded. "Yes, I went to Cicero's house this morning to see Terentia for the same reason I've come to see you. You made an appearance at Cassandra's funeral, which suggests that you must have known her in more than a casual way. Who was she? Where did she come from?"

I addressed Fulvia, but her mother answered. "She was an Egyptian witch! It stands to reason. All the most powerful witches come from Egypt these days. They carry Greek blood in their veins-which explains Cassandra's blond hair and blue eyes-but unlike the modern-day Greeks, they haven't forgotten the old magic. The traditions are still kept alive in Egypt-the making of amulets, the memorizing of curses, the arts of fortune-telling. Cassandra was an Egyptian witch."

"We don't know that for a fact, Mother," objected Fulvia. "It's only a supposition."

"Your eyes and ears never told you where Cassandra came from?" I asked.

"Where she was concerned, I was strangely deaf and blind," admitted Fulvia. "It was as if Cassandra dropped to earth on a comet-and for all I know, she did."

"When did you first encounter her?"

"Many months ago."

"How many?"

"It was in November of last year."

If that were so, Fulvia had encountered Cassandra even before the day in Januarius when I saw the Vestal Fabia take her into the temple. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I am! How could I forget that bitter day?" Her face darkened. "Just how much shall I tell you, Gordianus? Everything? Yes, why not?" She raised a hand to silence her mother, who seemed poised to object. "Caesar was still here in Rome, flush from his triumphs in Spain and Massilia. Word from the Adriatic Sea was not so good; Dolabella was powerless against Pompey's fleet. But from Sicily…" She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. "From Sicily there had come the excellent news of my husband's conquest of the island, followed by the even more promising news that Gaius had pressed on… to Africa." She lowered her eyes and cleared her throat.

"Every day, here in this house, we waited for word of his progress. A messenger arrived with the news that he had taken Utica. We rejoiced. Then a second report arrived that contradicted the first, saying that Utica was still under siege but would fall into Gaius's hands at any moment. The mood in this house was one of joyful restraint. We lived in anticipation of great and glorious news. My mother made a joke, that soon…" Her voice broke. "Soon Gaius would have a new honorific to append to his name, and we would thereafter be the family of Gaius Scribonius Curio Africanus-conqueror of Africa!" Fulvia shook her head. "It's bitter to be left behind. A woman should be allowed to follow her husband onto the field of battle."

I raised an eyebrow. "Pompey's wife went with him when he fled from Rome. I understand she's with him even now."

"I don't mean that-to follow along like baggage! In a better world I should have been allowed to go along with Gaius, not merely as his wife, but as his co-commander! Yes, I know, the notion is absurd; no centurion would ever take commands from a woman. But I should have been there-to counsel Gaius, to help him weigh the advice of his subordinates, to evaluate intelligence from the field, to plot strategy. If I had been there…"

Sempronia touched her arm to comfort her. Fulvia gripped her mother's hand and went on. "Instead of going with him, I waited here in Rome. Is there any torture worse than waiting and not knowing? Some days I felt as if I were riding a storm-tossed ship, pitched between hope and despair until I thought I'd go mad. Other days were so still and quiet it was like being trapped on a ship in flat water-hours passing without a word, without a sign, only endless waiting and watching and wondering. Until…"

She drew a deep breath. "As I said, it was on a day last November. I had been to the house of one of Gaius's relatives to see if they had had any news of him, but they knew no more than I did. I was on my way home, passing through the Forum in my litter. The curtains were drawn. No one could see in, but because it was a bright day and the curtains are not entirely opaque, I could see out, at least well enough to tell that we were passing by the Temple of Castor and Pollux. I was thinking about Gaius, of course. Then I heard a voice.

"It was a woman's voice. It came from outside the litter. But the quality of that voice was so strange… and because of the words it spoke… it seemed almost to come from inside my head. The voice said: He's dead now. He died fighting. It was a brave death.

"Those words sent such a chill through me that I thought I might faint. It suddenly seemed dark inside the litter, as if a cloud had swallowed the sun. I called on the litter bearers to halt. My voice must have been very nearly a scream. The litter stopped so abruptly that I was pitched forward. Thraso stuck his head through the curtains, looking alarmed. He asked me what was wrong.

" 'Did you not hear it?' I asked. He looked at me blankly. 'A woman's voice,' I said. 'She spoke to me as we passed the temple.'

"Thraso looked back, toward the way we had come. 'There's no one there,' he said, 'except a crazy woman muttering to herself and pacing the temple steps.'

" 'Bring her!' I told him. He went to fetch her. A few moments later he pulled back the curtains of the litter, and I first saw Cassandra.

"She was dressed in a filthy tunica. She looked frightened and confused. Thraso had to hold onto her tightly, or else she would have fled. 'You spoke to me just now,' I said, 'as my litter passed the steps.' She shook her head and looked at me as if I were the mad one. 'You spoke!' I insisted. 'Say it again. Say the words you said before!'

"The voice that emerged from her was so otherworldly that even Thraso quailed a bit. It didn't match her body, you see. The voice was too old for such a young woman. It didn't quite seem to come from her open lips, yet there was nowhere else for it to have come from. It was uncanny, unnerving. 'He's dead now,' she said. 'He died fighting. It was a brave death.'

"The words were even more disturbing the second time I heard them. They shattered me. I began to shiver and weep. I ordered Thraso to take me home as quickly as possible. 'What shall I do with this one?' he asked. I could see he wanted nothing to do with the woman, but I told him to bring her along with us. He made a face, but he tightened his grip on the woman's arm. He let the curtains drop and ordered the bearers to hurry homeward.

"When we arrived, I told Thraso to bring the woman here, to this room. She was even dirtier than I had realized. Her clothes were ragged and worn. She had a distinct odor, as if she hadn't been to the public baths in days. In a voice as normal as anyone else's, she told me she was hungry. There was nothing menacing or uncanny or even odd about her. She seemed intimidated at being in such a grand house, and rather pathetic. I told Thraso to fetch some food and drink for her. Then I asked her what she had meant by what she said."

"And what did she tell you?"

"She said she couldn't remember saying anything at all. I was already shaken. I became angry… confused… I pressed her. She cowered and wept. Suddenly she began to quiver and twitch. Her eyes rolled back. She spoke again in that strange, hollow voice that seemed to come from the ether. She described to me a desert plain, blinding sunlight, a hot wind. She heard men shouting, saw flashing swords, heard the sizzle of blood spattered on hot sand. She saw Gaius-it could only have been Gaius, for she described him to me perfectly: his curling black hair, his glittering blue eyes, his defiant jaw, the half smile that would light his face when prospects were grim. She saw him clothed in shimmering armor, though his head was bare, for he had lost his helmet. He was alone, cut off from his men, surrounded, slashing his sword through the air, until finally… he fell. They swarmed over him. And then-"

"Fulvia, no!" Her mother gripped her arm with white knuckles, but Fulvia pressed on.

"And then… she saw Gaius's face rise up again, as if by some miracle he had gotten to his feet, even amid all that murderous swarm. Not only that, but he was… smiling. Grinning like a boy, she said. But then… then she saw the vision more clearly and realized… there was no body below his neck, which was severed and dripping with blood. His head was being held aloft by the Numidian who had beheaded him. He only seemed to smile because… because the fist clenching his black curls pulled taut the muscles of his face, opening his mouth, baring his teeth…"

Throughout this long recitation, Fulvia kept her eyes on mine as if daring me to look away. At last I did, unable to bear the pain I saw there. It was not the glimmer of eyes brimming with hot tears, but a hard, dry grief, tearless and cold.

Fulvia drew a deep breath. "As abruptly as it began, the spell ended. She was simply a meek beggar again, dazed, hungry, with no recollection of what she had just said. I was stunned, shocked, speechless. Food was brought. I watched her eat. She was like a beast, with no manners at all. Her odor offended me, so I sent her to be bathed. I ordered that her old rags should be burned and told one of my slaves to find a proper tunica for her. The slave found an old blue one that suited her. When I saw her cleaned and properly dressed, I realized how beautiful she was. I told Thraso that she should be given a place to sleep, and that he should keep watch on her.

"At dawn Thraso came to me and told me that the woman had slept the night through, quite soundly. I myself had slept not at all. I told Thraso to keep the woman in the house, to offer her whatever food and drink she wanted, to lock her in her room if he had to. But I was the one who behaved like a prisoner. I shut myself in this room. I saw no one, spoke to no one, not even my mother. I simply waited, sick with dread. From these windows I watched the sun rise and fall over the city. I passed another night without sleep.

"It was on the next day-two days after the woman related her vision to me-that Caesar summoned his inner circle and told them that he had just received word from Africa. Marc Antony came at once to give me the bad news. I received him in this room, my heart beating so hard that I could barely hear him. He knew I would demand to know every detail. He carefully recited everything the messenger had told Caesar. The battle in the desert, the stifling heat, Gaius's last stand, even the fact that he had lost his helmet before the enemy swarmed over him-every detail matched what the woman had told me. Strangest of all, the messenger reported a rumor that King Juba had laughed when he received Gaius's head, not out of spite, but because Gaius appeared to be grinning at him. Do you understand, Gordianus? The woman had seen everything-everything-as clearly as if she had been there.

"I contained my emotions as best I could-after all, I was prepared for the worst even before he arrived-but still I wept. Antony did his best to comfort me. In the end I think it was I who comforted him; he and Gaius had been close ever since they were boys, as close as two men can be, even closer in some ways perhaps than Gaius and myself.

"Eventually I told Antony about the woman in my house, and the fact that she had already delivered the news to me two days before. Antony said that was impossible-word had only just reached Caesar, and Caesar would tell Antony before anyone else. I tried to tell him how precisely the woman had seen the details of Gaius's death, but Antony wouldn't listen. We had drunk quite a bit of wine by then, and his senses were muddled. He wasn't in a listening mood. I put him to bed in the guest quarters, then went to find the woman.

"But she was gone. She had vanished somehow, even with Thraso watching her. I realized that I knew nothing about her, not even her name or where she lived, if indeed she had a fixed abode. I thought of sending Thraso to search for her, but at that moment I saw no point. She had told me what I wanted to know, and the knowledge had only served to make me wretched for two sleepless nights before the news arrived from a more trustworthy source. And also… also I was a little frightened of her. She was a witch of some sort. If she could see events in Africa, who knew what other powers she might possess? She herself seemed not to understand her gifts and how to use them. She might be dangerous. I didn't want her in my house."

I nodded, taking in all that Fulvia had told me. "That was the last you saw of her, then?"

Something in her eyes changed, as if a door that had been open was abruptly shut. She seemed evasive. "Thraso reported to me later that she had become something of a fixture in the Forum and the markets, and that people had given her a name: Cassandra. I asked him to find out more about her, but there was very little he could discover, except that others in the city besides myself were availing themselves of Cassandra's gifts."

"Others?"

"You saw them-the women who appeared at her funeral. If you want to find out what they knew about Cassandra, ask them yourself. If you do discover something of interest about her-if you do find out who killed her-come tell me, Gordianus. I'll pay you well for the information. I'd like to know, simply out of curiosity. I've been entirely open with you, after all." As if to contradict her words, the faint smile that had been absent from her face since she began the tale of how she met Cassandra returned, and I had the feeling that she was holding something back from me.

"You never saw her again, face-to-face?"

She shrugged. "Perhaps, briefly. But that meeting was of no particular consequence. There's nothing more of any significance I can tell you." She sighed. "I'm tired now. I think I shall rest a bit before taking dinner. I'm afraid I must say farewell, Gordianus, to you and to your taciturn but very ornamental young son-in-law. Thraso will show the two of you out." She turned her gaze from me to the window. After a moment, her mother did likewise. Together they stared at the framed image of a distant cloud lit by the twilight's last blush of lurid pink against a back drop of lapis lazuli. A scattering of faint, early stars twinkled in the darkening firmament.

The slave showed us down the stairs and through the long hallways. We had reached the soaring atrium when another slave, running at a trot, caught up with us and told us to wait. Thraso raised an eyebrow, then saw the reason we were being detained. At the far end of the hallway we had just traversed, coming toward us at a surprisingly fast clip for a woman her age, was Sempronia. As she drew closer, her gaze fixed on me as if I were a rabbit and she a descending hawk.

With a curt wave she dismissed the slaves. We stood at the base of one of the immense black marble columns that supported the skylight far above our heads. Sempronia drew close to me, speaking in a hoarse whisper. The vast space swallowed up her voice without giving back an echo.

"My daughter was not entirely forthcoming with you, Gordianus."

I raised an eyebrow, afraid that any comment might put her off. For some reason, despite her earlier suspicion, she had decided to trust me. What did she want to tell me?

Sempronia frowned. "My daughter has endured a great deal of suffering in her life. It's because she's so ambitious, of course; even more ambitious than I was at her age." She flashed a thin smile that contained no warmth. "I sometimes think: If only she'd been born a boy. But of course, if that were the case, she'd probably have gotten herself killed already-like Clodius, like Curio-or perhaps not. Fulvia is smarter than either of those fellows were. That's a curse for a woman, to be smarter than her husband. Fulvia's carried that curse twice in a row. Clodius and Curio-at least their ambitions and their dreams matched hers, if not their wits." She shook her head. "Now she's a widow again, with children from both her marriages, children who must be given the best possible chance in the world that's about to be created on some battlefield far from Rome."

"What if Pompey wins that battle?" I said.

She drew a sharp breath through her nostrils. "Such a disaster doesn't bear considering. No, Caesar will win. I'm sure of it."

"Because Cassandra said so?"

Sempronia gave me another chilly smile. "Perhaps."

"And if Caesar does triumph, what then?"

"My daughter will need another husband of course. And this time she must choose the right one, a man as shrewd and ruthless as she is, a man who knows how to seize an opportunity, a survivor! A man who can give my grandchildren their rightful place in the new world about to be born."

I nodded. "Fulvia saw Cassandra a second time, didn't she?"

"Yes."

"Because Cassandra could give her a glimpse of the future."

"Exactly! The witch could see across time as well as space. But it wasn't Fulvia who brought Cassandra here the second time. I sought her out. Fulvia didn't want her here. She was afraid to know her future, afraid it would match the misery of her past. But I told her that a woman must use whatever tools she can to make her way in the world. If the witch could give us even a faint glimpse of what lay in store, then we must seize that knowledge and use it!"

"When did you bring her here?"

"A little less than a month ago."

"And what did Cassandra foresee for Fulvia?"

"Glory! Power! Riches! My daughter shall rise to the first place among all the women of Rome."

"Even ahead of Calpurnia?"

"Caesar will triumph, but he can't live forever. He must have a successor."

I frowned. "You mean to say that Caesar will be a king and pass his crown to another? That was what Cassandra foresaw?"

"Nothing that specific. When her visions came, she didn't always see them clearly or understand what she saw. She couldn't even recall them afterward; she could only describe them as they came to her."

"And when you brought her here the second time, what did she see?"

A look close to rapture crossed Sempronia's face. Rather than softening her features, it made them even more severe and intimidating. "She saw Fulvia in a stola of purest purple, striped with gold, with a golden diadem on her head. Beside Fulvia, but in her shadow, stood a man-a great brawny beast of a man dressed in battle armor spattered with blood and holding a bloody sword. He, too, wore a diadem on his head. The witch was unable to see his face clearly, but she saw the image on his breastplate and on his shield-the head of a lion."

"Marc Antony," I whispered.

"Who else? It's their destiny to marry. I could have told Fulvia that myself without the witch's help." The fact that Antony was already married seemed to be of no consequence to her.

"What else did Cassandra see?"

The look in Sempronia's eyes made my blood run cold. "Like Antony, Fulvia was holding a bloody sword in one hand."

"And in the other?"

Sempronia bared her teeth. "A head, severed at the neck!"

"As Curio's head was severed?" I whispered.

"Yes, but this was the head of another, the head of the man my daughter hates most in all the world."

Was she speaking of Milo, who had been exiled for the murder of Clodius, and who at that moment was said to be raising a revolt in the south with Marcus Caelius? Or King Juba, who had laughed when he received Curio's head? I whispered their names, but Sempronia shook her head and looked at me scornfully.

"The witch described him clearly enough. Not as a portrait painter or a sculptor might, but in symbols. Lips dripping with honey, she said; a tongue like a snake's, eyes like a ferret's, a nose with a cleft like a chick pea-"

"Cicero," I whispered. His name was taken from the word for chick pea.

"Yes! It was Cicero's head that Fulvia held aloft!"

Caesar triumphant but dead, Marc Antony a king and Fulvia his queen, and Cicero beheaded-was that to be the future of Rome? My heart sank. I suddenly realized why Sempronia had confided in me. It was not that I had somehow won her trust. She still suspected me of being Cicero's lackey, perhaps his spy. In the next moment she made her desire explicit.

"Go, then, Gordianus! Go back to that bitch Terentia's house and tell her what I've just told you. Soon enough, my daughter will put away her mourning garb to put on a bridal stola. Then it shall be Terentia who'll be dressed in mourning! Long ago, Cicero made himself the enemy of this household. He never missed a chance to slander Clodius while Clodius lived, and he slandered him even more viciously after he was dead. He defamed Curio as well, even as he pretended to be his friend-casting aspersions on Curio's love for Marc Antony, telling Pompey that Curio had sided with Caesar because he was a craven opportunist-when the truth is that Curio died a hero's death, loyal to his cause until the very end. But soon enough Cicero shall regret the suffering his words have caused in this house. My daughter shall see to that!"

Her object achieved, Sempronia called for Thraso and ordered him to show us out.

As we were walked down the steps, the great bronze door clanged shut behind us. Davus turned to me wide-eyed and asked, "Father-in-Law, was Cassandra really a witch?"

"I don't know, Davus. But if witches truly exist, I think you may have just met one."