Steven Saylor - A Mist of Prophecies

"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.