Steven Saylor - A Mist of Prophecies

"Does Clodia know you're here?" I asked.

The woman laughed. It was her laugh I recognized-sly, indulgent, intimating unspoken secrets. "Have I really changed that much, Gordianus? You haven't changed a bit."

"Clodia!" I whispered.

She lowered her hand. I saw her face. Her eyes were the same-emerald green, as bright as sunlight on the green Tiber-but time had caught up with the rest of her. It had been only four years since I had last seen her. How could she have aged so much in that time?

To be sure, she had taken no pains to look her best. That in itself marked a change; Clodia had always been vain about her appearance. But on this day she wore no makeup to accentuate her eyes and lips, no jewelry to adorn her ears and throat, and a drab stola that did nothing to flatter her. Her hair, usually elaborately dressed and colored with henna, was pulled back in a simple bun and showed an abundance of gray. The most subtle difference, and yet the most telling, was the fact that she seemed to be wearing no scent. Clodia's perfume, a heady blend of spikenard and crocus oil, had haunted me for years. It was impossible to think of her without recalling that scent. Yet on this day, standing near her, I smelled only the rank green smell of the riverbank on a summer day.

She smiled. "Whom did you expect to find here?"

"No one. The house appears deserted."

"So it is."

"There's no one else here?" I said. "No one at all?" Clodia had always surrounded herself with admiring sycophants who spouted poetry, beautiful slaves of both genders, and a veritable army of lovers-cast-off lovers, current lovers, would-be lovers awaiting their turn.

"No one but me," she said. "I came by litter early this morning, then sent the bearers back to my house on the Palatine. I come here very seldom nowadays, but when I do, I prefer to be alone. Slaves can be so tiresome, standing about waiting for instructions. And there's no one left in Rome worth inviting to a bathing party. All the beautiful young men are off getting themselves killed somewhere. Or they're dead already…" She looked past me, at Davus. "Except for this one. Who is he, Gordianus?"

I smiled, despite a twinge of jealously. "Davus is my son-in-law."

"Can your little girl really be old enough to be married? And to such a mountain of muscles! Lucky little Diana. Maybe he'd like to take a swim in the river." She stared at Davus like a hungry tigress. Perhaps she had not changed so very much after all.

I raised an eyebrow. "I think not."

Davus gazed at the sparkling water. "Actually, Father-in-Law, it's such a hot day…"

"By all means, go jump in the water," said Clodia. "I insist! Slip out of that silly toga… and whatever you're wearing underneath. You can hang your things on that tree branch there. Just as all the young men used to do; I remember that branch piled high with cast-off garments…"

Davus looked at me. His brow glistened with sweat. "Oh, very well," I said.

Clodia laughed softly. "Stop glowering, Gordianus. Unless you'd like to take a swim as well, you'll find another folding chair in that little lean-to over there. There's also a box with a bit of food and some wine."

When I returned with the chair and the box, Davus was striding toward the river's edge, barefoot and wearing only his loincloth.

"Young man!" called Clodia.

Davus looked over his shoulder.

"Come back here, young man."

Davus headed back, a questioning look on his face. As soon as he was within range, Clodia reached out, gripped his loincloth, and deftly pulled it off. She sat back in her chair and spun the loincloth on her forefinger for a moment before tossing it with perfect aim atop the toga draped over the tree branch. "There, that's better. A fellow as handsome as you should go into the river just as the gods made you."

I expected Davus to blush and stammer, but instead he grinned stupidly, let out a whoop, and ran splashing into the water.

I sighed. "You still have the power to make grown men into little boys, I see."

"Every man except you, Gordianus. By Hercules, look at the thighs on that fellow-and what's between them. He's a veritable stallion! Are you sure he's not too much for little Diana to handle?"

I cleared my throat. "Perhaps we could speak of something else."

"Must we? On such a day, how pleasant it would be to speak only of youth and beauty and love. But knowing you, Gordianus, I suppose you've come to talk about misery and murder and death."

"One death, in particular."

"The seeress?"

"She was called Cassandra."

"Yes, I know."

"You were there to see her burn."

Clodia was silent for a moment, watching Davus splash in the water. "I thought perhaps you had come to bring me… other news."

"About what?"

"That monster Milo… and Marcus Caelius. This silly, doomed revolt of theirs."

"What do you care about that?"

"They shall both get themselves killed."

"Probably."

"Caelius…" She stared at the water, lost in thought. "Long ago when we were lovers, Caelius used to swim out there while I watched. Just the two of us, alone on this stretch of the riverbank; we needed no one else. I remember him standing just where your son-in-law is standing now, naked, with his back to me-Caelius had a delicious back side-then slowly turning around to show me his grin… and the fact that he was rampant and ready for love."

"You must have seen many men since then, bathing naked out there."

"None like Caelius."

"Yet you came to hate him."

"He deserted me."

"You tried to destroy him."

"But I didn't succeed, did I? I only did harm to myself. And now, without any assistance from me, Caelius seems determined to destroy himself." She closed her eyes. "Gone," she whispered, "all gone: my dear, sweet brother; Fulvia's beloved Curio; so many of the beautiful young men who used to come here, cavorting in the water without a care. Even that pest Catullus with his wretched poems. Whom shall the Fates take next? Marcus Caelius, I suppose. After so many years of laughing in their faces, the Fates shall snatch him up and send him straight to Hades."

"You'll be revenged on him at last."

She nodded. "That's one way of looking at it."

"I came to talk about Cassandra, not Caelius."

"Ah, yes. The seeress."

"You say that with irony in your voice. Did she prophesy for you?"

"Why do you ask, Gordianus?"

"She was murdered. I want to find out why she died, and who killed her."

"Why? It won't bring her back." She tilted her head and looked at me keenly, then made a face. "Oh, dear. Is that it? Now I see. Well, well. Cassandra succeeded where Clodia failed."

"If you mean-"

"You were in love with her, weren't you?"

I had never said that word aloud, not even to Cassandra herself. "Perhaps."

"At any rate, you made love to her."

"Yes."

She released a sigh of mingled exasperation and amusement. "Fortune's wheel spins round and round! Now Clodia finds herself celibate-and the ever-faithful Gordianus is an adulterer! Who would ever have thought it? The gods must be laughing at us."

"So I have long suspected."

She stared abstractedly at the glinting sunlight on the water and bit her thumbnail. "That was rude of me, to speak so glibly. You must be quite devastated."

"Cassandra's death was a blow to me, yes, among many other blows of late."

"Gordianus the stoic! You should learn to vent your emotions. Drink yourself into a stupor. Destroy some irreplaceable object in a rage. Spend an hour or two torturing one of your slaves. You'll feel better."

"I'd rather find out who killed Cassandra, and why."

"And then what? I saw the other women who came to watch Cassandra's funeral pyre. If it was one of them, what action could you possibly take? The courts are a shambles. No magistrate will show any interest in the murder of a nobody like Cassandra. And every one of those women is too powerful for you to take on by yourself. You'll never find justice."