Steven Saylor - A Mist of Prophecies

She read the look on my face. "I had nothing to do with her death. I don't know who killed her or why. It might have been any of those women who came to see her burn. It might have been someone else. But…"

"Yes?"

She rose from her chair, strode to the painting of Alexander, and peered at it intently, though she must have seen it many times before. "When he was briefing Cassandra about various women in Rome, Caesar himself suggested specific prophecies or visions that she might use in order to gain a particular woman's confidence or frighten her or otherwise get her to speak what was on her mind. He did so in the case of Fulvia, as I've told you. But Caesar couldn't foresee every eventuality. After he left Rome, when a woman sought out Cassandra for her gift, in most cases Cassandra had to improvise, using her own skills and whatever she already knew about that woman.

"But circumstances change. Cassandra needed to be kept abreast of developments. That job fell to me whenever I met with her in this house. One such development was this business with Marcus Caelius and Milo. Even Caesar didn't foresee that Caelius would turn against him or that Milo would dare to return to Italy-and no one imagined that the two of them might join forces. Trebonius and Isauricus-what a pair of bunglers! They should have put a stop to Caelius the moment he set up his chair of state in the Forum and began to agitate the mob. Now the situation is out of control." She looked at me sharply. "Did you know that Caelius and Milo were both in the city as recently as the day Cassandra died?"

I answered carefully. "I heard a rumor in the Forum that the two of them were seen riding out together that morning, heading south."

"That rumor was true. That day was our last chance to stop Caelius and Milo from trying to raise a revolution in the south. I had hoped to do so using Cassandra."

"How could Cassandra have stopped them?"

"By using her gift, of course."

"Why would either of them have listened to Cassandra?"

"Caelius might not have taken her seriously, but according to my sources, Milo might very well have heeded her. I'm told that he's grown increasingly superstitious in recent years. He looks for omens and portents everywhere. If Milo could have been convinced by Cassandra to abandon this mad enterprise, Caelius might well have abandoned it as well."

"But even if Caelius and Milo were secretly in the city for a while, how could Cassandra possibly have gained access to either of them?"

"The building in the Subura where she stayed was one of Caelius's strongholds in the city. That's why I placed her there, thinking it might eventually lead to some way for her to spy on Caelius. Certainly it made her accessible to him should he ever wish to call on her. And Cassandra might also have reached either Milo or Caelius through the two women closest to them-Fausta and Clodia."

I shook my head. "Fausta may still be Milo's wife, but she despises him. She wishes him dead. She told me so. Would Milo even bother to contact Fausta while he was in the city? As for Clodia, surely there's no one she hates more than Caelius-unless it's Milo! Clodia and Caelius may once have been lovers, but I can't imagine that she's even spoken to him since the prosecution she mounted against him."

"You might think these things, Gordianus, but you would be wrong. According to my sources, Milo almost certainly contacted Fausta while he was in Rome. As for Clodia, she's been receiving Caelius at her house on the Palatine and at her horti on the Tiber for months, ever since he returned from Spain with Caesar."

"I don't believe it!"

"Do believe it, Gordianus. My sources for that fact are quite reliable."

"Are you suggesting that Clodia and Caelius renewed their love affair, after all these years, despite the bitterness between them? Impossible!"

"Is it? It seems to me exactly what one might expect from a woman as weak as Clodia, who allows herself to be dominated by whims and emotions. We Romans believe that a man must be the master of his appetites or he's no man at all, but we forgive such a defect in a woman. It wasn't so in the days of our ancestors. A woman like Clodia, enslaved by her neediness, would have been despised by everyone. Nowadays people call such a creature fascinating, and men as weak as she is make poems about her." She made an expression of disgust. It occurred to me that no one would ever make a poem about Calpurnia.

"As for Caelius," she said, "perhaps he never stopped loving Clodia, despite their falling out and her attempt to destroy him. Or perhaps, always the pragmatist, he simply saw some use for her in this scheme of his to win over the rabble and seize power. Who knows what drives such a man? The fellow's like quick silver."

I shook my head, trying to make sense of this. "If Cassandra, at your bidding, was supposed to dissuade Caelius and Milo from staging an armed insurrection, then she obviously failed," I said.

"I'm not sure what happened. The last time I spoke to Cassandra, which was several days before her death, she told me that she had made the acquaintance of both Clodia and Fausta. Fausta had told her that Milo was aware of her existence-it wasn't clear whether he was in Rome at the time or not-and that he wanted to seek her out for a prophecy. As I said, Cassandra was living in a building that I knew to be one of Caelius's strongholds in the city. I told her to stay there, where Caelius and Milo could find her if they wished. If that should happen, she was to stall the two of them as best she could. 'Put them off, keep them in the city, and send Rupa to me at once;' I told her. 'If you must give them a prophecy, then tell them that their plans for a revolution are doomed and their only hope is to give themselves up and throw themselves upon the bountiful mercy of Caesar.' That was the last time I saw Cassandra. Several days later, I learned that Caelius and Milo had come and gone, and Cassandra was dead. So far as I can reconstruct the sequence of events, she died only a few hours after they rode out of Rome together."

"And Rupa?"

"He was here with Cassandra when I last spoke to her. After that, I never saw him again. I don't know whether he's alive or dead."

"But you believe there was some connection between Caelius and Milo, and Cassandra's death?"

"It seems very likely. Exactly what that connection may have been, I don't know. Right now, all my efforts are bent toward containing this insurrection Milo and Caelius are trying to raise in the south, and making sure that the next time they arrive in Rome, it's with their heads on sticks. Cassandra's dead. She's of no further use to me. I don't have time to be concerned with who killed her or why. I leave that to you. I understand you have a nose for that sort of thing. If you do manage to sniff out the truth, come tell me. If she died in Caesar's service, then whoever killed her shall answer to Caesar's justice."

That night, Bethesda was delirious with fever. She shivered beneath her woolen coverlet and murmured incoherently. Diana prepared a concoction of brewed willow bark and a mild soporific that seemed to help; the fever lessened, and Bethesda fell into a fitful sleep. I stayed by her side, holding her hand, mopping her brow, and hardly slept at all.

Fever had not been a symptom of her malady before. I feared that it marked a new stage in her illness. I felt stupid and helpless.

Diana fell ill that day as well. I came upon her bent over in the garden, throwing up her break fast. Afterwards, she insisted that she felt perfectly well, but with a chill I wondered if her sickness was somehow connected to her mother's. What if both were to fall victim to the same lingering illness? I had no more money for physicians. Physicians had proved to be useless, anyway.