A Mist of Prophecies rsr-9

by Steven Saylor

  As I moved my eyes to the occupant of the next litter, the incongruities multiplied. There, reclining amid mounds of cushions in a typically voluptuous pose, was Fausta, the notoriously promiscuous daughter of the dictator Sulla. Thirty years after his death, the dictator's brief, blood-soaked reign still haunted Rome. (Some predicted that whoever triumphed in the current struggle, Caesar or Pompey, would follow Sulla's merciless example and line the Forum with the heads of his enemies.) Sulla's ghost haunted the Forum, but Sulla's daughter was said to haunt the more dissolute gatherings in the city. Fausta was still married, though in name only, to the banished gang leader Milo, the one political exile whom Caesar had pointedly excluded from the generous pardons he'd issued before leaving Rome. Milo's unforgivable crime had been the murder four years ago of his hated rival Clodius on the Appian Way. According to the court, it was Fausta's husband who had made a widow (for the first time) of Fulvia. Were the two women aware of one another's presence? If they were, they gave no more indication of it than did Antonia and Cytheris. At that moment Milo was very much on everyone's mind, for he had escaped from exile and was said to be raising an insurrection in the countryside. What did Fausta know about that? Why was she here at Cassandra's funeral?

  Next to Fausta's litter, surrounded by the largest retinue of bodyguards, was a resplendent canopy with ivory poles and white draperies that shimmered with golden threads, hemmed with a purple stripe. It was the litter of great Caesar's wife, Calpurnia. Now that Marc Antony had left Rome to fight alongside Caesar, many thought it was Calpurnia who functioned as the eyes and ears of her husband in his absence. Caesar had married her ten years ago, purely for political advantage some said, because in Calpurnia he had found a woman to match his own ambition. She was said to be an uncommonly hardheaded woman with no time for superstition. Why had she come to witness the funeral of a mad seeress?

  One litter remained, a little farther off than all the others. When my eyes fell on it, my heart skipped a beat. Its occupant couldn't be seen, except for a finger that parted the closed drapes just enough for her to see out. But I knew that litter, with its red-and-white stripes, all too well. Eight years ago its occupant had been one of the most public women in Rome, notorious for her flamboyance and high spirits. Then she had dragged her estranged young lover into the courts and made the grave mistake of crossing Cicero. The result had been a disastrous public humiliation from which she had never recovered. Then her brother (some said lover) Clodius met his end on the Appian Way, and her spirit seemed to have been snuffed out altogether. She had retreated into a seclusion so complete that some thought she must be dead. She was the one woman in Rome-before Cassandra-who had threatened to break my heart. What was Clodia-beautiful, enigmatic Clodia, once the most dangerous woman in Rome, now all but forgotten-doing there that day, lurking incognito amid the litters of the other women?

  I gazed from litter to litter, my head spinning. To see these particular women all gathered in one place at one time was more than remarkable; it was astounding. And yet, there they all were, their various litters scattered before the burning pyre like the pavilions of contending armies arrayed on a field of battle. Terentia, Antonia, Cytheris, Fulvia, Fausta, Calpurnia, and Clodia-the funeral of Cassandra had brought them all together. Why had they come? To mourn Cassandra? To curse her? To gloat? The distance made it impossible to read the expressions on their faces.

  Beside me, Diana crossed her arms and took on the hard, shrewd look so familiar to me from her mother. "It must have been one of them," she said. "You know it must have been one of those women who murdered her."

  I felt a chill, despite the heat of the flames. I blinked at a sudden swirl of smoke and cinders and turned to look again at the burning pyre. The fire had consumed yet more of Cassandra, had taken another portion of her away from me, and I had missed it. I opened my eyes wide despite the burning smoke. I stared at the blackened remains upon the upright bier reduced now to a bed of glowing coals. The musicians played their shrill lament. The mourners raised their cry to heaven.

  How long I stared at the flames, I don't know. But when I finally turned to look behind me again, all seven of the women with their litters and their entourages had vanished as if they had never been there.

  II

  The last time I saw Cassandra-truly saw her, looked into her eyes and beheld not just her mortal shell but the spirit that dwelled within-was on the day of her death.

  It was shortly after noon on the Nones of Sextilis, a market day, or what passed for a market day in Rome in those times of shortage and mad inflation. Bethesda felt well enough to go out that day. I went along as well, as did Diana. My son-in-law, Davus, accompanied us. In those uncertain days, it was always wise to bring along a big, hulking fellow like Davus to play bodyguard.

  We were on a quest for radishes. Bethesda, who had been ill for some time, had decided that radishes, and radishes only, would cure her.

  We made our way from my house on the Palatine down to the market on the far side of the Capitoline, not far from the Tiber. We walked from vendor to vendor, searching in vain for a radish that would satisfy Bethesda's discriminating gaze. This one was pitted with black spots. That one was too elongated and soft. Another had a face on it (leaves for hair, straggling roots for a beard) that looked like a dishonest cobbler with whom Bethesda had once had a row. To be sure, none of these radishes looked particularly appetizing to me, either. Despite the best efforts of the magistrates put in place by Caesar before his departure, the economy was in constant turmoil, with no end in sight. I make no claim to understand the intricacies of the Roman economy-production of food, transport to market, borrowing against future crops, the care and feeding of slaves and the cost of replacing runaways (a particular problem these days), the constant, grinding tug of war between creditors and debtors-but I do know this much: A war that splits the whole world in two results in a paucity of radishes fit to eat.

  I suggested that Bethesda might look for carrots instead-I had seen one or two of those that looked edible-but she insisted that the soup she had in mind would allow no substitutions. Since this was a medicinal soup, meant more for her recovery than for my nourishment, I kept my mouth shut. A vague, lingering malady had been plaguing Bethesda for months. While I doubted that any soup would rid her of it, I had no better cure to suggest.

  So the four of us strolled from vendor to vendor, searching for radishes. It was just as well that we weren't looking for olives, since the only ones to be had were selling for the price of pearls. Moldy bread was easier to find, but not much cheaper.

  Behind me I heard Davus's stomach growl. He was a big fellow. He required more food than any two normal men to fill his belly, and in recent days he hadn't been getting it. His face had grown lean, and his waist was like a boy's. Diana made a fuss over him and fretted that he would dry up and blow away, but I suggested we needn't worry about that as long as Davus still had legs like tree trunks and shoulders like the arch of an aqueduct.

  "Eureka!" Bethesda suddenly cried, echoing the famous exclamation of the mathematician Archimedes, although I doubt she had ever heard of him. I hurried to her side. Sure enough, she held in her hands a truly admirable bunch of radishes-firm and red, with crisp, green leaves and long, trailing roots. "How much?" she cried, startling the vendor with her vehemence.

  He quickly recovered himself and smiled broadly, sensing a motivated buyer. The price he named was astronomical.

  "That's robbery!" I snapped.

  "But look how fine they are," he insisted, reaching out to caress the radishes in Bethesda's hands as if they were made of solid gold. "You can still see the good Etruscan earth on them. And smell them! That's the smell of hot Etruscan sunshine."

  "They're just radishes," I protested.

  "Just radishes? I challenge you, citizen, to find another bunch of radishes in all this market to match them. Go ahead! Go and look. I'll wait." He snatched the radishes back from Bethesda.

  "I can't afford
it," I said. "I won't pay it."

  "Then someone else will," said the vendor, enjoying his advantage. "I'm not budging on the price. These are the finest radishes you'll find anywhere in Rome, and you'll pay what I ask or do without."

  "Perhaps," said Bethesda, her dark brows drawn together, "perhaps I could manage with just two radishes. Or perhaps only one. Yes, one would do, I'm sure. I imagine we can afford one, can't we, Husband?"

  I looked into her brown eyes and felt a pang of guilt. Bethesda had been my wife for more than twenty years. Before that she had been my concubine; she was practically a child when I acquired her in Alexandria, back in the days of my footloose youth. Her beauty and her aloofness-oh yes, she had been very aloof, despite the fact that she was a slave-had driven me wild with passion. Later she bore my daughter, the only child of my loins, Diana; that was when I manumitted and married her, and Bethesda settled into the role of a Roman matriarch. That role had not always been a comfortable fit-a slave born in Alexandria to an Egyptian mother and a Jewish father did not easily take to Roman ways-but she had never embarrassed me, never betrayed me, never given me cause for regret. We had stood beside one another through many hardships and some very real dangers, and through times of ease and joy as well. If we had become a little estranged in recent months, I told myself it was merely due to the strain of the times. The whole world was coming apart at the seams. In some families a son had taken up arms against his own father, or a wife had left her husband to side with her brothers. If in our household the silences between Bethesda and me had grown longer, or the occasional petty arguments sharper, what of it? In a world where a man could no longer afford a radish, tempers grew short.

  It didn't help, of course, that we were constantly confronted with the contrasting example of our daughter and her muscle-bound husband. They, too, had begun life in unequal stations-Diana born free, Davus a slave-and the gulf between Diana's sharp wits and Davus's simplicity had struck me from the first as unbridgeable. But the two of them were inseparable, constantly touching, forever cooing endearments to each other, even as they approached the fourth year of their marriage. Nor was their attraction purely physical. Often, when I came upon the two of them in my house, I found them deep in earnest conversation. What did they find to talk about? Probably the state of her parents' marriage, I thought…

  But the guilt I felt came from more than long silences and petty squabbles. It came from more than the very major row we had had after my return to Rome from Massilia the previous autumn, bringing a new mouth to feed-my friend Hieronymus-and the news that I had disowned my adopted son Meto. That announcement very nearly tore the whole household apart, but over time the shock and grief had lessened. No, the guilt I felt had nothing to do with household matters or family relations. I felt guilty because of Cassandra, of course.

  And now Bethesda, who complained of feeling unwell every day, who seemed to be in the grip of some malady no doctor could diagnose, had taken it into her head that she must have radishes-and her wretched husband was trapped between a greedy vendor and his own guilty conscience.

  "I shall buy you more than one radish, Wife," I said quietly. "I shall buy you the whole bunch of them. Davus, you're carrying the moneybag. Hand it to Diana so that she can pay the man."

  Diana took the bag from Davus, loosened the drawstrings, and slowly reached inside, frowning. "Papa, are you sure? It's so much."

  "Of course I'm sure. Pay the scoundrel!"

  The vendor was ecstatic as Diana counted the coins and dropped them into his hand. He relinquished the radishes. Bethesda, clutching them to her breast, gave me a look to melt my heart. The smile on her face, such a rare sight in recent days, made her look twenty years younger-no, younger than that, like a gratified and trusting child. Then a shadow crossed her face, the smile faded, and I knew that she suddenly felt unwell.

  I touched her arm and spoke into her ear. "Shall we go home now, Wife?"

  Just then, there was a commotion from another part of the market-the clanging of metal on metal, the rattle of objects spilled onto paving stones, the crash of pottery breaking. A man yelled. A woman shrieked, "It's her! The madwoman!"

  I turned about to see Cassandra staggering toward me. Her blue tunica was torn at the neck and pulled awry. Her golden hair was wild and unkempt. There was a crazed expression on her face. That was how she often looked, especially during a fit of prophecy-but when her eyes met mine, I saw in them a look of utter panic, and my blood turned cold.

  She ran to me, her arms reaching forward, her gait uneven. "Gordianus, help me!" she cried. Her voice was hoarse and strained. She fell into my arms. Beside me, Bethesda gave a start and dropped her radishes. Cassandra fell to her knees, pulling me down with her.

  "Cassandra!" I gasped. I lowered my voice to a whisper. "If this is some pretense-"

  She clutched my arms and cried out. Her body convulsed.

  Diana knelt beside me. "Papa, what's wrong with her?"

  "I don't know."

  "It's the god in her," said Bethesda from above and behind me, her voice tinged with awe. "The same god that compels her prophecies must be tearing her apart inside."

  A crowd gathered around us, pressing in from all sides. "Draw back, all of you!" I shouted. Cassandra clutched at me again, but her grip was weakening. Her eyelids flickered and drooped. She moved her lips, but no sound came out.

  "Cassandra, what's wrong? What's happened?" I whispered.

  "Poison," she said. Her voice was failing. I could barely hear her above the hubbub of the crowd. "She's poisoned me!"

  "Who? What did she give you?" Our faces were so close that I felt her shallow breath on my lips. Her eyes seemed huge, her blue irises eclipsed by the enormous blackness of her pupils.

  "Something-in the drink…" she said. I could barely hear her.

  She convulsed again, then was still. I felt a last, long exhalation against my lips, strangely cold. The fingers clutching my arms relaxed. Her eyes remained open, but the life went out of them.

  The crowd pressed in. Diana was knocked against me and gave a squeal. Davus bellowed at the on lookers to back away, brandishing his fists at those who didn't move quickly. As they dispersed, I heard snatches of excited conversation:

  "Did you see that? She died in the old man's arms!"

  "Cassandra-that's what people called her."

  "I heard she was a war widow. Went crazy with grief."

  "No, no, no! She was a Briton, from way up north. They're all crazy. Paint themselves blue."

  "She didn't look blue to me! Rather beautiful, in fact…"

  "I heard she was a Vestal who broke her vows and got herself buried alive. Managed to claw her way out of the grave but ended up raving mad."

  "Nonsense! You'll believe anything."

  "All I know is, she could see the future."

  "Could she? I wonder if she saw that coming?"

  I swallowed hard. I wanted to press my lips against Cassandra's, but I felt the eyes of my wife and daughter on me. I turned to Diana, kneeling beside me. What must my face have looked like for my daughter to gaze back at me with such pity and puzzlement? I peered up at Bethesda. For a long moment, she registered no emotion-then suddenly raised her eyebrows in alarm.

  "The radishes!" she cried, slapping her hands to her face.

  In all the commotion, someone had stolen them.

  III

  The first time I saw Cassandra was in the Forum. It was a day in mid-Januarius. When I count the months on my fingers, I realize that from the first day I saw her to the last, not quite seven months passed. So brief a period! Yet in some ways it seems I knew her for a lifetime.

  I can place the date precisely, because that was the day word reached Rome that Caesar had successfully crossed the Adriatic Sea from Brundisium to the coast of northern Greece. For days, all Rome had been holding its breath to learn the outcome of that bold gambit. The gray-bearded, self-styled sages who passed their days gossiping and arguing in the Forum all ag
reed, whether they favored Caesar or Pompey, that Caesar was mad to attempt a naval crossing in winter, and madder still to attempt such a thing when everyone knew that Pompey had the superior fleet and ruled the Adriatic. A sudden storm could send Caesar and all his soldiers to the bottom of the sea in a matter of minutes. Or, in clear weather, Caesar's fleet was likely to be outmaneuvered by Pompey's and destroyed before they could reach the other side. Yet Caesar, having settled affairs in Rome to his liking, was determined to carry the battle to Pompey, and to do that he had to convey his troops across the water.

  All through the previous year, from the day he crossed the Rubicon and drove Pompey in a panic out of Italy, Caesar had campaigned to secure his mastery of the West-mustering troops from his stronghold in Gaul; destroying the Pompeian forces in Spain; laying siege to the seaport of Massilia, whose inhabitants had sided with Pompey; and arranging to have himself declared temporary dictator so as to set up magistrates of his choosing in Rome. Meanwhile, Pompey, driven in confusion and disarray from Rome, had been biding his time across the water in Greece, insisting that he and his fellow exiles constituted the true government of Rome, compelling Eastern potentates to send him massive contributions of money and vast numbers of troops, and building up a huge navy that he stationed in the Adriatic with the express purpose of keeping Caesar in Italy until Pompey was ready to face him.