A Mist of Prophecies rsr-9

by Steven Saylor

  "It was her gift that interested us," said Fabia, "not her family history or the name she was born with."

  "And when Cassandra delivered these prophecies, what did you make of them?"

  The two sisters exchanged a searching look, silently debating how much they should tell me.

  Fabia finally spoke. "Cassandra had many visions, but there was one in particular-a recurring vision of two lions battling one another over the carcass of a she-wolf."

  "How did you interpret this vision?"

  "The she-wolf was Rome, of course. The lions were Pompey and Caesar."

  "And which of them killed the other and ate the carcass?"

  "Neither."

  "I don't understand. Did they split the she-wolf between them?" I imagined the Roman world split permanently between two factions, Caesar ruling the West, Pompey ruling the East. "One world split between two Roman empires-could such an arrangement ever last?"

  "No, no, no!" said Terentia. "You misunderstand. Tell him, Fabia!"

  "The vision ended with a miracle," said Fabia. "The she-wolf sprang back to life, and grew until she towered over the lions, who gave up fighting and meekly lay down together, licking at each other's wounds."

  "What did the vision mean?"

  Fabia began to speak, but Terentia was too excited to remain silent. "Don't you see? It's the best possible outcome! Everyone assumes that Caesar and Pompey must come to blows, that one of them must destroy the other, with Rome as the prize. But there's another possibility-that both sides will come to their senses before it's too late. It's one thing for Romans to shed the blood of Gauls or Parthians, but for Romans to kill Romans-it's unthinkable. Such madness offends the gods themselves. Cicero knows that. It's what he's been trying to tell both sides all along. They must find a way to settle their differences and make peace! That's what Cassandra's vision foretold. For the moment Rome appears paralyzed and helpless; but the she-wolf only sleeps, and when she wakes she'll show herself greater than either Caesar or Pompey. They shall be awed by her shadow, and there shall be a reconciliation between the two factions." Terentia smiled. "It's my belief that Cicero himself will broker the reconciliation. It's the real reason the gods guided his footsteps to Pompey's camp. Not to fight-we all know my husband is no warrior-but to be on hand when the two sides finally do meet, and to make them see the madness of their ways. There shall be peace, not war. Every day I look for a messenger to arrive with a letter from my husband bringing the glorious news."

  Fabia walked to her side and laid her hand on Terentia's shoulder. The look on both their faces was transcendent.

  I took a deep breath. "How did you learn of Cassandra's death?"

  "She died in the marketplace, didn't she?" said Fabia. "People saw. People recognized her. News travels fast in the city."

  "Yet neither of you came to my house to pay your respects."

  They both averted their eyes. "Well," said Terentia, "she was hardly of our… I mean, as you yourself pointed out, we didn't even know her true name, much less her family."

  "Yet you came to see her burn."

  "An act of piety," said Fabia. "The burning of the body is a holy rite. We came to witness that."

  I lowered my eyes, then looked up at the sound of another voice from the doorway.

  "Aunt Fabia! I was wondering where you'd gone. Oh-I didn't realize you had company, Mother."

  Cicero's daughter, Tullia, had suffered the misfortune of inheriting her father's looks rather than her mother's, and had grown from a spindly girl into a rather plain young woman. The last time I had seen her had been at her parents' house down in Formiae the previous year, while Cicero was still trying to decide which way to jump. She had been pregnant then and just beginning to show. The child had been born prematurely and had lived only a short while. A year later Tullia appeared to be in good health, despite her slender arms and wan complexion.

  Unlike her mother, Tullia wore several pieces of costly-looking jewelry, including gold bracelets and a silver filigree necklace decorated with lapis baubles. Despite the drastic economies the war had imposed on the household, I suspected that young Tullia would be the last member of the family called upon to make personal sacrifices. Cicero and Terentia had spoiled both their children, but Tullia especially.

  "Actually," said Terentia, "my visitors were just leaving. Why don't you escort your aunt back to the sewing room, Tullia, while I show them out?"

  "Certainly, Mother." Tullia took her aunt's hand and led her from the room. Over her shoulder Fabia gave me a long, parting glance in lieu of a farewell. Tullia's parting glance was at Davus, who reacted by shuffling his feet and clearing his throat.

  I began to move toward the door, but Terentia restrained me with a hand on my forearm.

  "Send your son-in-law on to the foyer," she said in a low voice, "but stay here a moment longer, Gordianus. There's something I want to show you, in private."

  I did as she asked and waited alone in the room, gazing at the pastoral landscapes on the wall. A moment later she returned, carrying a scrap of parchment. She pressed it into my hand.

  "Read that," she said. "Tell me what you make of it."

  It was a letter from Cicero, dated from the month of Junius and headed From Pompey's Camp in Epirus:

  IF YOU ARE WELL, I AM GLAD. I AM WELL. DO YOUR BEST TO RECOVER. AS FAR AS TIME AND CIRCUMSTANCES PERMIT, PROVIDE FOR AND CONDUCT ALL NECESSARY BUSINESS, AND AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE WRITE TO ME ON ALL POINTS. GOOD-BYE.

  I turned the scrap of parchment over, but that was all there was to it.

  I shrugged, not knowing what she wanted from me. "He advises you to recover. I take it you were unwell?"

  "A trifie-a fever that came and went," she said. "You'll notice he doesn't even wish me a speedy recovery or the favor of the gods or any such thing. Merely, 'Do your best to recover.' As if reminding me of a duty!"

  "And he charges you with conducting necessary business-"

  "Ha! He expects me to run a household-two households, my own and Tullia's-on a budget of thin air! Just to make ends meet, I'm selling off the best furniture and the finest pieces of jewelry handed down from my mother-"

  "I don't understand why you showed me this letter, Terentia."

  "Because you know my husband, Gordianus. You've known him from the bottom up. You have no illusions about him. I'm not sure you like him-I'm not even sure if you respect him-but you know him. Do you detect in that letter one shred of love or affection or even goodwill?"

  Perhaps it's written in code, I wanted to say, knowing from experience that Cicero was prone to such tricks in his correspondence. But Terentia was in no mood for jokes. If she had mustered the courage to bare her soul to me of all people, I knew she must be in genuine distress. "I hardly think it's for me to say what Cicero felt when he wrote this letter."

  She took the letter from me and turned away, hiding her face. "The tensions in this household-you can't imagine! For months on end; for years, really. Fighting over what's to be done with young Marcus-his father insists he's to be a scholar, in spite of the fact that all his tutors say he's hopeless. And now the boy's off to fight, though he's barely old enough to wear a toga. And Dolabella, choosing to side with Caesar and carrying on with Antonia behind our backs-my husband could hardly stand the mention of his name even before this trouble began. How he hated the marriage! And when Tullia lost the baby, the pain we all felt was unbearable. But I could tolerate anything, stand any trial, if only I knew that Marcus still-" Her voice caught in her throat, and she shook her head. "The hard fact of the matter is, Marcus no longer loves me. He didn't love me when we married-no woman expects that at the outset of an arranged marriage-but he came to love me, and that love grew and lasted for years. But now… now I don't know what's become of it. I don't know where it went or how to get it back. Too much squabbling over money, too many fights about the children, the bitterness of the times we live in…"

  "Terentia, why are you telling me this?"

&nbs
p; "Because you knew her as well, didn't you? Better than you let on. You must have, if you made the arrangements for her funeral."

  "Yes, I knew Cassandra."

  "The prophecy Fabia mentioned-there was more to it… of a personal nature. Cassandra saw her vision of the she-wolf and the lions doubled, reflected in miniature, she said, as if in a distant mirror. It was my household she saw in that mirror-a reflection of the world at large. The she-wolf was our family, the thing that's nurtured and sustained us through even the hardest times. And the beasts were Marcus and myself, drawing blood from each other and fighting over the carcass of our own marriage. But just as Rome is greater than those who squabble over her, this family is greater than its parts. We shall make a reconciliation. Marcus… will love me again. Cassandra said as much!"

  "Did she?"

  "That was Fabia's interpretation."

  "Fabia knows far more about such things than I."

  "Yes, but you knew Cassandra. Was she genuine, Gordianus? Was she what she seemed to be? Can I trust the visions she saw in the throes of her gift?"

  The interview had been reversed. Now it was Terentia seeking knowledge of Cassandra from me.

  "I don't know," I said, and spoke the truth.

  V

  As I can place the first time I saw Cassandra, because on that day word reached Rome of Caesar's successful sea crossing, so I can place the second time I saw her and the first time I actually spoke to her, because of something significant that occurred on the same day. It was on the morning in late Februarius that Marcus Caelius set up a tribunal next to that of the city praetor Trebonius and commenced his campaign to flout Caesar's will and become the radical champion of Rome's downtrodden.

  Before he left Rome, Caesar, by proclaiming edicts and bending the will of the Senate, had set in place a program to shore up the faltering Roman economy. The problems were many and daunting. With the commencement of the war, money had grown increasingly scarce even while prices soared. The treasury of Rome had been emptied to pay for Caesar's military campaigns. No taxes were flowing in. Pompey had cut off all revenues from the East as well as vital grain shipments from Egypt. Commerce was at a standstill; ships, horses, and even handcarts had been commandeered for the war effort. Tradesmen were in distress because no money was in circulation. Free laborers were unable to find employment. Hungry slaves were growing restive. Shopkeepers and tenants were unable to pay their rents. Families whose heads of household had fled Italy or joined Caesar's legions were being cheated by the bailiffs left to mind their masters' property. Bankers were demanding payment of old loans and refusing to make new ones. Unscrupulous profiteers were squeezing all they could from the anxious people of Rome.

  I myself had gone increasingly into debt for the first time in my life. It seemed that only a handful of people had money, and that they had a great deal of it, and that the rest of us had to go to them begging for loans at whatever terms they demanded. Simply to pay for the daily expenses of life, I found myself indebted to the wealthy banker Volumnius to such an extent that I despaired of ever being able to repay him.

  To address these problems, Caesar had ordered that all property values and rents should be rolled back to prewar prices. Debtors were allowed to deduct all interest paid from the principal they owed. Arbitrators were appointed to settle disputes over valuations and bankruptcies. An antihoarding law decreed that no one could keep more than sixty thousand sesterces of gold or silver out of circulation.

  Caesar's efforts had been moderate and were moderately successful. Money began to circulate. Shops reopened, and vendors reappeared in the markets. The growing sense of panic among the general population began to subside and gave way to a grinding, day-to-day scrabble for sustenance.

  There were those-some because they truly despised the status quo and wanted to see it overturned, and some because they themselves were hopelessly in debt and were desperate for a way out-who had hoped Caesar would enact a far more radical program. They wanted him to abolish all debts, refund rents, perhaps even confiscate the property of the wealthy and redistribute it to the poor. These people were bitterly disappointed.

  The man whom Caesar had appointed to administer his economic program was Gaius Trebonius. I had met Trebonius the previous year in the Roman encampment outside Massilia, where he was the commanding officer in charge of the siege. He was a thoroughly competent and resourceful military man with a good head for figures and an intuitive sense of how the world works. Trebonius could look at a catapult and tell you why it wasn't working properly, calculate the load and trajectory, then watch the men loading it and pick the one best suited to give orders to the others. He had conducted an efficient and successful siege, and Massilia had been subdued at very little cost to Caesar's legions. In recognition of his competence, Trebonius was the man Caesar put in place to run the city of Rome in his absence.

  Some called Trebonius's magistracy a reward for services rendered, but it was not a job I would have wanted. No doubt Trebonius was able to profit immensely by accepting bribes from the disputants who came before him, but I found it mind-numbing to imagine the endless caseload of property valuations and bankruptcy negotiations over which Trebonius had to preside.

  Trebonius conducted this tedious business from a tribunal, a raised platform, in the Forum. He sat on his official chair of state, a particularly ornate specimen in the traditional shape of a folding camp stool but heavily decorated with ivory and gold, with four elephant tusks for legs. Secretaries and clerks hovered about him, fetching documents, consulting ledgers, and taking notes. On most days a long line of litigants awaiting their interview with Trebonius wound snakelike through the Forum. Among the contesting parties, tempers were short, and stakes were high. Not infrequently, fights broke out up and down the line. Armed guards would rush to quell these disturbances before they could expand into a full-scale riot.

  It was on a morning in late Februarius that another magistrate, Marcus Caelius, strode into the Forum, carrying his own chair of state and attended by his own retinue of secretaries and clerks, who quickly erected a raised platform only a short distance away from that of Trebonius. Caelius mounted the tribunal and, with a flourish, unfolded his chair of state, which was a notably simpler affair than that of Trebonius-the ivory decorations were less ornate and without gold accents, and the legs were not of ivory but merely of wood carved in the shape of elephant tusks. By the example of his chair of state, Caelius was already proclaiming himself the standard-bearer of austere Roman virtue and the champion of the downtrodden.

  Still in his thirties, slender as a youth, and as handsome and charming as ever, Marcus Caelius already had a long and checkered career in public life. I remembered him best as Cicero's unruly young protege, learning the arts of rhetoric at the feet of his prim and proper master by day, carousing and carrying on a debauched social life by night-much to the chagrin of all concerned, especially when Caelius found himself dragged into the courts by his ex-lover Clodia, who accused him of the murder-for-hire of a visiting Alexandrian philosopher. Cicero rushed to his protege's defense. The trial degenerated into a squalid exchange of name-calling, and ultimately Cicero managed to turn the tables on Clodia by picturing her as a wanton, incestuous whore out to ruin an innocent young man. Acquitted, Caelius had turned his back on the alluring Clodia, her rabblerousing brother Clodius, and the rest of their radical clique and had committed himself wholeheartedly to the cause of the so-called Best People, like Cicero and Pompey, until-tugged back and forth like all the other bright, ambitious young men of Rome-he finally cast his lot with Caesar. On the eve of Caesar's decision to cross the Rubicon and commit himself to civil war, Caelius had ridden out of Rome to join him-leaving Cicero once again much chagrined.

  Caelius became one of Caesar's lieutenants and served him well in the Spanish campaign. Returning to Rome saddled with debts, he had hoped to be installed in the lucrative post of city praetor, and made no secret of his bitter disappointment when that magistrac
y had gone instead to Gaius Trebonius. Caelius had been stuck with a lesser praetorship, which put him in charge of adjudicating the affairs of foreign residents in the city. Perhaps Caesar thought it wise to tuck an ambitious fellow of shifting loyalties like Caelius in a safe niche, giving him a job of minimal importance with not much to do-but Caesar should have known that Caelius, with time on his hands, was a dangerous man.

  I happened to be in the Forum along with Hieronymus and the usual chin-waggers when Caelius set up his mock tribunal next to that of Trebonius. I also happened to see the look of consternation on Trebonius's face.

  What was Caelius up to? I stepped closer to his tribunal. The chin-waggers followed along. Caelius sat in his chair of state, slowly turning his head to take in the long line of litigants waiting to see Trebonius and the curious crowd that had begun to gather before his own tribunal. For a moment his eyes fell on me. Our paths had crossed many times in the past. He gave me a nod of recognition and flashed his dazzling smile-the smile that had once melted Clodia's heart and gotten him into endless other mischief over the years. Our eyes met for only a moment, but I had a premonition of all the trouble he was about to hatch for himself and so many others.

  Caelius stood up from his chair of state. A hush fell over the line of litigants waiting to see Trebonius and the crowd that had gathered.

  "Citizens of Rome!" cried Caelius. He had one of the best orator's voices in Rome, able to reach great distances with trumpet-like clarity. "Why do you stand there, lined up like obedient sheep in a fold awaiting your turn to be sheared? The magistrate from whom you are seeking redress can do absolutely nothing to help you. His hands are tied. The law as it stands gives him no power to do anything but inflict more damage. All the city praetor can do is look at the numbers you put in front of him, shift them around a bit-like one of those confidence tricksters who haunt the markets, shifting the cup that hides the nut-and then send you home with less than you had when you arrived here. The government of Rome should be able to do better than that for its hardworking, long-suffering citizens! Do you not agree?"