"What if Pompey wins that battle?" I said.

She drew a sharp breath through her nostrils. "Such a disaster doesn't bear considering. No, Caesar will win. I'm sure of it."

"Because Cassandra said so?"

Sempronia gave me another chilly smile. "Perhaps."

"And if Caesar does triumph, what then?"

"My daughter will need another husband of course. And this time she must choose the right one, a man as shrewd and ruthless as she is, a man who knows how to seize an opportunity, a survivor! A man who can give my grandchildren their rightful place in the new world about to be born."

I nodded. "Fulvia saw Cassandra a second time, didn't she?"

"Yes."

"Because Cassandra could give her a glimpse of the future."

"Exactly! The witch could see across time as well as space. But it wasn't Fulvia who brought Cassandra here the second time. I sought her out. Fulvia didn't want her here. She was afraid to know her future, afraid it would match the misery of her past. But I told her that a woman must use whatever tools she can to make her way in the world. If the witch could give us even a faint glimpse of what lay in store, then we must seize that knowledge and use it!"

"When did you bring her here?"

"A little less than a month ago."

"And what did Cassandra foresee for Fulvia?"

"Glory! Power! Riches! My daughter shall rise to the first place among all the women of Rome."

"Even ahead of Calpurnia?"

"Caesar will triumph, but he can't live forever. He must have a successor."

I frowned. "You mean to say that Caesar will be a king and pass his crown to another? That was what Cassandra foresaw?"

"Nothing that specific. When her visions came, she didn't always see them clearly or understand what she saw. She couldn't even recall them afterward; she could only describe them as they came to her."

"And when you brought her here the second time, what did she see?"

A look close to rapture crossed Sempronia's face. Rather than softening her features, it made them even more severe and intimidating. "She saw Fulvia in a stola of purest purple, striped with gold, with a golden diadem on her head. Beside Fulvia, but in her shadow, stood a man-a great brawny beast of a man dressed in battle armor spattered with blood and holding a bloody sword. He, too, wore a diadem on his head. The witch was unable to see his face clearly, but she saw the image on his breastplate and on his shield-the head of a lion."

"Marc Antony," I whispered.

"Who else? It's their destiny to marry. I could have told Fulvia that myself without the witch's help." The fact that Antony was already married seemed to be of no consequence to her.

"What else did Cassandra see?"

The look in Sempronia's eyes made my blood run cold. "Like Antony, Fulvia was holding a bloody sword in one hand."

"And in the other?"

Sempronia bared her teeth. "A head, severed at the neck!"

"As Curio's head was severed?" I whispered.

"Yes, but this was the head of another, the head of the man my daughter hates most in all the world."

Was she speaking of Milo, who had been exiled for the murder of Clodius, and who at that moment was said to be raising a revolt in the south with Marcus Caelius? Or King Juba, who had laughed when he received Curio's head? I whispered their names, but Sempronia shook her head and looked at me scornfully.

"The witch described him clearly enough. Not as a portrait painter or a sculptor might, but in symbols. Lips dripping with honey, she said; a tongue like a snake's, eyes like a ferret's, a nose with a cleft like a chick pea-"

"Cicero," I whispered. His name was taken from the word for chick pea.

"Yes! It was Cicero's head that Fulvia held aloft!"

Caesar triumphant but dead, Marc Antony a king and Fulvia his queen, and Cicero beheaded-was that to be the future of Rome? My heart sank. I suddenly realized why Sempronia had confided in me. It was not that I had somehow won her trust. She still suspected me of being Cicero's lackey, perhaps his spy. In the next moment she made her desire explicit.

"Go, then, Gordianus! Go back to that bitch Terentia's house and tell her what I've just told you. Soon enough, my daughter will put away her mourning garb to put on a bridal stola. Then it shall be Terentia who'll be dressed in mourning! Long ago, Cicero made himself the enemy of this household. He never missed a chance to slander Clodius while Clodius lived, and he slandered him even more viciously after he was dead. He defamed Curio as well, even as he pretended to be his friend-casting aspersions on Curio's love for Marc Antony, telling Pompey that Curio had sided with Caesar because he was a craven opportunist-when the truth is that Curio died a hero's death, loyal to his cause until the very end. But soon enough Cicero shall regret the suffering his words have caused in this house. My daughter shall see to that!"

Her object achieved, Sempronia called for Thraso and ordered him to show us out.

As we were walked down the steps, the great bronze door clanged shut behind us. Davus turned to me wide-eyed and asked, "Father-in-Law, was Cassandra really a witch?"

"I don't know, Davus. But if witches truly exist, I think you may have just met one."

VII

The third time I saw Cassandra was again in the Forum. It was the day the consul Isauricus broke Marcus Caelius's chair of state.

Only a few days before, word had reached Rome that Marc Antony, departing almost three months after Caesar, had successfully made the same sea crossing and was on his way to join his forces with those of Caesar. It could only be a matter of time until Caesar and Pompey met in a grand confrontation. All Rome was abuzz with speculation.

Meanwhile, Marcus Caelius had been setting up his rival tribunal close to that of Trebonius for over a month. The riot that had ensued on the first such occasion had not been repeated, since Caelius, instead of orating and inciting the crowd, was quietly going about the business of taking down the names and recording the situations of the citizens who lined up to see him each day. These citizens were mostly debtors who hoped to take advantage of the legislation Caelius had promised to put before the Senate, imposing a six-year moratorium on debt collection. The fact that such a proposal had no chance of being made into law as long as Caesar controlled the Senate-and the fact that Caelius had no legal authority to set up a tribunal, much less record a registry of debtors-did nothing to deter the long line of desperate men who came to see him each day. Times were hard. Those who came to Caelius were clutching at any hope for relief.

Meanwhile, not far away, Trebonius went about his legitimate business of litigating between the debtors and creditors who lined up to see him each day. Some of the debtors, once they finished their business with Trebonius, went directly to join the queue to see Caelius. In such uncertain times, who could say whether the agreements struck by Trebonius would hold? And what debtor would dare to miss out on the relief that Caelius was promising, however slim the possibility that it might come to pass?

Since that initial riot, things had been mostly quiet in the Forum, and the other magistrates, including Trebonius, had seen fit to let Caelius go about his fictitious business. I imagine that the official attitude, worked out in private among themselves by Caesar's minions, went something like this: Caelius was essentially putting on a mime show, a bit of political street theater; and so long as there was no further violence, the best thing to do was simply to ignore him.

On this particular day Caelius arrived later than usual, so that by the time he appeared, escorted by a larger than usual retinue and proudly carrying his own chair of state, there was already a large crowd awaiting him, as well as a long queue at the nearby tribunal of Trebonius. I was there in the Forum as well, idly passing the time with Davus and Hieronymus and the usual gang of chin-waggers. Caelius happened to pass very close to me and caught my eye as he did so. He recognized me and nodded. Then he raised an eyebrow and smiled faintly, and I knew that he was about to hatch a new bit of mischief.