I lost consciousness.

When I came to my senses, another face confronted me. For a moment I was confused because he looked so much like Cassandra-the same golden hair, the same blue eyes, the same incongruity of a young, handsome face burned by the sun, smudged with dirt, and surrounded by unkempt hair.

I gave a start and uttered a cry. The young man looming over me gave a start in response and grunted. A figure standing behind him stepped into view. It was Cassandra.

"Don't frighten him, Rupa. He's had a shock."

I rose on my elbows. I was lying on a threadbare pallet in a tiny room with a dirt floor. The only light came from a narrow window set high in one wall, and from the doorway, where a ragged cloth that served as a curtain was pulled back to show a shadowy hallway beyond. From the hallway came a smell compounded of boiled cabbage, urine, and unwashed humanity. From the window came the sounds of a couple arguing, a baby crying, and a dog barking. There was also a peculiar, persistent, not entirely unpleasant sound of metal clinking and clanging against metal somewhere in the distance.

I had been inside enough such buildings over the years to know exactly the sort of place in which I found myself. It was one of the ruder tenements in the city, probably located somewhere in the Subura, where the most wretched of Rome's citizens live tightly packed into close quarters, at the mercy of unscrupulous landlords and each other.

The young man called Rupa looked at me not unkindly, then rose from the pallet and stood. He was a big fellow-as big as Davus, which meant he was big enough to have carried me from the Forum to the Subura over his back. That must have been what happened, for there was no injury to my tunic or my flesh to indicate I had been dragged.

Cassandra stepped forward. "I suppose you'll want to know where you are," she said.

"In the Subura, I imagine. Not far from the Street of Copper Pots."

She raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were unconscious while Rupa carried you here."

"I was. I don't remember a thing since I fainted in the Forum. But I know the smell of an apartment in a Subura tenement, and I suspect that persistent clanking from outside is the sound of copper pots hung up for sale striking against one another. The sound they make is slightly different from the sound made by vessels of iron or brass or bronze. Given the angle of the light from that window and the distance of the sound, I'd say that we're about two blocks to the north of the Street of Copper Pots. Since we're on the ground floor of the tenement-"

"How do you know that?'

"Because the floor is of made of packed dirt. Yet there's a tiny bit of blue sky visible through that window, above the roof of the yellow building next door; therefore, the yellow building can't be more than two stories tall. Rather short for a tenement in the Subura. I think I know the one. Are we in the red building next to it, the one where there's always a barking dog chained next to the entry?"

"Exactly!" She smiled. "And I was thinking you'd wake up and be completely disoriented, like a…"

"Like an old man who lost consciousness merely from being spun about a bit? No, my wits are back, or at least such wits as I have left."

She smiled. "I like you," she said, without showing the least awareness of how such a smile and such words, coming from such a beautiful young woman, could suddenly light up the whole world for a man.

Rupa wrinkled his brow and made a signal to her with one hand.

"Rupa says he likes you, too." Her smile wavered. "You see, Rupa is-"

"Mute? Yes, I gathered that. For many years my elder son, Eco, was unable to speak-" I caught myself. Since I had disowned Meto at Massilia, I no longer had an elder and a younger son. Eco was my only son. And Meto-for me, Meto no longer existed…

Cassandra saw the expression on my face. She frowned. "You've lost a child," she said.

I raised an eyebrow, surprised.

She shrugged. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. But it's true, isn't it?"

I cleared my throat. "Yes, in a way. I've lost a son. Or misplaced him…"

She saw that I cared to say no more and changed the subject. "Are you hungry?"

I was, in fact, but I had no intention of taking food from anyone who clearly had as little to spare as Cassandra and her companion. I shook my head. "I should go. My family will be wondering what's become of me." I stood up, feeling unsteady.

"Are you sure you're well enough?"

"When a man reaches my years, he learns to accommodate small complaints, rather as a rich man learns to accommodate unwanted relatives. It's only a bit of light-headedness. Nothing, I should think, compared to the spells from which you suffer."

She lowered her eyes. "You're talking about that day I fell into your arms. I wasn't sure you'd remember."

"It's not every day a beautiful young woman falls into my arms. Nor am I likely to forget the previous time I saw you."

"A previous time?"

"You were in front of the Temple of Vesta. You did more than faint on that occasion."

"Did I?" She wrinkled her brow. "I suppose I must have. They told me about it later. I don't really remember."

"Have you always suffered such episodes?"

She looked elsewhere. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Forgive me. I had no right to ask. It's only because…"

"What?"

I shrugged. "You fell into my arms. Now I've fallen into your arms… more or less. It's enough to make a fellow think the gods must want the two of us to meet."

She raised an eyebrow.

"I'm only joking! You mustn't blame an old fellow for flirting a bit." I glanced at Rupa, who seemed amused. In that moment I suspected he was not her lover. What then? A servant, relative, friend?

She smiled. "You were kind enough to catch me that day. Today in the Forum, when I saw you in distress, I wanted to return the favor."

"Good. That makes us even, then. But I haven't introduced myself, have I? My name is Gordianus."

She nodded. "They call me Cassandra."

"Yes, I know. Don't look surprised. You're not entirely unknown in the Forum. People tend to notice a person… such as you. I don't suppose Cassandra is your real name?"

"As real as any other."

"I'm being presumptuous. Forgive me. I should go."

She turned away from me. Had I offended her? Embarrassed her? I hoped for one more exchange of glances before I left the room, one more look from her troubled blue eyes, but she kept her face averted.

Rupa led me into the hallway, and I passed from the world lit by Cassandra's presence into the world of boiled cabbage and barking dogs. At the front door, where a Molossian mastiff was tethered to a post, Rupa abruptly turned back, giving me no sign at all, not even a nod. I felt a prickle of envy. He was returning to Cassandra.

I walked home alone, feeling a touch of light-headedness, but of a different sort than I had felt before; a similar sensation but curiously pleasant. As I passed down the Street of Copper Pots, the clanking of so much metal seemed to echo the muddle in my own head. An unexpected brush with beauty makes a man feel happy, and carefree, and foolish.

"You will no longer spend your idle hours loitering in the Forum. Too dangerous!"

So declared Bethesda that night in the dining room off the garden. On my safe return, she had met me with an icy stare and spoken hardly a word, but her display of anger was only a show. Hieronymus drew me aside and informed me in a whisper that she had been frantic and close to tears when he and Davus returned to the house without me.

Confronted with Bethesda's decree, I sighed, and unable to think of a rebuttal, picked up my wine cup instead. If I argued that I would always take Davus along to protect me, she would only point out that Davus had failed to do so that very afternoon.