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Cytheris laughed. "Volumnius's eyes almost popped out of his head! As for the poor master, I thought he was going to have a heart attack. Even in Alexandria, women can't dance naked in the street, and the city authorities were always looking for some excuse to shut us down. But I took off that final veil as a gambit, and the gambit worked. The next day I had a new master. When Volumnius headed back to Rome on his private ship, I was with him. And I've never looked back."

"Now you're a freedwoman."

"Yes. Antony helped with that. I still have certain… contractual obligations… to Volumnius, but this house and everything and everyone in it are mine." She snorted. "No wonder a woman like Antonia hates me so much. What has she ever accomplished on her own merit? Everything comes to her because of her family and her name. She couldn't even find a husband outside her family! I should feel desperately trapped, living such a cramped little life. I've made my own way in the world, using what the gods gave me."

"What about Cassandra?"

"That was the hardest thing about leaving Alexandria-saying good-bye to Cassandra. I wept. So did she. I was sure I'd never see her again. When you're young, the world seems such a big place, so easy to get lost in. But it's not so big after all, is it? All roads lead to Rome. I came by one road. Cassandra came by another. Earlier this year I began to hear the rumors about a mad-woman down in the Forum who had the gift of prophecy. People said she was called Cassandra. I thought, Could it possibly be my Cassandra? I piled into that gaudy litter Antony gave me and went to have a look. And of course it was her, standing in front of the Temple of Vesta wearing a ragged tunica, muttering to herself and begging for alms. What in Hades is she up to? I asked myself. Then I began to worry. What if she really had gone mad? What if she had taken it into her head that she really was her namesake? Perhaps the gods had punished her-had looked down and seen her making a mockery of the Trojan princess whom Apollo tormented, and for her hubris they had driven her mad. Half the lunatics and religious fanatics in the world make their way to Rome; why not Cassandra, if she had gone crazy? You see…"

Cytheris hesitated. I gave her a questioning look.

"Even now, all these years later, this isn't easy to talk about," she said. "When we were young, I promised her I would tell no one. She was always so frightened that it would happen while she was performing, that her secret affliction would be exposed…"

"She has no need of secrets now," I said.

Cytheris nodded. "You're right; I'll tell you. Cassandra was subject to spells of falling sickness. In the time I knew her in Alexandria, it happened only twice that I knew of. But it was frightening to watch. I'll never forget the first time. We were alone in the room we shared at the master's house. We were talking, laughing-then suddenly she was thrown to the floor. It was uncanny, bizarre, as if a giant, invisible hand had cast her down and was holding her there while she thrashed and writhed. Her eyes rolled up in her head. She foamed at the mouth. She muttered something incomprehensible. I had the presence of mind to put something in her mouth to keep her from swallowing her tongue, and I did my best to hold her down so that she wouldn't hurt herself.

"When it was over, she gradually came to her senses. She remembered nothing. I told her what had happened. She said it had happened to her before, and she begged me to tell no one. I told her the master would have to know, that he'd find out sooner or later. But she made me promise not to tell him. She said perhaps it would never happen again. But it did, at least once more before I left Alexandria. That time, too, it was in our room, and no one but me saw it."

Cytheris studied my face. "This is familiar to you, isn't it, Finder? Did something similar happen to Cassandra on one of your visits to her? She told me about your visits. I know that you called on her more than once."

I took a deep breath and evaded the question. "I was thinking of something my son-" I stopped myself from speaking Meto's name. "I was thinking of something I once was told about Caesar. For a period of time, during his youth, he suffered from such seizures. He, too, tried to keep them secret. Gradually they stopped, and they've never recurred. A priest once told him his seizures were a sign of the gods' favor. Caesar himself believes they were the result of a blow to his head when he was kidnapped by pirates as a young man."

Cytheris considered this. "I don't know how Cassandra accounted for her spells. But when I saw her again, here in Rome, I remembered them, and I began to wonder. What if everything I'd heard about this madwoman in the Forum was true-that she didn't merely pretend to see the future or imagine such a thing, but that she really was subject to divine visions? Why not? Perhaps her seizures in Alexandria had merely been precursors to the full-blown gift of prophecy she had since acquired.

"So which was it? Was Cassandra putting on a deliberate performance? Had she gone mad, imagining herself to be the Trojan princess she'd played in the mime shows? Or in the years since I had last seen her, had she truly become a seeress and somehow ended up here in Rome, a beggar in the streets? I remembered the Cassandra I had known and loved in Alexandria, and I had to know the truth.

"I told the litter bearers to draw alongside her. I could see her through the gauze curtains, close enough to touch, but I didn't think she could see me-you know how such curtains work. And yet, even as I was reaching to draw back the curtains, she turned straight toward me and spoke my name. That gave me a start! Such an uncanny sensation shot through me, for a moment I hesitated to draw back the curtain. When I finally did, my hand was trembling. But when I saw her, all my trepidation melted away. She was smiling, trying not to laugh. Even with her unkempt hair and the smudges of dirt on her cheeks, she was the same Cassandra I had known in Alexandria.

"I burst out laughing and drew her into the litter. I closed the curtains and told the bearers to take me home. That night we drank Falernian and talked until dawn."

"And what did she tell you?" I said. "Which of your hopes or worries for Cassandra turned out to be true? Was she mad? Deluded? Pretending? Or something else?"

Cytheris smiled and at the same time wrinkled her brow. She shook her head. "I wish I knew!"

"But if she was the same Cassandra you had known… and if the two of you talked for hours…"

"We talked about old times in Egypt. We talked about my fortunes since I came to Rome. We talked about Antony and Antonia, about Caesar and Pompey, about the state of the world. But when it came to talking about Cassandra-how she had come to Rome and why-she drew a veil of secrecy."

"You allowed that?"

"I respected it. Clearly she wasn't mad, not in the sense of having lost the spark of her old self; I could see that at once. But had she been touched by a god, given the gift of prophecy? Or was she acting a part? Had she come to Rome on her own initiative? Or had she been brought here by someone, for some purpose? I can't tell you the answers, because I never knew. Not for certain, anyway. I asked Cassandra-cajoled her, teased her, even begged her a bit-but she wouldn't tell me. She would only say that in the fullness of time I might know everything; and until then it was best if I knew nothing about her comings and goings, and told no one what I knew about her past.

"I finally agreed to stop badgering her. A woman must be allowed to keep secrets; I have a few myself, so why shouldn't Cassandra? Secrecy is sometimes the only power a woman has in this world."

I nodded slowly. "And after that night, after your long visit when you reminisced about the past, did you see her again?"