"He told me about Milo's fascination with Cassandra. Fausta had told Milo all about Cassandra, and he was desperate to meet her and receive a prophecy. It hadn't happened that day-Cassandra was out apparently, nowhere to be found. Caelius hoped she would be in the next day, because Milo seemed absolutely determined to hear what she had to say before he fully committed himself to the insurrection. Doesn't that sound just like Milo? Stubborn and stupid and superstitious. Caelius was almost certain Cassandra would be in her room the next day, because his agents had observed a certain pattern in her routine-that would be the day that you would be calling on her. Caelius took it into his head, not only to consult Cassandra, but to try to win you over to the cause. I told him that you'd never agree to such a thing. 'What if you approach Gordianus, and he refuses?' I said. 'Then we shall have no choice but to kill him,' said Caelius. I absolutely forbade him to do that. I made him give me his word that no harm would come to you, no matter how you responded when he and Milo tried to win you over."

I drew a sharp breath. "It was you to whom Caelius made that promise! I had thought-" I tried to remember exactly the exchange I had heard between Milo and Caelius as I lost consciousness…

"We should have put hemlock in the wine instead of that other stuff," said Milo. "We should lop his head off, here and now."

"No!" said Caelius. "I gave her my word. I promised, and you agreed-"

"A promise made to a witch!" said Milo.

"Call her that if you want since you're not worthy to utter her name! I gave her my word, and my word still means something, Milo. Does yours?"

I had thought it was Cassandra who had somehow extracted that promise from Caelius-but it was Clodia.

"What about Cassandra?" I asked. "When I woke the next day, she was gone, and so was Rupa, and her room was empty, as if she'd never been there."

"I'm not sure what happened. I didn't see Caelius again, but I did receive a message from him-a few scribbled words, obviously written in haste. I think he must have handed it to a messenger just as he was leaving Rome. He mentioned Cassandra, though not by name; he was careful to use no actual names, with the intention of protecting me, I suppose, should the message be intercepted. He ended by cautioning me to burn the parchment at once."

"Did you?"

Her smile seemed to arise from some ironic reflex, the only possible response to a question so foolish. Her fingers trembled as she reached into the bosom of her stola and pulled forth a small, rolled piece of parchment. She handed it to me, and I felt it still warm from its contact with her flesh. I unrolled it and read, squinting to make out some of the more hastily scribbled words:

LITTLE SPARROW, I AM OFF. WISH ME THE FAVOR OF THE GODS. DON'T SAY THAT THE CAUSE IS IMPOSSIBLE. A YEAR AGO, WOULD YOU NOT HAVE SAID THE SAME ABOUT ANY CHANCE THAT YOU AND I WOULD REDISCOVER THE JOY WE HAD LOST? MY SKITTISH PARTNER IS NOW BURSTING WITH CONFIDENCE, THANKS TO THE WORDS OF THAT TROJAN PRINCESS. SHE HAS PROMISED US SUCCESS BEYOND OUR WILDEST HOPES! I THINK THAT SHE TRULY IS A SEERESS, AND IT WAS APOLLO HIMSELF WHO SHOWED HER OUR GLORIOUS FUTURE. MAKE A SACRIFICE TO APOLLO IF YOU WISH TO DO SOMETHING USEFUL. BETTER YET, START WORKING ON THAT LIST, AND MAKE IT A LONG ONE. LOOK FOR GOOD NEWS FROM THE SOUTH. WHEN I SEE YOU NEXT, EVERYTHING SHALL BE DIFFERENT!

I handed the message back to her. "He refers to a list," I said.

"A private joke. He used to say, 'Make a list of the people you want beheaded, Little Sparrow, and I shall see to it straightaway when I take over the city.' "

I felt a chill. The joke had been on Caelius. "But I don't understand what he says about Cassandra. He makes it sound as if she gave Milo the encouraging prophecy he was hoping for."

"I presume she did. 'Success beyond our wildest hopes,' he says."

"Yet Calpurnia gave her specific instructions to do quite the opposite. Cassandra was to do all she could to discourage them from mounting an insurrection. Why did Cassandra disobey Calpurnia?"

"Perhaps someone bribed her to do so. If she took money from Calpurnia, why not from someone else, if that person offered her more?"

I wrinkled my brow. Cassandra had disobeyed Calpurnia to placate her old friend Cytheris. She had disobeyed Calpurnia when she chose to see me. But those had been petty infractions. Would she have dared to disobey Calpurnia in a matter such as this, with so many lives at stake? Who would have encouraged or bribed or threatened her to do so? "Who knew how much Milo was depending on that prophecy?" I said. "Who wanted so desperately for Milo to embark on the insurrection? Caelius, of course…"

Clodia shook her head. "Caelius didn't bribe Cassandra. You read the note, Gordianus. He himself was persuaded by her. He believed she was a genuine seeress."

"Then it can have been only one person."

There was a black wreath on her door. I thought of the wreath that so recently had hung on my own door in memory of Cassandra, and the wreath I had seen on Fulvia's door still marking her grief months after Curio's death. This wreath made a mockery of those others. No doubt I would find her wearing black, with her hair undressed. Did it amuse her to put on the trappings of a bereaved widow? Did she think of her widowhood as an honor she had earned?

Even the gone-to-seed gladiator who answered the door was wearing black. "Hello, Birria," I said. "That color flatters you. It hides your fat."

He scowled at me, then saw I was not alone. It was not Davus who stood behind me, but a troop of Calpurnia's bodyguards. From Clodia's house, I had gone straight to Calpurnia's. After a brief audience with Calpurnia, I had come here.

"I'll tell the mistress you're here," Birria said, and skulked off.

A little later he returned and invited me to follow him. The bodyguards remained outside; but when Birria tried to close the door on them, one of them blocked it with his foot. The fellow was every bit as big as Birria and surrounded by ten more like him. After a brief staring contest, Birria relented and stepped back. The door remained open with the bodyguards standing at attention just outside.

Birria led me to the chamber called the Baiae room, then stepped across the hallway into the garden, looking nervous. Fausta stood just inside the room, dressed in black. Her masses of ginger hair were unpinned and hung about her shoulders. Beside her was a little tripod table set with a small pitcher of wine and a single cup. As on the previous occasion when I had called on her, she indicated that I should take a chair at the far end of the room.

"I'd rather stand," I said. "And I'd rather stay here where I can see you in the light. Black suits you, Fausta. It matches that bruise under your eye."

She winced at my rudeness and touched her face self-consciously. "You've come without that handsome son-in-law of yours, Gordianus?"

"I didn't have time to fetch him. I've come here straight from Calpurnia's house. She was very interested to hear what I had to tell her. She sent some of her men with me."

"So Birria told me. Is she trying to frighten me? I can't imagine why. My husband is dead. Poor Milo! He never posed much of a threat to the state, anyway."

"He incited a great many slaves to revolt. Along with Milo's gladiators, they caused considerable havoc in the region around Compsa."

"Yes, that was unfortunate. But all Milo's gladiators are dead now, and so are all those slaves, aren't they?"

"Yes. They either died fighting or else were crucified, thanks to Milo and the false hope he gave them."

"A tremendous waste of manpower, I'm sure."

"A tremendous amount of suffering!"

"Do slaves really suffer like the rest of us? I'm not sure the philosophers are agreed on that subject, Gordianus. But certainly Milo had a lot to answer for-property damage, lives lost, wasted slaves, not to mention the scare he threw into everyone! But he paid the price, didn't he? He cast the dice, and they came up dogs, and now his lemur is wandering about Hades without a head. But what has any of this to do with me? Since when is a wife held liable under Roman law for her husband's actions?"