Why was Meto so scornful in conveying his suspicions? Had he been as intimate with Caesar as I had often been led to believe? Had that intimacy lessened, or ended altogether? Were his feelings about Caesar's dalliances with the royal siblings tinged with jealousy-and did that jealousy make his assumptions more reliable, or less?

I gave a start, as if waking from a dream. Meto and the way of life he had chosen to follow with Caesar were no longer my concern. Even if what he had just told me was true-that he himself had begun to doubt that way of life-still, it was of no consequence to me. So I told myself.

"You speak as if a gulf has opened between you and Caesar. Yet earlier tonight, I saw with my own eyes how the two of you got along-like the best of old friends, completely at ease. Almost like an old married couple, I daresay."

"Did it look that way? Appearances can be deceiving." He lowered his eyes, and suddenly I felt a stab of doubt. Had Meto grown cagey and dissimulating with Caesar, using the skills of deception that had become second nature to him to put on a face to the man he had once admired but now doubted? Or was I the one being fooled? For all I knew, Meto was still very much Caesar's trusted spy, and I was simply another source of information to be cultivated.

I stiffened my spine and hardened my heart. "You've said what you had to say, and so have I. It's been a long day-too long and too eventful for an old man like me. I need my rest now. Go."

Meto looked crestfallen. "There's so much more I wanted to say. Perhaps… next time."

I looked at him without blinking and gestured to the open door.

He gave each of the boys a hug, nodded curtly to Rupa, then turned to leave.

"Meto-wait a moment."

He stopped in the doorway and turned back. "As long as you're here-Rupa, would you pull the trunk closer to the bed? Open the lid, please." Since we had settled in our rooms, I no longer kept the trunk locked. I sat on the bed and sorted through its contents.

"What are you looking for, Papa?" said Meto. "Bethesda's things are here. She would have wanted you to have something… as a keepsake."

I removed various items from the trunk, spreading them beside me on the bed to sort through them. I came across Bethesda's silver-and-ebony comb. My fingers trembled as I picked it up. Would it mean as much to Meto as it meant to me? Perhaps; but I could not bear to part with it. I would have to find something else to give him.

"What's that?" he asked.

"What?"

"There-that alabaster vial. Was it Bethesda's?"

"No."

"Are you sure? It looks like the sort of thing in which she might have kept a perfume. To be able to smell her scent again-I'd like that."

"That vial was not Bethesda's!"

"You needn't speak so harshly."

I sighed. "The vial was given to me by Cornelia."

He frowned. "Pompey's wife?"

"Yes. The whole story is too complicated to recount, but believe me, that vial does not contain perfume."

"Poison?"

I looked at him sharply. "Caesar has indeed taught you to think like a spy."

He shook his head gravely. "Some things I learned from you, Papa, whether you like it or not, and a penchant for deduction is one of them. If not perfume, what else would a woman like Cornelia carry in a vial like that? And if she gave it to you…"

"She didn't hire me to assassinate someone, if that's what you're thinking."

"I was thinking that she gave it to you out of mercy, or perhaps simple convenience-to spare you a more violent death. The poison was intended for you, wasn't it, Papa?"

I almost smiled; his cleverness pleased me, in spite of myself. "It's something called Nemesis-in-a-bottle, quick and relatively painless, or so Cornelia told me. She claimed it was her personal supply, for her own use if the need should arise."

"Poor Cornelia! She must be missing it now."

"Perhaps, but I doubt it. Cornelia survived Publius Crassus. She survived Pompey. She'll probably survive yet another ill-starred husband."

"If any man would be foolish enough to marry such an ill-starred wife!"

I pulled myself upright and stiffened my jaw. Engaging in banter was not my reason for calling Meto back. Among the objects strewn across the bed, I spotted a small jar made of carved malachite, with a lid of the same stone secured by a brass clamp. I picked it up, gazed it at for a long moment, then handed it to Meto.

"Perhaps you'd like this, to remember her by. The beeswax inside is suffused with the scent Bethesda wore on special occasions. I told her to leave it in Rome, but she insisted on packing it. 'What if we attend a dinner with Queen Cleopatra?' she said. She was being facetious, of course."

He unclamped the lid and held the jar to his nose. The perfume was subtle but unmistakable, its ingredients a secret even to me. I caught a faint whiff. Tears came to my eyes.

Meto clamped the lid. His voice was choked with emotion. "If you're sure you want to give it to me…"

"Take it."

"Thank you, Papa."

He turned to go, then turned back. "That vial of poison, Papa-you should get rid of it."

And you should mind your own business, I started to say, but the lump in my throat was too thick. The best I could manage was a curt gesture of dismissal.

Meto stepped through the doorway and disappeared.

Why did I not do as Meto advised? From my window, I could have cast the alabaster vial into the harbor, where it would have sunk like a stone. Instead, I gathered it up with the other things on the bed and stuffed them back into the trunk, then closed the lid and threw myself onto my bed.

Rupa hovered over me. I told him to go to his room. Mopsus approached, clearing his throat to speak. I told him to take Androcles and follow Rupa. They left me alone.

I covered my face with my forearm and wept. As faint as a whisper, Bethesda's perfume lingered on the air.

CHAPTER XVII

The boys stayed very quiet the next morning, allowing me to sleep late. I was still groggy, my head full of uneasy dreams, when Merianis arrived bearing a scrap of papyrus that had been folded several times and sealed with wax. The impression in the wax was that of Caesar's ring, which bore an image of Venus circled by the letters of his name.

"What's this?" I said.

"I've no idea," said Merianis. "A missive from Little Rome. I'm merely the bearer. Shall I stay, in case you wish to send a reply?"

"Stay, so that I can look upon your beaming face. At least someone in this palace is happy. I don't suppose the return of your mistress has anything to do with your mood this morning?"

She grinned. "While Queen Cleopatra was gone, the temple of Isis was a place without magic."

"And now the magic has returned." I broke the seal and unfolded the papyrus. The letter was in Caesar's own hand.

Gordianus

Apologies for our interrupted dinner. Much was left unsaid. But unexpected encounters bring happy results. There will be a royal reception today that I should very much like you to attend. Call it a lesson in the fine art of reconciliation. Wear your toga and come to the grand reception hall at the eighth hour of the day.

I put down the letter. Merianis looked at me expectantly. "A reception of some sort, later this afternoon," I said.

She nodded to indicate she already knew about it.

"Will you be there?" I said.

"No power in heaven or earth could keep me from attending."

"Then I shall go, as well. Mopsus! Androcles! Stop playing with that cat and lay out my toga for me." The reception hall was truly grand, the result of hundreds of years of refinements, additions, and adornments by generations of Ptolemies. Here the kings and queens of Egypt received tributes from subjects, announced treaties and trade agreements, celebrated royal weddings, and put on their most magnificent displays of wealth and power. Every surface shone with reflected light, whether from the polished marble of floors and pedestals inlaid with semiprecious stone, or from the burnished silver of brackets and lamps, or from the gold of gilded alcoves filled with gilded statues. The lofty ceiling was supported by a forest of slender columns decorated with lotus motifs and painted in vivid hues.