Diana stepped into the garden. The sunlight sparkled and glimmered upon her dark hair. I was struck anew by her beauty-inherited entirely from her mother-but her face was grave.

"What is it, daughter?"

"There's a visitor who's come to pay respects to Hieronymus."

"So soon?" Word of his death had already begun to spread, then, faster than I expected. The official entry had been registered by the undertakers, of course, and there are gossip vultures who follow those lists daily. Or had someone in Calpurnia's household spread the news? "Who is it?" I asked.

"Fulvia. She says she'd like to speak to you."

"Of course. Would you show her to the garden yourself, Diana? Have the boys bring refreshment."

My association with Fulvia went back many years. It was safe to say that she was the most ambitious woman in Rome. But what had she gained by her ambitions except a widow's garments? First she married the rabble-rouser Clodius, whose mobs terrorized the city; but when Clodius was murdered on the Appian Way, Fulvia, as a woman, could do nothing with the tremendous political power her husband had harnessed. Then she married Curio, one of Caesar's most promising young lieutenants. When the civil war began, Curio captured Sicily and pressed on to Africa-where King Juba of Numidia made Fulvia a widow again and took Curio's head for a trophy. When I last saw her, before my departure for Alexandria, she was still beautiful, but bitter and brooding, lacking the one thing a woman in Rome needed to exercise power: an equally ambitious husband. In Alexandria, a woman like Cleopatra may exercise power alone, but Romans are not Egyptians. We may revert to having a king, but we have never submitted to the rule of a queen.

So far as I had seen, Fulvia did not figure in any of Hieronymus's reports to Calpurnia. Her ambitions thwarted, she had become irrelevant. But if Hieronymus had not visited her, why was she coming to pay her respects? Even as I recalled Hieronymus's reference to a threat "from a direction we did not anticipate," Fulvia stepped into my garden.

Appropriately for such a visit, she was dressed in a dark stola, with a black mantle over her head. But she had been similarly dressed when I last saw her, in mourning for Curio. Perhaps she had never put off her widow's garments. She was now in her late thirties; her face was beginning to show the strain and suffering she had endured over the years, but the fire in her eyes had not gone out.

Fulvia spoke first, as if she were the hostess and I the guest. That was like her, to take the initiative. "It's good to see you, Gordianus, even if the occasion is a sad one. I had heard-"

"Yes, yes, I know-that I was dead."

She smiled faintly and nodded.

"But you must have known that wasn't the truth, Fulvia. Surely you knew the moment I arrived back in Rome, from your famous network of all-seeing, all-hearing spies. I seem to recall, at our last meeting, that you boasted to me that nothing of importance could occur in Rome without your knowledge."

"Perhaps your return to Rome was not of sufficient importance."

I winced. Was this sarcasm? Her expression indicated that she was simply stating a fact.

"You came here to pay respects to Hieronymus?"

"Yes."

"Did you know him well?"

She hesitated an instant too long, and chose not to answer.

"You didn't know Hieronymus at all, did you, Fulvia?"

She hesitated again. "I never met him. I never spoke to him."

"But you knew of Hieronymus-who he was, where he went, what he was up to?"

"Perhaps."

"And somehow you knew about his death, ahead of nearly everyone in Rome, and of the presence of his body in this house. How could that be? I wonder. And why should you care enough about this stranger Hieronymus to come pay your respects?"

She drew back her shoulders and stood rigid for a moment, then released her tension with a short laugh. "It's a good thing I have nothing to hide from you, Gordianus. With only two eyes and two ears, you perceive all. What a gift you possess! Very well: I know who Hieronymus was, because I have men who watch the House of the Beaks and report back to me on everyone who comes and goes-including your old friend, the so-called Scapegoat."

"And your men were watching this morning, weren't they? They saw me arrive, with Cytheris, and at least one of them tracked me when I left. I knew someone was following me! The fellow must be very good. Try as I might, I couldn't trick him into revealing himself."

"That's quite a compliment, coming from Gordianus the Finder. He'll be flattered."

"And when your spy saw the cypress wreath on my door, he knew there must be a dead body in my vestibule."

"The death of Hieronymus is a matter of public record now. My man had merely to check the registry."

"And that gave you the pretext for this visit."

"Yes. But I see now that I needn't have bothered with a pretext. I should simply have come to you… as a friend."

This was exaggerating our relationship, but I let it pass. "And as a friend, what would you ask of me, Fulvia?"

"Why did you visit Antony's house today? Who's employing you to spy on him?"

My response was equally blunt. "Do your men merely watch the comings and goings at the House of the Beaks, or does someone follow Cytheris wherever she goes?"

Fulvia did not answer.

"Because, if one of your men was following Cytheris, he could tell you that she met me quite by chance outside the Temple of Tellus and invited me on the spot to come home with her."

"I don't believe it. If you met Cytheris in the street, it didn't happen by chance but because you wanted it to happen. You were at Antony's house today because you meant to be there, Gordianus. And that would happen only because someone has hired you to investigate Antony. Either that or you're acting entirely on your own-in which case you must suspect that Antony had something to do with your friend's death."

"Couldn't it simply be that I wished to inform Antony and Cytheris of Hieronymus's demise, knowing that he had been a guest in their home in recent months?"

She wrinkled her brow. "Perhaps." Her shoulders slumped. She was suddenly tired of sparring with me. I realized she was standing in the hot sunlight.

"Please sit, Fulvia, here beside me in the shade. There should be some wine on its way. I wonder where those useless boys have got to…"

As if they had been lurking out of sight, waiting to be prompted, Mopsus and Androcles appeared at once, one bearing a silver pitcher and the other two cups. At least they had the good sense to bring the best vessels. Hopefully they also had brought the best vintage.

At the sight of them, Fulvia expressed surprise, then smiled. "My, how they've grown! They're almost a big as my son, Publius."

I had almost forgotten that the boys had once belonged to Fulvia; I acquired them from her in the course of my investigation into the murder of her first husband. I saw now why the boys had hung back; they were still in awe of their former mistress, and why not? I was a little in awe of Fulvia myself. Androcles approached her with downcast eyes and offered her a cup. Mopsus was equally shy when he poured from the pitcher.

"They've served me very well," I said. "They went to Egypt with me, and kept me company in Alexandria. You may go now, boys."

After daring to raise their eyes to catch a glimpse of Fulvia's face, the two of them withdrew from the garden.

The wine was very good, a Mamertine vintage that was almost as smooth and delicate as a fine Falernian. I thought Fulvia might comment on it, but she said nothing. No doubt she took such quality for granted.

"As I see it, Fulvia, the question is not why I was at Antony's house this morning. The question is, why are you keeping such a close watch on him?"