A Mist of Prophecies rsr-9 Page 3

  At the outset of that fateful year, which of these rivals found himself in the stronger position? That question was argued endlessly by those of us who frequented the Forum in those uncertain days. We sat under the weak winter sun on the steps of the treasury (plundered by Caesar to pay for his troops) or, as on that particular day, we found a spot outside the wind near the Temple of Vesta and discussed the issues of the day. I suppose I must say "us" and "we," including myself in that group of tireless chin-wagers, although I opened my mouth less frequently than most. Mostly I listened, and thought what a useless lot of know nothings we all were, too old or frail or crippled to have been compelled to take up arms by either side, and not rich enough to have been extorted by either side to hand over gold or gladiators to their cause. Over looked by the warlords, we spent our days idling in the Forum, expounding our opinions on the latest rumors, arguing and insulting one another, gnashing our teeth while we helplessly waited for the world we had known all our lives to come to an end.

  "What does it matter if Caesar's won the West, when all the wealth of Asia and the grain of Egypt are at Pompey's disposal?" This came from a mild-mannered fellow called Manlius, who seemed equally distressed at the impending destruction of either side in the conflict. Manlius hated violence. "I don't see why Caesar's so eager to make the crossing. He'll only be stepping into the trap Pompey's laid for him. The slaughter will be horrific!"

  "Why is Caesar eager to cross? That's plain enough. Once it comes to a head-on confrontation, sword against sword, Caesar's got the clear advantage." So declared one-armed Canininus who, if his tales of combat were true, had more fighting experience than the rest of us combined; he had lost his right arm fighting for Caesar in Gaul and had received a generous retirement from his grateful imperator. "Caesar's men are battle-hardened from constant fighting. Years and years spent conquering the Gauls, then the march on Rome, then the mad chase down to Brundisium-Pompey barely slipped out of that noose! — and most recently, that little foray in Spain to put an end to Caesar's enemies there."

  "And don't forget the siege of Massilia!" This came from my friend Hieronymus, a Massilian of Greek descent and the only one of the group who was not a Roman citizen. The others suffered his presence partly because I was his patron, but also because they were a little in awe of him. A cruel fate had led to his selection by the priests of Massilia to serve as the city's scapegoat during the siege by Caesar. It had been his role to take on the sins of the whole city, and at some critical juncture, by his death, to save the city from destruction. Massilia had indeed been spared from destruction, but a strange twist of fortune had spared Hieronymus from his fate, and he had ended up in Rome living in my house. Hieronymus was tall and physically striking, with a curious demeanor. Having begun life as the heir of one of Massilia's more powerful families, but having spent most of his life as a beggar, he combined the haughtiness of a fallen aristocrat with the crafty pragmatism of a streetwise survivor. He often played referee in our little group, since he favored neither Caesar nor Pompey.

  Canininus snorted. "The siege of Massilia! I'd already forgotten about it. Massilia was nothing more than a pimple on Gaul's butt! Caesar simply dispatched Trebonius to pop it open before it could fester."

  Hieronymus raised an eyebrow. How he had despised his native city while he lived and very nearly died there! Since he had left Massilia, I never once heard him express a sentimental longing for the place. Still, it rankled him to hear a Roman express contempt for the city of his Greek fore fathers.

  "If 'squeezing the pimple' of Massilia, as you put it, was such a smallish thing," he said dryly, in slightly stilted Latin, "then why did Caesar reward Trebonius by making him city praetor for the year and charge him with enforcing Caesar's own plan to shore up the Roman economy? Such an important task is handed by a man like Caesar only to one who has shown his true mettle. I think that Caesar must have rated the taking of Massilia a far more important achievement than you do, my friend."

  "In the first place," snapped Canininus, "Caesar didn't 'make' Trebonius city praetor, the voters did."

  This met with catcalls from the Pompeians in the group. "Nonsense!" said the most vocal of them, Volcatius, who had a surprisingly strong voice for such an old man. "The only voters left in Rome are the common rabble, who'll cast their lots however Caesar tells them to. Pompey and all the Best People ran for their lives when Caesar crossed the Rubicon-except for those who couldn't bear the journey, like myself. How can any so-called election held under such circumstances constitute a true vote of the people? The last elections were a farce and a scandal, a mime show put on for the sole purpose of putting Caesar's handpicked men in office. The whole process was an illegal and illegitimate-"

  "Oh, please, Volcatius, not all this again!" groaned Canininus. "You'll still be whining about the last elections when it comes time to hold the next."

  "If the next round is as corrupt and meaningless as the last, I won't keep silent!"

  "Corrupt, maybe"-Canininus shrugged and smirked-"but hardly meaningless. The fact of the matter is that Rome has a government in place, and that government is running the city, whether you like it or not. Get used to it and move on!" Canininus laughed spitefully, along with some of the more vehement of the Caesarian faction. "But back to the point I was trying to make before we became distracted by politics: Caesar holds the military advantage because his men are primed and ready to fight."

  Mild-mannered Manlius, who had started the whole exchange, objected. "You say Caesar's men are battle-hardened, but aren't they battle-weary as well? Some of them staged a revolt while Caesar was on the way back from Spain-"

  "Yes, and Caesar promptly put the ringleaders to death and rallied the rest to his side," said Canininus. "He knows how to handle a mutiny; he's a born leader of men. You, Manlius, never having been a soldier, wouldn't understand such things."

  "But Pompey's had almost a year to catch his breath and gather his forces," observed Manlius, ignoring Canininus's insults. "They'll be fresh and unscathed. There must be some advantage in that."

  "They'll be soft from all that idle waiting, if you ask me," said Canininus.

  "But what about Pompey's superior numbers?" said Manlius. "Above and beyond his Roman legions, they say Pompey's gathered hundreds of archers from Crete and Syria, slingers from Thessaly, thousands of cavalrymen from Alexandria-"

  "We know about Pompey's forces only from rumors. People always inflate the actual numbers," said Canininus.

  "But Pompey's fleet isn't a rumor," observed Hieronymus. "Surely that's real. People have seen galleys sailing into the Adriatic Sea for months, hundreds of them arriving from all over the eastern Mediterranean. Battle-hardened or battle-weary makes no difference if Caesar can't get his men across to the other side."

  "His timing could hardly be worse," observed Volcatius the Pompeian, smiling grimly. "Winter's arrived. Boreas can blow a storm from the north and whip the Adriatic into a seething caldron before a ship's captain has time to utter a prayer to Neptune. They say Caesar consulted the auguries before he left Rome, and all signs boded against him. Birds were seen flying north instead of south, and a sparrow attacked a vulture-bad omens! But Caesar hushed up the augurs before his troops could hear about them and raise another mutiny."

  "That's a lie," said Canininus, "a blasphemous lie!" He lurched toward Volcatius, but some of the others held him back. Hieronymus raised an eyebrow at the spectacle of a truculent, one-armed Roman attempting to physically attack the oldest graybeard in the group.

  All this time I said nothing. In the contest between Pompey and Caesar, I had so far managed to keep myself neutral-more or less. Like virtually every other Roman citizen, especially those who played any part whatsoever in the city's public life, I had strong ties to both sides. If anything, my loyalties and animosities were more conflicted and tortuously intertwined than most because of the sort of work I had done all my life-playing the hound for advocates like Cicero, digging up the truth abou
t powerful and not-so-powerful men accused of everything from deflowering a Vestal Virgin to murdering their own fathers. I had met and had dealings with both Pompey and Caesar, as well as many of their confederates. I had seen them at their best and their worst. The idea that Rome's fate must inevitably fall into the hands of one or the other-that either Caesar or Pompey would ultimately become a king or something very close to it-filled me with dread. I attached no sentimentality to the old way of doing things, to the doddering, mean-spirited, greedy, frequently stupid maneuverings of the Roman Senate and the unruly republic over which they presided. But of one thing I was certain: Roman citizens were not born to serve a king-at least, not Roman citizens of my generation. The men of the younger generation seemed to have other ideas…

  My thoughts had led me, as they often did in those days, to Meto.

  It was for Meto that I had gone to Massilia the previous year, seeking news of my adopted son's fate; an anonymous message had informed me of his death in that city while spying for Caesar. How Meto loved Caesar, whom he had served for many years in Gaul! Having been born a slave, Meto could never become an officer like Caesar's other lieutenants, but he had become indispensable to his imperator nonetheless, serving him as a private secretary, transcribing his memoirs, sharing his quarters-sharing his bed, some said. In Massilia, I had found Meto alive, after all; but the play of events had so disgusted me that I turned my back on Meto, and on Caesar. I had spoken words that could never be taken back. I had publicly disowned Meto and declared that he was no longer my son.

  Where was Meto now? Since that fateful parting in Massilia, I had heard no news of him. I assumed that he remained by Caesar's side, that he had returned with him to Rome, then followed him to Brundisium for the attempted crossing of the Adriatic. Where was Meto at that very moment? For all I knew, he might be at the bottom of the sea along with Caesar himself. As a boy, when I first met him in the coastal town of Baiae, Meto couldn't swim. At some point he must have learned-to please Caesar? — because swimming had saved his life in Massilia. But not even the strongest swimmer could hope to survive if his ship foundered in the middle of the Adriatic. I imagined Meto in the water, wounded, frightened, bravely attempting to stay afloat even while the waves closed over his head and cold, salty water filled his lungs…

  Hieronymus gave me a nudge. I looked past the skirmish between Canininus and Volcatius and saw two of my slaves on the far side of the Forum, heading our way. Little Androcles was in the lead, but his older brother, Mopsus, was running to catch up with him. From the heated competition between them, I knew they must be on a mission of some importance. I felt a tremor of intuition. A god must have whispered in my ear, as the poet says, for I knew they must be bringing news of that which was uppermost in my thoughts.

  Canininus and Volcatius, abruptly separated, each went about reasserting his dignity. Like mirror images, they straightened their tunics and threw back their chins. The gap between them afforded a space for Mopsus, now in the lead, to enter the group, followed by Androcles. Everyone knew the boys, for they frequently tagged along with me when I visited the Forum. Everyone liked them. Volcatius patted Androcles on the head. Canininus made a mock salute to Mopsus. Slightly out of breath from running, Mopsus struck his chest and saluted back.

  "What brings you here, boys?" I said, trying to ignore the sudden fluttering in my chest.

  "News of Caesar!" said Mopsus. His eyes lit up when he spoke the imperator's name. Recently, Mopsus had decided that Caesar was his hero. His little brother, to be contrary, had become a confirmed Pompeian. Canininus and Volcatius aligned with them accordingly, playfully treating each boys as either an ally or a foe.

  "What news?" I said.

  "He's made the crossing! He reached the other side safely, along with almost all his men!" said Mopsus.

  "But not all of them! There was trouble," said Androcles darkly.

  I drew a breath. "Mopsus, where did you hear this news?"

  "A messenger arrived at the Capena Gate an hour ago. I spotted him right away, and I remembered he was one of Calpurnia's slaves."

  "And Calpurnia is Caesar's wife!" added Androcles needlessly.

  "And I decided to follow him-"

  "We decided!" insisted Androcles.

  "And sure enough, he headed straight to Caesar's house. We stayed out of sight and watched him knock on the door. The slave who answered made a great show of patting her bosom and almost fainting, and she said, 'Tell me straight out, before we bother the mistress, have you come with good news or bad?' And the messenger said, 'Good news! Caesar made the crossing, and he's safe on the other side!' "

  I let out a sigh of relief and blinked away sudden tears. The surge of emotion caught me by surprise. I coughed and managed to speak despite the catch in my throat. "But, Androcles, you said something about trouble?"

  "And there was!" He addressed himself as much to Volcatius as to me, drawn by the glimmer of hope in his fellow Pompeian's rheumy eyes. "When Caesar reached the other side, it was the middle of the night; and right away he unloaded his troops and sent the ships back to Brundisium to pick up the rest of his men, including the cavalry. But some of those ships were waylaid and separated from the rest by some of Pompey's ships, and Pompey's men set fire to them and burned them right there on the water, with the captains and the crews still on board! They were burned alive; or if they managed to jump off, Pompey's men killed them in the water, spearing them like fish."

  "Burned alive at sea!" gasped Manlius. "A horrible fate!"

  "How many?" asked Volcatius eagerly. The news of Caesar's successful crossing had visibly shaken him, but now he rallied at the prospect of a setback to Caesar.

  "Thirty! Thirty ships were captured by the Pompeians and burned," said Androcles proudly.

  "Only thirty!" scoffed his older brother. "Hardly any considering the size of Caesar's fleet. His cavalry still managed to make it across. They just had to crowd more men and horses onto each ship, and some of the men had to sit on horseback the whole way. A good thing they had clear weather-that's what the messenger said."

  "Thirty ships lost," I muttered, imagining the agony of those thirty captains and thirty crews. Could Meto possibly have been among them? Surely not. He was a soldier, not a sailor. He would have been by Caesar's side, safe on the farther shore. In any case, of what concern was Meto's fate to me?

  Suddenly, all around us in the Forum, there was a sense of movement and occasion. I caught glimpses of messengers running across nearby squares. In the distance I saw a group of men gather before the steps leading up to the Temple of Castor and Pollux to listen to an elderly senator in a toga who had something to tell them-from such a distance, I could hear only a vague echo of his voice. From a house somewhere up on the Palatine-probably not far from my own house, from the sound-I heard a loud cheer and the banging of cymbals. A moment later a citizen came running by, shouting, "Have you heard? Caesar's landed! He made the crossing! Pompey's done for now!" The news was spreading across the city as rapidly as voices could carry it.

  Then I heard another sound, jarringly out of place amid the swelling hubbub of excited male voices in the Forum. It came from nearby, from the little open square in front of the Temple of Vesta. It was a woman, wailing and shrieking.

  From the sounds she made, I thought she was being attacked. I stepped away from the group and circled around the temple until I saw her, kneeling on the paving stones at the foot of the temple steps. The others followed me.

  When he saw her, Canininus sneered. "Oh, it's only her!"

  I stared at the woman in wonder. There was something unnatural about the way she rolled her shoulders and swung her head in a circle. She held her arms aloft, her palms raised to heaven. Her eyes were rolled upward. The wailing I had heard was actually a sort of incantation. As I listened, I began to hear words amid the grunts and shrieks.

  "Caesar-Pompey-it comes to this!" she cried. And then, after a long keening moan: "Like vultures they circle over the
carcass of Rome-eager to pick the bones clean-wheeling and wheeling until they collide!"

  "Who is she, Canininus?" I said.

  "How in Hades should I know?" he snapped. "I only know she's been haunting the Forum for the last few days, begging for alms. She seems normal enough, but every now and then, this happens-she goes into a sort of trance and shouts nonsense."

  "But who is she? Where did she come from?"

  I looked at the others. Manlius shrugged. Volcatius raised a bristling white eyebrow. "I haven't a clue-but she's certainly a tasty-looking morsel!"

  I looked back at the woman. She had risen to her feet, but her blue tunica had become tangled at her knees, pulling down the neckline to reveal the cleavage of her breasts. No woman in her right mind would display herself so immodestly in the Forum, and certainly not before the Temple of Vesta. She shook her head back and forth, whipping the air with her unpinned blond tresses.

  "She's called Cassandra," said Mopsus.

  Why had I even bothered to ask the other graybeards, when Mopsus was present? "Is there anything that goes on in Rome that you don't know, young man?"

  He crossed his arms and grinned. "Not much. Cassandra-that's what they call her on account of the way she can see the future. I heard some slaves at the butcher's market talking about her just this morning."

  "And what else do you know about her?"

  "Well…" He was momentarily stumped, then brightened. "She's very pretty."

  "And if she's Roman, she must not be married, or else she'd be wearing a stola instead of a tunica," observed Androcles. His older brother looked chagrined at having missed this deduction.

  As we watched, the woman suddenly went limp and collapsed. I was on the verge of going to help her when I saw a figure descending the steps of the temple. It was one of the Vestals, dressed in the traditional costume of the sisterhood that tends the sacred hearth fire of the Roman state. She wore a plain white stola and a white linen mantle about her shoulders. Her hair was cut short, and around her forehead she wore a white band decorated with ribbons. I caught a glimpse of her face and recognized Fabia, the sister-in-law of Cicero. She was quickly followed by two younger Vestals.