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Authors: Steven Saylor
Tags: Historical fiction
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me, hoping that some of that favor might rub off on him.
"Hieronymus, Hieronymus!" I whispered, shaking my head. "You cheated the Fates for a time, but no man escapes them forever. The doomed Gaul still lives, while you lie on a bier in my vestibule. Did he have anything to do with your death?"
"Papa?"
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
"Hieronymus, Hieronymus!" I whispered, shaking my head. "You cheated the Fates for a time, but no man escapes them forever. The doomed Gaul still lives, while you lie on a bier in my vestibule. Did he have anything to do with your death?"
"Papa?"
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
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