just done something to frustrate me or to make me laugh. And I told her about Meto and the heartbreak I felt at losing him. But I never spoke of Bethesda or Bethesda's illness. And Cassandra never spoke of Rupa or about her visits to the houses of the highborn and well-to-do women of Rome, nor did she tell me where she came from.
I didn't care; I didn't want her history, and I had no thought of the future. I wanted from her the thing that she gave me in that room, the joining of two bodies that filled the present moment to miraculous perfection. I expected nothing else from her. She seemed to expect nothing else from me.
She stirred in me sensations of youth almost forgotten. In flashes I imagined myself a young wanderer in Alexandria again. I was the young man I once had been, in love with the power of his own body; in love for the first time with the body of another; in awe of the extraordinary pleasures those two bodies could share and naive enough to think that no one else on earth had ever experienced sensations so exquisite. In Cassandra's room, time and space lost all meaning. Together we conjured a kind of sorcery.
What did Cassandra see in me? Long ago I had accepted that the attractions of women would always be a puzzle to me; best to accept the inexplicable without question when it worked in my favor. Still, looking at my face one day in a mirror of polished silver-the last time I looked in that mirror, for soon after I sold it to get a few sesterces to feed the household-I saw a gray bearded man whose face was lined with worries, and I wondered what Cassandra could find attractive in that weathered countenance. I gazed for a long time in that mirror. I squinted, I blurred my eyes, I looked sidelong, but I couldn't catch even a fleeting glimpse of the man I became when I was with her.
There was some advantage in appearing so unlikely a lover. No one in my household suspected. When I reappeared after being gone for hours at a time, Diana, if she noticed, might chide me for going out without Davus to protect me. Hieronymus might ask what news I brought from the chin-waggers in the Forum. Bethesda, calling from her bed, might ask why I had failed to bring her the latest impossible-to-find item she had decided might cure her. They were scolding, or curious, or complaining, but not suspicious.
Nonetheless, they all noticed a change in me. I was more patient, less truculent. I no longer snapped at Hieronymus; once again his wit delighted me, and eventually I convinced him to again take dinner with the family. The antics of Mopsus and Androcles amused rather than rankled. When Davus seemed most slow-witted, I found him most charming and thought to myself, No wonder my daughter fell in love with such a fine fellow! Diana was more beautiful and intelligent than ever. And Bethesda…
Bethesda remained unwell. Her malady had settled into her body like a spiteful vagrant lurking in a house, careful never to be seen but leaving unnerving signs of his presence everywhere. At first, her illness had made her snappish and demanding. Then she became increasingly withdrawn and quiet, which was much worse because it was so out of character for her. Her spirits darkened even as mine became lighter.
In her presence I was torn with guilt, not so much because I had been with another woman-the physical act of sex conjured no shame in me-but because I had stumbled into something singular, wonderful, and wholly unexpected, even while Bethesda fell prey to something awful, uncertain, and lingering. All our lives, Bethesda and I had shared everything, as much as any two people could. Now we each had ventured to a place where the other could not follow-and in opposite directions. My experience was magical, hers miserable. I felt the guilt of the well- fed man watching his loved one choke on sawdust and bones.
In the meantime, news of the war continued to arrive from Greece. One heard all sorts of contradictory reports-that Caesar had outmaneuvered Pompey; that Pompey had outmaneuvered Caesar. For a while, from Aprilis to mid-Quinctilis, the two made their camps and built fortifications in the region of Dyrrachium, the principal seaport on the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea. Both sides seemed set to make the rugged, mazelike hills and gorges around Dyrrachium the arena for a decisive battle. But after an engagement in which Pompey very nearly overran his forces, Caesar saw himself at a disadvantage and moved inland, toward the region of Thessaly. The decisive battle was yet to come.
My visits to Cassandra blur together in my memory, but two incidents stand out.
Just as she never spoke of her visits to highborn women, so she never spoke of the reason for those visits: her spells of prophecy. I did begin once to ask her about them, but she replied by placing her forefinger perpendicular to my lips and then distracting me in other ways. Why did I not press her for details? I can see reasons, but only in retrospect. If she were a fraud, I didn't want to know it. If she were genuine, and gazing into a flame could induce her to utter prophecies, I didn't want to hear them. Why seek a glimpse of the future when the future could hold only darkness? In Cassandra I had found a way to live in the present.
Nevertheless, on one occasion I saw the god pass through her.
We were lying naked side by side on her pallet, sweat lubricating our flesh where our bodies were pressed close together. I was watching the progress of a fly on the wall, its wings made iridescent by sunlight from the high window. Cassandra was humming softly, her eyes closed. For a moment I thought I recognized the tune-an Alexandrian lullaby Bethesda had sung to Diana-then decided I must be mistaken. The melody was close, but not quite the same…
The humming stopped. I heard only the buzzing of the fly across the room.
Cassandra gave a lurch so violent that I almost fell from the narrow bed. She struck my nose with her elbow.
I rolled away, covering my face. I jumped to my feet and looked back. Cassandra remained on the bed, her head rolling, her trunk twisting, her limbs flailing. The effect was uncanny, as if every part of her had become a separate animal with a will of its own. Her eyes rolled upward, showing only white.
Suddenly, she sat bolt upright. I thought the spell was over. Then she fell back on the bed, arching her spine and convulsing. I had never seen anything like it. The fit she had suffered outside the Temple of Vesta had been nothing like this.
Something Meto had once said came back to me: He was always afraid he might swallow his tongue. He's told me I must be prepared to put something in his mouth if his fits should ever recur…
Meto had been talking about Caesar. I seemed to hear his voice in my ear: 'Put something in her mouth!' I jumped and looked over my shoulder, thinking for a moment that Meto was actually in the room. Anything seemed possible. A god was passing through Cassandra. The very air around me seemed to shudder and spark with intimations of the supernatural.
I remembered the leather baton I had noticed once before, the first time I came to see her. I reached under the mattress and found it almost at once, as if an invisible hand guided me to it.
I clambered atop Cassandra, holding her down with my weight. I tried to pin her wrists with one hand so that I could force the biting stick between her teeth, but she was too strong. As soon as I managed to contain one part of her, another part broke free. The bed itself seemed to come alive, pitching up and down and banging against the wall. From down the hall I heard someone shout, 'For Venus's sake, you two, keep it down in there!'
As suddenly as it had begun, the seizure ended. Beneath me, her body went limp. The change was so abrupt that for a moment I thought she might be dead. I pushed myself up and looked down at her, my heart in my throat. Then I saw her chest rise as she drew a deep breath. Her eyelids flickered. It seemed to me that the passage of the god had forced her spirit out of her, and for a moment, after the god passed through, there was no animation in her at all. Gradually reentering her body, her spirit seemed confused, uncertain it had returned to the right place.
She blinked and opened her eyes. She seemed not to recognize me.
'Cassandra,' I whispered, reaching out to wipe flecks of foam from her lips. I brushed my fingers against her cheek. She reached up to cover my hand with hers. Her grip was as weak as a child's.
'Gordianus?' she said.
'I'm here, Cassandra. Are you all right? Do you need anything?'
She closed her eyes. I felt a stab of fear, but she was only resting. She reached up and pulled me against her, embracing me, humming the lullaby she had been humming before, rocking me gently as if I were the one who needed comforting.
Where had she been? What had she seen? After that day, I understood the fascination she inspired in the rich and powerful women who thought they could harness for their own ends the power that coursed through Cassandra.
Later that day, when I returned to my house, everyone noticed my split lip, including Bethesda, who at dinner was in better spirits than she had been in for quite a while and in a mood to gently scold me.
