anticipating.
'And now comes a lady of generosity, I see!' crowed a voice from the shadows of the marble pillars. 'A maiden of curiosity!'
The two Romans turned. Seated in the dimness against a pillar was an old crone with white hair and wrinkled skin, wrapped in a cloak and seated on a blanket. The bones of fortune were scattered before her.
'Yes,' the old woman continued, 'I see a woman on the brink of life!'
The pottery vendor was irked. 'You may hear the clink of money, Mebde, but you can barely see past that crooked nose of yours-and you know it, you old witch!'
She swiveled her head in his direction. 'I can see that you're adding weight faster than wit, Festus,' she called back. 'And trading the poor girl bad clay for good silver!
'What I also see,' she continued, turning back to Valeria, 'is a young Roman beauty on the way to her wedding and wishing, I suspect, to have her fortune told.' One eye was as opaque as marble. Mebde lifted a stone disk, no bigger in circumference than an apple, and put her clouded sight to a hole in its center. 'Would you like to know your future, pretty bride? Only one siliqua.'
'A silver coin for a blind peek at fortune?' Clodius responded. 'That's a steep tariff, old woman.'
'Perhaps for you, tribune. Your future may be so short as to warrant only bronze. But the lady is willing to pay silver, I think.' She extended a bony hand. 'Come. Seek the wisdom of the oak.'
'What's that curious stone you hold?' Valeria asked.
'A Keek Stane. A Seeing Stone. You get them in the north, where you're going. Through it I can divine the future.'
'She's asking too much,' Clodius insisted.
'No. Listen to how much she already knows about me.'
'From city gossip! Word went ahead, as you said!'
'I want to hear what she predicts.' Valeria took out a siliqua and put it in the crone's palm. 'Will I be happy?'
Mebde brought the stone closer to her eye. 'Oh, yes. And unhappy as well, I see.'
Clodius groaned. 'That could be the fortune of anyone in the empire.'
Valeria ignored him. 'Tell me more, priestess.'
'I see the fire of torches to light the way for a young bride. I see a sacred grove, laid waste. I see a great battle-'
'By the gods, useless generalities. She's not even any good.'
'Will I find love?'
'Ah.' The crone twisted the Keek Stane. 'Great love, my lady. All-consuming love, a love like a flame.' But instead of smiling she looked puzzled, then frowned.
'With my Marcus?'
Mebde's hand began to tremble, as if she were struggling to hold the stone steady. Finally she cried, dropped it as if it were hot, and stared up in horror, using her hand to clench at her blind eye.
'What is it? Is it about my future husband?'
'My eye!' She held out her other hand. 'Here! Take the coin back!'
'But what is it?'
'My eye!'
'What did you see?'
Mebde shook her head as if clearing it, the money clattering on the stones between them. She looked at Valeria in sorrow. 'Beware the one you trust,' the old woman croaked. 'And trust the one you beware.'
VIII
'It has been my experience that people are most positive about the things that are most unknowable. Ask them the best recipe for bread or the easiest way to plane a board, and they will hesitate, thinking carefully. Ask them about their standing with their peers or the direction of their lives and careers, and they will confess uncertainty. Yet ask them about the doings of the gods, or the likelihood of an afterlife, or the secret heart of a lover, or the monsters that inhabit lands they've never visited, and they will express complete conviction in even the most outlandish of beliefs. So it is with prophecies of the future. Improbable claims about the things that have not yet happened inspire the most devout certainty. Empires have turned on the mutterings of a priestess or the throw of bones.
I ask Savia if Valeria took the old witch seriously.
'My lady confessed she didn't sleep well.'
'Because of the prophecy?'
'Because of everything. Excitement about our arrival and the wedding, of course. Distress from the trouble on the quay and the warnings of the fortuneteller, even though we all told her it was nonsense. The palace itself was an eerie place, half closed off because tax collections were short and the rest feeling empty because the governor was away. Lamps were few and shadows long. There were the strange sounds of any new house as we lay in unfamiliar beds. I was restless myself, listening to the cold rain on the tiles of the roof. I rose in the grayness before dawn and went to help Valeria bathe and dress her hair. What I found gave me yet another start.'
'In Valeria's chamber?'
'Outside it. That scarred old soldier had displaced her bodyguard Cassius and was sleeping across the entry to her room, wrapped in his cloak on hard marble.'
'Galba? I thought you said he went with his men.'
'For supper, but then he came back. Unknown to us, he stayed to supplant Valeria's bodyguard. Galba said that Valeria's safety had been entrusted to him by his commander, Marcus Flavius, and that he had no faith in gladiators.'
'Cassius tolerated this insult?'
'He was used to it. Soldiers have no respect for arena fighters-out of envy for their skill, I think. The slave retreated to an alcove, and Galba spent the night on the floor. An odd posting for a senior tribune, I thought.'
'Yet Valeria didn't know he was there?'
'Not until I told her.'
'She was displeased?'
'Flattered. In many ways she was still a child.'
'Where was Clodius?'
'In a nearby apartment. Galba greeted him that morning by asking if his bed had been soft enough. There was male rivalry between those two, instant and instinctive. Clodius replied he could sleep on ground as hard as the senior tribune's, Galba said they might test that boast, and Clodius retorted he'd match him rock for rock, while reminding him it was their duty to keep Valeria comfortable. Galba said he needed no reminders from a soldier who barely needed to shave, and Clodius parried that Roman youth indeed defers to age.' She shakes her head. 'It was not a wise way to begin.'
'And what was your opinion of this Galba?'
'That he'd assumed a familiarity with us he'd yet to earn.'
I nod, knowing that slaves are jealous of familiarities. I ponder the tribune's action. Was he trying to win an alliance with the new bride? Supplant young Clodius? Mock the Romans? Protect from real danger? 'Not the easiest of nights.'
'I distracted Valeria with talk of other things. We dressed her hair, brought out paints to make up her face, and tried our first Briton porridge, which the kitchen slaves said was defense against the damp. Then we discussed the hopes and fears any woman has. Until we landed in Britannia the wedding was like a distant promise. Now it was near. Who could know what Marcus would truly be like? The girl was a virgin. And more women die in childbirth than men by the sword. Marriage is the female campaign.'
'So you reassured her?'
'I instructed her.'
