Most people, Caenis supposed, existed in their hopes for the future; she could never do that. She must live for the present. At least now she would never again be someone with no past. She too would have, if she could bear them, affectionate memories to carry forward to her old age.

* * *

They did go home by sea. Caenis liked sailing even more than traveling overland.

By the time they came into Rome from Ostia it was all she could do to disguise her gathering misery. This was not simply because she had been forced to view so closely all she could never possess. She thought she knew why Vespasian had wanted to take her to Cosa. It was his favorite place; he was arranging for his own memories to include one of Caenis there. With leaden foreboding, she guessed why: Their time together would not last much longer.

She was too depressed even to be surprised when he made a detour with her chair to the apartment where his brother lived. Vespasian lived there too, though he was planning to take rooms of his own before the next elections in order to seem a more substantial candidate; no one would take seriously a man who only lodged in his brother's attic.

Caenis had never been there before. She waited outside in the chair while Vespasian went into the apartment block. The area was rundown but adequate; Caenis recognized the district, somewhere near the Esquiline on the less fashionable side. There was a wonderful parchment and papyrus warehouse nearby where she had been once or twice to order supplies.

He came back. "Step indoors for a moment."

He had opened the half-door and offered his arm for her to clamber out before she had any time to hesitate.

* * *

It appeared Sabinus was not at home. His wife stood waiting in the hall, a short girl about Caenis' age with a round pleasant face that looked understandably concerned. Theirs was a house rather bare of furniture, and what they did have was all rather heavy and old-fashioned, though Caenis guessed that was just Sabinus' somber taste. There were massive red curtains that looked difficult to draw. Though the atmosphere was initially so formal, all the legs of the sidetables and couches had been scuffed by children's toys.

She experienced a sensation that this visit had been prearranged. Afterward she felt certain, though she never found out how Vespasian knew what had happened. They wanted to take her into a side room, but she was already demanding in agitation, "What is it? Titus!"

Sabinus' wife reached for her hand. Caenis felt a sense of despair closing in.

He said, "I wanted to tell you this myself." She knew. He was leaving her. "Lass, I didn't want you to get out of the chair and see the cypress trees standing at the door, the house dressed up in mourning. . . ." She did not know after all. Sometimes the brain is stubbornly slow. She put up one hand, foolishly smoothing her hair. He had to tell her, for even then she did not understand. "Your lady Antonia is dead."

She refused to accept it. She did not move; she could not speak.

"Caenis! Oh my dear . . ."

Caenis closed her eyes. Vespasian was holding open his arms, but although she desperately wanted to bury her face in his shoulder she had to blot him out. She could not afford his comfort. If she gave way now, she would never be brave again—and, Caenis knew, she would certainly have to be brave.

She said, with brutal clarity, to Sabinus' anxious, well-scrubbed wife, "I am alone. That lady was all I ever had!"

Vespasian's arms dropped to his side. It was too late to take the words back.

Sabinus' wife—Caenis had been introduced, but she found she could not now remember the young woman's name—had taken her somewhere, some room, a library perhaps.

"What happened? Was this Caligula?" Caenis asked her.

"We don't think so. Not directly. It appears to have been natural; she was an old lady, after all. But people are not sure. It may have been her own choice." Suicide. "These things are not given out."

"No," Caenis responded dully. "No. They are not."

"Cry if you want to."

But Caenis could not cry.

And then the young woman said, "Don't go home yet; stay and have some lunch. There's nothing to be done. You may as well go home refreshed."

Caenis almost felt amused. She protested grimly, "Your brother-in-law has no right to ask that of you!"

Sabinus' wife looked at her levelly. "He didn't," she said. In that moment Caenis recognized that the wife of Flavius Sabinus was the friend she could never have.

Although eating was almost impossible, she stayed to lunch.

* * *

When she was ready to leave she refused to let Vespasian go with her. She and Sabinus' wife exchanged weak smiles. They had surprised him; they had even perhaps startled themselves. They were enjoying their small revolt against the order inflicted upon women by men. They had weighed one another up; then, sharing that small sad smile, they gave way to the social rules. However, it was his brother's wife, not Vespasian, who hugged Caenis at the door.

By then Caenis was impatient to reach home. Her balance had to some extent stabilized, but she felt as if she would not entirely accept Antonia's loss until she returned to the house. She needed to be alone in her own room there before she could even begin to assess her feelings.

Vespasian looked disturbed, but she had no spare concentration for soothing him. "Caenis, she wanted you to go to Cosa. It was deliberate."

"I should have been with her. Why didn't she know that?"

"You had a special place with your lady. She knew." His hands were heavy on her shoulders; she could not easily escape. His own face was white. "I imagine she could not bear to see you upset."

He could not bear it either; Caenis understood. She finally wrenched free and stood off from him. Grimly she took upon herself the duty of the bereaved to reassure those around them. "I'm sorry for what I said. I have you; of course; I know."

Impassive, he said nothing at first, then dismissed it with, "This is not the time."

Being a man he had failed to see that it was only now, now when she was too deep in some other trouble, that she could ever speak of what she felt for him. Yet he had never flinched from reality, so Caenis told him tersely, "Never lie to me. Tell me the truth, as soon as you must. Don't just hope I will work things out for myself; Titus, don't leave it to me—" She stopped.

"No," he said.

Then as she turned to climb aboard her chair, he suddenly spoke out too. "Your idea of other people's loyalty is as empty as your view of a country landscape. But, Caenis, in the country, just when you think you have the whole world to yourself, you wander into an olive grove and find some old shepherd squatting on his haunches in the shade." He paused. His voice rasped. "Smiling at you, lass."

"The country is your world, not mine," Caenis returned, managing to find a shred of humor for him. "And even a city girl, if she reads any poets at all, knows a shepherd is the last person to trust!"

Despite her pleas, Vespasian insisted on going with her as far as Antonia's house. There was nothing she could do; he marched along with the footman in front of the chair.

Bluntly undeterred, when he left her at the door he said, "Send for me when you need me." Then, since he was a brave man, he cupped her stricken face in his large hands. "Lass; I am here. You know that."

She could not risk flinging her arms around him as she wanted to do, for she must be alone when she started to cry.

"Caenis—"

She had to stop him. She knew that whatever he was going to say would be more than she could bear. "Yes. I know. As my lady said to us, Titus, ‘Sometimes even Caenis will need a friend.' And when I do, you are here. Yes; I know."

FIFTEEN