There was a huge response from the crowd. Caelius, his face flushed with excitement-for I think the crowd had grown even larger and more enthusiastic than he'd expected-managed to make himself heard above the roar. "In anticipation of the passage of this law, I have set up my tribunal here today. I shall take up my post in my chair of state, and my clerks shall record the names and circumstances of all citizens who are currently in debt, so that their relief can be expedited immediately when the law goes into effect. Please form a line beginning on my right." And with that he sat down on his chair of state, looking quite pleased with himself.

The line of litigants waiting to see Trebonius evaporated in the rush to join the line to see Caelius. Why should any debtor waste his time haggling with the city praetor, when Caelius's legislation, if enacted, would supersede whatever settlement Trebonius decreed?

"What a pack of fools," grumbled one-armed Canininus in my ear. "There's not a chance in Hades the Senate will pass Caelius's legislation. If Caesar had wanted such a thing, he'd have enacted it himself. And if Caesar doesn't want it, the Senate won't even consider it. Caelius is just stirring up trouble."

"But why?" I said. "What's the point of setting off a riot?" For in fact a near riot had ensued. Angry cries and insults filled the air. Shoving matches and fistfights broke out. Snarling bodyguards formed cordons around their wealthy patrons, who rushed to escape the rabble. At a sign from Trebonius, glowering down at the chaotic scene from his chair of state, armed guards set about trying to restore order, though it was hard to know where to begin. The crowd was like a boiling caldron, bubbling over everywhere at once.

What was Caelius up to? Canininus was right; as long as the Senate was in the palm of Caesar's hand, Caelius had no hopes of enacting his own radical programs. Nor, as the praetor overseeing foreign residents, did he have any legitimate business to involve himself with debt settlements. Was he simply trying to make Trebonius's job harder, out of spite? Or did Caelius have a definite agenda in mind and a goal toward which he was moving?

Hieronymus and I, fearing the madness of the mob, made our way to the edge of the crowd. I acquired a couple of bruises from flying elbows, but otherwise emerged unscathed. At last we found a quiet place to catch our breaths, beside the Temple of Castor and Pollux. That was when I saw Cassandra for the second time.

The narrow platform that projected perpendicularly from the porch of the temple, flanking the steps, was just above our heads. I happened to look up, and saw her standing alone on the platform. She was watching the seething crowd beyond us and took no notice of the two of us below her.

Hieronymus saw the expression on my face and followed my gaze. "Beautiful!" he whispered. The word escaped from his lips as involuntarily as a breath.

And she was beautiful, especially when seen from that low angle-the vantage point of a suppliant looking up at a goddess on a high pedestal. To be sure, there was nothing remotely divine or regal about her threadbare blue tunica or her unkempt hair, but in her bearing there was a certain rare dignity that would command the immediate attention and respect of any man. In me it commanded more than that. I gazed up at her and felt my heart skip a beat. A vaguely remembered sensation from my youth, at once thrilling and painful, shot through me, and I suddenly felt like a man a third my age. I rebuked myself for such foolishness. I was an old, married man. She was a beggar, and a madwoman to boot.

She happened to look down and saw us staring up at her. That was the first time I looked into her eyes and saw that they were blue. Her face was blank, without expression-the face of Athena as molded by the Greek sculptors, I thought-and that in itself seemed odd, considering that she was watching a riot. I thought of a bird watching the activities of humans below her, apathetic to their violence against one another.

She gave a jerk. I thought that we had frightened her somehow, and that she was about to bolt. Instead, her eyes rolled back, and her knees buckled under her. She swayed, lost her footing, and tumbled forward.

To say that Cassandra quite literally fell into my arms would be true but misleading, lending the moment a romantic flair in no way evident at the time. In fact, when I saw that she was about to fall, I felt a quiver of panic-not for her, but for myself. When a man of my years sees a woman falling toward him from a considerable height, he thinks not of heroism but of his own frail bones. Still, I suspect that the instinct to catch a falling woman is strong in any man, no matter what his years. Hieronymus reacted just as I did, and it was into both our arms that she tumbled.

The moment was painfully awkward. Hieronymus and I essentially collided, and an instant later Cassandra fell onto us, and all three of us very nearly collapsed to the ground in a heap. If we had been actors in a comedy by Plautus, the staging could not have been more hilarious. By some miracle of balance and counterbalance, Hieronymus and I both stayed on our feet. Together we managed to lower our dazed cargo to her own unsteady feet, supporting her arms to keep her upright.

The breath was knocked out of me. A sharp pain shot up my spine. Spots swam before my eyes. None of this mattered when Cassandra fell swooning against me, one hand across her face and the other across her bosom.

To observe the form of a beautiful woman at a distance is one thing. To abruptly feel a warm, solid, breathing body enclosed within your arms is another thing altogether. It was precisely for this, to experience such moments of human contact, that the gods made us. That was what I felt in that instant, even if I did not consciously realize it.

Cassandra gradually came to her senses and drew back from me, but only slightly, still remaining in my embrace. Over her shoulder I saw Hieronymus looking rather envious of me. I looked in Cassandra's eyes and saw again that they were blue, but not quite the shade I had thought. There was a bit of green in them, or was that only a momentary trick of the light? Her eyes fascinated me.

"Was I… did I… fall?" she asked. It seemed to me that her Latin carried a slight accent, but I couldn't place it.

"You did. From up there." I nodded toward the platform.

"And… you caught me?"

"We caught you," said Hieronymus, crossing his arms petulantly. Cassandra glanced at him over her shoulder. She gently pulled herself from my embrace.

"Are you all right?" I said. "Can you stand?"

"Of course."

"What happened? Did you faint?"

"I'm perfectly all right now. I should go." She turned away.

"Go where?" I reached for her arm, then stopped myself. Where she went was none of my business. Perhaps she thought so too, for she made no answer. Yet it seemed to me that there must be more to say. "What's your name?"

"They call me Cassandra." She looked back at me. Her expression, briefly animated after she recovered from her daze, had become remote again-goddess like, birdlike, or simply the affectless face of a madwoman?

"But that can't be your real name," I said. "You must have another."

"Must I?" She looked confused for a moment, then turned and walked away with a slow, imperturbable stride, her head and shoulders erect, seemingly oblivious of the men who occasionally ran across her path in flight from the continuing melee before the tribunals of the rival magistrates.

"What an extraordinary woman," said Hieronymus.

I merely nodded.