“Why did you ask me to come back today?” Brutus asked, suddenly incredulous that he had answered the call so easily.

“I wanted to see if your father would still be proud of you. I wanted to see if I was proud of you! I have done many things in my life that I regret, but having you has comforted me whenever it was all too much to bear.”

“You left me! Don’t say it comforted you, you never even came to see me. I didn’t even know where you were in the city! You might have gone anywhere.”

Servilia held up four rigid fingers to him, folding her thumb under them.

“Four times I have moved house since you were a baby. Each time I sent a message to Tubruk to say where I was. He has always known how to contact me.”

“I didn’t know,” he replied, struck by her intensity.

“You never asked him,” she said, dropping her hand back into her lap.

The silence began again as if it had never been broken, suddenly swelling into the spaces between them. Brutus found himself looking for something he could say that would finally confound her, allowing him to walk out and away with dignity. Cutting remarks came and went in his thoughts until he finally saw that he was being a fool. Did he despise her, feel shame about her life or her past? He looked inside for an answer and found one. He felt not a scrap of shame. He knew in part it was because he had led men as an officer in a legion. If he had come to her when he had done nothing, he might hate her, but he had stood and measured his worth in the eyes of enemies and friends and was not afraid to measure it in hers.

“I . . . don’t care what you have done,” he said slowly. “You are my mother.”

She burst into a guffaw of laughter, rocking back into the couch. Once again he was lost in front of this strange woman, who was able to shatter every moment of calm he could summon.

“How nobly you say it!” she said through laughter. “Such a stern face to give me absolution. Did you not understand me at all? I know more about the way this city runs than any senator in his little robe and trim beard. I have more wealth than I could ever spend and more power in my word than you can imagine. You forgive me for my wicked life? My son, it breaks my heart to see how young you are. It reminds me of how young I was, once.”

Her face became still and the laughter died from her lips.