Cicero sighed aloud in a mixture of relief and irritation. “Can a man not find a little quiet in this city?” he demanded.

“You should not be sitting in the dark,” Suetonius replied, walking out of the gloom. He could not meet Cicero’s eyes at first and the air of defeat hung heavily around him. He too had been there to hear Caesar speak.

Outside, someone began an ancient song of lost love and the crowd in the forum joined the single voice. The harmonies were rough, but beautiful nonetheless. Cicero was tempted to go out and add his broken wind to theirs, just to be part of it before the day brought back its hard realities.

Suetonius tilted his head to listen. “They don’t know him,” he whispered.

Cicero glanced up, shaken from his thoughts. In the semidarkness, Suetonius’s eyes were shadows.

“Are we to be his servants, then?” he asked. “Is that all we have achieved?”

Cicero shook his head, more for himself than for his companion. “You must practice patience in this city, Senator. It will remain long after we are all dead.”

Suetonius snorted in disgust. “What do I care for that? You heard his plans, Cicero. You nodded your head with all the others who would not dare speak up.”

“You did not speak,” Cicero reminded him.

“Alone, I could not,” Suetonius snapped.

“Perhaps we all felt alone, even as you did.”

“He needs us, to rule,” Suetonius said. “Does he think our dominions will run themselves? Did you hear one word of thanks for the work we have done in his absence? I did not.”

Cicero found himself growing angry at the whining tone that reminded him of his children. “He does not need us,” he snapped. “Can’t you understand? He has armies loyal only to him and he has taken the mantle of power. We are the last embers of the old Rome, fanning ourselves alive with our own breath. The great men are all dead now.”

In the forum, he heard the song reach its final poignant lines before a wave of cheering broke out.

“What do we do then?” Suetonius asked.

His voice was plaintive and Cicero winced to hear it. He did not answer for a long time.

“We find some way to bind him to us,” he said at last. “The people love him today and tomorrow, but after that? They will have spent the money he gives them and they will need more than dreams to fill their stomachs, more than golden promises. Perhaps they will even need us again.”

He rubbed his sandal on the polished floor as he thought. The weakness of the younger man had stung him into anger and his thoughts came faster.