Blind and ignorant to the reality before them, the crowd had quieted at last, waiting for him to speak. Julius stood as if dazed while he struggled to find something to say.

“There will come a day when Rome accepts a king once more,” he said at last, “but it will not be today.”

They battered him with noise and he hid his anger and disappointment. It was all he could trust himself to say. He stepped down without waiting for his Tenth to form a path, but the people gave way in awe and dignity after what they had seen.

As he walked stiffly through them, he burned in humiliation. The Triumph had not finished yet. The horses and cages, dancers and carriages would make their way to his new forum and end at the temple of Venus. He vowed silently to himself that if the crowd failed to show proper appreciation there, blood would be shed before the day ended.

As the crowd moved on, a figure in silver armor turned toward the Senate house steps, seeing the white togas of wolves he knew. Brutus understood far better than they what Julius had tried to do, and the knowledge helped to firm his resolution and his strength. Rome would be washed clean and he would find his path without the shadow of Caesar to torment him.

The new spring would take Julius away from the capital. It would have to be soon.

Servilia lay awake in darkness, unable to sleep. The days had turned cold at last and Julius’s calendar had begun as Februarius ended, bringing rain to a parched city. She could hear it pounding on the tiles overhead and sluicing through the gutters, carrying away the dust.

Her house was quiet, the final patrons having set out for their own homes hours before. Sleep should have come easily, but instead her aching joints could not rest as her thoughts raced and writhed in the dark.

She did not want to think of him, but memories stole through her, their brightness the sole consolation of weakening age. Even in the sun, she would find her thoughts drifting back to other times, but at night there was nothing to hold the flood of recollection that slid into troubled dreams.

She had loved him at the feet of Alexander and he had been hers, in flesh and spirit. She had been his. He had burned for her then, before the cruelty of experience had hardened him.

She sighed to herself, clutching blankets around her thin legs. There was no hope for rest, not on this night. Perhaps it was only right that she spend it in memory of him.