Miriam moved to the night table and began preparing for Sleep. She worked as quickly as she could, taking out the lenses that deepened the color of her eyes, washing off the makeup that concealed her pale white skin, finally stripping away the wig. She ran her fingers through her wispy dusting of hair, then stepped for a few minutes into the shower.

The voices of Sleep echoed more and more loudly.

John was sitting on the side of the bed when she came out. “Why did you let her stay here tonight?”

“Her parents are away.”

“She saw me burning the remnants.”

“She’ll be helping you soon enough. Aren’t you ready to Sleep?” She sank down on the bed.

“What you want with her I cannot imagine!”

“She keeps house. Aren’t you going to Sleep?”

“I feel wide awake.”

She concealed the thrill of fear that this statement evoked in her. He must Sleep! She raised her hand, touched him, tried to form a question. But her own Sleep would not be denied another moment. The last thing she was aware of as she sank away was his restless stirring. Then a dream captured her, as vivid as life, more a memory relived. She Slept.

1

1

ROME: 71 B.C.

SHE HATED THE CITY and hated it most in August. The streets burst with filthy life; rats and flies and the sneering, diseased poor of the Empire. Carts piled with everything from sausages to silks poured through the gates, choked the narrow alleyways, jammed into the forums. Exotic crowds from the edges of the world shoved and brawled and stole in every corner. Over it all a blue haze of smoke from countless sausage-stands and bakeries hung like dead fog. Rome was drowning in humanity: naked slaves, nobility preceded by lictors and followed by streams of clients, soldiers in creaking leather and clanging brass, aristocratic ladies held above the mass on litters, all surging around the gaudily painted temples of government, religion and wealth.

She drove her chariot like a centurion. Two slaves walked ahead of the horse and chariot with whips to force the crowd aside—she didn’t give a damn how it made her look, she had no time for the effete ministrations of lictors with their delicate rods. She was in a hurry and Rome was just going to have to move.

As she proceeded along the Nova Via toward the Appian Way the crowds thinned somewhat; nobody was going out the Capenian Gate today.

The lush palaces on the Palatine Hill and the brightly painted Temple of Apollo disappeared behind her. Now her slaves were trotting. Soon she would flail her horse and burst past them. She was growing frantic, the heat made time short.