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You were especially kind to me, my lord, on those days of depression that came next, feeling both my mind and body deeply weakened. Why on earth should that have happened once again? No doubt your calm considerate attitude could only be explained through many reasons, all those that you could well be hiding me and had something to do with those long years campaigning there on the other side of the Cisalpine Gaul. Who knows if you might have forged some offspring within the womb of more than one native from those tribes you passionlessly dealt with in your writings? Why did I ever imagine that she might have been one of those … druids. quite like Blodwynn?. The same ones who, thanks to your doing, were already known as bewitching murderers all through Rome… except for these patrician ladies who, like me, had accepted their services to stimulate their barren bellies and also, as they had made me understand, to enliven their sensuousness and waken that of their partners. Initially I felt some mistrust due to those priestesses’ reputation as lusty sorceresses and harlots at the service of dark deities that you had made up for them. This thought had increased through my jealous insecurity and, besides, that night’s revelation drove me to restlessly yearning for meeting back that evanescent being I had first seen at Cornelia’s… Kornel…how could I…? Anyway I could not break my promise of not revealing your secret. Whatever it might be, anguish rose up inside me…No, my lord, I have always remained faithful to you, even in my thoughts. But I am sure that you will certainly understand my confusion: I was not allowed to reveal you Blodwynn’s doing or how she had managed to get into Domus Publica. and not be discovered by the High Vestal. Anyway, her methods had proved to be useless so I came to understand the reason why I had initially felt that interest in her. Apart from the fact that Cornelia had taken good care of not speaking about her with you around whenever she dropped in to have news about my health.

–Caesar, I suppose that you will approve of this, that your wife may try some quick recovery by drinking this wine, in which I have boiled herbs and invigorating spices. She badly needs to regenerate the blood that she has lot , so that she is ready to beget your heir before you left Rome again.

She well knew that the war against Pompeius would probably keep you away for a long, long time. Would she have inherited from he father, something else apart from her cunning and political cleverness? Might she have guessed that someone, something from the East was still to come? You stood there, watching her hands –long, slender, alabaster-like –while they were leaning that onyx and silver jar over the agate goblet to pour what she had brought from her Cumae wine-cellar.

–Revitalizing …herbs?

Her aquamarine look –not so different from yours –smiled in quite a sort of serpent-like way.

–Greek medicine is not the only one, Caesar… Well, it is just some pepper, clove… rosemary, sage… Don’t look at me so inquisitively… Didn’t you turn to those healing remedies while you were campaigning there?

Being your mother’s old friend and also a former mother-in-law for you, it was not strange that she allowed herself such a self-assurance that I would never have dared.

–They also use healing herbs, don’t they? It is not a secret, Caesar… Three quarters of our Roman population, from patricians to the legionaries’ families know this story… Or might it be that every gesture of yours was noticed by those who fought at your service? What can you expect of a commander who even knows the name of each of his soldiers?

You kept listening to her, looking thoughtful or interested rather than scrutinizing.. That’s strange… Why did I happen to think that you were trying to find something related to your mother about her, though you were both almost the same age? No, not even did her close friendship to Aurelia or being your former wife’s mother entitle her to that. What’s more, her daughter’s memory must always have been such an unbearable ghost for you and your ambitions.

–Caesar, be reasonable… Calpurnia must get over this situation so that your seed may get rooted inside her. She needs it as much as you.

You silently drove her outside. No, you wouldn’t certainly reveal her all that had been confided to me. Was it necessary, anyway? Who knows how much she knew about that … She, who, like me, had also noticed how deep your wrinkles had grown around your eyes and mouth and also that your scarce hair was getting ashier and ashier … and all that weight, notwithstanding your athletic build, you had lost, so that your tanned chiselled cheeks looked like parchment…

“He’s so old for you, girl… Why should you obstinate yourself in keeping him by your side? You know well that he would have repudiated ruthlessly you if…” Yes, I was aware of that silent thought of hers, which could not be openly transmitted to me. Would I have accepted what she seemed to suggest, perhaps nowadays you still be staying at Domus Publica, enjoying months, perhaps years, of peacefulness, cherishing the company of your new wife and, at the same time, having gained an alliance which Pompeius Magnus would have signed if you had married his daughter. No, no longer could I go on daydreaming of that idea which you would have refused on the same grounds as you did not consent on divorcing Cornelia Cinna. No, I am no ancient patrician as she used to be, like you or Cornelia Sulla herself. No, those from gens Calpurnia are just plebeian upstarts who made themselves a place on Palatine Hill thanks to my grandfather’s riches. According to my mother Rutilia, he reluctantly accepted that his son and heir could have chosen to marry someone so… Nobody had been able to give an adequate adjective to my mother, an undoubtedly virtuous Roman matron. My father would even say that there was something uncanny in her look, the way she used to wander around the rooms in our domus. The air seemed to remain suspended whenever she walked through. Unlike other Roman ladies–solid, down-to-earth, accessible–Rutilia had some kind of absent-like bearing and seemed aloof, though she succeeded in running the household and our family. My father himself even told me that the thing about her that would make him most uneasy was that intense unerring intuition, which he also feared. As much as that….vibration? The same which seemed to beat in the air around her, flowing out of the mild brightness of that translucent alabaster-like skin. Cornelia Sulla, who, as you know, had the chance of meeting my mother, said that there was something about her so similar to her own father, except that her hair was black like jet. But they both share that look, intense, blue and grey… Rutilia hardly spoke to me: perhaps her high intuition prevented her from unveiling me the things that might have disturbed me. It would be enough for her to embrace me and let all her tender energy make me feel all that her words didn’t dare telling me. Mother…I can still remember my father announcing me that I had just been engaged to you, my husband. Despite that bright expression in his face, I noticed how he nervously tried to blink back tears.

–My child …your mother once told me so…“I saw pregnant Venus casting her shadow over our Calpurnilla, covering her with a halo of dazzling force… but, at the same, draining, drying her away…” Gaius, you know, is said to descend from Aeneas and, consequently, from Venus.

This had been my mother’s dream. Quite similar to that one you once had, in which you found yourself fecundating your own mother. Your boldness had made me blush but you tried not to make so much of my embarrassment by explaining it had only been a symbolic vision. Gods and Goddesses…Aurelia, always and forever. At least she achieved to live long enough to see you transformed in an grown-up man on the verge of reaching all that she had not even dreamt of, to make you get further than Marius himself. She had not passed away so untimely as Rutilia had, in such a sudden way, without any funeral speech or ceremony like that which was held to mourn your daughter Julia. I had always tried to scare away the idea of imagining her devoured by fire, tried to think that she might have fled into a place beyond any tangible world, hidden in some occult, unattainable place… from which it came out, that subterranean mute lament which got hold of my disembodied self that night. No, no, no… I know I shouldn’t pay attention to all this. Otherwise my mind would get even more disturbed, after this torture inflicted by this wicked barren womb. I know that in a few days you will be going away, I don’t remember whether to Hispania or the East….To fight Magnus and the “fair men”, the boni. My poor friends… will it be wise to go on meeting them here, so publicly? It does not matter. What’s left to me then, knowing that when you walk out of this atrium you may not return until some years have gone by? What will be the use of this dry, fruitless barren sterility? What will Calpurnia be but one more step in your stairway to glory? Why should I constantly see you amidst my thoughts, closely embraced to a subtle female force, gifted with a strange wisdom, some knowledge beyond our time, still beating in Eastern lands, coming from some long-lost continent…. Is she some kind of Blodwynn? No, this is a sort of inner force, a ravishing blast that brandishes virulent, event malign power… Could it be devouring you? Waxing like a full moon, crammed with fertility, like a long fertilizing river… No, my lord, no…. why should you go to the East?