Lustrum

…'
    Throughout all this, the lady who had brought him the information sat watching him in wonder. At length he halted in front of her, bent low and clasped her hands. 'Madam, it can't have been an easy thing for you to come to my wife with this tale, but thank Providence you did! It's not just me, it is Rome herself who stands for ever in your debt.'
    'But what am I to do now?' she wept. Terentia gave her a handkerchief and she dabbed at her eyes. 'I can't go back to Curius after this.'
    'You have to,' said Cicero. 'You're the only source I have.'
    'If Catilina discovers I've betrayed his plans to you, he'll kill me.'
    'He'll never know.'
    'And my husband? My children? What do I say to them? To have consorted with another man is bad enough – but with a traitor?'
    'If they knew your motives, they'd understand. Look upon this as your atonement. It's vital you act as if nothing has happened. Find out all you can from Curius. Draw him out. Encourage him, if necessary. But you mustn't risk coming here again – that's far too dangerous. Pass on what you learn to Terentia. You two can easily meet and talk together privately in the precincts of the temple without arousing suspicion.'
    She was naturally reluctant to enmesh herself in such a net of betrayal. But Cicero could persuade anyone to do anything if he set his mind to it. And when, without promising actual immunity to Curius, he made it clear that he would do all he could to show leniency to her lover, she surrendered. Thus the lady went away to act as his spy, and Cicero began to lay his plans.

VI
    At the beginning of April, the senate rose for the spring recess. The lictors once again returned to Hybrida, and Cicero decided it would be safer if he took his family out of Rome to stay by the sea. We slipped away at first light, whilst most of the other magistrates were preparing to attend the theatre, and set off south along the Via Appia, accompanied by a bodyguard of knights. I suppose there must have been thirty of us in all. Cicero reclined on cushions in his open carriage, alternately being read to by Sositheus and dictating letters to me. Little Marcus rode on a mule with a slave walking beside him. Terentia and Tullia each had a litter to herself, carried by porters armed with concealed knives. Each time a group of men passed us on the road, I feared it might be a gang of assassins, and by the time we reached the edge of the Pontine Marshes at twilight, after a hard day's travelling, my nerves were fairly well shredded. We put up for the night at Tres Tabernae, and the croaking of the marsh frogs and the stench of stagnant water and the incessant whine of the mosquitoes robbed me of all rest.
    The next morning we resumed our journey by barge. Cicero sat enthroned in the prow, his eyes closed, his face tilted towards the warm spring sun. After the noise of the busy highway, the silence of the canal was profound, the only sound the steadyclop of the horses' hoofs on the towpath. It was most unlike Cicero not to work. At the next stop a pouch of official dispatches awaited us, but when I tried to give it to him he waved me away. It was the same story when we reached his villa at Formiae. He had bought this place a couple of years earlier – a handsome house on the coastline, facing out to the Mediterranean Sea, with a wide terrace where he usually wrote, or practised his speeches. But for the whole of our first week in residence he did little except play with the children, taking them fishing for mackerel, and jumping the waves on the little beach beneath the low stone wall. Given the gravity of his problems, I was puzzled at the time by his behaviour. Now I realise, of course, that he
was
working, only in the way that a poet works: he was clearing his mind, and hoping for inspiration.
    At the beginning of the second week, Servius Sulpicius came to dine, accompanied by Postumia. He had a villa just around the bay, at Caieta. He had barely spoken to Cicero since the revelation of his wife's dalliance with Caesar, but he turned up looking cheerful for once, whereas she seemed unusually morose. The reason for their contrasting humours became clear just before dinner, when Servius drew Cicero aside for a private word. Fresh from Rome, he had a most delicious morsel of gossip to impart. He could hardly contain his glee. 'Caesar has taken a new mistress: Servilia, the wife of Junius Silanus!'
    'So Caesar has a new mistress? You might as well tell me there are