Although his features were contorted almost beyond recognition, there could be no doubt. It was my friend Hieronymus, the Scapegoat of Massilia, who lay dead upon the bier. His teeth were bared in a grimace and his eyes were wide open.

"This was your agent? Hieronymus?"

Calpurnia nodded.

I shook my head in disbelief.

It had been three years since I'd met him in Massilia, when the city was besieged by Caesar. Following an ancient custom, the Massilians chose a citizen upon whom they would lavish every imaginable luxury until the day they cast him from the Sacrifice Rock as an offering to the gods to avert catastrophe. Hieronymus had been selected for the role, not as an honor but as a way to get rid of him once and for all. His father had been a powerful man who lost his fortune, then committed suicide. Hieronymus began life at the very top of Massilian society, then found himself at the bottom. His very existence was an embarrassment to the city's ruling class, who valued nothing but success and despised nothing more than failure. His caustic wit had not won him any friends, either.

Hieronymus saved my life in Massilia. When I returned to Rome, he came with me and took up residence in my household. After I left for Egypt, he struck out on his own; so my daughter, Diana, told me, saying she had run into him occasionally in the city. But since my return, I had not heard from him. This did not surprise me, as Hieronymus was something of a misanthrope. Nor had I sought him; I had become such a hermit that it took a summons from Caesar's wife to get me out of my house. I assumed our paths would cross sooner or later, if he was still in the city, and still alive. Amid the chaos and confusion of the long, bloody civil war, Hieronymus was just another friend of whom I had lost track.