The first time I saw Cassandra was in the Forum. It was a day in mid-Januarius. When I count the months on my fingers, I realize that from the first day I saw her to the last, not quite seven months passed. So brief a period! Yet in some ways it seems I knew her for a lifetime.

I can place the date precisely, because that was the day word reached Rome that Caesar had successfully crossed the Adriatic Sea from Brundisium to the coast of northern Greece. For days, all Rome had been holding its breath to learn the outcome of that bold gambit. The gray-bearded, self-styled sages who passed their days gossiping and arguing in the Forum all agreed, whether they favored Caesar or Pompey, that Caesar was mad to attempt a naval crossing in winter, and madder still to attempt such a thing when everyone knew that Pompey had the superior fleet and ruled the Adriatic. A sudden storm could send Caesar and all his soldiers to the bottom of the sea in a matter of minutes. Or, in clear weather, Caesar's fleet was likely to be outmaneuvered by Pompey's and destroyed before they could reach the other side. Yet Caesar, having settled affairs in Rome to his liking, was determined to carry the battle to Pompey, and to do that he had to convey his troops across the water.