'This one is,' Maecenas said, not moving his hand. But I sat up, shaking him off. When slaves forget their manners, all the more reason to behave decently. The man thrust a letter into my outstretched hand, and disappeared without waiting for a reward. (I know why he did that; he was aware he was the bearer of bad news – slaves always know what their missives contain, I suppose they check with the secretaries and it is passed down the line – but in this case of course he could hardly have failed to know what the whole world would ring of – and he had all the Greek superstitious fear of the fate that waits the bringer of evil tidings.) I turned it over. 'It's from my mother,' I said. 'Oh God,' Maecenas said, 'mothers.' 'That's no way to talk,' Agrippa said. 'Well, who's little Miss Good Citizen now?'

Their bickering is memory's sour accompaniment to the solo of my mother's letter. It was short enough for something that shook the world: My son, your uncle Julius was this day murdered in the Senate House by his enemies. I write that bluntly because there is no way to prepare such news. And I say merely 'his enemies' because all here is uncertainty. No one knows what may happen, whether this is the beginning of new wars or not. Therefore, my child, be careful. Nevertheless the time has come when you must play the man, decide and act, for no one knows or can tell what things may now come forth. I let the letter drop. (One of the others picked it up and what they read silenced them.) I let my fingers play over my smooth legs and bare chin, and wondered if I was going to cry. I have always cried easily, but I had no tears for Julius either then or later.

Very soon there was a clamour without.