As the only surviving child of Bibulus, Calpurnia now represented the family in all matters, taking the place that would have been fulfilled by her two brothers had they not both been murdered in Egypt. The deaths of Drusus and Quintus had been the tipping point, the brim over which her father's mind had spilled into madness.
She had not just lost two brothers on that tragic day, years ago, when the news of their deaths reached the governor’s villa in Antioch. She had also lost a father. She had cried for days on end, until her eyes could yield no more tears, but she never saw her father cry. From that day on, he never uttered their names, and she seldom saw her true father again. He was as a body from which the soul had flown. In the years since, there had been only a few fleeting moments in which she saw the same smile and felt the same warm touch she had once known, but the unfeeling shell of a man was always quick to return. He began consulting the auguries more often than ever, pursuing the supposed will of the gods at every turn, the murder of his sons seemingly forgotten. Odulph was his preferred conduit to the deities, and in some ways his replacement for Drusus and Quintus, for she had often heard him discoursing with the mute captive into the late hours of the evening. He would talk while Odulph grunted from his cage, whether out of concurrence or irritation her father did not seem to care. Over time, through some twisted interpretation of Odulph’s eating habits, or bowel excretions, or the patterns in his lice infested hair, her father had convinced himself that the tyrant Caesar was to blame for all evil in the world, and that he must be destroyed. It had evolved into an obsession, in the end. Especially after he had been summoned back to the West to take command of the fleet against the tyrant.
She remembered the last time she had spoken with her father. The night was cold and rainy, and the fleet was set to sail the next day. She had planned to dine with him one last time, but was surprised to learn from the house servants that her father had taken a chariot off to a small shrine far into the hills of Corcyra, a habitation of the nymphs considered sacred by the locals. Calpurnia had immediately summoned her own chariot that she might go after him.
The place was in a narrow gorge closed in by rocky cliffs. There, a small marble shrine had been erected next to a fiery jet that issued from a hole in the ground. The immense flame seemed to have a life of its own, sometimes diminishing to little more than a torch, and then thunderously returning to the height of two men. Calpurnia had never seen it before and was amazed at how it continued to burn, even in the driving rain. She found her father there, as expected, his arms outstretched before the fire, his hair and tunic drenched, while some bearded hermit priest or caretaker of the shrine performed an incantation. The priest periodically dipped his hand into a ceramic vessel from which he drew out a pinch of a grainy substance, which from the aroma in the air Calpurnia took to be incense. The priest carefully handed the grain to her father, and then her father cast it into the fire. Each time he did this, he would glance with expectation at the priest who responded by shaking his head in disappointment, and then they performed the whole ritual again.
“Father, what are you doing here?” she had interrupted after watching the procedure repeated three times.
“Is that my dear daughter?” Bibulus had replied, turning his distraught face to the darkness from which she came. “Is that you, my dear Calpurnia?”
“It is I, father. And I wish to know why you insist on such foolishness the night before you sail. You should be home resting in your warm bed. You will not have another peaceful sleep for quite some time. Why do you distress yourself so?”
“Oh, Calpurnia. I knew not where to turn. Odulph will not answer me, and I must know the will of the gods before I sail! I must know that they are on my side!”
He seemed at his wits end, peering into her eyes as a child might cry over a lost toy. Calpurnia had seen such behavior from him before, whenever Odulph was in a mood and would not respond to his rituals. She would never tell it to her father, but she knew that the broken man inside the cage was not a mindless animal as the captain of the Argonaut and so many others believed. Odulph was a man – a living, breathing, thinking, and scheming man, like any other. He had learned to sense her father’s desperation, and often chose those times to be the least cooperative. Perhaps it was his way of gaining some sense of satisfaction, of wielding some measure of control, since his whole existence passed within the confines of the cage.
“I am sure the gods are with you, father,” she said, consolingly. “You sail for a noble cause, to stop the tyrant from tearing our republic apart.”
“Really?” he replied, suddenly defiant towards her. “Then see for yourself!”
Bibulus thrust out his hand again, and the priest handed him a single grain of incense. Bibulus then closed his eyes and tossed the grain into the roaring flames. The grain passed through the bluish-yellow fire and emerged from the other side to fall onto the rocks beyond. Again, he looked at the priest who stared up at him with somber eyes and shook his head.
“There!” Bibulus said. “You see? The grain is not consumed.”
“It is raining, father. Perhaps it is damp -“
“No!” he interrupted, seemingly upset to the point of tears. “The priest says the nymphs always answer, rain or shine. And they say no. They say no, Calpurnia! Tomorrow, I sail to my own death, and Caesar marches to victory!”
As her father broke down before her, she shot a concealed look of anger at the priest who meekly adverted his eyes.
“Come now, father. Perhaps your questions are the problem.”
“My questions are simple. There can be no misinterpretation.”
“Please tell me.”
“I asked, will I defeat Caesar? And the answer was no. I asked, will Caesar be defeated by another? And the answer was no. Finally, I asked, will I survive this voyage? And the answer was no, Calpurnia! No, no, no! I am doomed. That must be why Odulph would not answer me. He foresaw my death, and he did not wish to tell me. The poor creature.”
“Father, I am surprised at you. You know you cannot ask these fire nymphs about matters of death. They do not answer questions pertaining to death or marriage. Is that not right, priest?”
The bearded man nodded somewhat reluctantly.
“You were asking about matters of war, and the nymphs know nothing of such matters. I am surprised this man did not remind you.” Again, she eyed the priest threateningly. “Now, father. Think of something you know to be true, something in no way connected to marriage or death, and let us see what happens.”
She gave the priest a hostile look. He did not meet her gaze directly, but he seemed to comprehend her meaning. She had been watching him closely before, and noticed that this time he collected a grain from a different side of the bowl.