The Seven Wonders: A Novel of the Ancient World (Novels of Ancient Rome) by Steven Saylor Page B

inheritance. Think about it. The boy’s father also died at a young age. Tryphosa became a widow shortly after becoming a mother. Corinna didn’t even have a child before she lost her young husband. The two of them are both widows now.”
    “Two victims of tragedy!” declared Antipater. “Women of different generations sharing a house, each robbed of her husband, together maintaining a widow’s decorum, dressing in black. The older reading aloud to the younger on that balcony—what a touching scene! Do you know, I think there could be a rather good poem in all this.” Antipater drew a breath and extemporized:
    “Two widows of Halicarnassus lived under the same roof,
    One beautiful, young, and shy, the other stern and aloof—”
    “You haven’t heard the whole story,” said Bitto, cutting him off. She was peeved, I think, by his comment about maintaining a widow’s decorum. “No one really knows how Timon died, you see. It happened quite suddenly, and the funeral ceremony took place with hardly any notice. By the time most people heard about his misfortune, the poor young man’s ashes were already interred in the family sepulcher beside those of his father. Everyone agreed the funeral was arranged with undue haste. Supposedly Timon died of a fever—”
    “It happens,” said Antipater.
    “But when people began asking questions, no one could find a physician who had been called to attend the young man. Nor could we find anyone who’d attended the funeral. It seems to have been strictly a family affair, with only his wife and mother and the household slaves in attendance. Once a body is burned, there’s no way of knowing the cause of death—any evidence of poison or injury is gone forever. And then people began to recall the death of Timon’s father, which in retrospect began to seem equally suspicious. He, too, died suddenly. And in both cases, due to a dearth of male relatives, it was the widows who came into the estate, despite all the provisions in the law that hamper a woman from owning property outright. And so, what we end up with are two men, both dead, and two women, very much alive, who have managed to inherit everything.”
    Antipater was aghast. “Are you suggesting that the lovely young creature we saw on that balcony murdered her young husband to acquire his property—and did so with the connivance of the young man’s own mother? And now the two of them are happily living together, a pair of cold-blooded killers, enjoying the spoils of an unspeakable crime? Where is your evidence for such a terrible accusation? The whole idea seems absurdly far-fetched.”
    “To you, perhaps,” said Bitto. “I think I may be a better judge of the lengths to which a woman might go to live the life she chooses.”
    “But for a mother to participate in the murder of her own son, in preference to a daughter-in-law? That makes no sense.”
    “Again, cousin, I think you underestimate the complexities of the emotions and desires that may drive a woman. You consider mother-love to be the beginning and end of female existence, but not every woman fits the mold of dutiful wife and doting mother. The ways of the world may be more complicated than you imagine.” Bitto lowered her voice. “People are even beginning to wonder if Tryphosa and her daughter-in-law might actually be lovers.”
    “Enough, cousin! When you say ‘people,’ I presume you mean the men and women who frequent this house on the nights you play hostess.” Antipater scowled. “Well, if this is an example of the sort of wild gossip they propagate, I do believe I would prefer to spend those evenings in the far more rational company of Herodotus.”
    “As you wish, cousin,” said Bitto evenly. Like a good hostess, seeing that the conversation had become overheated, she deftly changed the subject, and we talked of more pleasant matters.
    *   *   *
    The meal that night must have been too rich for Antipater’s constitution, for the next