"Sorry miss. No mail has arrived for you today." the man replied. Saissa turned away again sadly. She was expecting a reply from Jugurtha any day now. She had sent a letter to him in Rome several months ago asking if she could join him and his patron MQuintiliusPortuensi Maximus. Now the postmaster was getting tired of repeating the same old mantra every day when she came asking.

"Blow this", Saissa thought to herself. "If Jugurtha is not going to reply, then I am going to Rome to find him." She headed down to the Alexandria harbor and began making enquiries of any ship heading for Rome in the next few days.

The business Emporium she had been managing for her uncle was doing very well on its own. In fact it had always been doing well. The man in charge there had never accepted her as his boss (despite the letters her uncle had given her) solely because she was a woman.

Saissa had recently been told by a fortune teller that she should "Go west, young woman, go west. You should seek your fortune in the west". After mulling it over for a while, she had sent a letter to Jugurtha asking if he could introduce her to Roman Society. That had been six months ago, and so far, no reply.