“There you are, m’dear.” Her grandfather came in from the atrium, shaking out his wet cloak. “All in hand?”
“All in hand.”
“That’s my jewel.” He patted her cheek. “I’ve just arranged for an extra wagonload of grain barrels—delivery tomorrow, you can take care of that?”
“Of course.” Lollia sneezed. “Any more buildings come crashing down in this rain?”
“No, but that tenement I just bought near the Pincian Hill needs shoring up—the roof looks shaky. I’ll supervise the workers tomorrow myself.” Lollia’s grandfather put a plump hand on her damp hair, frowning. “Get warm, m’dear, get warm at once. I won’t have you sick. Thrax, put her to bed, if you please.”
“Yes, Dominus.” Thrax dropped the last blanket over Lollia’s shoulders. Lollia kissed her grandfather’s cheek again and trudged upstairs to the lavish pink-and-silver bedchamber that was always hers whenever she came back to her grandfather’s house—between husbands, in other words. Half the lamps in the halls were unlit, and the statues turned their blank jeweled eyes dully into the shadows as if they were downcast by the weather too. The bedchamber smelled musty, the pink frills muted, every shutter closed against the rain.
“I’ll bet all my dresses are moldy,” Lollia said, and sneezed again.
“I told you to stay out from the rain, Domina.” Thrax rubbed her arms through the coarse wool of the blanket, then stripped it away. “Arms out.”
Lollia smiled as he dismissed her maids and then proceeded to undress her like a baby, rub her down with warmed oils until her skin tingled, and wrap her up in a thick robe. He began stroking a comb through her damp curls, and Lollia kept sneezing.
“Better not stay.” She wiped her nose as Thrax tucked her into bed. “I’ll get you sick too.” But he climbed in, wrapping his big golden body around hers, and Lollia was warm to the core in no time. “You’re a god,” she sighed, cuddling against his chest.
“Thank you, Domina.”
“I’ve told you to quit calling me that, at least when you’re in here. It’s absurd.”
“Yes, Domina.” There was a smile in his deep voice, and she smiled back against his shoulder. How nice to relax for once—she’d been uneasy ever since Otho took the purple. Not because of her new husband—Salvius might be handsome enough, agreeable enough, but he didn’t make much of an impression on her life. They ate breakfast figs together in agreeable silence, and Lollia went on his arm in equally agreeable splendor to every party where Otho wanted them, but in between breakfast and parties there wasn’t much else. Not much between parties and breakfast either; Salvius kept a temperamental young actress in a spacious apartment on Pomegranate Street, and she kept him far too busy to bother Lollia much. He hadn’t paid her bed more than two or three visits since the wedding.
No, it wasn’t the newest husband who made Lollia uneasy. It was the omens. She’d always preferred to read all omens with an optimistic eye, but she couldn’t think of any positive twist to put on the current set. Otho talked of marching north to fight Vitellius, and the Tiber promptly threw a tantrum and overran her banks, and the skies went mad. She said as much to Thrax, drawing circles on his broad chest with one finger. “I don’t think Rome wants her Emperor to leave.”
“So Rome is a woman,” Thrax asked.
“Maybe. The Emperor’s her husband, and she wants him to stay home.”
“Maybe she does not mind.” He grinned. “You do all right, Domina.”
“True enough.” Lollia tilted her head back on the pillow to kiss him. Salvius had cast a sharp look at her when he first set eyes on Thrax, but on the whole he didn’t care. As long as she was careful with her Egyptian tricks and there weren’t any embarrassing bumps in her belly, Salvius wouldn’t fuss. If I have a lover in-house, after all, I won’t be running about town embarrassing him with men of his own class. “Still,” Lollia kept musing, “you can’t deny the omens are bad. Everyone’s feeling it. This whole city is tense and edgy. Not to mention damp. And that’s if they aren’t hungry, homeless, or crushed by bricks too.”
“Sshh,” Thrax said against her belly.
Lollia giggled, running her fingers through his golden hair as his hand stroked her breast. Who cares if all Rome is uneasy with bad omens? she thought. Here, I’m safe.
Nine
MY Cornelias!” Emperor Otho greeted them with a press for every hand. “Dear girls, how wonderful to see you all.” He raised his goblet. “To war!”
“I don’t see why war is something to celebrate,” Marcella observed. “It’s simply a necessary evil.”
“Necessary being the key word.” Otho laughed. “And it’s become necessary to march north and deal with that fat oaf Vitellius, so lift your goblet and have a toast with me.”
“To war,” they all echoed, though Marcella reflected that altogether the assembling of Otho’s army seemed to be much less cause for celebration than the fact that the sun was finally out again. The flood waters in Rome’s lower slums had subsided, shops had reopened, and moldy clothes had aired out, so Otho had ordered gladiators from Gaul and Britannia and a wild beast hunt in the arena and a subsequent banquet in the Domus Aurea to celebrate both clear skies and Vitellius’s anticipated downfall. If that drunkard in the north could be defeated by celebration here in Rome, he’d be dead already.
“We will all be required to attend,” Gaius had said nervously, eyes flicking to Cornelia when the festivities were announced. “All of us—you cannot snub the Emperor this time—”
“I’ll go,” Cornelia had said unexpectedly. The failed suicide attempt, Marcella was glad to see, had taken something out of her sister. She’d had a wet afternoon of crying quietly as Uncle Paris sketched her. “You can make me the Muse of Tragedy,” she sniffled.
“Oh no.” He shook his head. “The Muse of Tragedy would be very gentle and misty, not all puffy-eyed and blubbering. Manage a smile for me, will you? With those dimples, I can make you the Muse of Comedy in a heartbeat. Tragedy and comedy are very closely linked, you know . . .”
“I’m glad somebody thinks this is funny,” Cornelia said waspishly as Marcella laughed—and there was no doubt she’d been better since. She still didn’t eat much, but at least she sat at her loom now and then, or curled up in the atrium with bitter eyes and a cup of warmed wine.
“I’ll go to Otho’s games,” she warned now as Gaius beamed. “But I’m wearing black. I may have to eat that usurping murderer’s food, but I won’t put off my mourning.”
Lollia stepped in fast before anyone could bristle. “A wonderful idea,” she said very brightly. “We’ll make a statement of it, all of us in shades of black and white and gray. Very striking!”
Lollia outdid herself, and Emperor Otho raised his goblet in appreciation of the picture they made as they entered his box at the gladiatorial arena: Cornelia in narrow black silk with bands of ebony and gold circling her arms above and below the elbow; Lollia in a black pearl diadem and a pleated robe of dark-silver tissue that gave back every ray of the sun; Diana in yards of airy billowing white that wafted on every breeze, her pale hair piled on top of her head with gold combs. “You can’t wear that plain thing,” Lollia had scolded Marcella, looking at her pale pearl-gray stola hemmed in silver. “Don’t you at least have a necklace or some earrings?”
“You think I have any jewelry left after Lucius and his neverending travel expenses?”
“Oh, that’s nothing, I’ll lend you some. Here, some moonstones—”
“I don’t want your borrowed bracelets, Lollia!” Really, it was just like when they were little and Lollia always had the new dresses, the pearl necklaces, the pony and the puppy. She might be lavish in sharing, but she was still the one who had everything.
“My lovely quartet of Cornelias,” Otho beamed, lowering his goblet after they all drank a toast to war. “Little Diana, I assure you we will have races later this week—and I will cheer privately for your Reds, even though an emperor has to re
main impartial—”
“Does not,” said Diana. “Emperor Caligula was a great fan of the Greens.”
“And look where Emperor Caligula ended up!” Otho chucked Diana’s chin, which didn’t please her, and looked past to Cornelia. “Ah, Cornelia Prima. So lovely to see you at last, my dear.” As the Emperor addressed his former rival’s widow in her mourning black, a little glint came into his eye that made Marcella suddenly wary. “You should have come sooner.”
Maybe the glint made Cornelia wary too, because she managed a stiff little bow.
They had missed the beginning ceremonies: the priests chanting, the guards in red and gold, the white bulls led in ceremonial parade around the arena with little gilded boys dancing on their backs. The gladiators were parading past, their faces set and withdrawn under their helmets, and they saluted the Emperor as one. Half would die later that afternoon, unless the crowd was in a benevolent mood. Otho acknowledged them with a casual wave, never ceasing in his airy conversation with a dozen hangers-on.
Eager suitors towed Diana off, and Cornelia fell back against the farthest wall with tight lips. Marcella knew her sister didn’t approve of the games, but then none of them did. Diana hated the slaughter of animals, Lollia had a slave-blood sympathy for the captives in the arena, and Cornelia thought the whole thing in bad taste. Marcella simply couldn’t see the point of it all. Such petty power, making a few desperate men hack each other to death for a mob’s pleasure. Real power was something bigger, grander . . . but the plebs still packed into the arena in their thousands, screaming over the gladiators as if they were gods before they died like dogs.
Marcella found herself a seat beside Diana where fluttering suitors could be counted on to block the view, and Lollia courted oblivion her own way, drinking wine freely and offering token smiles to the Emperor’s jokes. Lollia still looked moody these days, and she did a great deal of gloomy muttering about the omens. “Rome’s like a woman,” she declared. “Thrax told me that, and he’s right. Rome is a woman, the Emperor is her husband, and she doesn’t want him to leave.”
Or maybe Rome wants a new husband, Marcella thought, looking over at Lucius, where he honked laughter with Otho’s officers. I certainly wouldn’t mind. She’d had to accost Lucius again that morning, and it hadn’t gone well. “So you don’t want to set up a household—but I really will need some money of my own, you know.”
“Why?” He blinked. “Your brother feeds you. What else do you need?”
“What else? You mean I have to go hat in hand to Tullia every time I want a coin to go to the bathhouse or the theatre or to buy new pens?”
“Just ask Lollia nicely, she’ll buy you anything you want.” He waved a hand in dismissal.
“Maybe I’ll just find a lover to pay my bills, Lucius!” Marcella snarled.
“Do that. I’m sure you can keep someone interested for a week or two.” He’d wandered away, yawning, and Marcella stamped after him.
“How dare you, you can’t just brush me off—” But he did exactly that, and as he disappeared into his borrowed study, Marcella caught a wavery glimpse of herself reflected in a window. Her cheeks had flared pink with fury, her eyes glittered, her breasts heaved rage. I may not be a beauty, but there are plenty who would find me handsome, she thought savagely, stamping away from Lucius’s shut door. Plenty!
Senator Marcus Norbanus certainly seemed to think so, claiming the seat beside her and speaking with his usual grave courtesy. And Marcus was a grandson of the divine Augustus, so respected in the Senate that he had been appointed to his first consulship the minute he turned thirty. If you won’t appreciate your wife, Lucius, there are plenty of better men who will. “How is your little boy, Marcus?” Marcella asked, and turned on her most dazzling smile.
“He’s well. For the moment.”
“The moment? He’s not getting ill, is he?”
“I wish he were. One can call the physician for a fever, but there is no cure for being a Norbanus.” Marcus’s voice was quiet and his face, Marcella noticed with a start, very drawn. “My father was invited to commit suicide.”
“What? By whom?”
“Who do you think?”
Marcella’s eyes traveled to Otho, laughing with his head thrown back. “Why?”
Marcus shrugged. “Best prune a god’s descendants before they get ideas.”
“And has your father . . .”
“Oh, yes. A Norbanus is always punctual. Even to the end.”
“I’m so sorry.” Not everyone, then, found Otho an improvement over Galba. Marcella stored that thought away for future consideration. “Surely you need not be here today, Marcus. Under the circumstances—”
“Oh, but my attendance here is required. How else am I to show my loyalty? And I have a son to consider.” A flash of bitter grief went through Marcus Norbanus’s gaze, but it was gone in another moment. He might only be thirty-three, but he had been reared to an older, stricter school. To show grief in public would be a disgrace.
Marcella admired him more than ever for it. Surely a love affair would get his mind off his troubles. And as a choice of lover, he would definitely tweak Lucius’s nose—her husband might be at ease with politicians, but scholars made him uncomfortable. “Do let me call on you, Marcus.” She squeezed his fingers, just as ink-stained as her own. “Perhaps tomorrow evening?”
“I fear I am not good company these days.” He withdrew his hand with a brief bow. “Pray excuse me. Once I make my greetings, I am free to go home. I find I have no stomach for the games today.”
Marcella blinked as he made his exit from the Imperial box but decided not to be annoyed. He was distraught, after all—later he’d be glad of a shoulder to lean on.
She turned as trumpets announced the beginning of the wild beast hunt and rose petals showered down on the stands. How long will it all take? A tall man blocked her view, his head tilted down toward Diana at his side. Of course, Diana had no difficulty getting any man’s attention if she wanted it.
“—still don’t know what a horse trainer is doing in the Emperor’s box,” Diana was saying frankly.
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
His voice was low and even, whoever he was, and Marcella took a closer look. Not in the usual mode for Diana’s suitors—a tall man of thirty-five or forty, with broad arms and iron-gray hair he’d let grow shaggy. And breeches, of all things. “A new suitor, Diana?” Marcella broke in, curious.
“What? Oh, not him.” Diana waved a casual hand at the man in breeches. “This is Llyn. Llyn ap Caradoc.”
Marcella burst out laughing. “You’re not serious?”
Diana blinked. “What? He breeds horses.”
The gray-haired man took a swallow from his cup, noncommittal. Common beer in the cup instead of wine, Marcella noted—and a scar on his neck that might have been a graze from a spear or arrow, and a torc of wrought bronze about his neck, in the tribal fashion. “Llyn ap Caradoc—you mean Caratacus? The Caratacus?”
“My father,” he said. Below, a trained leopard had been released into the arena by his handler: the opening display.
“I remember seeing your father about the city now and then,” Marcella said. Time was, every hostess in Rome counted it a coup to have Rome’s greatest enemy at her table: the man who had united the tribes of Britannia, fought Rome to a gallant standstill for nearly a decade, and was finally captured and brought to Rome to be paraded through the city in chains—only to be given an Imperial pardon in reward for his bravery, allowed to live in luxury within Rome’s walls with his remaining family, under oath and under guard never to try to escape. “I wish I’d had the pleasure of meeting him.”
“He died last year, Lady.”
“Yes, I think I heard that somewhere. I’m sorry for it—Llyn, you said your name was?”
“Yes.”
He looked very much like his father, from what Marcella could remember: the same quiet carved face and silent way of moving.
Diana still
looked baffled, and Marcella finally leaned forward to whisper briefly into her ear. Diana listened, then cocked her head up at Llyn. “You were a rebel too?”
“As most would define it. Killing Romans since before I was your age, at any rate.”
Diana grinned. Rabbits had been released into the arena below, bounding in all directions, and the leopard chased them down one by one to return them unharmed to his handler in soft jaws. “You know, I thought when we met that your name sounded familiar. My nurse used to tell me the great Caratacus would eat me if I was bad.”
“He had that effect on people.”
Marcella felt a prickle of excitement in her fingertips. Her history of Emperor Claudius had a few lines about the rebellion in Britannia, but she’d gleaned all her facts from books. If she could get a first-hand account . . . surely the great Caratacus’s son would have seen his father’s rebellion at very close range, perhaps even led raids and battles himself. Marcella smiled. “How interesting, meeting a legend. My name—”
“My father was a legend,” he said, bland. “I breed horses.”
“Well,” Diana consoled, “they’re very good horses.”
Llyn laughed. A praetor squeezed Diana’s arm from the other side—“Come place a bet for me, Lady Diana, you’ll bring me luck for the next bout!”
Yes, go, Marcella thought at her cousin as the tame leopard padded out, let me see if I can get the Briton talking. A new source, now that was even better entertainment than a love affair. But Diana shook off the praetor and turned back to Llyn, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “My question stands,” she said. “Why are you here? I doubt I’d want to sit with Roman emperors after growing up trying to overthrow them.”
“I have nothing against Roman emperors in Rome, Lady,” he said mildly. “It’s Roman emperors in Britannia I never liked. And I’m here because I’m an oddity. I’m not quite as good value as my father when it comes to shocking guests, but I’m the only one left from my family, and Emperor Otho likes oddities.”