“Not much comfort,” Lollia said, as Flavia grabbed her mother and her aunt by the hands and tugged them through the tiled atrium. “I should have been there.”
“You didn’t feel much guilt missing her first three birthdays! First you were in Baiae visiting a new summer villa, then you were on a pleasure boat somewhere off Crete with a poet, and after that—”
Lollia made a face. “Seems like a lifetime ago.”
“Can’t you bring Flavia back to live with you again?” Cornelia ventured. “You could keep her well away from Fabius.”
“I don’t dare. He’s suspicious of anything connected with Vespasian these days, and Flavia is Vespasian’s granddaughter. Not that he’s ever set eyes on her,” Lollia added. “I don’t think I ever met Vespasian myself above twice in my life. I remember him congratulating Titus and me at our wedding in the thickest provincial accent you ever heard. A nice man. He and my grandfather got along like anything—both shrewd traders, you know.”
“You think Fabius would consider Flavia a threat?” Cornelia blinked. “A little girl—”
“How do I know what he’d think?” Lollia’s tone was tight. “Titus has another daughter, from his second marriage, and her family’s taking no chances with her safety. Just whisked her off to the country in hiding the moment Vespasian started making trouble for Vitellius. A little girl even younger than Flavia, and someone thought she might be a threat!”
“Come see the fish!” Flavia crowed, dragging them to the little private garden with its splashing fountain that led off from her pink-frilled bedchamber. “Great-grandfather put gold rings on them!” She sat Lollia and Cornelia down on the fountain’s edge, breathlessly telling them about the king fish and the queen fish and all the princess fish in the fountain, her fair curls bouncing on her shoulders and her doting great-grandfather’s pearls gleaming around her neck.
“Goodness,” Cornelia said. “Do fish really have such dramatic lives?”
“They do, they do, an’ if you take off your sandals they’ll nibble your toes!”
“That sounds too good to pass up.” Lollia unlaced her silver sandals and put her feet in the fountain next to Flavia’s little plump toes. “Come on, Cornelia! Don’t be a prig.”
But Cornelia was already unlacing her sandals. Long iridescent fish slid languidly around her ankles, gold rings gleaming through their fins. “Did your grandfather really put those rings on them, just for Flavia?”
“Yes. Apparently he’s going to get little gold crowns made for the king and queen fish. Light ones, you know, so they can still swim.”
“He spoils her.”
“Someone should.” Lollia tipped her head back to the lace-leaved trees overhead. I used to wish she’d take her responsibilities seriously, Cornelia remembered, watching the cousin who had always annoyed her the most out of all of them . . . but now Cornelia found she didn’t like this downcast version of Lollia at all. Her cousin’s wide generous mouth wasn’t made to droop so sadly.
“You look tired,” Cornelia said at last.
“So do you, my honey. Are you sleeping?”
“Of course.” Quickly. “I don’t have nearly the social life you do these days. Mornings in the Senate—”
“Listening to Fabius bully Vitellius’s latest vague directive through; very exciting.”
“Afternoons at the Campus Martius—”
“Watching Fabius complain that the army isn’t assembling fast enough. At least my vocabulary of swear words is expanding.”
“Evenings at one banquet after another—”
“More like competitive vomiting. Meals that cost half a million sesterces each, just splashed all over the floor of a vomitorium. The most appalling waste you ever saw.”
“I never knew you had such an economical streak.” Cornelia smiled.
“I never knew I did either. Every gown I have smells like vomit, my head aches all the time like Vulcan’s anvil, and every night Fabius has me dress up in my jewels and parade around the bedroom naked, telling him he’s history’s greatest kingmaker . . .” Lollia broke off. “Oh well.”
Cornelia cast about for a lighter topic of conversation. “Where is your grandfather this afternoon?”
“Cutting deals with the grain factors. The Prefect of Egypt just declared for Vespasian, so grain may come in short supply. At least our tenants will be well fed.”
“You should be careful, saying such things.” Cornelia splashed gently at Flavia, who was trying to catch the fish and whispering some game to herself. “Fabius might . . .”
“Arrest me? He’s arresting anyone else who says Vespasian’s on the way. Even though everyone knows Vespasian’s on the way.”
“Well, the Emperor says there’s nothing to worry about.” Cornelia trailed her toes through the dappled water. “I could hardly hear the last play at the theater, he was reassuring everybody so loudly.”
“Vitellius is riding a tiger and doesn’t dare look down.” Lollia snorted. “Diana says that’s why he gets drunk instead, so he can pretend everything is all right. She’s quite sensible when she’s not raving about horses, isn’t she?”
A long iridescent fish nibbled at Cornelia’s toes. “Vitellius will have to send his armies north soon, though.” She felt a shaft of relief that this time, Drusus could not march with them. “Do you know if he’ll send Fabius?”
“If the gods are good.” Lollia stared at the mossy green nymph in the middle of the fountain, tossing up the water with her cupped stone hands. Little Flavia perched humming on the nymph’s stone feet, but Lollia didn’t smile. “If the gods are very good, he won’t come back.”
“Even if he does come back, he won’t last long,” Cornelia found herself saying. A year ago she would have thought it improper to make such a remark even to a cousin, but a year ago everything had been different. “Men like Fabius Valens fall from favor. And after that, your grandfather will find you someone better.”
“Or maybe I could just stay divorced for a while. I’m so tired of weddings.”
A shriek of delight—Flavia lost her footing and fell with a splash into the fountain. She came up giggling, her dress soaked through. “I’m wet,” she said gleefully.
“I see you are.” Lollia rose and waded toward her, but a voice sounded from behind.
“Out of the fountain, Mistress Flavia. We get you dry.”
A big golden Gaul in a knee-length kilt loped out into the little garden with a towel, and Flavia scrambled out and held up her arms to be rubbed dry. As the slave turned, Cornelia saw the vivid purple lash marks half healed across his back.
“I’m glad he didn’t die of his beating,” she said to Lollia, who had lifted her feet self-consciously out of the fountain.
“Yes, I made sure Grandfather got him the best care.” Lollia became absorbed in relacing her sandals. “He’s Flavia’s body slave now. She adores him.”
“I can see that.” Cornelia watched as Thrax enveloped Flavia in a towel, flicking a drop of water from the tip of her small nose. “Pity about the scars, though. His value will go down, with his looks spoiled like that.”
“I don’t think they’re spoiled at all,” Lollia said. “I like a few scars on a man.”
“He’s just a slave,” Cornelia said automatically. But she saw the way Flavia clung to him when he picked her up, the way he smoothed her wet curls out of her eyes.
“Inside, little one,” he said in his deep Gaul-accented voice. “You take your bath like a good girl, and I tell you a story.”
“The one about the fishes and the loaves!” Flavia played with the rough little wooden cross about his neck. “I looked for loaves in the fountain next to the fishes, but there aren’t any.”
“You want loaves, you have to really believe.” Thrax’s eyes flicked across Lollia’s as he bowed, and then he carried Flavia inside.
“Is he teaching that child some strange religion?” Cornelia wondered. “Loaves and fishes—”
“Just stories
,” Lollia said defensively. “All about a carpenter in Judaea who turns into a god, or maybe a god who turns into a carpenter. But at least they’re nice stories, all about healing lepers and walking across rivers. Better than those ghastly ghost stories we used to get from our nurses, that scared us out of our wits.” Lollia’s voice was brittle, and she rushed on before Cornelia could say anything. “So, did you hear about Vitellius’s new edict? Gods forbid he do anything to straighten out the financial mess we’re in, but he’s found time to forbid patrician boys from driving chariots in the Circus Maximus! So ridiculous, but—”
She burst into tears.
Cornelia put an arm around her, tugging Lollia’s head against her shoulder. Just a few months ago I was picking quarrels with her for being a gadabout and a careless mother, and now here she is crying into my shoulder like a little girl. Lollia cried a long time, and an answering lump rose in Cornelia’s throat.
“Oh, gods.” Lollia sat up at last, scrubbing at her wet red cheeks. “I hate crying. What good does it do? I’m not even one of those women who get all misty and pretty when they cry. I just turn into a blotchy mess. So what’s the point of it all?”
“Not much,” Cornelia agreed.
Lollia gave a long quivering breath, looking at the doorway where the golden slave named Thrax had vanished. “Those scars are my fault, you know. All my fault. I die of shame every time I look at him now.”
Cornelia stared at her own feet, still dunked in the fountain and turning all green and wrinkled, and supposed she should be shocked. Not that it was shocking that Lollia had taken a slave to her bed . . . just shocking that she had so clearly developed feelings for one. But somehow the shock came to Cornelia distant and blunted, as if it were underwater along with her feet. “I’m having an affair with a soldier,” she found herself saying abruptly.
Lollia’s swollen eyes widened. “Oh, Cornelia—”
“You can’t tell anyone. Not a soul.”
“What do you take me for, the old Lollia?” Recovering a little sparkle. “Who is he?”
“No one.”
“Tell me!”
Cornelia gave a firm shake of her head. “I’d put him in danger if I did. And don’t ask why.”
“Have it your way, then.” Lollia scrubbed at her eyes again. “I hope he’s fun, at least.”
Cornelia smiled involuntarily.
“Ha, he is. Good for you, my honey. I must say, I never thought I’d see the day. You of all people!”
“We’ve all lost our heads this year.” Cornelia trailed one finger through the water. “First you, then me—and according to Uncle Paris, Diana is sneaking off to meet some charioteer . . .”
“We’re just prizes up for grabs, all of us.” Lollia shrugged. “So we might as well grab what we want while we can.”
“Your logic is very backward,” Cornelia sighed. “But I’m too tired to figure it out.”
“Of course you are, my love! You haven’t been getting any sleep lately, and for good reason. Now, about your soldier—can he get away for a few days?”
“What?”
“Well, if he can get away, then find some excuse to get out of the city and have yourselves a proper idyll.” Lollia stood up, dusting off her hands. “Diana’s clearly managing to see her man without any trouble, whoever he is. Uncle Paris wouldn’t notice if she moved a charioteer into her bedchamber—horses, chariot, and all. But you must be having quite a time of it sneaking out under Tullia’s eagle eye. Get yourself a holiday if you can.”
“How will I do that?” Cornelia looked up at her cousin.
“You’ll manage. Clearly you’ve gotten quite good at sneaking.” Lollia pulled Cornelia to her feet. “Yes, a vacation. It will give you something nice to remember when everything goes to Hades.”
“Will it go to Hades?”
“Oh, my honey. It always does.”
“DON’T—I can’t, you know that—”
“Come on, just let me—”
“I can’t.” Marcella pushed Domitian’s hand away before it could slide up her thigh. “Why do you make it difficult for me?”
“For you?” He buried his face in her throat. “You’re killing me.”
“I’m the wife of Lucius Aelius Lamia—”
“Barely!” Domitian bristled. “And he’s in Crete now—you could divorce him—”
“My family wouldn’t allow it. And until the day they do, I’m a Roman matron. Not a courtesan to be tumbled in a litter.” Marcella pulled away, tidying her hair, and let Domitian see a flash of thigh as she rearranged her skirts. He groaned and fell back on his side of the litter, and Marcella felt the bearers shift below as they turned a corner.
“Some day,” Domitian said, his eyes unreadable, “I’ll have you all to myself.”
“Perhaps.” She smiled. “Until then—? I thought we were here to discuss the army.” With the Moesian legions crossing into Italy now, even Vitellius couldn’t pretend everything was all right. His troops had been hastily assembled and finally marched north.
“The army’s at Hostilia, sure enough,” Domitian was saying. “They’re dug in, and negotiating. Negotiating! You swore they’d change sides!”
“They will. Just wait. Didn’t your precious Nessus tell you all would be well?”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Domitian folded his arms across his stocky chest, drumming his fingers on the cushions. “What about Fabius Valens? He’s still loyal to Vitellius.”
“And he’s still in bed recovering from food poisoning.” From a dish of red mullet at a banquet; not enough to kill him, just enough to keep him in bed here in Rome instead of marching north in command of Vitellius’s army.
“Who wouldn’t get food poisoning, trying to keep up with Vitellius at a banquet?” Lollia had said. “Though he’s not too sick to demand I join him in bed. These days, I just don’t seem to have any luck at all.”
Because all the luck these days is coming to me, Marcella thought. With Fabius sweating off his dish of red mullet in bed, Vitellius’s army had been led north by . . . Caecina Alienus.
Really, it couldn’t have worked out better. Marcella wished she could have joined Alienus and the army, to be in at the battle as she’d been at Bedriacum to see Otho’s end, but there was no mortal way to manage it this time. And anyway, things were still quite exciting enough here in the city.
Domitian’s voice was accusing again. “I don’t see why you’re so sure of Alienus. He never said he’d turn for my father’s side.”
“Not in so many words,” said Marcella. “But he’s got the army stalled now, doesn’t he?”
“If he’s going to turn, then why is he negotiating?”
“Because he wants the strongest position possible before he turns his troops over.” She stroked a finger down Domitian’s wrist. “Trust me. He’ll turn. Wasn’t it lucky he ended up in command of Vitellius’s army, and not Fabius? If your father ever takes the purple, he could owe it all to a bad dish of seafood.”
“Or to you.” Domitian’s black eyes assessed her. “Did you have anything to do with that bout of food poisoning?”
“Really,” Marcella rebuked. “All I do is pass on whispers. You think I would poison a man?”
“You’re the cleverest woman I know,” said Domitian. “I don’t like clever women, usually.” He wrapped a hand around her ankle, sliding up her leg again. Marcella brushed him away, but not too fast.
“You’d better go. My bearers have marched five times around the Forum now—someone’s bound to notice.”
He got out, sulky, and Marcella leaned down and kissed him loosely at the corner of the mouth. His lips dove after hers, hungry.
“Don’t put your tongue in my mouth,” Marcella advised. “I’ll see you when I hear more.”
She retreated back into the litter, snapping the silk curtains shut with a soundless laugh. Who would ever have guessed that an eighteen-year-old boy with a hopeless case of puppy love could be so useful? Domitia
n was all on fire with anticipation now that the two armies were approaching each other: one minute crowing that he’d be made prince when his father was crowned Emperor, the next minute envisioning the brutal defeat of all his father’s hopes. For herself, Marcella felt quite calm. She had nothing invested in either side, after all. I just want to see what will happen.
Though if she’d been one to bet, she’d put her coin on Alienus turning traitor . . . Marcella had met with him five or six times before his march, and he’d been wary of her at first, but she’d introduced him to Domitian, passed on two or three rumors about the northern troop movements that proved true, and slowly Alienus had begun to listen when she spoke of Vespasian’s need for clever men and the rewards that would be his to give out if he became Emperor. “It’s all up to you now, isn’t it?” she’d whispered when Alienus was named commander of Vitellius’s armies over the bedridden Fabius. “You could be Vespasian’s kingmaker. He wouldn’t forget that. Not like Vitellius has already forgotten you.”
“He didn’t forget me. He gave me his army—”
“Only when his right-hand man was unavailable. Don’t you want to be the right-hand man for a change?”
Alienus hadn’t committed himself when he left Rome with his army, but Marcella knew. He’ll turn, she thought. He’ll hesitate, but in the end he’ll turn—and he’ll take the army with him.
She looked down at her hands, trembling in her lap. Not fear, though: intoxication. She hadn’t known that the terror and the excitement would war so fiercely in her stomach, that her palms would be sweaty, that she’d have to fight to keep her voice level. And she hadn’t known what a wave, what a surge of satisfaction would sweep through her tingling body when she saw the thoughtful glitter in Alienus’s eyes.
Of course, anything might still go wrong. Battles were unpredictable things. But if Alienus turned, if he managed to turn his army over to Vitellius’s rival, if Vespasian took the purple because of it . . . well, Alienus wouldn’t be the kingmaker. That title would belong to Cornelia Secunda, known as Marcella!