Marcella eyed Fabius thoughtfully as the Emperor reappeared in the box, hitching at his toga. Vitellius would raise an army soon against Vespasian, and he’d count on Fabius to do it. What kind of army could he raise? Those eastern legions were hard, seasoned troops—German savages and palace guards wouldn’t be enough . . .
The Emperor settled back into his chair, waving an irritable hand, and the perspiring actors hitched their masks into place. “Damned long play,” Vitellius complained loudly to Diana, splashing more wine into his cup. The actors onstage looked rather resigned as they resumed trudging through their verses, the Emperor’s strident voice bulling over their own. “I’d rather have a good race any day. No sulks from you when my Blues win at Vinalia, now—losers should wear a smile.”
“Did that mean you were smiling all last year, Caesar?” Diana said sweetly. “When the Blues came in last of all the factions?”
“You’ve got a tart tongue, girl. Your father didn’t beat you enough growing up.”
Marcella only half-listened to Vitellius and Diana’s wrangling, still pondering the possible loyalty of the Emperor’s generals. “If they’re shifty sorts, I wonder what Vespasian’s generals are like? Domitian might know. Of course he’ll be boring and try to get me into bed, but if I can’t wheedle a little information out of an eighteen-year-old boy . . .”
There was a rustle at her side, and Cornelia rose abruptly. “I’m going home.”
“Are you all right?” Marcella looked up, blinking her thoughts away.
“A headache—I hate this hot weather.” Cornelia looked more distracted than ever, pushing a damp tendril of hair off her neck. “Excuse me—” and off she rushed.
Marcella wondered for a moment if she should go with her sister—offer to take her to the bathhouse where they could cool down in the
frigidarium
and have a good gossip like they used to in the old days. But a moping sister just wasn’t much amusement compared to everything else going on.
I’ll spend more time with her later
, Marcella thought vaguely,
when things have calmed down
.
Will they ever calm down?
She listened to a few more verses from the lackadaisical actors, thoroughly overridden now by the Emperor’s bull voice and Diana’s strident one as they argued horses, and then someone claimed the seat beside her.
“You shouldn’t sit here.” Marcella waved her fan, languid.
“The Emperor doesn’t care about the rules.” Domitian’s hand settled on her knee, moist and warm. “So why should I?”
Marcella smiled and deftly shifted away. “Behave, now.”
“Why?” he breathed. “You weren’t always so well-behaved.”
“That was a mistake. I was very distressed after what I’d seen in Bedriacum.” Ever since that swift ferocious coupling in the garden overlooking the city, Marcella had been careful not to allow Domitian any further intimacies. He worked so much harder for her when he was frustrated . . . and he was so easily frustrated. Sulky, he flopped back in his seat and started to mutter the latest news from his father in Judaea, but Marcella only listened with half an ear. Her eyes had settled on one discontented face in the crowd below, a face she had noted before.
“Excuse me,” she murmured to Domitian, rising and pulling the pale-green veil over her hair. “I won’t be a moment—
“Caecina Alienus!” Marcella smiled, sinking into the seat beside the man both her sister and Diana had turned down. “I did not know you were such a devotee of the theater.”
“A soldier can make time for the arts, Lady.” His German-accented bass was surly—he could hardly be pleased to see another member of the Cornelii, after what happened with the first two—but he gave Marcella a curt nod before turning his attention back to the stage. Several of his officers diced beside him, bored.
“Isn’t Fabius at the Senate now?” she asked innocently. “Surely you’re his little shadow.”
Alienus scowled—a man of considerable power, Marcella knew, but not as high in Vitellius’s favor as Fabius Valens. And no doubt smarting from being rejected—publicly—by two patrician brides in a row.
“What good taste you have,” Marcella said, fanning herself. “Theater is for subtle men—wasted on these straightforward sorts like Fabius. Vitellius too, really.”
“Mmm.” Alienus glowered at the stage.
“I think more things are wasted on Vitellius besides theater,” Marcella continued. “Good men like yourself, for example.”
A fleeting glance from below thick brows.
“I should like to tell you something, Commander.” She dropped her voice. “Of course we all know that the eastern legions proclaimed Governor Vespasian as Emperor some weeks ago. You probably don’t know that the Moesian legions have declared for him as well, five days back.”
“What?” She had Alienus’s full attention now, the dark eyes narrowed. “Five days—how could you possibly know that?”
“Vespasian’s younger son Domitian. He’s mad for me.” Marcella smiled, keeping up the fan’s placid movement. “So you see, I
do
know what I’m talking about. Vespasian has four legions in Judaea, but it’s a long time before they can get here, isn’t it? However, the legate of the Moesian legions has persuaded his men to march at once on Rome . . . and they are much closer.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why should you?” Marcella tilted a shoulder. “I’m just a woman whispering rumors during a play. You’ll receive confirmation of the rumors in a few days’ time, however, and perhaps then you should come see me.” She rose.
“Why would I do that?” Alienus challenged.
“Why?” Marcella looked back over her shoulder. “Because unlike Vitellius, Vespasian isn’t the Emperor to overlook good men. Maybe you should consider that.”
She drifted back to her seat, where a scowling Domitian took possession of her hand. “What kept you so long?”
“Nothing unimportant.” She put an arm about him, stroking the back of his neck openly, and he dove forward to bury his lips between her breasts. She looked over his shoulder at Alienus, watching her with narrowed eyes, and lifted an eyebrow.
See, you ambitious little man? I
do
have sources.
“Domitian,” she murmured, pushing him back a little. “You may want to drop a word in Caecina Alienus’s ear sometime soon.”
“Alienus?” Domitian lifted his head from where he’d been nibbling along the line of her shoulder. “Why are you talking about him? If you’re bedding that thug in breeches—”
“You don’t have a rival, you silly boy.” Flicking the tip of his nose. “I just know an opportunity when I see one. Alienus is a powerful man—and lately he’s been humiliated by two proposed brides, edged out by Fabius Valens, and neglected by the Emperor. I think he’s feeling . . . restless.”
“So?” Domitian scowled.
“So, that could be exploited. Why don’t you and your uncle host a dinner party, and invite him. Put him next to me, and I’ll drop a few words in his ear about your father. How generously he rewards his supporters. Then you can chime in with convincing details.”
Domitian’s black eyes began to gleam.
“Maybe bring your pet astrologer,” Marcella suggested. “He must be hard up these days; Vitellius doesn’t like astrologers. He could say a few encouraging words about the fates of all those who serve your father . . .”
“You’re a goddess,” Domitian breathed.
Marcella smiled. “Perhaps I am.”
C
ORNELIA
remembered the days back at the beginning of this strange year when she’d been meeting with Vitellius’s brother to pass on information about Otho; how easily she had managed to come and go unnoticed from her brother’s house for those clandestine gatherings.
I could be bedding half of Rome and my family would be the last to know
, she’d thought at the time, and scoffed inside at the patrician matrons who bemoaned the difficulties of meeting with their lovers.
She knew what they were moaning about now.
“My family thinks I’m at the theater with my sister,” Cornelia said breathlessly, coming through the rickety door of the whorehouse and landing in Drusus’s arms.
“Good.” He pinned her against the wall of his room, pushing the veil off her hair, kissing her throat. “How long?”
“An hour—” she murmured between kisses. “Maybe two—”
But two hours wasn’t enough, and Cornelia found herself running back through the streets, heart hammering in her throat, slipping through the slaves’ gate and hoping no one had noticed how long she’d been gone. Two hours here, three hours there—it was never long enough.
“Don’t take any risks,” Drusus urged. “You’ve got more to lose than me.”
“You’ve got your life to lose.” She twisted her head on the pillow to look at him.
“That’s already lost,” he shrugged. “They just haven’t collected payment yet.” He cupped a hand around Cornelia’s cheek, and she shivered at his touch. “You be careful. At least—”
“What?”
He reddened, but his chestnut eyes were steady. “You are taking care, aren’t you?” His rough fingers brushed her belly mutely. “The madam, she said patrician women knew what to do . . .”
“No need for that.” Cornelia shook her head. “I’m barren.” Still a painful word to speak, but she forced it out matter-of-factly. “It makes things easy now, though, doesn’t it? Otherwise I’d have to ask my cousin Lollia for those Egyptian tricks that keep her out of trouble, and Lollia can’t keep a secret to save her life.”
“Be careful about everything else, too.” He kissed the tip of Cornelia’s nose.
“I’m a fine patrician lady—I know how to sneak!”
But somehow she couldn’t manage to be careful.
For four days the following week, Tullia fancied herself ill and dumped the house’s supervision on Cornelia. Meals had to be planned, the slaves supervised, little Paulinus tended, and there was no time to spare for the squalid whorehouse in the Subura slums. Cornelia ran there all the way the following morning when Tullia finally pronounced herself well again, and when she saw the smile that split Drusus’s face she seized his hand and dragged him back through the narrow stinking hallway toward his room, shrugging down the shoulders of her gown before the flimsy door was even closed. “Gods, I missed you,” he groaned against her mouth, and they didn’t even make it to the bed. Four days was too long, three days was too long. Cornelia came every other day, dry-mouthed, every inch of her skin burning. “They think I’m at the bathhouse—they think I’m at the races—they think I went to bed early.” Any excuse she could find.
“You should go.” Drusus ran a hand down the curve of her back at the end of a long hot afternoon. “Most people don’t take five-hour baths.”
“Mmm. No.” But she nestled against his hard shoulder, drowsing another half hour in the baking heat instead of getting up. “Oh, Juno’s mercy, is it twilight?” she exclaimed, looking at the slant of light through his narrow slit of a window. “Where’s my gown?”
“And they say patrician women take hours to get dressed.” Drusus grinned, watching her fly around the little room. Cornelia made a face at him, twisting her hair into a knot at the back of her neck, hopping on one foot to lace her sandal.
“Tomorrow—” She collected her
palla
, holding one hand out for a quick squeeze. “I’ll be back tomorrow; I’ve begged off a family banquet.”
“Tomorrow.” His fingers squeezed hers, warm and hard. Cornelia looked at him, sitting on the edge of the bed with his chestnut hair mussed, his eyes warm and steady, and she dropped her
palla
on the floor and climbed into his lap and made love to him again, fierce and silent, before running back to the Palatine Hill and coming home far later than she had any right to be. She looked in the glass that night, hastily tidying herself, and didn’t know her own face. These flushed cheeks and over-bright eyes and wild hair couldn’t possibly belong to the cool and elegant Cornelia Prima, the impeccable matron who never did anything unseemly or incorrect, who would have wrinkled her nose at the very idea of taking a common soldier for a lover. This was someone else entirely.
They’ll notice
, she thought in dread.
Juno’s mercy, someone’s bound to notice.
But to her astonishment, no one noticed. Gaius was out from dawn until dusk trying to curry favor with Vitellius or at least keep up with his frantic pace of feasting. Marcella was obsessed with Vespasian’s whispered march on Rome. Lollia could normally be counted on to pick up the slightest hint of any love affair; Cornelia waited with an inward wince for her laughing wink and her whispered, “Well, who is he?” But even Lollia seemed wrapped in her own somber thoughts. The rest of the family, Tullia in the lead, were so diverted by Diana’s new status as the Emperor’s pet that they had no time for anything else.
“If Diana could get a provincial governorship for Gaius,” Tullia breathed. “Lower Germania—the Emperor did say he would need a new governor there . . .”
“I don’t know if I really want to govern Lower Germania,” Gaius ventured. “Nasty cold place.”
“
Gaius
, don’t be ridiculous! Of course you want to! Or maybe Pannonia . . .”
“No one has time for me in all this fuss over Diana,” Cornelia told Drusus. “The family’s after her day and night to get Imperial posts and appointments and favors out of Vitellius for them. Even more, they want her to marry someone very grand. But she keeps turning down all the suitors, and the family keeps going into spasms.”
“Turning them down?”
“She turned down Fabius’s chief commander Alienus; that wasn’t pretty. And not a week later one of his German officers caught her after the races and tried to drag her off by force—she broke a driving whip over his head, and said she’d stab him if he tried again.”
Drusus blinked. “How does a little thing like that know how to stab anyone?”
“We all do.” Cornelia demonstrated. “Under the breast into the heart, fast and clean. All patrician women know how to die.”
“You people are savages.” He curled a hand protectively around the threatened breast.