Daughters of Rome (49 page)

“No,” Marcella muttered,
“no,”
but Domitian brushed that aside.

“My brother will be wanting me. Arrange your wedding clothes for tomorrow. I’ll see you at dinner.” He dropped a casual kiss on her cheek. “You know, I dislike the name Marcella. We’ll have to change it.”

He was gone. Marcella stared after him, so filled with shock she felt rooted to the spot.

“Domina,” the nurse said respectfully, thrusting Domitian’s niece forward. Marcella brushed her away, wailing inside.
No, no, I don’t want this. Not a life filled with children and Imperial dinner parties, dress fittings and running the palace household. Not for me. Not for Marcella the historian, not for the girl who brought down four emperors.

But already there were Praetorians closing in around her door to protect her and spy on her, and curious courtiers bustling outside in the pillared hall. A wall of people to close her in, to make sure she was never alone again.

I’m going to be Empress, if Domitian has his way
, Marcella thought in utter horror.
And I will not have the power to bring down anyone.

No. Surely not. Surely Domitian would get tired of her long before that. He’d demand a divorce, and everything would go back to the way it was.
Oh, Fortuna, just make that happen and I swear I will never meddle in the affairs of emperors again—

“Lady.” A wary voice broke through her panicked thoughts. “Welcome to the Imperial household. We’ve met before, a few times—I am Nessus.”

“Nessus?” Hardly hearing him.

“My lord Domitian has been good enough to appoint me as Imperial astrologer.” A chubby little man bowed before her—already balding despite his youth, swaddled in a new robe embroidered all over with astrological symbols.

“You told him I’d be his wife, didn’t you?” Marcella’s hand shot out, catching the little astrologer’s sleeve. “Well, undo it! Tell him I won’t make a good wife, tell him I won’t bear him any children—”

“You won’t be a good wife,” Nessus said. “And you won’t bear him any children either, but that doesn’t have anything to do with me. Good-bye.”

He tugged at his sleeve, but Marcella’s fingers latched into the cloth. She could see the slaves staring, feel the baby hand of little Julia tugging at her dress, but she ignored them all. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, why didn’t I just open a wine shop?” Nessus mumbled. He drew himself to his full height, but avoided her eyes. “I can’t help you, Lady. I’m sorry.”

“Then at least read my stars! Or my hand, if that’s faster—”
You don’t believe in astrology
, something inside Marcella mocked her,
or in charlatans who read palms
. But she shoved her hand at Nessus anyway. “Read my hand and tell Domitian he’s destined to divorce me in a month—”

“Oh no.” Nessus put his hands behind his back. “I read your hand once before, and that was enough. I was drunk for a week, and I nearly quit this business. No, thank you, Lady. You can figure out the future on your own.”

Marcella stared at him. “So why did you tell Domitian I was destined to be his Empress? Why?”

“Because you are,” Nessus said wearily, and turned away toward the atrium.

“That’s ridiculous!” Marcella started after him. Slaves fell away on each side, openly whispering now, and little Julia toddled along behind, trying to keep up. “You’re just telling Domitian what he wants to hear. You’re flattering him to keep your post, you’re a fake—”

“Yes, and I was happy that way.” Nessus rounded on her in the middle of the green-tiled atrium. “Telling people what they want to hear—it might not be noble, but it pays the bills and lets me sleep at night. Or it did. Then I ran across that blood-filled little hand of yours, and now it all comes true! All of it! Do you have any idea how inconvenient that is?”

“So read my hand again!”
Marcella screamed.
“Make something else come true!”

“I’m sorry, Lady, but it doesn’t work that way. You’re going to be Domitian’s wife, and you’re going to be Empress of Rome, and there’s nothing you or I or anybody else can do about it.”

Marcella’s lips parted, dry as parchment. Her mind was one great whirling blank. Little Julia caught up with her, twining pudgy baby fingers into her dress. Nessus looked down at the little girl and flinched.

“Look after that one,” he said tiredly. “If somebody doesn’t, her life is going to be as wretched as yours.”

He turned and stalked away, pushing past the crowd of petitioners who already waited in the atrium for a chance to see the prince of Rome’s new wife.

Marcella sat down suddenly in the middle of the tiled floor. “He’s lying. He’s lying.”

Little Julia climbed into her lap, cuddling against her stone-still shoulder. Marcella barely felt her. She was trying too desperately to believe her own lies.

T
HE
first day of the new year belonged to Janus, god of doorways, god of beginnings, and as always Cornelia and her cousins exchanged coins stamped with Janus’s double-faced profile. One face looked forward and the other back, and on the first day of
this
year, it couldn’t have been more appropriate. Cornelia was looking ahead to the future along with the rest of Rome, looking ahead to Emperor Vespasian as he made his triumphal entry into the city . . . but she couldn’t help looking back too, and she felt a twinge as she remembered an emperor who was torn to pieces in the Forum and an emperor who marched north to defeat and suicide and an emperor who died alone and terrified in a stable. Three dead emperors, and the thousands who had died supporting them.

Emperor Vespasian entered the city today, on the first day of the year, and later Cornelia heard how loudly he had been cheered. But she hadn’t been there to cheer for him. She had other words to say, more important words.

“Quando tu Gaius, ego Gaia . . .”
Drusus’s hands squeezed hers fiercely as she recited the ritual vows, and even through the red haze of the bridal veil she could see the tears in his eyes. Just a small wedding, only family and friends gathered around the public shrine—Lollia bouncing up and down on her toes, Diana slipping in late as always, Drusus’s parents and sister clustered together proud and a little shy. Marcella wasn’t there—even a prince’s wife apparently knew better than to come where she was so bluntly unwanted. Cornelia was grateful.

Drusus’s hand squeezed hers again as the priest brought a white goat forward for the matrimonial sacrifice, and Cornelia looked up at the marble statue of Juno that gazed down on her.
Is she smiling at me?
Perhaps.

The goat escaped the priest’s knife and ran bleating down the street. Cornelia couldn’t suppress a giggle as the priest began to swear, and Drusus was so convulsed with laughter he could hardly speak. “Let it go,” Lollia called from the circle of guests. “Some woman in the slums will be the richer for a nice milking goat by evening. That’s a better wedding omen than goat blood on our shoes!”

Cornelia couldn’t have agreed more.

The wedding party broke up amicably, streaming back up the street toward the house of Lollia’s grandfather, who had offered to host the feast. Drusus snugged Cornelia close against his side, pushing her veil back so he could kiss her. “All mine now,” he whispered, and his hand brushed her stomach, which had just barely begun to round.

“All yours,” she whispered back. He looked so imposing in his formal red and gold—a centurion of the Praetorian Guard once again, thanks to Emperor Vespasian.
Was I so happy the first time I married?
Cornelia didn’t know. Maybe that was a question that didn’t need an answer. Maybe it was enough that if she’d had to marry twice, it had been to two such good men.

“Juno’s mercy,” Cornelia exclaimed as they led the way through the vast double doors into the atrium. The columns had been twined with garlands of myrtle and jasmine, the fountain flowed with Falernian wine, soft music filled the air, the smells of a hundred savory dishes tantalized the nose . . . “Lollia, you shouldn’t have!”

“This wedding might be a bit on the hasty side, my honey, but no one will say it wasn’t done up properly. My grandfather did the
works
, let me tell you.” Lollia gazed around with satisfaction. “It’s such fun to plan a wedding that isn’t mine.”

“Nothing but the best for you, m’dear.” Lollia’s grandfather pinched Cornelia’s cheek affectionately. “My jewel tells me how much you comforted her when she was married to that vicious bastard Fabius Valens.”

Cornelia looked at the plump face of Lollia’s grandfather, beaming and happy again, and flung her arms around his neck. She remembered her own father, who hadn’t even attended her first wedding and could barely tell her apart from her sister. “You’ve done more for me than my father ever did,” she said, and kissed Lollia’s grandfather on both cheeks.

He beamed at her again, and then took Drusus by the arm and bore him off to the other side of the atrium. “You come with me, my lad! Plenty of guests here want to meet our brave soldier. Let’s see what we can do to make you a commander down in Tarracina, eh?”

The wedding guests were flooding in now, exclaiming over the flowers and the wine, and Cornelia looped an arm about Lollia’s waist. “I suppose there will be another wedding for you soon?”

“Yes, to some cousin of Vespasian’s,” Lollia said unconcernedly. She wore a sunny yellow dress with an embroidered sash, simpler than the elaborate silks she used to wear, and scarlet poppies in her hair instead of rubies. And Cornelia rather thought the hair itself had been dyed a gentler shade of red. “I think his name is Gnaeus Flavius. Or was it Publius Flavius? Well, I’ll find out soon enough . . .”

“Domina.” A familiar golden Gaul bowed at Lollia’s side. “The steward, he wants to know if the musicians should begin.”

“Gods, yes, Thrax. And get the wine flowing, please.” Lollia turned back to Cornelia, beaming. “I have to say
please
, since Thrax is a freedman now. Freed last week! So if I’m not
very
polite to him, he might leave me.”

“Somehow I doubt that.” Cornelia smiled. The slave—freedman—stood quietly as Lollia tucked her hand into his arm, but his fingers caressed hers in silence. “Is that a new ring, Lollia?”

“Yes.” Lollia admired the plain iron band on the fourth finger of her left hand. “Isn’t it nice? Thrax gave it to me when I freed him.”

“What happens when your next husband puts a ring on that finger?” Cornelia said, amused.

“Oh, it can go on top. This one isn’t coming off.”

Diana sauntered up in a gold silk gown, draped high in front and baring her back nearly to the base of the spine. Her arm was looped companionably through that of a graying stoop-shouldered man in a toga, and it took Cornelia a moment to recognize Marcus Norbanus. “Marcus,” she exclaimed as he bowed over her hand. Prison had not been kind to him—Cornelia resolved at once to find him a nice wife. Now that she was married herself again, she wanted the whole world just as happy. “We’ll see you married next,” she told him.

“Oh, I think not. I seem to have bad luck with wives. That Nessus fellow everyone’s talking about ever since Domitian appointed him Imperial astrologer—he told me it would be a very bad idea to marry again. I don’t normally put much trust in astrologers, but . . .” Marcus’s gaze drifted to Tullia, pecking away at Gaius’s shoulder with a sharp-lacquered nail. “I think I won’t push my luck.”

“Nonsense, Marcus,” Cornelia chided.
Maybe Diana will do for him
. . . they strolled off companionably, Diana chattering about something and Marcus looking down at her with cautious amusement. As if she were some interesting natural phenomenon, like a freak storm or a two-headed calf.

Lollia clapped her hands for the drummers to begin playing as the guests took their places, and the wedding banquet took no time at all to get into full swing. Definitely the best wedding of the year, as many of them as there had been! Even the slaves looked happy, laughing and talking among themselves as they brought in the wine, the silver bowls heaped with fruit, the roast suckling piglet with fried sage leaves and garlic. Drusus and Cornelia took the couch of honor; he began fussing with her wine, watering it anxiously to the exact degree she liked now that she was pregnant. Cornelia laughed and pelted him with a grape. Lollia had little Flavia on her lap and was tickling her with a peacock feather, Thrax hovering discreet and smiling behind them. Lollia’s grandfather perched a laurel wreath rakishly over his wig and was already talking with a shrewd-eyed man in Imperial dress, likely making another fortune. Drusus’s parents had the couch beside their son, and Cornelia promptly dragged them off it and introduced them around the room until they began to lose their awkward stiffness. “Your cousins all have such pretty dresses,” Drusus’s young sister said shyly, and Cornelia made up her mind to get the girl a new wardrobe at once.

Diana stood leaning against a pillar, tossing grapes into the air one by one and catching them unerringly between her teeth, and Cornelia made sure to spoil her aim with a hug from behind. “You were late to my wedding!” she said accusingly. “How were the races?”