Daughters of Rome (9 page)

Diana vaulted up onto the rail as the chestnuts at last eased to a halt. Her palms were sweating, her eyes swimming, and butterflies had turned her stomach into knots. Lollia always told her she’d feel like this when she finally fell in love—and she finally had.

She grinned at the Briton as he came down from his chariots, grinned too wide to play calm. “We’ll take them,” she said radiantly. “And if you don’t sell them to the Reds, I’ll
steal
them.”

The Briton laughed. Standing on the lowest rail of the fence put Diana level with his eyes. “They’ll run well for you,” he approved.

The faction director was jotting on a slate, working figures. Diana swung over the fence to greet the chestnuts—they were barely winded, tossing their heads as if they’d just cantered to the end of the paddock and back.

“Oh, my beauties, you’re going to make mincemeat of the Blues.” She ran her hands over the warm silk of the outside runner’s neck. “What are their names?”

“I don’t name horses.” The Briton ran a horn-hard hand down the old stallion’s nose. “Makes it harder when you lose them in battles.”

“You’ve fought many battles?”

“A few.” The Briton turned to start wrangling with the faction director over price. Diana unharnessed the chestnuts, taking the two outside runners and walking between them back to the field. The horse on Diana’s left shied at a gust of wind, lifting her off her feet for a moment. She clung to his reins, clucking under her breath till he quieted and followed her again.

“They don’t usually follow along like that,” the Briton said from behind, following with the second pair of horses. “They like to kick anyone they don’t know.”

“Horses never kick me.” Reaching up to tug the bridle over the curved ears, she released first one stallion and then the other into the field with a slap on the rump. The Briton released his pair, and they leaned on the fence watching the chestnuts take off snorting across the grass.

“What will you name them, Lady?”

“That’s easy.” Watching their red manes catch fire in the noon sun. “I’ll call them the Anemoi. After the Four Winds.”

 

HIDE
me,” Marcella greeted her sister. “I am fleeing Tullia. She was going on and on about a chipped tile in the atrium, and it was either flight or murder.”

“Of course you’re welcome here.” Cornelia kissed her cheek, composed as ever, but the hand that gripped Marcella’s was damp.

“I was hoping we could have a good gossip,” Marcella confessed, unwinding the
palla
from her hair. “Kick off our shoes and curl up with a flagon of wine, the way we used to do in the old days?”
Before husbands and politics came along.

“Not today, Marcella.” Cornelia cast a glance over one shoulder to her thronged atrium, noisy with slaves and guards and hangers-on. “Piso’s gone to the palace. The Emperor so relies on him, he went to Galba’s side the minute he heard the news—”

“What, the news from Germania? The legions going about smashing Galba’s statues—”

“Sshh.” Cornelia took her sister’s arm, moving serenely back through the room. A nod to Galba’s chamberlain; a word to the slaves to bring more wine; a warm greeting for a senator who had taken thousands of sesterces from Otho to speak against Piso in the Senate . . . “Everything got tense as soon as the news filtered to the soldiers,” Cornelia said in a low voice, her bright social smile never faltering. “If the German legions don’t acknowledge Galba as Emperor, the Praetorians may revolt—”

“Well, they have enough reasons. Galba’s still refusing to pay them their bounty.”

“Why should he bribe them? They’re honorable soldiers of Rome, not common thugs.”

“Yes, but honor doesn’t pay your dicing debts or buy you a drink at a tavern, does it?” Otho was doing quite a lot of that these days, or so Marcella heard.

“It’s only the miscontents who are grumbling.” Cornelia paused to exclaim over the new wife of a very old enemy, smiled, moved on. “Centurion Densus assures me all
his
men are loyal—Densus, that’s the centurion assigned to our protection. He’s a gem. If they were all like him—!”

Marcella smiled. “Isn’t he the one Lollia asked to borrow?”

“I’ve given up even talking to Lollia,” Cornelia sniffed.

“Don’t let it go on too long. Life is very dull without Lollia.”

Several overdressed matrons came forward to gush over Cornelia, who kissed cheeks and asked after children. Neither of the matrons had a word for Marcella—her husband wasn’t terribly important, after all. Shedding the matrons, the sisters reached the long hall where the busts of Piso’s ancestors faced a long row of dead Cornelii, and Cornelia dragged Marcella behind a stern bust of their barely remembered mother. “The Emperor will announce his heir today,” Cornelia whispered, fingers digging into her sister’s arm in open excitement. “He’ll have to, to pacify the legions—they’ll calm down if they realize there’s another man coming behind him, someone young and energetic and generous—”

“So Piso is at the palace, pressing his claim?”

“Of course not, he’s just—there. Steady, reliable, ready for anything. Of course Otho is there too—” Cornelia began chewing her varnished nails.

“Stop that.” Marcella rapped her knuckles. “Would an empress have ragged nails?”

“Of course not.” With something of an effort, Cornelia smoothed herself back into the picture of serenity: a dark violet
stola
suggesting Imperial purple (but not too blatantly); a collar of amethysts and pearls on silver wire enclosing her neck; a calm expression. “I should attend my guests. We should be hearing from Piso soon.”

“Domina?” Her centurion appeared in the door of the hall. “The slaves want to know if they should keep circulating the wine.”

“Of course.” Cornelia glided back to the throng, her Praetorian at her back like a pillar. Marcella thought she’d never seen her sister look more regal.

Still . . . Marcella had to admit that she might have chosen Otho as Imperial heir over Piso, had it been up to her. He was much more interesting, for one thing; at the endless round of dinner parties over the past few weeks, Otho ignored the rising tension and just stretched himself out lazily talking of the new production of
Thyestes
and the latest gossip from Egypt, while Piso droned on in the background about coinage.
Ever since Nero, Rome wants her emperors witty and intelligent, not just worthy.
Not that Nero himself had been much of a wit—or a poet, or a musician, or an emperor for that matter—but he did have a talent for collecting witty people. Like Otho.

Well, witty or not, in the end Marcella had to cast her hopes with her sister’s husband.
The moment my sister becomes Empress and Tullia tries to boss me . . . !

Another hour. Marcella watched as faces grew more taut, voices more shrill. All but Cornelia, moving like a goddess among the throng.

An insistent hand tugged at her elbow. “I got you more wine.”

“Thank you.” Marcella took a goblet from an admirer she had somehow acquired, a stocky boy of eighteen with staring black eyes and abrupt manners. The younger son of the brilliant Vespasian, Governor of Judaea . . . who might have been Emperor himself if he hadn’t been common born and also a thousand miles away.

“I’ve seen you before,” Vespasian’s son said, still staring. Domitian, that was his name. “Lucius Aelius Lamia’s wife, aren’t you?”

“Yes, unfortunately.” Marcella looked about the crowded room for her cousins. Diana had gone utterly mad lately, so consumed with her new Reds team she wouldn’t notice if Galba appointed a horse as his heir. But it wasn’t like Lollia to miss such a fraught gathering, no matter what kind of tiff she’d had with Cornelia. Well, she’d been housebound lately with a great many headaches.

“General Gnaeus Corbulo was your father,” Domitian was saying. “I admired him.”

“Did you?” Marcella sipped her wine.

“I’m going to be a general. My brother is. Titus—he was married to your cousin for a while, the rich stupid one. Lollia. Titus is very good—a good general, I mean—but I’ll be better. Nessus says so.”

“Who is Nessus?”

“An astrologer I found. He’s very skilled.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“Well, he’s always right!” The boy sounded defensive. “He says I’m going to be a general someday, and after that—”

Marcella stifled a yawn. “Of course.”

For such an important announcement, it came quietly. Two men entered from the atrium. Senator Otho, his black curls glossy and perfumed, his smile so brilliant it warmed the room. Piso, pushing the folds of his toga off his head, looking weary and dazed. Marcella saw her sister freeze, saw the ripples spread outward through the guests as Otho moved into the room exclaiming greetings and an exhausted Piso trailed in his wake. Marcella was already framing sympathies before she realized what they were saying.

“Congratulations to Senator Piso!” Otho threw back his head, smiling. “Our future Emperor!”

A roar of applause swept through the chamber, and Piso looked even more dazed, and Cornelia was somehow at his side, turning him away a little so his first smile came for her. She murmured something, and his smile finally broadened. His dark hair gleamed in the lamp-light and he looked rather taller.

Who would have thought it?
Marcella mused. Galba had weighed his two possibilities for Imperial heir, and in the end chosen lineage and respectability over charm and popularity.
Emperor Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus.

The party spilled out into the night. Lollia arrived very late, looking rather hastily put together in a great many emeralds, but she poured congratulations on Cornelia. “I was beastly to you.” Her remorseful whisper carried to Marcella’s ears, and Cornelia hugged her with no stiffness at all. Diana came, still babbling on about her wretched new Reds team until Marcella hoped they’d all break a leg. Dull as Diana was, two more senators proposed marriage to her. Why not? She was no longer just a beautiful little bore, but a beautiful little bore related to the future Empress of Rome.

As am I.
Strange thought. Still, Marcella couldn’t see that it would make much difference to her life. History would always march on regardless of what man wore the purple, and historians would always be there to watch.

Though perhaps she could leverage Cornelia’s influence to get Lucius a post here in Rome. So she could have her own household at last, and finally get herself out of Tullia’s . . .

“Allow me to present my congratulations, Senator.” Otho pressed Piso’s hand. Surely his cheeks ached, Marcella thought, with holding that smile. “You are fortunate in the Emperor’s favor.”

“Fortunate?” Piso’s voice was lordly, already Imperial. Marcella wondered if he might be remembering the day at the races when Otho outshone him so effortlessly at his own party. “Fortuna favors the worthy. Not the fools.”

A ripple of laughter spread across the room: a hundred guests all eager to find the Imperial heir a wit. For just an instant, Otho’s smile froze. Then he threw back his head and laughed as heartily as anyone else.

“A good jest, Senator. I do hope it gave you pleasure. In future there will be so little time for baiting us poor fools.”

Piso had already moved on to the next well-wisher. Otho stood alone; impulsively, Marcella shook off the Governor of Judaea’s stubborn black-eyed son and moved to his side. “Senator?”

He looked up at once, still maintaining his bright smile. “Cornelia Secunda! Though I prefer Marcella, as you do. Your sister does rather take possession of the name, doesn’t she, and someone as special as yourself deserves a name of her own.”

He’d have gone on chattering airily, but Marcella tilted her head to one side and stood observing the wide berth the other guests now gave Otho as they flooded to Piso’s side. “I see no one’s lost any time worshipping the rising sun, rather than the setting.”

“You think my sun has set?” Otho’s smile never faltered.

“Hasn’t it? You’ve lost. And there are plenty of people here—including Piso—who are dying to see you squirm.”

“I suppose you’ll congratulate me on how well I’m taking it? If I do say so myself, I’m being quite splendid about it all.”

“Well, what’s your alternative?” Marcella said briskly. “Beating your head against the floor and wailing? Slipping the priest a bribe tomorrow, so he reads Piso’s omens badly and all those superstitious soldiers come rushing back to you?”

Otho looked startled. “My dear Marcella, I can’t imagine—”

“Oh, don’t be polite. Just admit that you’d like to wring Piso’s neck. You’ll feel better.”

Otho laughed.

“I want to wring Piso’s neck too, sometimes. Especially when he tells those long pointless jokes . . .” Marcella smiled at Otho in farewell and moved back to the party. Perhaps it was time she went home—Gaius and Tullia didn’t have the good news yet, after all, and she’d enjoy bringing it to them herself while it was still fresh.