Daughters of Rome (29 page)

“Perhaps the Emperor means to marry you to one of his supporters,” Gaius broke in, taking the scroll from his wife’s hand. “Lollia isn’t the only one who can make an advantageous marriage.”

“For once you’re right, Gaius.” Tullia eyed Cornelia sternly. “I do hope you’ll be sensible.”

“Let Marcella make the advantageous marriage.” Cornelia folded her hands at her waist to keep them from clenching into fists. “She and Lucius haven’t even spoken to each other since Brixellum—he’d happily divorce her. Or Diana—seventeen years old now, it’s high time she married—”

“Of course I don’t want to force you.” Gaius patted her hand. His chin was now covered in patchy stubble in imitation of Vitellius, who unlike Otho was careless about shaving. “But I’d love to see you properly settled again, Cornelia—”

“
Gaius
, don’t be stupid!” Tullia cut off her husband. “It’s not about happiness these days, it’s about connections! You have a connection to Galba, Cornelia, and it’s your duty to the family to use that!”

Haven’t I done my duty enough?
Cornelia went straight up to her bedchamber and put on the deepest mourning black she could find, not even a pair of earrings to offset the severity. “How are you supposed to find a good husband looking like a hired mourner?” Tullia scolded. “You don’t have the figure Marcella does, but you could make more of it.
Gaius
, tell her, this will never do!”

“It won’t do at all, you know.” Marcella looked up from her desk in the cluttered
tablinum
, giving her sister an amused head-to-toe glance. “Though not for the reason Tullia thinks.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you want to escape attention, don’t wear black. You’re rather beautiful in black.”

Cornelia looked into the glass at her own reflection. The black dress had turned the coils of her hair to black as well; glossy ebony reflections from silk and hair alike surrounding a pale shield of a face. “I suppose you’re not going, Marcella?”

“I have a headache.”

“You’ve been having quite a few of those lately,” Cornelia couldn’t help saying. “At least whenever it’s the races or the games or anything else you think is boring. Imperial dinner parties or Senate discussions, you never have headaches for those.”

Marcella smiled, turning her ink pot over in one hand. “Pass me any good gossip you hear at the races, won’t you? I’ve heard that Governor Vespasian is making ominous noises in Judaea.”

“Juno’s mercy, not another rebellion.” Cornelia gave an appalled blink. “Where did you hear
that?
”

“From young Domitian. He’s not supposed to correspond with his father, but he does.”

“He’s not supposed to be spreading rumors like that, either.” Cornelia nibbled at her nails, still stripped down to painful nubs. “Is he still in love with you?”

“Madly. He wanted me to know he’d be a prince within the year, once his father becomes Emperor.” Marcella gave a small smile, ink-spattered and plain with her hair in a braid over one shoulder. “Should I pass Domitian on to you? If you’re going to be married off anyway, it might as well be to another possible prince of Rome.”

“You could be more sympathetic, you know,” Cornelia snapped. “Your husband’s already found favor with Vitellius—and he’s gone off to Crete, so you don’t even have to deal with him! No one’s trying to marry
you
off!”

“No.” Marcella stretched head to toe like a languorous cat. “I make sure of that.”

“You’re very self-satisfied these days, do you know that, Marcella?”

Her sister’s chuckle followed her out.

The Emperor’s box was a sea of blue when Cornelia arrived: blue banners, blue flowers scattered underfoot, blue plums and blue-black oysters circulating in lapis lazuli bowls, a blue
stola
on every woman and a blue cloak on every man. Fabius Valens wore a sky-blue synthesis, and Lollia’s sapphires were larger than those worn by Vitellius’s meek little Empress. Vitellius’s massive belly stretched under a blue tunic with half a dozen charioteer medallions about his neck, each proclaiming his fabled allegiance to the Blues team. Derricus, the star charioteer for the Blues, had the place of honor at the Emperor’s side, preening in his striped blue tunic. Cornelia felt like a crow in a pride of peacocks and gratefully found a seat for herself at the back. But Vitellius, turning to gesture for more wine, caught sight of her and beckoned. She came forward, bowing.

“Lady Cornelia Prima.” Up close, the Emperor’s ruddy face showed broken veins about the nose, and rolls of fat at the neck from many years of heavy banquets. But he had only a mild smell of wine this afternoon, and the hand that raised her up was steady. “I owe you a debt, my dear.”

“I only did my duty, Caesar.” She kept her eyes properly lowered.

“Not for passing information. For the loss of your husband.” Vitellius dropped his voice. “I am so sorry.”

Startled, Cornelia looked up at him. Otho had paid her polished, insincere apologies. Family members had given stilted condolences; her sister and cousins wordless hugs. No one had simply said,
I’m sorry
. A lump rose in her throat, and Vitellius’s smile was kind.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he promised, squeezing her fingers in his massive ones, and Fabius Valens over his shoulder grinned. Cornelia curtsied again and hastily retreated. As long as the Emperor’s notion of making it up to her wasn’t a new husband . . .

Diana, flopped in her seat at the back, was not hard to find. She sat scowling, ignoring the glances from the Emperor’s officers and courtiers—disapproving glances for once, rather than admiring. In a sea of blue she was a spot of bright unapologetic red, a medallion for each of her four favorite horses about her neck, red skirts fluttering and scarlet ribbons braided through her white-gold hair. “I’m not going to put off my colors just because the Emperor roots in opposition,” she said to Cornelia’s raised eyebrows. “Anyway, I don’t see you wearing any of that gaudy Blues trash.”

“No,” Cornelia agreed, taking her seat. “What
have
you done to your hands?” They were rough as sandstone, callused across the palms.

“Sshh, the parade’s beginning.”

The horses began their ceremonial parade around the track of raked sand, five teams prancing under a sweltering brass bowl of a sky. The Blues came first, Derricus pointing his whip out at the crowd in the famous gesture that brought screams of adoration. Women cooed and threw flowers; Vitellius let out a whoop and banged a meaty fist against the arm of his chair. Diana hissed, clapping loudly only for the team she had named the Anemoi after the four winds. Cornelia had to admit the horses were beautiful: chestnuts as red as their traces, almost dancing before the chariot in their eagerness to run. Diana let out a whoop as they took their place in line, drowned out by Fabius Valens, who was laying uproarious bets with the Emperor.

“Hello, my loves.” Lollia dropped beside them, waving a peacock feather fan against her face. “Gods, it’s hot.”

“How are you and your husband?” Cornelia asked, since Diana was too rapt on the track for any kind of courtesies.

“He’s . . . energetic. Tireless, in fact. Thank the gods he spends half the night dicing and whoring with Vitellius, or I’d never get any sleep.” Lollia peered down at the track, where Derricus the Blues charioteer was preening in the gilt-crusted blue chariot. “Goodness, he does look smug.” She whispered in Cornelia’s ear. “I hope Diana never finds out I had a little fling with Derricus once. She’d never forgive me.”

“You slept with a
charioteer?
”

“Yes, and let me tell you a fast finish might be nice on a track but
not
in a bed.”

Cornelia caught herself before she could giggle.

The blood bays at the Blues chariot lunged ahead before the scarf dropped and had to be muscled back in line. The crowd groaned at the false start, and to distract them Vitellius tossed a basket of numbered wooden balls one by one into the sea of humanity below, each one to be redeemed with the Imperial stewards for a prize—a prize bullock, a team of horses, even a summer villa.
Our new Emperor certainly is generous.
Groans turned to squeals as the plebs fought over the balls, cheers mounting like waves. Fabius snapped Lollia back to his side, stuffing a blue scarf into the Emperor’s hand as the horses drew up to the starting line again. Diana leaned forward, lips parted. Vitellius dropped the scarf, and the horses surged down the track.

At once the crowd surged up, shouting, calling encouragement to the drivers, laying bets. Vitellius leaned over the rail yelling down to the Blues. Diana chewed her lip. The Reds pulled ahead in the first lap after a spectacular scrape of a turn, and hers was the only cheer to go up from the Imperial box. Fabius glared back at her. “I’ll cheer whom I like,” Diana said, unrepentant. “Gods’ wheels, I wish Centurion Densus were here.”

Cornelia blinked. She hadn’t thought of that name in a long time, not since he walked her home from the Campus Martius before Bedriacum and said such rude things. “Why would you want
him
here?”

“Because he roots for the Reds. He was cheering them on with me, the first races of this year. And any man who could stand off five to one like he did before the Temple of Vesta would have the spine to root out loud, no matter what the Emperor thought.”

Diana leaped to her feet swearing as the Greens clipped the
spina
, and Cornelia beckoned a Praetorian standing guard at the back of the box. A new man; she didn’t recognize him, but Vitellius had inserted many of his own men into the Praetorian Guard. “Can you tell me what happened to Centurion Drusus Sempronius Densus?” She didn’t know why she asked. Surely he had died at Bedriacum, or she would have seen him by now accompanying Vitellius with the other Praetorians.

“There’s a warrant for Drusus Densus, Lady. Treason.”

“He survived Bedriacum smart enough, Lady, but Commander Valens winnowed through the Praetorians afterward. Dismissed a batch of them for turning on Galba.”

“But if most of them were just dismissed, why was Densus charged with treason?” The crowd was on its feet, shouting at something that had just happened on the track, but Cornelia hardly heard the screams.

“Commander Valens charged he must have sold out Galba and the heir, Lady. Maybe killed the heir, who knows. Valens figured he should be made an example of, since Otho made such a hero of him.”

“That’s absurd!”

“What’s absurd?” a voice intruded, and Cornelia looked up to see Fabius Valens standing at her shoulder, a goblet of blue-blown glass in one hand.

“Centurion Drusus Densus being charged with treason,” she said roundly. “He certainly did not have any hand in murdering my husband. I was
there
, I know what happened.”

“He failed to save your husband, though.” Lollia’s new husband dismissed.

“That was hardly his fault.” Densus might have been rude on occasion, but he was surely the farthest thing from a traitor. “Has he been executed already?”

“No. Never even arrested—got wind of it somehow and ran. No matter. He’ll never serve again.”

“But . . .” She trailed off.

Fabius smiled. “Consider your husband avenged.”

“I don’t need vengeance, Commander.”
Not anymore. Not with Otho dead.

“I’ll decide what you need.”

Cornelia turned her eyes back to the track again, blindly. “What lap is this?” To Diana.

“The fifth.” Diana sat on the very edge of her seat, lips moving silently. The Blues and the Reds had swapped the lead a dozen times.

Fabius spoke very low, his arm grazing Cornelia’s. “You need a husband, and one of my friends needs a wife. Caecina Alienus, his name is—”

A howl went up from the crowd as the Whites team tried to slip past the Blues on the inside; the Blues charioteer veered inward, and the Whites were crushed. The chariot disintegrated, a wheel rolling madly across the sand as the screaming horses staggered free. They careened directly across the Reds, and Diana swore horribly as the Reds had to pull up in a violent toss of chestnut forelocks and red leather reins. “Diana,” Cornelia scolded, and seized the excuse to ignore Fabius’s cozy voice at her elbow and subject her youngest cousin to a crisp lecture on the evils of foul language. A shorter lecture than it would normally have been—Cornelia’s own mind was whirling.

Vitellius let out a shout of laughter and pounded the rail in delight as the Blues settled into the lead. Far behind, the Reds disentangled themselves from the mess of the crash and whipped into a gallop again. “They’ll never make up the distance,” Diana groaned, sinking back in her chair. But her winds put their long noses out in a pounding gallop, red manes streaming flat against their glossy necks, and they began chewing back the gap. Half a lap behind—a third—passing the Greens as if they were standing still. Their hides were more black than red with sweat.

“Do you know Caecina Alienus?” Fabius asked, his lips closer to Cornelia’s ear. “Bit of a rough customer, but he’d be a fair enough match. A young widow like you, surely you’re wet for a new husband by now.”

Cornelia licked her lips, keeping her eyes desperately fixed on the circus. She saw the Blues charioteer look behind him and shake the whip over his blood bays. Both teams screeched around the last turn at white heat.

“Come on!”
Diana shouted, but the finish line came too soon, the stretching noses of the Reds pulling even with the axle of the Blues chariot. “Oh—” Diana’s head dropped, her blue-green eyes glittering with tears. “Oh, my poor winds, it was almost enough.”

“You really must not show so much emotion over a race,” Cornelia chided, feeling Fabius’s hand on her elbow and launching hastily into a longer lecture on proper patrician decorum. Diana sat deaf, drooping in her chair, watching the Blues charioteer take his victory lap as adoring women screamed and the Emperor slapped his cronies on the back. Cornelia hardly heard them, too conscious of Fabius’s hand on her arm.
Juno’s mercy, he’s going to arrange my future for me, and I can’t keep ignoring him.