Daughters of Rome (46 page)

The Briton smiled, tilting his long sword up across one shoulder—and Marcella suddenly saw that the blade was dark.

“He wasn’t worth it,” said Diana. “I hope you realize that, too.”

“Perhaps not.”

“Then why?”

The Briton paused, fingering the hilt of the blade still tilted across one shoulder. “Eighteen years I’ve been in Rome,” he said finally. “And every morning when I wake up, I think for a moment that I’m in Britannia. Sometimes it’s my friends pounding at the door, shouting at me to go hunting with them. Sometimes it’s my father, planning a raid on a Roman fort and wanting me to lead my scouts for a diversion. But for a moment or two, it’s real. More real than any of this.” His arm encompasses the hill, the horses, the city below. “More real than you.”

“And?”

“Emperor Claudius made us swear oaths we’d never leave Rome. I wanted to kill him for that. My father kept the oath, but my father’s dead now. Dead of captivity. I’d go ahead and kill Claudius, if he were still alive, but—” Llyn shrugged. “Another emperor will do just as well.”

Diana gestured at his sword. “Better hide that.” The Briton paused, looking up at her as he squatted down to shove the sword under a pile of harness at the corner of the yard, and Marcella wondered if she’d ever get the full story.

 

“
I
S
it over?”

Marcella could hear the question being asked everywhere as the blood was cleared away and people came creeping back to their daily lives. “Is it over?” Not just a matter of the bloodshed being over, or Vitellius’s reign being over.
Is it
all
over?

Rome was silent. Plebs scurried hastily back to their bolted homes, blood dried in the gutters, slaves who had fled their masters in panic crept shamefacedly back. The Cornelii family home was a wreck, the furniture smashed or stolen, half the statues broken, the doors gaping wide. The house of Lollia’s grandfather had fared better—his wine cellar was empty, but the task of emptying it had clearly distracted the looting soldiers, who had otherwise left the house untouched except for a few broken statues, sundry small stolen valuables, and a wrecked mosaic in the entrance hall. “And the mosaic,” Lollia said affectionately, “can be blamed on Diana the Huntress here. You must all stay with me until everything else is put in order, of course—”

“Not me,” said Cornelia. She was still pale with the nausea she couldn’t quite seem to shake off, but she threw her
palla
over her head and started resolutely for the door. “I’m going to find Drusus.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Marcella wondered, then blinked as her cousins both turned and eyed her a little oddly. “What?”

“You didn’t guess?” Lollia raised her eyebrows. “It’s plain as the nose on Cornelia’s face.”

“
What
is?”

“She’s pregnant.” Diana said. “Mares get that same look. Edgy.”

“Why didn’t she tell me?” Marcella complained.

“You never tell anybody anything,” Lollia pointed out. “Why should we?”

“But she’s my sister!” Marcella accosted Cornelia as soon as she returned the following day, her eyes soft and shining. “You could have told me your news, Cornelia.”

Cornelia looked puzzled. “Why?” But Marcella forgot to be annoyed with her when Cornelia relayed some different news: Vitellius, beyond all shadow of a doubt, was dead. “No one seems to know quite how it happened,” Cornelia winced. “He hid in the stables and a mob tore him to pieces, or he was paraded out on the palace steps and beheaded—but however he died, they threw his body down the Gemonian Stairs. Drusus saw it.”

Marcella saw Diana bow her head. And later, she went out with a black veil over her hair and came back with a somber face. “What have you been doing?”

“I bought a little medallion for the Blues,” said Diana, “and I buried it at the foot of the Gemonian Stairs. Vitellius would have liked that.” She scrubbed her hands down the front of her dress. “He’d better appreciate it—that’s the first and last time I ever buy a Blues medallion. Maybe we’ll race our teams together in the afterlife.”

“So what
did
Vitellius say to you before he died?” Marcella urged.

Diana gave her a long contemptuous look.

“I’ll just get it from someone else, you know.”

“Not from me,” said Diana, yanking the black veil off her hair and stamping off.

Vitellius gone
, Marcella thought. He’d lasted the longest of all three emperors that year, and now there was a fourth. The Senate had certainly wasted no time acclaiming Vespasian, and all the provinces were united behind him. His brilliant elder son, little Flavia’s father Titus, was marching to take control of the chastened eastern legions, and Vespasian himself was supposedly only weeks behind. Domitian was already being feted as a prince of Rome at the Domus Aurea. Marcella saw him two days after returning to the city, striding like a conqueror through Lollia’s atrium with six Praetorians marching smartly behind.

“I heard you were back.” His eyes flew past the slaves, whom Marcella had been supervising as they swept up the broken tiles of the mosaic. “I had my guards watching for you.”

“As you can see, I’m safe.” Marcella waved the slaves away, giving Domitian a curved smile. “And so are you.” He’d survived, she heard, by skulking in the Temple of Isis among the worshipers until the violence was over. Not terribly brave, perhaps, but prudent.

“I’m prince of Rome now—did you hear?” He had the Imperial purple stripe on his tunic already. “I told you I’d be prince someday.”

“Well, you’re not Rome’s only prince,” Marcella said lightly. “When does your brother arrive with his armies? I suppose your father will pronounce him heir . . .”

“Don’t count on it,” Domitian scowled, and, trapping Marcella in his arms, he kissed her. She let him plaster kisses on her neck for a while, wondering how long this obsession of his was going to last now that he was a member of the Imperial family and could have any woman he wanted.
I might have the best breasts in Rome, but now he has
all
the breasts in Rome to choose from.
Well, Domitian had had his uses, but Marcella thought she wouldn’t be entirely sorry when his eye wandered on to someone new. Perhaps she could find another man to nurture along in some interesting new direction. Someone older than Domitian, more intelligent and promising . . .

Vespasian’s older son, Titus, arrived a week later with the first of the eastern legions and proceeded to restore order, efficiently preparing the celebrations that would welcome his father to Rome in another few weeks. Titus: Marcella’s mental pen sketched him thoughtfully. Perhaps ten years older than Domitian, black-eyed and ruddy-faced like his brother but with a constant smile instead of his brother’s scowl.

“Titus was always the nicest of my husbands.” Lollia wrinkled her nose affectionately at Titus’s stocky figure as he strode into the Senate house in the armor he wore like a second skin. “I hardly ever saw him, but he was always kind. He’s already sent me a message, saying of course he won’t take Flavia away from me to raise now that he’s back in Rome. He just wants me to bring her for a visit soon, so she can meet his other daughter. Julia, I think her name is. I’m sure they’ll be great friends, just like all of us. Sisters need each other. But wasn’t that nice of Titus to take a moment to put my mind at ease with everything else he has going on? He was always splendid, but never too grand to be kind. Not like Domitian—royal or not he’s just a pimply black-eyed thug.” She shuddered. “Always sneaking into the bathhouse when he was younger, trying to watch me bathing. Is he still in love with you, Marcella?”

“Not for long, I’m sure.”

Titus declared the formal resumption of trade in Rome, and with such reassurances Lollia’s grandfather was back in a trice from Ostia. He was ordering new mosaics and new wine barrels before he even got through the door, and within two days he hosted a lavish banquet to cultivate every contact he had with the new Emperor. The guest of honor was little Flavia. “She’s a person of importance now,” Lollia’s grandfather said happily the following day, watching his great-granddaughter drive Diana around his atrium on all fours, lashing a long-stemmed lily for a driving whip. “Granddaughter to the Emperor! Lollia, my jewel, there’s not an ambitious man in Rome who doesn’t want to be Flavia’s newest stepfather. I’ve had inquiries already for your hand, and vetted every suitor—not a man among them to lay a hand on you! You could have your pick, and we might arrange a wedding in the new year—”

“No one ever offered me my pick of suitors,” Marcella complained. “It was just ‘Here’s a husband for you; I hope you have a dress; be ready in a week.’ ”

But Lollia wasn’t listening, just giving a deep dreamy smile as Thrax came into the atrium, scooping up Flavia and scolding her softly.

“Thanks.” Diana sat back on her heels, spitting out the ribbon Flavia had strung between her teeth for a bridle. “I’ve got more sympathy for my team now.”

Diana was back with her father, who had returned to the city lugging a just-begun bust of the new Emperor. Gaius and Tullia were slower to return, so slow Cornelia had the house entirely tidied by the time they came back. Small thanks she got for it, Marcella thought, since Tullia embarked at once on the rant over Cornelia’s ruined morals that had been so inconveniently interrupted by the invasion of Rome.

“I’m afraid that will have to wait, Tullia.” Cornelia fixed Gaius with a stern gaze. “Brother, I need to speak with you.” Doors closed firmly behind them.

“And I should inspect the house!” Tullia clicked off down the hall. “Though what condition it’s in, I don’t like to think—if that slut Cornelia can’t keep her own morals in order, I shudder to think what she’s made of my spare rooms.”

“Actually, everything looks perfect,” Marcella said as Tullia bustled upstairs. “Though doubtless you’ll still find something to complain about.”

“Just wait till I tell Gaius!” Tullia’s voice floated down the stairs. “Not two minutes home, and you’re picking quarrels!”

“Only with you, Tullia. Only with you.”

They had a guest within the day: Senator Marcus Norbanus, released from prison now and come to collect little Paulinus. “Marcus!” Marcella greeted him gaily. “Delightful to see you again.”

“Delightful to see anything that isn’t a stone cell.” He looked around the atrium with its square of winter sunlight and glassy pool. His hair, only threaded with gray at the beginning of the year, had gone entirely iron-colored, and he had a bracket of harsh lines about his mouth. “Are you hurt?” Marcella asked, noticing him limp as she waved him to a bench.

“A broken shoulder from my arrest,” he said briefly, releasing Paulinus’s plump little hand and pushing him gently to go play. “The guards weren’t gentle. It was never set properly, and now I find it pulls me off-balance.”

“I’m sorry, Marcus.”

“It would have been far worse without that doctor your cousin Lollia smuggled in for me.” Marcus rotated the crooked shoulder, smiling wryly.

“Lollia sent you a doctor?” Marcella blinked.

“Yes, along with food baskets and jugs of good wine. I hate to think what it must have cost her in bribes. Your sister was also kind enough to visit a few times, to give me news about Paulinus.” Marcus smiled again, fond. “And your mad little cousin Diana came every week, smuggling just about every book I owned under her dress, just to keep my mind from rotting away with boredom”

I suppose I should have thought to visit myself
, Marcella thought. Dethroning an emperor had been so time-consuming. Perhaps she could do something for Marcus now, since he was out of prison. He really looked very distinguished in his toga—the crooked shoulder could hardly be seen, and his eyes were as penetrating and intelligent as ever.
Senator Marcus Norbanus, descendant of Emperor Augustus . . .
such an intelligent man, so respected in the Senate, with a consulship already to his credit at the age of thirty-three. Respected enough that three successive emperors this year had feared his influence. Surely he was bitter about the misfortunes they’d inflicted on him.

“So everything seems to have gone back to normal,” she remarked brightly. “I wonder if it really has.”

Marcus watched his son, splashing his hands in the atrium’s pool. “One hopes.”

“Four emperors! Fortuna, I wonder what Vespasian will be like.” Marcella fanned herself, artless. “None of them could hold a candle to you, in my opinion.”

“Really?” His eyes still followed little Paulinus.

“Yes, and I’m not the only one to think you might have made a fine Emperor. Certainly Galba and Otho and Vitellius were worried about the prospect. Isn’t it a pity that—”

“Stop,” said Marcus.

“What?” Marcella smiled. “Stop what?”

“I don’t know. But stop it.” Marcus looked at her, and his eyes were cool and measuring. “I’ve always admired you, Marcella—you’re an intelligent woman, after all, and I like intelligent women. But I find I don’t like you anymore, and I don’t precisely know why. Perhaps it’s just my feeling that you’re a schemer.”

Marcella’s lips parted, but for once she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“Good day to you.” Marcus rose, holding out a hand, and little Paulinus came running to his side. “Don’t visit.”