Brica obviously expected Regina to oppose the match. But Regina kept her counsel. Even when Brica defiantly said she wished to marry the boy, Regina gave her blessing. She paid for a betrothal ceremony and banquet, and even provided a small dowry to Castor’s family. This would normally be paid by the bride’s father—and it had actually come out of Amator’s money, if unwillingly extracted.

Brica had to live; Regina accepted that. She had no desire to control her daughter’s every movement. It was enough that her own longer-term goals should be fulfilled. Even a wedding would not hamper that. After all, somebody would eventually have to be the father of Brica’s children, Regina’s grandchildren, and better a Roman boy with prospects than a doltish apprentice of Myrddin.

Besides, anything that encouraged Brica to learn better Latin must be a good thing.

It was more than three months after their arrival in Rome, as the leaves of summer had already begun to brown, that the mysterious package arrived for Regina. It was brought by a slim young girl with startling gray eyes, who would not leave her name.

The package contained a single brass token, which turned out to be for a seat in the amphitheater. There was no other label or note. Regina’s pulse hammered.

As she counted down the days before the show, her sleep was even more disturbed than usual.

On the appointed day, Regina set out early in the morning. As she walked through the dense streets, she felt as nervous as if she were seven years old again and approaching her mother’s bedroom, where Julia would be putting on her jewelry, and Carta would be fixing her hair.

And then she came upon the amphitheater itself. It was a tremendous wall of marble broken by four stories of colonnades, from which statues peered down at the thronging crowd. Her heart surged at its magnificence.

Her little token directed her to a numbered entrance. She had to walk a long way around the perimeter before she found the right one. Vendors worked the milling crowds, selling drinks, sweetmeats, hats, and favors for star performers. There were, she learned, a total of seventy-six entrances through which the crowd could be processed. There were also six unnumbered entrances, four for the Emperor’s party, and two for the use of the gladiators—one through which they would walk back to their barracks if they survived, and the other through which their corpses would be dragged out if not. But no gladiators fought to the death these days; the emperors had banned lethal contests some thirty years before, when a Christian martyr, righteously interposing himself between two warriors, had been killed by a mob eager for its ration of blood.