Julia, Helena, and the other elders were more than happy to leave the running of it all to Regina, but it was trivial compared to the challenge of running Artorius’s dunon and his haphazard kingdom. She introduced her own subtle innovations. She stuck to her Celtae calendar, for instance; though she had once protested at its barbarian obscurity, she had grown used to its way of thinking.

And in her new work, she was happy her own objectives were being fulfilled. She had never found a situation over which she had had so much control—never such an opportunity to achieve safety and security for Brica and herself. Indeed, in a sense the Order, dominated by her own relatives, was itself like an extension of her family.

She had little interest in Julia, though.

After that first meeting with her mother, and after she and Brica had moved into the estate, it seemed that some tension within her had been relieved. This introverted old woman had little to do with Regina’s own vibrant memories of childhood. Sometimes, though, she caught Julia watching her, as if her arrival had stirred up guilt or remorse that she had thought was long buried. If so, Regina would shed no tears.

And anyhow, Julia was not the center of the family. She was—she and the matres, who were with her now as they had always been.

In the morning—the day of the ceremonies—the news was not good.

The last barbarian assault on Rome had come a mere three years before, in the shape of the Huns under their squat and brutal leader Attila, “the Scourge of God.” Pope Leo had met Attila in his headquarters, and had persuaded him to spare the city. But now even the pope, it seemed, could not find a way to persuade the Vandals to turn back.

Despite the ominous news, Regina was determined that her day of celebration would go ahead.

It had begun, in fact, the evening before, when Brica had come to Regina’s room. It was a tradition for a bride to surrender the relics of her childhood, her toys and childish clothes, to the gods of the lararium. But nothing of Brica’s childhood had come with them to Rome. So they cut a lock of her hair, tied it up, and burned it before the matres. Mother and daughter spent the evening quietly, and retired early, with barely a word passing between them, as they had spent so many evenings before.