Lollia beat her way through the crowd in her flashing silver tissue and claimed Marcella’s arm. “For once, my honey, I’m the one with the news.” She was smiling, their last quarrel during the dress fittings apparently forgotten. “Ride with me and I’ll torture you with it.”

“What news?” They settled into Lollia’s litter—much bigger and more ornate, now that she had married into the Imperial family.

“It’s your husband,” Lollia said as the litter rose swaying and the bearers swung down the street. Marcella couldn’t help but remember the last time they’d ridden in a litter together, when they’d been spilled out by a mob and had to run for their lives. “I heard Lucius backslapping with the Emperor’s officers. The Emperor offered him a post here in the city, but he angled for one in the upcoming campaign instead.”

“As what?” Marcella snorted. “Paid mooch?”

“As observer to the battle.” Lollia waved a vague hand as the litter joined the slow procession crawling back through the palace grounds. “Message running and so forth. Whatever it is that observers do during battles.”

“Knowing Lucius, it won’t involve getting his hands dirty.”

“At least this gets him out of your hair, doesn’t it? I thought you’d be happy.”

“I suppose.” Observer to the battle, though . . . much more my line than Lucius’s. He only bothered observing anything that would boost him up the ladder to a higher post.

“Thank the gods war is men’s business.” Lollia shuddered as their litter was set down at last, at the marble steps mounting toward the gardens of the Domus Aurea. Lamps glowed like golden bubbles and slaves were already streaming out with rosewater foot baths in silver ewers. “All the mud, the legionaries, the danger—”

“And the chance to see history,” Marcella mused. “The clash of an emperor and a usurping emperor, armies deciding the fate of Rome—how wonderful to see all that.”

“Wonderful?” Lollia eyed her a little oddly. “It’ll be men dying, thousands of men on both sides. It will be horrible.”

“At least it will be real.” Suddenly irritated, Marcella cast a glance over Lollia’s jewels, her powdered skin, the wine cup in her hand. “Some of us prefer real life to parties and wine.”

“I wasn’t the one who didn’t want to get my hands dirty helping plebs during the flooding,” Lollia said tartly.

“Yes, you were very keen on that as long as you could get away from your husband for a few hours and take your pet Gaul with you. Very admirable, Lollia.”