Lollia kept scowling and muttering as her maids disposed of the broken mirror and began draping her curls with the red bridal veil. Cornelia just lay back on the couch, smiling up at the carved blue marble ceiling and jingling the bangles on her wrist. She’d put on a bright yellow dress for the wedding, stacked gold bracelets on both arms, and gathered her dark hair into a gold circlet dipping low on the forehead. She’d put her black off the minute she heard the news of Otho’s death. The minute she knew Piso was avenged.

Cornelia drank a silent toast to that now, emptying her cup of summer-light rose wine in a gulp, and rose restlessly. “Let me fix your hair, Lollia. Those plaits aren’t straight in back.”

“Have at it. I suppose I should be grateful you’re at least talking to me again.”

“Well, I’ve come to see it wasn’t your fault,” Cornelia said generously, repinning Lollia’s unruly plaits. “Supporting Otho, I mean. It wasn’t your idea to marry his brother, after all.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Lollia said shortly. “So you’d better not be expecting an apology, because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

They eyed each other a moment in the looking glass the maids had brought to replace the broken one. Lollia yanked a stray thread out of her sleeve with unnecessary force. Cornelia slid a jeweled pin into the piled red curls. “Will the Emperor be coming to your wedding feast?” she murmured, conciliatory.

“He’d better,” Lollia scowled. “Two hundred thousand sesterces my grandfather spent on the feast, all because Vitellius has a taste for delicacies. The cooks are in an uproar.”

Cornelia thought of the newest Emperor’s pleasant beefy face. Vitellius had taken a slow triumphal procession through Italy after the victory at Bedriacum, stopping in every town to be feted and feasted. Spring had fluttered away into a liquid, molten summer before Vitellius made his entry into Rome: walking along on foot, followed by the proud eagles of the legions, the legionaries in smart formation, the German auxiliaries in their wolf skins. Cornelia had stared eagerly at the new Emperor as he climbed the Capitol to make a sacrifice to Jupiter for his victory: a tall man with a slight limp, massive shouldered and massive bellied, ruddy-faced and beaming. A big, rugged, good-natured sportsman. Not a treacherous perfumed sophisticate like Otho.

“—know if Diana will even come today?” Lollia was grumbling. “She’s gotten very strange. Keeps disappearing and coming back with bruises all over. Well, maybe it’s better if she doesn’t come. Emperor Vitellius is a Blues fan, and we don’t want her cursing him to his face.” Lollia tilted her head, regarding her rouged cheeks in the mirror. “Will Marcella come, at least?”