“Grandfather didn’t do a thing. Fabius spent a few days sniffing out the city’s richest heiresses and came knocking right on my door. And Grandfather wasn’t pleased, I’ll have you know—he likes to check all my husbands out thoroughly, make sure they’re decent sorts before anyone starts talking wedding plans. But Vitellius gave his generals their pick of any bride in the city as rewards, so Grandfather didn’t have any choice in the matter and neither did I.” Lollia sighed. “Well, if it wasn’t Fabius Valens, it would just be somebody else.”

“A man of very little family,” Cornelia sniffed, but tolerantly. Fabius Valens might be a common adventurer but he was Vitellius’s right-hand man, the winning general of Bedriacum—the man who had defeated Otho.

“Vitellius thinks the world of him.” Lollia twisted a massive pearl-and-ruby ring into place. “We’re to live in the Domus Aurea for the time being, but Fabius has informed me he’ll have a palace of his own by the end of the week. I think he’s booting Senator Quintilius out of his huge new place on the Caelian Hill with all the water gardens.” She gave a little sigh. “He’s already turned some praetor out of a summer villa in Baiae. And he confiscated poor Salvius’s house in Brundisium.”

“Poor Salvius.” In the wake of Otho’s death, Cornelia could feel tolerant toward his brother. He’d returned to Rome with a great deal less swagger than he’d left it, small and ordinary without his brother’s cloak of power. “Not even cracking his knuckles anymore,” Lollia had said rather sadly. Vitellius let him live, at least for the time being, but everyone in Rome avoided his company. Lollia’s grandfather had prudently arranged a divorce for his little jewel, reclaiming her dowry down to its last aureus, and not two days later Fabius Valens came along and snapped her up.

“There.” Lollia surveyed herself without much joy. The maids clustered around her to add a final dusting of powder or a jeweled hairpin—her cosmetician, her hairdresser, her manicurist, her dresser, her seamstress, and the girl who looked after her skin; all arrayed like centurions with attending slave girls filed behind like legionaries, and all beaming pride in their handiwork. “Don’t I look marvelous.” Lollia made a face, but she passed out coins freely among all the maids. “Sorry about the mirror. You all go have yourselves a day off. Likely it’ll be a better day than mine.”

Cornelia flicked her cup aside and followed Lollia out. For three of Lollia’s previous weddings, she had acted as bridal escort. But now it was Tullia who stood waiting for Lollia with the rest of the bridal party, fussing with her coral silks and snapping at her four-year-old son Paulinus.