“It’s Dominus,” she mumbled.

Suddenly Lollia felt cold. “Fabius? Where is he? What is he doing?”

“In the atrium—please, Domina, we couldn’t—”

Another crack. This time Lollia heard a scream. She picked up her skirt and ran, Flavia trotting at her heels. No, no, it can’t be—but it was.

It was Thrax.

He stood naked against a pillar in the atrium, his arms jerked up high and lashed around the column. For a moment Lollia thought he was wearing a red cloak, but of course he wasn’t. His back was in ribbons, crossed by lashes, streaming blood in a dozen places. Blood runneled down his legs, dripping on his feet. As she stopped, appalled, Fabius brought the whip down across his back again.

Thrax gave a muffled cry through clenched teeth, and it loosened Lollia’s feet. She flew across the atrium, seizing Fabius’s arm as he drew the whip back again. “No, no, what are you doing, you can’t—”

Fabius sent her spinning with a shove. She crashed into an ornamental stone bench and fell to her knees. He snarled, teeth bared, but he was smiling too and it filled her bones with horror. “No one beds my wife but me,” he said, and he turned and brought the whip down across Thrax’s shoulders.

Thrax screamed. Lollia struggled to her feet, grabbing for the whip as Fabius drew back again. He hit her in the throat, hard and accurately, and she collapsed, gagging. Fabius seized her hair and hauled her back up, his eyes blazing a bare inch away.

“I catch you in another man’s bed again,” he whispered, “and it’ll be you under the lash. You understand me?”

“Yes,” Lollia whimpered. She could hear Thrax gulping in long breaths that sounded like sobs. “Yes, I understand.”

“Good.” He studied her another long moment, hand still wrapped in her hair, and then he staggered. Flavia had thrown herself against his side, pounding with her little fists as high as she could reach. He knocked her aside with one slap, and she crashed into a stone urn of lilies.

“Flavia!” Lollia lunged for her daughter, but the hand in her hair snapped her up short. Fabius held her a moment longer, the whip still dangling from his hand, and then he threw her away. Lollia crashed to her knees on the tiles and crawled to her child, who lay huddled and quietly crying.

Fabius threw the whip aside with a soft rattle. Dimly Lollia saw him surveying Thrax, a bloody mess against the column. “Get rid of this filth,” he ordered, and then she heard boots retreating down the long pillared hall.