Cornelia staggered then as Tullia flew across the room and began raining slaps wildly down around her head. “Selfish slut—you need a husband; one of Fabius’s favorites could protect this family—we’re all on a precipice with emperors changing every month! Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are?”

“I’m not you,” Cornelia managed to say, warding off the slaps. “I’m not a whore.”

Tullia began to choke and weep, her face the color of a pomegranate, and Gaius pulled her off. The slaves rushed in making soothing noises, and Cornelia put her hands over her ears and walked out of the room. She went down the stairs again, past the staring slaves, past little Paulinus who with his father in prison was still trailing forlornly about the house. “Aunt Cornelia?” he said hopefully around his thumb, but though she would usually pick him up and fuss over him and spend an afternoon playing games with him, Cornelia just dropped a kiss on his forehead and kept walking, out the front door.

She walked past the bathhouse where she had so often met with Vitellius’s supporters, passing the information that helped put Vitellius on the throne and bring Fabius Valens to power. How stupid I was. An acquaintance called out from the bathhouse gate, a matron in a blue stola, and Cornelia turned in the opposite direction, down a narrow little street with cramped houses.

Maybe I’ll be exiled. She felt very calm and cold. Tullia was right; a man like Fabius Valens would be vindictive if Cornelia kept refusing him, would want revenge even if their family was in favor with the Emperor. Exile—a little island covered in sea grass, perhaps. At least it would be quiet. All Cornelia wanted was quiet. She heard the raucous voices of a forum somewhere up ahead and turned down another dim little side street.

If they make me marry that thug, I’ll kill myself on the wedding day. Diana can bring my head out to the ceremony, and he can kiss it if he wants, but that’s all he’ll get of me.