He disappeared into one of the curtained alcoves, and Cornelia fled down the passage. She heard moans from behind the thin curtains, panting, rhythmic thumping. A man brushed past, adjusting his belt, and Cornelia fell gratefully into the last room and shut the door. You’re no innocent girl, she reminded herself. You know what a whorehouse is. But she still felt herself blushing, and looked hastily around the empty room.

It was small, painfully neat, chokingly hot. There was a narrow bed that sagged in the middle, a stool, an unlit lamp. A niche in the wall with two crude figurines. She picked them up. Mars and Minerva, gods of war and strategy. A soldier’s gods.

The door banged as Densus came in. Cornelia turned, still holding the little statues. “You live here.”

“Shocked, Lady?” He rummaged under the thin mattress.

“. . . No.”

“I throw out the customers if they get rough on the girls. In return, the madam lets me have the room.” He retrieved his short gladius from under the mattress.

“You kept that?”

“I earned it. Twelve years in the Praetorian Guards.” He scowled at the edge, rummaged under the mattress again, and came up with a whetstone.

She gestured at the little room around them. “You don’t decorate much, do you?” Striving for a little lightness.

“Keep anything here but the household gods and the bed, and it’ll get stolen.” He rasped the whetstone down the short blade. “The whores lift anything that isn’t nailed down.”

Cornelia sat on the rickety little stool. “Maybe you shouldn’t take me home. My family knows what you look like, and the slaves—someone might turn you in.”

“You could turn me in, Lady.” He tossed the whetstone aside.

“I won’t. And even if I did, I don’t think anyone would listen to me. I’m very unpopular with the Vitellians right now. At least some of them.”

“Are you a traitor too?” He turned his back on her, rummaging for his cloak.

“Maybe. Commander Valens wants me to marry one of his officers, you see.”

“That’s not treason.”

“It might be if you tell him to go to Hades.” Cornelia smiled, feeling very light inside somehow. “Maybe I’ll be arrested when I go home.”

“You can’t be arrested for refusing a marriage proposal, Lady.”

“You can now.” She shrugged. “You can be arrested for anything the Vitellians don’t like. So maybe you’d better steer clear.”

“I’m not giving your earrings back either way, so I might as well take you.” Densus turned, a rough brown cloak over one arm. “Let’s go.”

Cornelia looked up at him from the stool. “My sister was at Bedriacum. She said you fought very bravely.”

“It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

“They never should have accused you of treason.” Rising. “I know you didn’t sell Galba and Piso—”