“If the gods are good.” Lollia stared at the mossy green nymph in the middle of the fountain, tossing up the water with her cupped stone hands. Little Flavia perched humming on the nymph’s stone feet, but Lollia didn’t smile. “If the gods are very good, he won’t come back.”

“Even if he does come back, he won’t last long,” Cornelia found herself saying. A year ago she would have thought it improper to make such a remark even to a cousin, but a year ago everything had been different. “Men like Fabius Valens fall from favor. And after that, your grandfather will find you someone better.”

“Or maybe I could just stay divorced for a while. I’m so tired of weddings.”

A shriek of delight—Flavia lost her footing and fell with a splash into the fountain. She came up giggling, her dress soaked through. “I’m wet,” she said gleefully.

“I see you are.” Lollia rose and waded toward her, but a voice sounded from behind.

“Out of the fountain, Mistress Flavia. We get you dry.”

A big golden Gaul in a knee-length kilt loped out into the little garden with a towel, and Flavia scrambled out and held up her arms to be rubbed dry. As the slave turned, Cornelia saw the vivid purple lash marks half healed across his back.

“I’m glad he didn’t die of his beating,” she said to Lollia, who had lifted her feet self-consciously out of the fountain.

“Yes, I made sure Grandfather got him the best care.” Lollia became absorbed in relacing her sandals. “He’s Flavia’s body slave now. She adores him.”

“I can see that.” Cornelia watched as Thrax enveloped Flavia in a towel, flicking a drop of water from the tip of her small nose. “Pity about the scars, though. His value will go down, with his looks spoiled like that.”

“I don’t think they’re spoiled at all,” Lollia said. “I like a few scars on a man.”

“He’s just a slave,” Cornelia said automatically. But she saw the way Flavia clung to him when he picked her up, the way he smoothed her wet curls out of her eyes.

“Inside, little one,” he said in his deep Gaul-accented voice. “You take your bath like a good girl, and I tell you a story.”

“The one about the fishes and the loaves!” Flavia played with the rough little wooden cross about his neck. “I looked for loaves in the fountain next to the fishes, but there aren’t any.”

“You want loaves, you have to really believe.” Thrax’s eyes flicked across Lollia’s as he bowed, and then he carried Flavia inside.

“Is he teaching that child some strange religion?” Cornelia wondered. “Loaves and fishes—”