She retreated back into the litter, snapping the silk curtains shut with a soundless laugh. Who would ever have guessed that an eighteen-year-old boy with a hopeless case of puppy love could be so useful? Domitian was all on fire with anticipation now that the two armies were approaching each other: one minute crowing that he’d be made prince when his father was crowned Emperor, the next minute envisioning the brutal defeat of all his father’s hopes. For herself, Marcella felt quite calm. She had nothing invested in either side, after all. I just want to see what will happen.

Though if she’d been one to bet, she’d put her coin on Alienus turning traitor . . . Marcella had met with him five or six times before his march, and he’d been wary of her at first, but she’d introduced him to Domitian, passed on two or three rumors about the northern troop movements that proved true, and slowly Alienus had begun to listen when she spoke of Vespasian’s need for clever men and the rewards that would be his to give out if he became Emperor. “It’s all up to you now, isn’t it?” she’d whispered when Alienus was named commander of Vitellius’s armies over the bedridden Fabius. “You could be Vespasian’s kingmaker. He wouldn’t forget that. Not like Vitellius has already forgotten you.”

“He didn’t forget me. He gave me his army—”

“Only when his right-hand man was unavailable. Don’t you want to be the right-hand man for a change?”

Alienus hadn’t committed himself when he left Rome with his army, but Marcella knew. He’ll turn, she thought. He’ll hesitate, but in the end he’ll turn—and he’ll take the army with him.

She looked down at her hands, trembling in her lap. Not fear, though: intoxication. She hadn’t known that the terror and the excitement would war so fiercely in her stomach, that her palms would be sweaty, that she’d have to fight to keep her voice level. And she hadn’t known what a wave, what a surge of satisfaction would sweep through her tingling body when she saw the thoughtful glitter in Alienus’s eyes.

Of course, anything might still go wrong. Battles were unpredictable things. But if Alienus turned, if he managed to turn his army over to Vitellius’s rival, if Vespasian took the purple because of it . . . well, Alienus wouldn’t be the kingmaker. That title would belong to Cornelia Secunda, known as Marcella!

She still looked at her histories from time to time, but the words all seemed lifeless on the page. Why had she ever slaved over those flat, dead accounts? I’m working on something much better than a scroll now.