Who knows what I’ll become in another year or two? Marcella thought. Mistress of my own household? Published historian? Owner of just the occasional hour or two of privacy?

No. That was too much to hope for.

Two

Two

SHOULDN’T we be going?” Piso retied the lace of his sandal, frowning. “The races will have started by now.”

“But we aren’t going to the circus for the races.” Cornelia shuffled a dozen different lists as a bevy of anxious slave girls hovered at her elbow. Their atrium was a hive of activity: litter-bearers waiting outside to carry them to the Circus Maximus, maids with Cornelia’s sunshade and fan, freedmen with Piso’s correspondence and cloak. “We’re going to the circus to let people see us, and we’re going to make an entrance. You’re a public figure now, and public figures have a duty to make an impression on the populace. The right impression—here, take these.”

Piso shuffled through the armload of tablets and scrolls. “The household accounts?”

“Just shuffle them importantly between races.” Cornelia smiled at him over her lists. “The responsible Imperial heir, tending to matters of state even on a festival day.”

“I’m not Imperial heir yet,” he said reprovingly, but his eyes smiled at her as he took the accounts.

November was passing in a storm of winds and blown leaves, and with it the Ludi Plebii, the games of the people. Cornelia didn’t care for the games, but Diana had spoken of nothing else for days. “It won’t be a proper festival,” she complained. “Galba is too tightfisted to give any good purses, which means all the charioteers will save their horses for the races at Saturnalia instead.”

“Even your precious Reds?” Cornelia couldn’t help teasing her.

“The Reds don’t run for a purse,” Diana flashed back. “They run for glory. You will come, won’t you?”

“Better the races than watching the gladiators die in the arena.” Cornelia detested the gladiatorial festivals. It made her sick to see so many people—from good families too! Not just plebeians—stand there shrieking for blood. The races, now, they had turned into something quite different from the staid laps of her childhood. Emperor Nero had been mad for racing—or perhaps just mad—and Cornelia might deplore the money he had spent, but there was no denying that the result was impressive. The Circus Maximus was now a proper arena with a central spina thick in carvings, golden dolphins dropping their noses for each of the seven laps, sprays of victory palm for the winning charioteers. A place to see and be seen . . . and who better to be seen by all Rome than her husband?

“Domina,” a maid said breathlessly, tumbling into the blue-tiled atrium, “the wine has been delivered to your box at the Circus Maximus.”