“Was it properly warmed? Last time the steward had it boiling—Lollia’s grandfather gave me the pick of his own cellars for the occasion,” Cornelia explained to Piso. “Falernian, Aminean, Nomentan—”

“With his breeding, you’d think he’d drink common beer.” Piso made a face. “He’s vulgar as Hades.”

“Oh, surely not. He has exquisite taste. Not one of our friends or relations has anything to match his house, or his collection of statues, or his wine cellar.”

“Yes, and that’s my point. Freed slaves should live modestly, not flaunt themselves higher than their birth.”

“Well, he has been very helpful to us,” Cornelia murmured. More than helpful, really—Lollia’s grandfather was extremely generous with gifts, and there was no denying that his assistance in other areas had been invaluable. Piso’s family had been hard hit under Nero’s suspicious eye, and even Claudius’s before that—she and Piso would never have kept their house and assets if not for a few timely loans. . . .

“It’s still not fitting.” Piso frowned, and Cornelia tactfully changed the subject. Her husband, she knew, liked things in their place—patricians of good blood and family in the Senate, equites to serve them, plebs to serve them, and freed slaves who showed proper appreciation for their station in life. Freedmen as rich as Midas who had to be applied to for loans had no place in Piso’s orderly vision of Rome. Cornelia patted his arm brightly and turned to the maids. “Leda, Zoe, did you arrange the ivy and the larkspur in the box as I showed you?”

“Yes, Domina—”

Cornelia had been up by dawn, flitting to the Circus Maximus to set her slave girls to work on the Cornelii family box: an enclosed marble space perched high in the tiers with a breathtaking view of the track’s hairpin turn below. The arena attendants had been raking the sand of the track, and pale fingers of sunlight stretching over the top of the tiers, when Cornelia set the slaves to work. Flowers, swags of ivy, silver platters and gold wine cups—she’d give her guests more than just a good view. She’d give them a bower, a last breath of summer in the pale blue coolness of autumn. The slaves had been flying about the box like bees by the time she raced back to the house, her hair coming down and her cheeks pink with excitement, to prepare herself and her husband for their grand entrance.

“What a general you are, my dear,” Piso said as she rearranged the folds of his toga over the shoulder. Of course he didn’t lean down and kiss her, not with slaves present, but his eyes crinkled approvingly. “And a beautiful general at that.”