“Children running up and down the rows,” Cornelia said. Easy to imagine them, little girls with dirty feet and little boys throwing grapes at each other . . . A painful thought, and she put down the pear.

“Cornelia—” Drusus picked up her hand, straddling the bench.

“No, I’m all right.” She looked out over the terrace. “I just always assumed I’d have children, running all over a house just like this. But I assumed I’d be Empress too, and look how that turned out.”

He looked as if he wanted to say more, but he just leaned forward and folded her in his arms. Cornelia looked over his shoulder at the blue sea beyond the terrace, blinking a little.

She managed to stretch ten days into two weeks, sending Tullia complaint-filled messages of dawdling workmen and chipped tiles. Two weeks of sunlight and blue water and lovemaking as October slipped past—and then it was over.

Drusus had the news first, from a gibbering fruit seller when he went down to buy breakfast: Caecina Alienus had turned traitor and joined the Moesian legions. His men were disorganized, slaughtered on the field after ten hours of battle. The city of Cremona had been sacked and destroyed . . . and now the victorious legions were marching on Rome.

“I wonder how many men Vitellius can muster to protect the city?” Cornelia asked without curiosity, standing on the terrace with her arms wrapped around her own waist. “My sister will be sure to know.”

Drusus picked up her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. “We can’t stay here. A place so isolated, no guards—if the army came to Tarracina—”

“Yes.” She forced a smile. “My family will expect me to come back, anyway. Though they might not stay long in the city, themselves.”

“Only wise.” Drusus forced a little cheer into his voice. “Get out of the city altogether, somewhere safe. Where would you all go?”

“Brundisium, maybe. We have a villa there, and it’s sure to be a long way from the fighting . . .”

“Brundisium,” said Drusus. “That’s—far.” Hundreds of miles to the south.

They stood on the circular white-marbled terrace, the shadows stretching over the cushioned couches, the sea washing violet below, the sky a deepening twilight blue. Dinner cooled on a tray. Cornelia felt sick, remembering the other half of what Lollia had said when she urged a vacation:

It will give you something nice to remember when everything goes to Hades.

Will it go to Hades? Cornelia had asked.

Oh, my honey. It always does.