“Because I want my daughter out of Rome,” Lollia said grimly.

“The house in Ostia,” her grandfather relented after another hour of browbeating. “Is that far enough for you, my jewel? We’ll leave in two days—”

“No, you go tomorrow. Take Flavia. I’ll go with Cornelia and Marcella and Uncle Paris when they leave for Brundisium.”

“Aren’t they going with Gaius and Tullia?” Lollia’s grandfather winced. “That woman has a voice like a cart over flagstones.”

“I’m sure I can put up with it for a few days.”

Lies, of course. Lollia had no intention of going with Gaius and Tullia to Brundisium, and she knew Cornelia and Marcella didn’t either. They would stay together in Rome, and Lollia couldn’t help wondering why. Well, Cornelia would stay because of patrician duty, and Marcella would stay because of boundless curiosity. But why me? Why didn’t she feel the urge to pack her jewels and her daughter and go with her grandfather to Ostia? A few weeks on his sunlit terrace overlooking the sea—playing with Flavia, celebrating her widowhood now that Fabius was dead, and waiting for the trouble in Rome to be over. Half the patricians in Rome were making discreet and speedy exits. Why not me?

Lollia didn’t know. Most of the time she prided herself on being practical, like her grandfather with his slave good sense . . . but she’d had a patrician father, and sometimes patrician duty bit her too.

She made soothing noises and set her grandfather to packing before he could change his mind. For herself, Lollia retired down to one of the storerooms to hide as many of his beautiful things as she could. His collection of African ivories, the lacquered bowls from India, the white and green jade figurines, the rare books in their inlaid cases . . . She had just filled one of his many hidden caches when she heard footsteps on the stairs.

“Domina?”

“Hello, Thrax.” Lollia picked up a malachite gaming board imported from Crete and packed it carefully away into another little paneled cupboard cut into the wall. She heard Thrax descending the last step, coming into the dim coolness of the storeroom.

“The steward—he says you won’t go to Ostia, Domina?”

“No, I won’t.” She looked at a marble nymph—too tall for the cupboard. “Shouldn’t you be helping Flavia pack, Thrax? Make sure she takes her jade menagerie animals and her pearls. They’re her favorite things.”

He ignored that, coming closer. Lollia had never seen him agitated before, but now his hands were clenching at his sides. “Domina, you won’t be safe here.”

“Oh, I won’t be here in Rome. I’ll be leaving for Brundisium with my cousins—”

Thrax gave a sharp shake of his head. “Lie. I know you, Domina.”

“It appears you do,” Lollia said wryly. “Well, don’t worry about me. No one will dare sack Rome.”