“Was I? It’s my fault you were flogged, Thrax, all my fault—I should have known Fabius would hurt you if he found out—”

“You were kind to me,” Thrax repeated stubbornly. His accent was stronger now as he struggled for words. “Always kind. You asked my name. Asked about my family—my sister. Said ‘Thank you’ when I got you things.”

“What does that matter?”

“Owners, they—I’ve had three, since I was ten. All three, they bought me for prettiness, but—” He gave an awkward shrug. “They used me, hard. You were kind. Are kind.”

Lollia could hardly bear to meet his eyes, they were so full of light.

“I didn’t look out for you, with Fabius,” she managed to say. “But I’m doing it now, Thrax. You’ll take Flavia now, and you’ll get to safety.”

“Domina—”

“There’s no one else I trust my daughter to, Thrax.” Lollia looked up at him. “Please—take care of her.”

“Like she’s mine,” he said simply. “Sometimes I pretend she is mine.”

Lollia reached up and cupped his cheek in her hand. “When this is over, I will find your sister and I will buy her, and any other family you still have, and I will bring them all here for you.”

He turned his face against her hand, kissing the palm. Lollia hesitated for a moment, thinking of Fabius and his whip and the blood flying in sprays across a flower-filled atrium—but Fabius was dead now, beheaded in Urvinum, and for what he’d done to Thrax, Lollia hoped the headsman had been drunk and taken at least ten messy strokes to get Fabius’s foul screaming head off his neck. A hundred strokes. But fast death or slow, he was dead; she was a widow twice in one year—and for once this wasn’t adultery. So Lollia put her hands on Thrax’s shoulders and stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and pushed him to sit on a barrel of salted herring as she climbed into his lap. He knew a hundred different ways to please her by now, but this time she wanted to please him, and she pushed his hands away. She moved slowly, slowly as she could, and he gripped her hard and the words he muttered into her hair were in his own language. She knew the last word, though. “Lollia,” he gasped against her throat, shuddering, and Lollia held him a moment longer. The first time he ever called me by name.

“We’d better go,” she said softly.