“Then we should flee too. The fighting around the Campus Martius is bad, and it’s worse by the Colline Gate. We’ll get out now, back to the slums—no one will bother bringing the fighting to the slums—”

“I can’t.” She shook her head. “My brother fled, but my sister and cousins are all here in the city. If they need to flee, they might come here—”

“Then we barricade ourselves in.” He went through the house like a one-man legion, barring doors, curtaining windows, dragging heavy shelves and barrels before the gate.

Cornelia watched him. “Drusus . . .”

“What?” He pushed his sweat-damp hair off his broad forehead. He was bare-armed in a rough tunic, his gladius belted at his waist again.

She smiled. “Nothing.” Let him barricade; it gave him something to do.

He dropped down on the couch at her side, taking her fingers and plaiting them with his own. “Your note—you said your brother found out? Is that why he refused to take you? I’ll flog him around the city, abandoning his sister like that—”

“No, I refused to go. But he did find out. Not about you, but that I’ve been—” A shrug. “Disgracing myself, he put it.”

“I’m sorry—” Drusus began, but Cornelia laid a finger over his mouth.

“Sshh. I’m glad you’re here.”

“I won’t leave you till it’s safe.” He wrapped her in his arms, hugging her close against the warmth of his chest, and the words trembled on her lips again. Drusus, I should have had my bleeding when we came back from Tarracina two months ago, but I didn’t. Drusus, I never used any of Lollia’s Egyptian tricks because I thought I was barren. Drusus, I was married eight years without any sign of a child, but now—now I think I am pregnant.

She felt the pressure of his sword against her side and bit the words back. It was too late to tell, too late to flee—too late to do anything, this violent Saturnalia afternoon, but wait.

PULLING her palla up over her hair, Diana shifted into a swift jog. She’d seen Llyn move like a wolf in a ground-eating lope, and she certainly couldn’t match him, but she was still fast and fit after so many months of driving his horses. Just a quick scout through the streets and she’d go back for Lollia, who sat stitching halfheartedly on a bit of embroidery in the big empty atrium of her grandfather’s house and trying to keep calm. All morning they’d waited in restless silence, thinking the city gates couldn’t possibly be breached. But by noon the Milvian Gate had broken, and the Colline Gate, and enemy troops were forcing their way in.