“Oh, why didn’t I just open a wine shop?” Nessus mumbled. He drew himself to his full height, but avoided her eyes. “I can’t help you, Lady. I’m sorry.”

“Then at least read my stars! Or my hand, if that’s faster—” You don’t believe in astrology, something inside Marcella mocked her, or in charlatans who read palms. But she shoved her hand at Nessus anyway. “Read my hand and tell Domitian he’s destined to divorce me in a month—”

“Oh no.” Nessus put his hands behind his back. “I read your hand once before, and that was enough. I was drunk for a week, and I nearly quit this business. No, thank you, Lady. You can figure out the future on your own.”

Marcella stared at him. “So why did you tell Domitian I was destined to be his Empress? Why?”

“Because you are,” Nessus said wearily, and turned away toward the atrium.

“That’s ridiculous!” Marcella started after him. Slaves fell away on each side, openly whispering now, and little Julia toddled along behind, trying to keep up. “You’re just telling Domitian what he wants to hear. You’re flattering him to keep your post, you’re a fake—”

“Yes, and I was happy that way.” Nessus rounded on her in the middle of the green-tiled atrium. “Telling people what they want to hear—it might not be noble, but it pays the bills and lets me sleep at night. Or it did. Then I ran across that blood-filled little hand of yours, and now it all comes true! All of it! Do you have any idea how inconvenient that is?”

“So read my hand again!” Marcella screamed. “Make something else come true!”

“I’m sorry, Lady, but it doesn’t work that way. You’re going to be Domitian’s wife, and you’re going to be Empress of Rome, and there’s nothing you or I or anybody else can do about it.”

Marcella’s lips parted, dry as parchment. Her mind was one great whirling blank. Little Julia caught up with her, twining pudgy baby fingers into her dress. Nessus looked down at the little girl and flinched.

“Look after that one,” he said tiredly. “If somebody doesn’t, her life is going to be as wretched as yours.”

He turned and stalked away, pushing past the crowd of petitioners who already waited in the atrium for a chance to see the prince of Rome’s new wife.

Marcella sat down suddenly in the middle of the tiled floor. “He’s lying. He’s lying.”

Little Julia climbed into her lap, cuddling against her stone-still shoulder. Marcella barely felt her. She was trying too desperately to believe her own lies.

Twenty-three

Twenty-three