“Somehow I doubt that.” Cornelia smiled. The slave—freedman—stood quietly as Lollia tucked her hand into his arm, but his fingers caressed hers in silence. “Is that a new ring, Lollia?”

“Yes.” Lollia admired the plain iron band on the fourth finger of her left hand. “Isn’t it nice? Thrax gave it to me when I freed him.”

“What happens when your next husband puts a ring on that finger?” Cornelia said, amused.

“Oh, it can go on top. This one isn’t coming off.”

Diana sauntered up in a gold silk gown, draped high in front and baring her back nearly to the base of the spine. Her arm was looped companionably through that of a graying stoop-shouldered man in a toga, and it took Cornelia a moment to recognize Marcus Norbanus. “Marcus,” she exclaimed as he bowed over her hand. Prison had not been kind to him—Cornelia resolved at once to find him a nice wife. Now that she was married herself again, she wanted the whole world just as happy. “We’ll see you married next,” she told him.

“Oh, I think not. I seem to have bad luck with wives. That Nessus fellow everyone’s talking about ever since Domitian appointed him Imperial astrologer—he told me it would be a very bad idea to marry again. I don’t normally put much trust in astrologers, but . . .” Marcus’s gaze drifted to Tullia, pecking away at Gaius’s shoulder with a sharp-lacquered nail. “I think I won’t push my luck.”

“Nonsense, Marcus,” Cornelia chided. Maybe Diana will do for him . . . they strolled off companionably, Diana chattering about something and Marcus looking down at her with cautious amusement. As if she were some interesting natural phenomenon, like a freak storm or a two-headed calf.