“I got wrapped up in chronicling Nero’s death,” Marcella shrugged. “You know I’m writing up Nero now? It’ll make a short account, but not as short as my history of Caligula.” “You and your scribbling!” Cornelia scolded, rummaging through Marcella’s dresses. “Here, wear your yellow . . . when did you change bedrooms?”

“When Tullia decided she preferred my view to her own.” Marcella made a face at the narrow little corner chamber that had recently become hers, tugging her plain wool robe over her head and dropping it on the narrow bed. “So our dear new sister-in-law got the nice bedchamber with the window over the garden, and I got the view of the kitchens and the mosaic with the cross-eyed nymphs. No, put that yellow dress back, I want the pale blue—”

“Pale blue, too plain,” Cornelia disapproved. “Don’t you ever want to be noticed?”

“Who’s going to be looking at me?” Marcella dived into the pale-blue stola, shivering in the November chill that crept into the bedchamber despite the drawn shutters. “For that matter, who’s going to be looking at the bride? You’re the one they all want to see—the future Empress of Rome.”

“Nonsense.” Cornelia looped the silver girdle about Marcella’s waist, but a little smile hovered at her lips.

“If it’s such nonsense, then why did you dress the part?” Marcella surveyed her sister: Cornelia Prima, twenty-four to Marcella’s twenty-one; the oldest of the four cousins collectively known as the Cornelias, and the only one of them not to get a nickname. A severely elegant figure in amber-brown silk, a wreath of topaz about her throat and coiled mahogany hair crowning her head like a diadem, her oval face as classic as any statue’s. As somber as any statue’s too, because when Cornelia smiled a dimple appeared on each side of her mouth, deep enough to sink a finger into, and she’d long since decided that dimples weren’t dignified. Smiling, she looked like the sister who had helped Marcella steal sweets from the kitchens when they were little girls. Unsmiling, Cornelia could have been a statue of Juno herself. “You look very queenly.”

“Not queenly enough. Oh, why didn’t I get your height?” Cornelia mourned, looking into the glass. “And your figure, and your nose—this little snub of mine just isn’t dignified.”

“Isn’t Imperial, you mean?”

“Don’t say it! You’ll spoil Piso’s luck.”

“Where is he, anyway?” Marcella reclaimed the mirror, coiling her hair quickly on her neck and reaching for the box of silver pins.

“He’ll come later, with the Emperor.” Cornelia’s voice sounded quite casual, but Marcella slanted a brow at her and she blushed. “Maybe the announcement will come today . . . ?”

Marcella didn’t bother asking what announcement. All Rome knew Emperor Galba needed an heir. And all Rome knew how highly Galba regarded Cornelia’s husband, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus . . .