Scandalous. For once Lollia found herself agreeing with Tullia. It wasn’t right, though she couldn’t think what else she could possibly do. “M’dear,” her grandfather had said not four days after Otho had been made Emperor by the sword. “I wish I didn’t have to rush you, but—well, that marriage to Vinius tied you strongly with the Galban faction. We must consider a new alliance.”

“Yes.” But—

“An heiress like you won’t be allowed to remain single, after all. If I start casting my nets now, I can find you the best match possible, someone to protect you.” He patted her hand. “I just want my jewel to be safe.”

“Yes.” But—

“And surely you aren’t grieving too hard? I know you weren’t terribly fond of poor Senator Vinius.”

“No.” But . . .

Lollia felt a queasy pang in her stomach every time she thought of Old Flaccid. He’d been an old stick and she’d hated him passionately . . . or at least found him very irritating . . . but he hadn’t deserved to be torn to pieces by maddened guardsmen. And it wasn’t very kind of me, calling him Old Flaccid to everyone I knew. Even if it was perfectly true.

The fact was, Lollia concluded, she might be used to getting divorced but she wasn’t at all used to being widowed. It didn’t feel the same at all. She felt guilty, of all things, and why was that? All Vinius wanted was her money, and he’d gotten that—no one could say she cheated him out of anything. Maybe it was the way she’d reacted when she finally went home and announced to a house full of pop-eyed slaves and hangers-on that their master was dead. No one had said a word.

“Don’t just stand there like sheep,” Lollia had snapped, still splashed in blood—Piso’s blood, Centurion Densus’s blood, who knew. But they still kept staring, just like a herd of stupid sheep, and suddenly that was funny, sheep, how hilarious. “Sheep,” Lollia giggled, and couldn’t stop giggling. They stared at her, horrified, and she’d been giggling too hard to explain that it was horror and not laughter.

I’m a widow. Was that why she felt so strange now, on the eve of another wedding? Cornelia was a widow too, but at least she looked the part—lying blank-eyed in her black-draped bed, devoured by grief. Lollia looked at herself in the mirror and just saw a bride in a red veil: trussed, varnished, painted, and perfect.