“Yes, do visit someday,” Marcella murmured. “If you will excuse me—Marcus Norbanus, I did hope I’d see you here.” Rising, she skirted Domitian and cut swiftly across the room toward the first acquaintance who caught her eye.

“Lady Marcella.” Senator Marcus Norbanus bowed his dark head in greeting. “Delighted to see you, of course.”

“And you.” Marcella smiled at him, giving her hand to be kissed. Domitian was staring after her blackly and Lollia was talking to her big Gaul, so Marcella took Marcus’s arm and steered him in the other direction. “Though I’d rather hear a reading of your works, Marcus. I hear you’ve written a treatise on the reorganization of religion under Augustus?”

“Not finished yet, I’m afraid. I’ve had very little time to work on it, with the recent . . . unrest.”

“Unrest?” Marcella laughed. “How tactful. Yes, watching a city stab its emperor to death in the middle of a mob can be quite unrestful.”

“At least things are now quieter.” Marcus gave one of his quiet, encompassing gestures back to the flock of white-robed men now flooding back toward their rows of chairs. “Any city where scholars can meet to debate the past in safety . . . a good sign, shall we say.”

“Come sit by me for the second half,” Marcella said impulsively.

“I’d like that.”

Domitian scowled as Marcus’s quiet authority displaced him to the second row. Their host rose again, and Lollia was already fidgeting as he launched again into the declamation with a quotation by Seneca.

Diagrams. Gestures. More quotes. “You could write better in your sleep,” Marcella whispered to Marcus. He choked off a laugh but was silent. Marcella smiled too but felt irritation rising like a bubble. I could write better than this in my sleep, too, she thought resentfully as their host droned on—more Seneca! How original! But Quintus Numerius is the one who gets an audience for his works, and a publisher too. Who would come to hear me read from my histories?

Well, Marcus might. She had once showed him a passage from her study of Emperor Augustus, his Imperial grandfather, and he’d offered thoughtful praise. “Your style is a trifle florid,” he’d said as judiciously as if talking to a colleague in the Senate, “but your research is sound.” And she’d flushed pink at the praise.