“Yes, dear.” Pompeia Plotina, Emperor’s wife, first lady of Rome, Empress of the seven hills, was not listening. The races did not matter at all; nor did a grubby little celebration of the wine harvest where men and their sluts drank too much wine and defiled public morals. Nothing mattered except that the girl, the right girl, had finally been chosen. Plotina laughed a little—it had not occurred until now just how much the matter had been preying on her.

I shall tell him tomorrow, the Empress thought happily. I shall tell him I’ve found her.

VIX

I don’t much like patricians, and it’s fair to say they don’t like me. Jumped-up thug, they tend to mutter when I’m around, just loud enough for me to hear, but I ignore them. They’re a fairly useless lot, with a few exceptions—and you have to watch out for the exceptions. Senator Norbanus was an exception, a good one. As for the bad exception, he’s the man I should have kept an eye on from the start. Bastard.

The day already hadn’t started well. I’d gotten my lip split by what should have been an easy mark: a rich boy ducking his tutors and his father to go hunting for whores in the Subura, which was the last place anybody should ever hunt for whores. He found one, and probably a case of something nasty that would be itching him within weeks, and then he found the inn where I now lived and a good many tankards of bad wine. The innkeeper gave me a nod as the boy reeled out, and I slid out after him. Only midmorning, but it was Vinalia and everyone was getting drunk early. The boy was still reeling when I pulled a dagger on him in an alley and demanded his purse, and he was drunk enough to hit me instead of just handing it over. I got my lip split, but I got the purse too, and sent the boy home with his nose broken in two places. “Consider it a mark of manhood,” I called after him as he fled wailing. “A better one than the pox that whore gave you.”

There were a good many coins in that purse, and of course I skimmed a few off the top before I handed the rest over to the innkeeper to count my percentage. “Mop that lip up and keep your eyes open,” he ordered. “Lot of easy marks on festival days.”

“Get someone else to hit them,” I said shortly. “I’m going out to celebrate like everybody else. Hail to bloody Venus and hail to the bloody wine harvest.”

“Listen, boy—”