“I think I know which one!” Faustina’s eyebrows flew up. “He’s thirty years older than you!”

“So? Gray hair and a devastating wit can be very attractive.” Sabina smothered a laugh in favor of a nonchalant, sophisticated shrug. If Faustina saw her as the wicked older sister, she might as well play the part. “Before the senator, there was a very handsome priest at Delphi when Hadrian and I went to Greece. He let me chew laurel leaves and breathe the fumes like the Pythia did, and it made me very light-headed. After that he took me to an orgy with a variety of worshippers.”

Faustina’s eyes went round. “You went to an orgy?”

“I don’t recommend it,” Sabina advised. “After about three variations, group fornication gets tedious. What’s that, three lovers? There was also a soldier. My favorite of the four.” Better leave that story for another time—Sabina didn’t want to give her little sister the idea of seducing any household guards. One scandalous daughter in the family was quite enough. “Are you very shocked at me?”

“No.” But Faustina blushed.

“Even Calpurnia wasn’t always so matronly and respectable, you know,” Sabina pointed out. “She moved in with Father a full three weeks before they were married. That had all the old cats in Rome hissing.”

“Mother?” Faustina marveled. “I suppose even old people broke rules when they were young.”

“Calpurnia is hardly old—only forty-five, you know. Forty-five isn’t ancient!”

“It’s primordial,” the girl of sixteen dismissed.

“I suppose all mothers look old to their daughters,” Sabina conceded. “Except mine. But she was also the most notorious whore in Rome since Empress Messalina.”

“Was she really?” Faustina wondered. “No one ever talks about your mother. Except the slaves, and from the way they whisper you’d think she was Medusa.”

“She was worse than Medusa and Messalina. Combined. Why do you think everyone’s so eager to call me a whore? ‘Like mother, like daughter,’ that’s why.”

“Four lovers in ten years does not make you a whore.” Firmly. “Not given Hadrian’s tastes.”

“And what do you know about his tastes?”

“I gossip with all the slaves. Yours too. The best way to keep informed.” Faustina hesitated. “Hadrian—does he mind? Those other men, I mean.”