“The apodyterium with changing shelves for clothes will be there.” Titus pointed to a team of workmen laying brick under the noon sun. “The frigidarium with the pool, here.” He pointed to another team of workmen pouring concrete and swearing. “The laconicum there—see the deeper trenches being dug? That’s for the kilns, to keep the steam hot. The tepidarium there, with massage tables and refreshments.” He turned to face his guests, feeling oddly nervous. “Well?”

Senator Marcus Norbanus and his younger daughter, Faustina, looked around them at the vast building site. Brick dust lay heavy in the air; workmen tramped past with shovels and loads of stone. The sound of hammers, axes, shuffling sandals, and muffled cursing filled the air. “I believe Emperor Trajan estimated three years to finish the baths when he proposed the project in the Senate?” Marcus drew a fold of his toga up over his gray head as a shield from the sun. “From the sight of all this, I’d estimate four.”

“At least,” Titus agreed. “And I’d guess five. Now’s the time to make changes in the design—after this it’s all set in stone, so to speak. I already know what Roman men want in a bathhouse: a gymnasium, a steam room to sweat off the exercise, and plenty of pretty slave girls for massages.”

“I don’t care if they’re pretty.” Marcus rubbed his crooked shoulder, rueful. “Not as long as their hands can take the aches out of these feeble old bones of mine.”

“You’re not feeble,” Faustina protested, giving her father’s arm a playful little shake. “You just play it up so people will underestimate you in the Senate!”

“Sshh,” Marcus hushed her. “Not too loud, please. I’ve got Ruricus’s claque convinced I doze off whenever the new road project comes up.”

“Knew I was right.” Faustina tossed her head, pleased, and turned back to Titus. “So why did you insist I come along?”

“To give me a woman’s opinion.” Titus bowed, flourishing his sun hat. “What do the women of Rome want in a bathhouse? These are going to be the greatest baths in the Empire; the voices of Rome’s women should be heard. As represented by you.”

“Me?” Faustina tilted her blond head at him. “Not my sister?”

“I did ask her, but I fear she was no help at all. She told me that the best bath she ever had was naked in a stream in Pannonia. I can provide a lot”—Titus waved an arm at the huge work site—“but not a stream in Pannonia.”

Faustina laughed. She looked like a sheaf of hyacinths in a crisp blue linen dress; taller and prettier than even Titus had anticipated when he’d predicted to her eleven-year-old self that she would grow up a beauty. “So let’s go see the greatest baths in Rome.”