“I suppose a bathhouse isn’t really important in the great scheme of things.” Titus ran a hand over a half-erected wall, double-thick to contain the heat from the steam rooms. “But it will be the biggest baths in the world. Eight million units of water in the cistern. And when it’s done, with naked mermaids in the gymnasium and naked sea gods in the women’s tepidarium, with gardens and flowers stretching all around”—his eye could already see them spreading around the dusty arid work site like a green oasis in the middle of the city—“then they’ll be known as the Baths of Trajan, because he commissioned them to begin with. Or maybe the Baths of Apollodorus, because he designed them, or the Baths of Hadrian because he really does have good architectural opinions to contribute even if his domes look like gourds. So they won’t be my baths. But I’ll be able to look at them, and know I helped build them. Know that I helped make Rome beautiful.” Titus turned away from the imagined gardens. “That’s all I’d do, if I could. Make Rome beautiful.”

Faustina smiled at him from under her sunshade. “Then take me around again. Father said something about adding an archive, and I think you’ve got room on the eastern side. Maybe a library?”

“I fear your nose is getting pink.”

“Bother my nose! I want to make Rome beautiful too.”

SABINA

“Damn it,” the Emperor grumbled, “I hate theatre.”

“It’s Phaedra,” whispered Sabina.

“It’s some fool woman mooning all over her stepson and then wrecking his life. I’ve seen that happen, and it’s not art.” Trajan’s fingers drummed the arm of his chair. “It’s a bloody mess, and I do mean bloody.”

Empress Plotina turned to stare at them both, reproving. Trajan made a face like a guilty schoolboy, and Sabina made a point to laugh aloud. Plotina’s disapproving stare deepened, and then she turned her attention back to the stage where the actors declaimed through their masks. The Theatre of Marcellus’s tiered seats were crammed full, the plebs packed close in their woolen cloaks. Sabina could see the musicians sweating as they puffed and plucked at their instruments in the little cavea below the Imperial balcony.

“Don’t worry, Caesar,” she whispered as Trajan’s fingers began their impatient drumming again. “You’ll be out of here and killing Parthians soon enough.”

“Gods willing.”