“What happened to the stepson?” Trajan whispered.

“He’s dead too.”

“Are there any plays that don’t end in a heap of bodies?”

“I thought you liked heaps of bodies, Caesar.”

“Only on battlefields.”

Hadrian’s attention was still rapt on his paperwork as the final spurt of applause burst out, but the Emperor had no time for either applause or the diligence of his consul. Trajan rose with all haste, and Sabina picked up her own cloak—pale green wool pinned at the shoulder with a silver arrow—and hurried after him with the line of Praetorians and the rest of his retinue. Like Vix, Trajan never slowed his pace for mortals with shorter legs.

The waiting crowd cheered as soon as he emerged, and the Emperor waved back cheerfully like a boy at a festival. Empress Plotina paused behind them to nod and bow more regally, Hadrian poised attentively at her side, but Trajan slung an arm about Sabina’s shoulders and set off into the crowd. They made way for him: vendors hawking crude portraits of the theatre’s actors, urchins with their begging bowls, an old soldier missing a leg; all of them beaming. Trajan paused to speak with the crippled soldier, raising the man up when he tried to bow. “You get far too close to these plebs, husband,” Sabina had heard Plotina say time and time again. “A madman with a dagger could end your life anytime he liked!” But Trajan always ignored her, and Sabina admired him for it. What other Emperor could walk all over Rome without his guards, and have no fear at all of being murdered?

Sabina tugged her green cloak closer about her chin. The late afternoon was still bright, sunlight falling in hard bars over the theatre’s marble roof, but a keen wind had picked up as evening approached. The crowd was thinning. Plotina had already swept out of the theatre, allowing one of her Praetorians to help her into the curtained silver litter. The litter rose on the backs of six Greek slaves, swaying like a ship, and the Praetorians cleared a path toward the palace. “Caesar?” Hadrian called after the Emperor, but Trajan waved one hand in dismissal and continued to walk with Sabina. She felt a mean little spurt of pleasure at her husband’s set expression as he climbed into his own litter and directed it after Plotina’s in a tight voice. Since the scene in his bedroom, they had not spoken one word to each other beyond what was necessary.

“Are you as cold as I am, Vibia Sabina?” the Emperor’s voice sounded at her side. “Or is it just my frail old bones?”

“It’s cold,” Sabina agreed. “I think autumn is finally coming. Shall we walk to get warm, Caesar? You can lean on me if you get tired.”

“Nonsense.” Trajan waved his Praetorians well behind him. “You’re too little to lean on.”