“What? I’m not shocked at all. Mother always said she wished my father had had the good sense to keep an in-house freedwoman for a mistress when he was in between wives. If he had, his house and his laundry might have been in a little better order when Mother moved in.” Faustina patted the immaculate folds of toga at Titus’s shoulder. “I can see Ennia keeps you and your house turned out in immaculate fashion.”

“This is not a matter for discussion!”

“Nothing interesting ever is.” Faustina handed a goblet to the nervous freedman with another reassuring pat, then brought the other back to Titus. “Here, drink your mulberries. Now, I go to the palace quite often—Empress Plotina invites me to the palace to help with the weaving, you see. Mostly to tell me which of my suitors I should choose, and hint how much she wishes I’d been the one to marry Hadrian instead of Sabina. Ugh, perish the thought. But last time she got called away for a moment, and I was alone in her rooms, and I just happened to see where she keeps her private accounts. Well,” Faustina amended, “I rummaged through her things until I found where she keeps her private accounts.”

Titus choked on his drink. “You spied on the Empress of Rome?”

“Spy is such an ugly word.” Faustina’s voice was airy. “Let’s just say that thanks to good fortune, an empty room, and some concerted snooping, I stumbled upon some interesting information in her files. You know she keeps records on everyone who works in the Imperial household?”

Why? Titus couldn’t help wondering. Public matters like judicial cases and lists of public appointments were hardly within Plotina’s purview. Why would the Empress of Rome need to keep her own record? “What did you find?”

“Nothing.” Faustina shoved aside a stack of scrolls so she could lean against his desk. “That was the odd part. The Empress doesn’t buy a yard of linen without recording the cost from her personal accounts—and suddenly huge sums are coming in, but there isn’t one word to say where they come from. I couldn’t take anything away with me, but I copied down these entries—”

“Hardly indicative,” Titus pointed out as she produced a handful of jotted scraps.

“I know. Which is why I spent another week poking among the Empress’s freedmen, and finally I found Bassus. One of Plotina’s undersecretaries, and when I asked him about these entries he went white as the moon. He refused to say a word about it to me, but I finally persuaded him to come have a talk with you.”

“How did you pull that off?”

“Because no one can say no to me,” Faustina said candidly. “And because I may have pointed out that you’re one of the richest men in Rome and can pay a lot for the information.”