“Marcus!” Lady Calpurnia came running out the front gates of the villa when the palanquin halted. She’d dressed up to greet her husband, all airy yellow silks and chunks of amber in gold settings, an elegant far cry from the cheerful housewife who wasn’t too proud to bake her own bread and gossip with her slaves. Those same slaves had told me Lady Calpurnia had been one of the richest heiresses in Rome—“Oh, she brought Dominus half of Tarracina and Toscana when they married!”—and this was the first time she looked it.

“Good-looking, rich, and she loves you,” I breathed to Senator Norbanus as he limped toward his wife. “You fell on your feet bagging that one, Dominus. Any man in Rome would take her for her bread alone!”

He gave me a familiar glance, half irritated and half amused, but didn’t rebuke me for insolence. He’d never have brought down an emperor six years ago if not for me—neither of us had planned it that way, but it happened, and the bond still stuck. He let me get away with more familiarity than I should have. And his irritation faded fast enough as Lady Calpurnia flung herself into his arms. In fact, he reminded me abruptly of my rough gladiator father, who cupped my mother’s face between his hands in just the same way.

It’s not necessarily the beautiful girls that hook you good and tight. It’s the ones like Lady Calpurnia—the ones like my mother. One of those warm, quiet women starts loving you, and you’re sunk. Be warned.

“Marcus, your eyes look squinty,” Lady Calpurnia was scolding gently. “Have you been reading by bad lamplight again? Vix, take those scrolls right back to the litter; my husband will not be doing any work in this villa—goodness, Vix, that’s quite an eye.”

“I know,” I growled.

“Hide the scrolls in my study,” Marcus said low-voiced when his wife turned her back, and I tramped dutifully into the house as little Faustina came running out through the gates to collect her own greeting from her father. A spacious spread-out villa—pools of water sunk under open roofs, porticoed halls with slender columns, mosaics of leaping fish and twining vines on the floors. The study was already occupied when I got there.

“Hello, Vix.” Sabina looked up from her book without surprise. “Is my father here already? You must have had good roads. I suppose everyone else has commented on the black eye?”

“Yes,” I said. “Everyone else has commented on the damned black eye.”

“It is rather spectacular.” She uncurled from the couch, barefoot and bare-armed, light-brown hair hanging down her back. “Still, I won’t ask how you got it.”

“You should.” A reluctant smile was beating its way past my irritation. “It’s a thrilling tale. Robbers, thieves, dragons.”