The morning was cold and blustery, the sky gray and scowling above. Awnings and curtains flapped briskly all over the Forum Romanum, and harried shopkeepers swore as they battened down some unruly corner of cloth or chased a cap that the wind had tossed across the flagstones. Sabina led the way idly between the stalls and booths, well wrapped in a rose wool palla. Hadrian paced beside her, tall and calm in his snowy toga as he steered her around the wind-skimmed puddles, and a Norbanus household guard tramped dutifully behind. Not Vix—Sabina had been quite careful to ask for one of the other guards when Hadrian came calling and asked her if she wouldn’t enjoy a walk in the city. She didn’t want Vix’s eavesdropping ears straining to pick up every word this morning, or his black scowl boring into her every time Hadrian touched her elbow.

“Wait, I’m going to buy this.” Sabina paused by a stuffed leather ball from another vendor’s display of goods, tossing it up and catching it. “Soft enough for Calpurnia’s baby to play with, once it’s born.”

“A fine choice, Lady,” the shopkeeper said. “And perhaps a ring, to aid in cutting teeth?”

“Yes, Linus had terrible trouble with his teeth…” Sabina scooped out another handful of pomegranate seeds, inquiring after the shopkeeper’s own children. She listened to a long story about the shopkeeper’s favorite daughter, who had begun to walk a full month earlier than expected, traded a recipe for easing sore gums—“my little brother would never have got through all his teething without oil of cloves”—and fished out more coins.

“You do that very well,” Hadrian observed as they moved on and left the shopkeeper bowing and waving behind.

“It’s not so difficult. Just act interested in people.”

“People don’t interest me,” Hadrian confessed. “Unless they’re clever.”

“I know that. I didn’t interest you either, until I proved I had a brain.” Sabina gave the package with the ball and teething ring to her guard to carry. “But you can pretend people are interesting, and they’ll like you for it.”

“I don’t have your gift for that, Vibia Sabina.” Hadrian’s bearded lips curved. “For being—easy. With people of all stations.”

“Start with learning their names,” Sabina advised. “Smiling when they greet you. Talking to them—you remember that amendment to the Lex Cornelia that my father proposed, the one about the corruption of public officials? He got the notion after talking to one of our freedmen who knew more about bribing officials than anyone alive. Slaves, freedmen, commoners—you underestimate them, and you shouldn’t. You can learn a great deal.”