“Well, Gaius won’t make me live in a statue garden.” Faustina selected a pair of pearl drops, looking around the room approvingly. “At least you’ve got some clutter in here.”

“I like it,” Sabina confessed. Her own bedchamber was scattered comfortably with books half unrolled, cushions on the floor for flopping down and reading, a vast map of the Empire nailed to one wall, and a bust of Emperor Trajan over which Sabina usually tossed her shawls. Hadrian liked neatness and order, but he hardly ever entered Sabina’s quarters. His own bedchamber lay in the other wing of the house, and traffic between the two was… infrequent. “I hope Gaius Rupilius makes you very happy, Faustina.”

“My nurse says that isn’t the point of getting married. Being happy, I mean.”

“No, but it’s nice when it happens. Hadrian makes me happy.”

“But he’s boring. He droned about Eckian cary—cary-something—”

“Erechtheion caryatids.”

“Those. Are they bugs?”

“No, they’re a kind of column.”

“Well, he droned about them all through Father’s last dinner party.”

“He does do that sometimes,” Sabina agreed.

“Mother says he’s a crashing bore.”

“He’s that sometimes too.”

Faustina looked down at herself: pearls in her ears, blue silk dress looped up through the pearl girdle to fit her own height. “Too long,” she clicked her tongue. “Oh, why don’t I grow?”

“You will. Hopefully taller than me. Here, try the red dress and slide my gold bracelets up over the elbow; you’ll look very exotic—”

“Domina?” A slave girl curtsied in the doorway. “You have a visitor. Tribune Titus Aurelius—”

“Tribune?” Sabina uncurled her legs from the couch. “Oh, no. Faustina, try on the Indian silk, it feels like water on your skin—I have to see something…”

Titus bowed as Sabina bounded downstairs and back into the atrium. “Vibia Sabina,” he said. Her onetime suitor had gone from a shy boy of sixteen to a tall young man of twenty-two, but he still had the same endless skinny limbs and peculiarly sweet smile. “‘Hail, beauteous nymph with eyes cerulean bright.’”

“But my eyes aren’t cerulean,” Sabina objected. “You’ve been reading Homeric hymns again, haven’t you?”

“I’m afraid so. I tend to reach for poetry when I’m stumped for words.” He gave an elaborate bow. “The sight of you usually does that to me.”

“Today I’m the one who’s stumped.” Sabina eyed his uniform: brand-new breastplate and red tunic, greaves and cloak and a helmet tucked under his arm with a stiff crest of plumes. “Your family finally made you do it, didn’t they?”

“I’m afraid so.” He saluted. “You see before you a tribune of the illustrious legions of Rome.”

Sabina sighed. “I told your grandfather you’d rather be eaten by wolves than join the legions! At Father’s last party—”