“To think your son is the hero of the hour!” I trilled to Marcus over a rare supper. We scarcely saw each other now, keeping to our own wings of the house and meeting only for form’s sake. I was considering buying a house of my own, in a more fashionable district than the Capitoline Hill.

“’Linus is a hero,” Sabina piped.

“No he’s not, darling. Paulinus is an earthworm masquerading as a man.” I smiled at Marcus. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?”

He looked through me as if I were made of glass. And he didn’t tell me The News. I had to learn from Gnaeus Apicus, my latest lover.

“Praetorian Prefect?” I sat bolt upright in bed. “The Emperor’s appointed Paulinus as Praetorian Prefect?”

“Astonishing, isn’t it? The boy can’t be much older than you”—Gnaeus pinched my breast—“and he’s only served as a tribune. High jump for one so young—”

Praetorian Prefect. One of the most important posts in the Empire. The Emperor’s eyes and ears. Watchdog, spymaster, commander of the Imperium’s private army . . . Paulinus, suddenly one of the most powerful men in Rome.

“Marcus, why didn’t you tell me?” I said sharply when I got home.

He never lifted his eyes from the scroll he was reading. “One of your lovers was sure to give you the news.”

I curled my lip and stamped off. How dare he keep me out of the know like that? News like this was enormous. I hadn’t planned to keep Paulinus on my string once he came back to Rome, but things were different now. He was the Emperor’s right arm now. He could get me an invitation to the palace every night of the week! Unless he’d forgotten me . . . but I didn’t really think so. And if he had, I’d make him remember in a hurry. I’d better write him a letter right away, to remind him.

Perhaps I should marry him. Would it be legally possible? Rome had such tedious laws regarding incest.

“My dear Paulinus . . .”

PART THREE

JULIA

In the Temple of Vesta

The fl ame on the altar is two fl ames. My eyes are hazy. Hunger. It makes me weak. Light-headed. Distant. A thousand miles away from this body I hate.

“You’re too thin, Julia,” he frowns at me sometimes. Well, even a Caesar cannot have everything. I eat when he tells me to, and when he is gone I go to the lavatorium and vomit it all up. I have not taken food in a week. My body will disappear.

My half-sister Flavia writes to me. Even from as far away as Syria, where her husband is governor, she has heard enough to be concerned. “I’ve heard some very strange rumors, my honey,” she wrote in her breathless slap-dash hand. “People do love to talk, don’t they? Our uncle must have raised taxes again, to have them making up such things. But enough gossip. Are you well, Justina? You don’t sound at all like yourself.”