“You are certainly not going to the dog fights.”

“Aw—”

“No arguing!”

Vix flopped down scowling next to my dressing table, and a bottle of rose water went smash. “You gonna see the Emperor?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ll tell you all about it when I come back.”

Vix shrugged. Gladiators, not Emperors, held his fascination. “Staying late?” he said hopefully.

“Not too late.” I ruffled his hair. “You’d better be in bed by the time I get back, or I’ll beat you till you scream.”

“Why are you so mean to me?” he complained. “I get beat on more than any of the others.”

“The other children aren’t half as evil as you, Vercingetorix.”

“You wait till I’m big. Then you won’t whale on me anymore. I’ll be a big mean gladiator and then you’ll have to be nice to me.” He bounced around the dressing table swinging an imaginary sword, and I felt a pricking in my eyes. All he needed was a wooden practice blade and a dusty practice arena, a pair of gray eyes and a half-smiling salute . . . I stretched out an arm and pulled Vix in close, smelling the sea salt that meant he’d gone for an illicit swim in Brundisium’s harbor and exposed himself to half the diseases of Italy.

He wriggled free, messing up my hair. “Quit kissing me.”

“Only if you’re good.”

“I’ll be good, I’ll be good.”

“Likely story,” one of the slave women snorted.

A hired litter took me to the palace in Brundisium where the Emperor had yesterday arrived. I’d never sung at the palace before, and I craned my eyes eagerly as I alighted. But as legends go, it was a disappointment. Domitian’s grief did not accord well with luxury: The mosaics were neglected, the statues dusty, and half the rooms unlit, so I scuttled after the Imperial steward tripping over my own feet in the dark. Shown into an empty anteroom curtained off from the banquet hall, I was left to wait. The fire jugglers were performing, tossing burning brands from hand to hand, and then the next course would be brought in.

“Thea,” Cleopatra the little dancer greeted me. Golden curls danced on her shoulders, and her sinuous body was draped in scanty pink gauzes and spangles. “Can you lend me your earrings? One of mine just broke, and I can’t go before the Emperor with bare ears.”

“Everything else is bare, why not the ears?” But I surrendered my gold drops with a smile. Cleopatra and I often crossed paths at banquets and dinner parties, and she was always friendly. “Just don’t leave them on some man’s bedside table this time.”

“If I do, the Emperor will just buy me new ones.” She dimpled. “My mistress bribed the chamberlain to tell him I look just like Lady Julia. He’ll keep me after the banquet, just you wait.”

“I’m sure he will,” I agreed.

She winked. “Let’s peek!”

At first I thought I wasn’t seeing right as I peered around the curtain into the triclinium. Just a dark hole. But I blinked, and then I saw that everything was black. Black marble walls, ebony dining couches heaped with black silk cushions, dark-skinned African slaves in black tunics ushering dishes in and out in ghostly silence.