The Emperor was already waiting, leaning back on one elbow on his couch as he glanced over a pile of scrolls. “A Vestal Virgin,” he remarked, noting my white robe.

“No, just a girl on vacation.” I climbed up onto my own couch, tucked my feet up under me, and helped myself to the dishes the silent slaves brought out in a noiseless stream. Ostrich eggs, flamingo tongues, fallow deer in rosemary, sugared hazelnuts, pastries in cream, an old red wine in a jeweled flagon—quite a change from Domitian’s usual meals of beef and bread and beer. There were other changes, too, I noticed. Silk cushions on the couches when usually he despised silk . . . solid silver dishes when he usually ate from clay . . . and instead of the usual wool tunic he wore a barbarically colored robe of some exotic eastern silk.

He glanced up, then, and caught my eyes. “Admiring me?”

“Yes,” I smiled.

“ ‘Yes.’ ” He tasted the word. “You’d say that to any man. How many have you had?”

“What?”

“How many.” His gaze unsettled me: not quite expressionless, not quite detached. “Come, Athena, take a guess. A hundred?”

“I don’t know.” Evenly. “Now, I have only you.”

“Excellent reply. Glib, convincing, and noncommittal. You could be a senator, if you weren’t a whore.”

“I—”

“What are you, twenty-four? You must have had a young start.”

“Caesar—”

“How young? Twelve? Thirteen? When did you learn to lie so well?”

I set down my goblet. “What a beautiful view you have. May I look?” I went to the edge of the terrace without waiting for an answer. There was a sullen streak of red in the sky, all that was left of the sunset, and a moon coming up over the roof of the villa. I looked down, past my bare feet. The terrace had no rail, just a sheer marble edge dropping fi fty feet or more to the smooth-flowing river.

“Dangerous,” said Domitian, behind me. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes.” I turned and looked at him. “But I’ve got good balance.” He gazed back for a moment, then rose and crossed the terrace to my side, his barbaric robe crackling. “A lovely view,” he said. “In the morning the mist comes up off the river in a cloud, like Jupiter when he came to Danae. Quite beautiful.” He stirred my hair with his fingers.

“Did you come here often with Julia?” I blurted without thinking.

“Julia?” He said the name as if he’d never heard it before. “No. She didn’t like the terrace—afraid of falling. Not like you.”

He wrapped my hair into a rope around his hand. “But you’re not Julia, are you?” Gazing absently out over the river, he pulled my head back with a jerk that brought tears to my eyes. “Julia wouldn’t stand on the edge.”

The pressure on my scalp eased as his hand loosed my hair. I stood frozen as he traced the side of my neck, stroking it almost, this man who never touched me casually. I felt his hand running the length of my neck, felt him breathing behind me, and I was still stupidly surprised when he seized me by the throat and squeezed.