Please, let that be soon.

I crossed the road toward the nearest seat, a cool marble block by the Temple of Jove. A cart pulled up sharply to avoid hitting me, but no one swore or shook their fist. I was the Emperor’s woman; who would touch me? The red-and-gold armored Praetorian who marched at my back wasn’t there to protect me, but to keep me from running away.

Ganymede made an inquiring noise. “Yes,” I said, sitting. “Yes, you were right to drag me out. It’s lovely.” Even lovelier to be on my own, to know that the Emperor had gone back to the city and might not be back until the next evening . . .

I lifted my face to the wind. A beautiful breezy day. Not cold, although I had my wool palla clutched tight around my shoulders. A perfect day.

I huddled deeper into my wool and my jewels.

“Ganymede! Ganymede, is that you?”

I looked up. Ganymede, a beaming grin breaking out over his face, thrust my packages aside to step forward and bow excitedly before a little woman in yellow who was climbing down from an elaborate gold-trimmed litter.

“Yes,” she said, “I’m delighted to see you, too. I wish I still owned you, Ganymede; I’ve not had a good massage since losing you. Oh, who’s this?” Her dark eyes turned on me.

“Athena, Domina.” My manners asserted themselves, and I rose.

“I am Lady Flavia Domitilla.” Her warm little hand raised me from my curtsy. “I live in the villa just over the hill there. Or rather I live there now; my husband used to be governor of Syria. But the Emperor’s recalled us at last, so I’m determined to settle down and be a proper Roman matron. The Emperor,” she added casually, “is my uncle.”

So she was that Flavia Domitilla: Emperor Titus’s other daughter from his first marriage; Domitian’s second niece. Less interesting and less gossipworthy than her half-sister Julia, since she had married well and produced the correct two sons. Which meant that—hmm—it was perhaps the mother of the future Emperor who stood opposite me with the charming Flavian smile on her rosy face.

“You must come up and visit me at my villa sometimes,” she was chattering. “It’s no more than a fi fteen-minute jog by litter, and I adore company. I’m afraid I can’t pay calls on you, since my uncle detests callers.”

I blinked. Visit? A patrician woman, a Flavian princess, no less, inviting her uncle’s whore to drop by? Did she even know what I was?

“Oh, this is luck!” She clapped her soft hands. “I’ve been simply dying for a look at you. You’re quite lovely, aren’t you? I certainly didn’t hear wrong about that.”

“The Emperor—told you about me?”

“Of course not. He never tells anybody anything. But slaves talk, even the mute ones. I’ve heard so much about your singing, you must sing for me sometime. You play the lyre, too? Oh dear, is that a bruise?”