I looked at the floor, finding the pattern of two iridescent-scaled fish repeated in circles. “Lovely,” I said. “The fish . . . they’re a Christian symbol, aren’t they?”

“I see my uncle’s told you about my little peccadillo.” A dimple appeared in her chin as she smiled. “Yes, I’m a Christian. My mother’s freedman Thrax was, and given the way my mother’s husbands came and went, Thrax was nearly my father, so I suppose something stuck. I embarrass the Emperor greatly, I’m afraid. It’s no secret, even though I make all the right genuflections in public.”

“You—you might want to be careful, Lady Flavia,” I said diffidently. I liked her, she was more than courteous to me, but the social gap between us was still enormous. “The Emperor said he might—might take the boys away, if they weren’t raised as good Romans.”

“Oh, but they are. Besides, he’d never take them away. Because where could he move them but into the palace with him? He dislikes children far too much for that. In the end, he’ll just dismiss my beliefs as an irritating little hobby. Really, that’s all it is. Who’s to care if I take food baskets to some of my poorer brethren now and then?”

Her placid tone aroused my immediate suspicion. Flavia went far beyond food baskets, surely. Were all the slaves swarming around her pretty villa really just slaves? Were all the ragged children begging at her door really just beggars? Secrets ran in the Flavian family, for its kindest members as well as its cruelest. But she never asked mine, and so I’d never ask hers. She was already chattering on about something more innocuous.

“—so you’ve had Nessus draw up your horoscope? It’s bound to be right; he’s the best astrologer in the Empire. A pity my faith doesn’t permit me to consult astrologers. Isn’t he a dear? I may consult him anyway. He’s always been thankful to me, ever since I lent him Ganymede for a massage. I never got Ganymede back, of course; Nessus spun some meaningless prophecy to keep him. My faith doesn’t permit me to approve of boy-lovers, either, but I must say they are happy—”

Did me good, listening to her. I think she knew it, too. Always urged me to come again, and never asked questions. Had she learned that lesson with Julia?

I thought about Arius.

A hard body blazing heat through a blue tunic. Hair a true red in the sun. Knotted muscles flowing like warm honey. Scars on the back of his hand, on his forehead, on his shoulder. I had nearly as many myself, now. Odd little white scars, made with odd little toys in places that wouldn’t show. Not visible scars made with swords.

A hard face. Broken nose. Cloud-colored eyes. Slash of a mouth. Eyebrow interrupted by a knife-line. Male smells: sun-warmed leather, iron, sweat, arena sand. But not blood, somehow—not blood. Blood washed off.

Hard hands, warm hands that gripped a wine cup sometimes, or a sword, or a throat. Or they just—touched. For joy’s sake, not for pain’s.