Lepida settled back, fanning herself pleasantly as blood spurted on the sand. “Still no taste for the games, Thea?”

In the arena a Moroccan was beheading a Gaul. “No,” I said. “I’m merely bored.” Closing my eyes.

“Bored? But it’s so thrilling!” All around us in the stands people were on their feet, waving, shouting, shrieking. Flavia’s two sons were fascinated. Domitian watched with an expert’s detached eye. Paulinus’s gaze wandered restlessly, looking anywhere but at Lepida. His hand rested on her armrest, a bare half inch from hers as if afraid she’d burn him.

Paulinus and Lepida? Nothing shocked me anymore. Poor Paulinus.

Poor Gaul. Dragged off flopping by his heels.

“Well!” Lepida ate a stuffed grape leaf, sucking her pretty fingers. “I can’t wait to see what’s next. What is next, Paulinus?” She traced his wrist with a scarlet-lacquered nail, and he jerked. “Oh, of course. The Barbarian.” She smiled at me.

I stretched my mouth into a blind smile. “And how is your husband, Lady Lepida? Shouldn’t you be sitting with him?” Words tumbled off my lips, any words. “Don’t tell me you’ve run through his money already.”

Lepida opened her mouth, but then there was a flutter of orange silk and a jangle of gold bracelets as Flavia rose. “Oh dear,” she murmured. “I feel quite faint—the heat—you’ll excuse me, Uncle? Boys, be good—” She disappeared.

“Do you feel all right, Thea?” Lepida’s soft, solicitous tones. “You don’t look at all well. Perhaps you should go home, too. Hmmm—where is your home, these days?”

“The palace.” I had the pleasure of watching her face tighten and prepared a cutting little speech, but it died in my throat. Because the crowd’s murmuring rose to a roar, and for the first time in a week the agony of worry for my son was drowned out as his father strode out onto the sand.

Arius.

I didn’t realize my lips were silently shaping his name over and over, not until Ganymede touched my shoulder and made an inquiring noise. I smiled jerkily at him, but couldn’t take my eyes off the gladiator who had once been my lover—passing so close to the Imperial box that I could count the scars on his back.

Dwarfed by that vast space, just as I remembered. Deaf to the applause, just as I remembered. More lines in the set brown mask of his face. But still tall and unstooped. Still refusing to strut or smile. Still beautiful.

God, he was so beautiful.

He didn’t bow to the Emperor. Just jerked his head in a gesture reminding me abruptly of Vix. Then he turned away and lifted his sword, and I felt the old iron hand clamp around my lungs.

He fought a Thracian. The face was a blur in my eyes. All I could see was a pair of wicked little Thracian swords flashing in the sun and I couldn’t breathe, especially when a curved blade clipped into Arius’s leg and came out covered in blood. But then somehow one of those wicked curved swords went flying and Arius came forward in a fluid lunge. He fought more calmly now, his movements more connected, the arc of his blade more controlled. The Thracian fell screaming with a half-severed foot, speedily finished off with a thrust through the heart. I went through the motions of clapping.