“Sabina, will you quit lurking around like a sick rabbit? Do something normal.” She spent a week or two with me every now and then, for form’s sake. Marcus didn’t like it, but I had to be seen with my daughter enough for propriety. “Go have a spasm somewhere else,” I told her, and proceeded in my blue-curtained litter to the public baths where I had myself steamed and perfumed and oiled, soaking in the latest gossip. The Empress was involving herself in good works, the refuge of all neglected wives. There were rumors that the Emperor’s niece Lady Flavia Domitilla was a Christian—“Yes, my dear, one of those dirty fish-people!” The new erotic poetry from Crete had been banned in the name of public morals, but for a fee private copies could be obtained. The Chief Vestal Virgin had been arrested for impurity—“Such a scandal!”—and had been sentenced to burial alive on the next holiday, while her lovers would be beaten to death by rods. Stolas were to be worn shorter, showing the whole of the ankle. Gray was fashionable, and hair dressed into a braided crest with silver ribbon. “Yes, that’s what the Emperor’s concubine Athena wears—”

“I don’t like gray,” I said sharply. “Much too drab.” I turned on my side for a dusting of lilac powder.

Athena. Thea, that common little slut Thea, was still in my way. Swooped in on the Emperor before Julia’s ashes were cold! Still queening it at Domitian’s side over a year later. The courtiers jokingly called her the mistress of Rome, as they had once called Julia. My slave girl, the mistress of Rome!

Well, she wouldn’t be for long. With my new villa in Tivoli, I’d be much closer to the Emperor. I’d get Paulinus to drop my name, escort me to a few more Imperial functions. Yes, that would do the trick. I’d still get what I was after.

Didn’t I always?

THE investigation of the Vestals I leave to you.” The Emperor passed a packet of papers over to Paulinus. “If the Chief Vestal is corrupt, then so might the acolytes be. Corruption always filters down from the top.”

“I’ll see to it next week, sir.” Paulinus saluted.

The Emperor smiled. “When can I break you of the habit of saluting me, boy?”

“Never, sir.” Paulinus saluted again, grinning.

The Emperor waved him off with a tolerant hand and beckoned for the usual troop of secretaries. “Get on with you, Paulinus. It’s nearly midnight. You soldiers don’t have to burn the midnight oil like Emperors—”

“Good thing, too.” Paulinus tucked the folder under his arm. “Good night, sir.”

“Good night.”

He did not, however, go straight to bed. Maybe soldiers didn’t have to burn the midnight oil, but Praetorian Prefects certainly did. There were guard rosters to draw up, papers to be sorted and signed, letters to be answered . . . a great many letters.

By midnight Paulinus was rubbing his aching head. Eyeing his bed, he caught sight of a crumpled scroll at the edge of his desk, marked with a familiar brusque handwriting. He slid his thumb under the seal. “To Prefect Paulinus Augustus Norbanus the Almighty Right Arm of the Emperor,” Trajan had written in his ebullient upward-slanting lines.