Paulinus smiled and leaned back. Trajan had been transferred from the cold muddy woods of Dacia to hotter climes and hotter battles where sullen legionnaires, army cutbacks, and irate superior officers had not stopped him from amassing an impressive reputation. “Envy me,” Trajan wrote. “Lots of wine, plenty of fighting, pretty girls, and prettier boys—and with the Chatti calmed down for good, you’re stuck in Rome pushing scrolls around a desk. Is the Emperor treating you well, Bureaucrat?”

Better than well. The Emperor worked him, loaded him, talked to him, joked with him, trusted him: a god, a master, a friend. A glimpse into a mind a thousand times more complex than his own. A burden of unbelievable good fortune.

“I’m coming back to Rome in a few months, and I’m dragging you to the Colosseum. It’s been months since I’ve seen a good gladiator. I suppose we’ll have to pay our regards to your family, but they aren’t bad. I’ve found that your father is some kind of cousin on my mother’s side. Everyone is well, I hope?”

Paulinus’s mind skittered to a halt. Well? No, he didn’t suppose any of his family were well. Sabina looked as sad as a sick puppy. His father was polite—unfailingly gentle, unfailingly courteous, never reproachful. Hate me, Paulinus wanted to shout. Just hate me. But instead of curses—

“Duties going well, boy?”

“Yes.”

“The Emperor thinks much of you.”

“Yes, well—yes.”

“You don’t look well. Rings under your eyes.”

And claw marks down my back, and a bite on my shoulder, and an ache in my gut, all put there by your wife—hate me, oh gods, just hate me—

But the eyes were awkward and caring. Easier not to face them. He scarcely went home at all, now; just a visit every month or two for form’s sake. “That pretty little Pollia cow,” Paulinus’s aunt Diana had said, disgusted. “It’s not enough she’s got her claws in you. Now she’s driving you out of the family.”

“You know?” Paulinus had been appalled. His aunt Diana lived out in the country with her horses, paying no attention to gossip. If she knew . . .

“Paulinus, everyone knows. Say the word, and I’ll run the bitch over with my chariot.”

Trajan again: “No wife yet? I thought a sentimental chump like you would be an easy target. No doubt women are climbing all over the Emperor’s right arm.”

“Where do you think you’re going, Paulinus?” Lepida’s voice, sinking as it always did straight past his brain through the pit of his stomach and lower so it was his own body that betrayed him as his mind wailed. She didn’t have much time for him, with her parties and her banquets and her other lovers. But every few weeks she’d send a note—“Tonight”—and he’d stare at it for a day, swearing up and down that he wouldn’t go, and in the end his feet would drag him to her door.

No, there weren’t any other women. Lepida had burrowed under his skin like a fishhook.