“Why not now?” Scrambling up. “I’m Vix.”

“Stephanus.”

“Oh, right.”

“Whatever your theories,” Arius warned, “don’t go spreading them around to the other slaves, or I’ll beat you bloody. Hear me, boy?”

“Kill me if I talk,” the boy promised. “Start now?”

“Draw your knife,” Arius said, wondering why he was doing this. “Too slow. You should be able to get a knife out of the sheath and into someone’s stomach before they can inhale. Angle the blade in more.”

“Like this? Hey, we’re both left-handed. What are the odds?”

ROME

“—so he’s sitting on his judge’s chair in the courtroom”—Paulinus’s hands sketched a quick picture—“and a pleb woman is swearing up and down that the inheritance should go to her and not to the plaintiff because he isn’t her son and heir, as he’s claiming. And the Emperor asks her, ‘Is this the truth?’ and she nods, ‘Yes, Lord and God,’ and he says, ‘Good, then you can marry him. Right now, on the spot, and the inheritance will be shared between you.’ ”

The Vestal Justina smiled, her eyes crinkling. “And what did she say?”

“She fell to her knees begging to be let off. So the Emperor judged that the plaintiff was her son after all, and the inheritance went to him.” Paulinus shook his head. “And do you know what he told me later? The Emperor, I mean. He said it was a trick he’d stolen from the legal records of Emperor Claudius. Claudius himself couldn’t have pulled it off any better. That woman’s face when he proposed she marry her son—”

Justina laughed, and Paulinus felt rich. She didn’t laugh often. Smiled a good deal, slowly and quietly, but rarely laughed. He settled back in his chair with a sigh.

“Tired?” She looked still and cool in her white robes, blending against the pale marble walls.

“I’m always on the run these days.” He smiled at her. “I wouldn’t mind a day in your position—sitting still in a white room watching a flame.”

“Oh, it’s a bit more than that. But it is peaceful.”

She was peaceful. He’d gotten into the habit, these past months, of dropping in on her. The Imperial investigations of the Vestal Virgins were officially closed, but he still visited every few weeks, just to talk to Justina. To sit in the public room, in full view as any Vestal must be when speaking to a man, and speak for a while in quiet voices about nothing very important. “I’m to be married,” he said suddenly.

“I’d heard something of it. A girl from the Sulpicii family?”

“Yes. Calpurnia Helena Sulpicia. The Emperor is hosting our betrothal feast as soon as the augurs find an auspicious date. She’s a widow—quite young, though, no children.”

“Is that all you can say of your future wife?” Justina asked.

“I hardly know her. She seems pleasant, though, and I’ve got to marry someone.”

“Do you?”

He shrugged. “If I stay unwed much longer, people will start thinking I prefer boys.”