“Big shield. You’ll be a heavyweight.” Arius sized up his pupil with a judicious eye. Vix had grown like a vine—his head topped Arius’s shoulder, and at nearly twelve years old he was as compactly muscled as a pony. He’d be a big man someday.

Vix dunked his face in the water jug and mopped his forehead off with his arm, a gesture he’d picked up from Arius. He had also hacked his hair short, like Arius, and had started begging to drink unwatered wine as Arius did. Arius found himself oddly startled. He’d been many things in his life: a barbarian, a laborer, a gladiator, a slave, an entertainer, a monster. But he’d never been anyone’s hero.

“Y’know my mother’s coming to visit?” Vix was saying. “Lady Flavia got a letter.”

“When’s she coming?” Arius tilted the water jug so the dog could get a drink.

“Next month. End of May. You’ve never met my mother, have you?”

“No.”

“She’s awful,” Vix said darkly. “She’s strict. You’ll like her. Hey, can we go one more before dark?”

“Why not?”

“I’ll disarm you again.”

“Don’t get cocky.” Arius hid a smile as he clouted Vix over the ear.

ROME

MARCUS had just paused below the steps of the Capitoline Library when Calpurnia Sulpicia called his name. “Marcus, is that you?”

“Calpurnia.” Turning away from a hired litter where he had paused to have a word, Marcus smiled at his prospective daughter-in-law. A blue palla draped her shoulders, two slaves trotted at her back with fan and sunshade, and she had a basket on her arm like any Roman housewife. “How delightful.”

“Was I interrupting?” Calpurnia gestured at the hired litter. A woman’s pale emerald-studded hand had just twitched the gray curtains shut, and the litter-bearers were moving away at a trot.

“Not at all.” Marcus did not elaborate. He shifted a load of scrolls to the other arm, balancing on his bad side as a harried-looking pleb woman brushed past in pursuit of her children. A bright spring morning, and every woman in Rome was pressing toward the forum. “What brings you out, Calpurnia Sulpicia? Shopping?”

“Yes, for earrings. I lost a stone out of my jade dangles.”

“Buy topaz instead.”

“Pardon?”

“Topaz,” Marcus advised. “You have lovely hazel eyes. Wearing a yellow stone so close will make them look gold. Have you seen much of Paulinus lately?”

“No . . . he’s been busy.”

Marcus studied her. “He’s been neglecting you, hasn’t he?”

“Oh no.” Fidgeting.

“Yes, he has. Has he even seen the augurs for a wedding date?”

“Of course. We thought perhaps last September, but my mother was so ill then that it seemed better to put everything off—”

“She’s better?”

“Yes, now. So it isn’t Paulinus’s fault, you see.” Smiling. “Just bad luck.”

“He could try harder.” Sternly. “Betrothed two years—bad luck or no, your family would be within their rights to look elsewhere for you.”

“Not when the Emperor himself wants the marriage. And besides—” A smile squeezed Calpurnia’s hazel eyes. “My father said I could choose my second husband for myself. I want to marry Paulinus.”