“My friend—she goes in at dawn to get the sheets off Lady Athena’s bed, when Lady Athena’s with the Emperor. But she’s not this morning, she’s sound asleep in her own bed and there’s a man with her.”

“Hmm.” I tapped my lacquered scarlet nails against each other. “Who was he?”

“Just a slave, Domina. Ganymede, his name is. Her body slave. All folded up around Lady Athena. S’what my friend says, anyway.”

“Well!” I made a note to find out more about this Ganymede. “You’ve done very nicely. Take this, and tell your friend there’s another purse for her. Anything else she can tell me, of course—”

“Yes, Domina.” My maid bowed out, already counting her coins. I sat down at my little desk, musing. A slave for a lover . . . not much to go on, really. I wished Thea had chosen someone a little more scandalworthy—say one of the Imperial cousins or even Paulinus. Bedding a slave wasn’t much of a sin; even patrician ladies frequently amused themselves with handsome slaves. Lollia Cornelia, that famous patrician hostess who was mother to Lady Flavia Domitilla, was well known to have borne two children by her body servant. But Lady Lollia’s husbands came and went, happy to let her do as she pleased . . . would the Emperor be so obliging? The Emperor who had once had some unassuming actor killed on the vaguest, most ridiculous rumor that the man was mounting his impeccable Empress?

I thought not.

Maybe Thea’s indiscretion would give good value after all. Phrasing would be everything . . .

I began, delightedly, to compose a certain letter.

Twenty-seven

HEY!” Lady Flavia’s son stumbled backward, looking down at the welt across his ribs. “Not so hard.”

“And the crowds roar as fi rst blood goes to Vercingetorix the Vicious!” Vix whooped, and he brought up his wooden sword again, circling in the practice ring of the gymnasium. Arius watched from the sidelines, chewing on a straw. Vix didn’t often spar with the two princes—“They’re too easy!” he scoffed—but the younger boy’s tutor was laid up with a fever and he’d begged a workout from Vix. Arius wondered if he might be regretting it: The boy was Vix’s age but a head smaller. A nice boy. He often sneaked meat scraps from his own plate for Arius’s dog after dinner.

“The opponent begs for mercy,” Vix chanted, swinging two-handed. “The first games of October, and Vercingetorix the Vicious looks ready to take his fi rst kill.”

The boy dodged, letting out a hiss of pain as the flat of Vix’s blade cracked across his shoulder. “Vix, this isn’t funny.” Arius was starting to think it wasn’t funny, either.

“Vercingetorix closes in—”

The young prince crumpled into the sand with a howl, leg streaming blood. “Vix, stop it! You’ve won, all right? You won!”

Arius spat out the straw in his mouth.

“The Colosseum erupts as Vercingetorix closes in for the slow kill!” Vix flung himself on his opponent and laid the wooden blade across his throat, digging the dull edge slowly into the soft flesh.