“Please. Lord and God, please.”

“Grovel.”

She lowered her head to his feet, pressing her face against the lacings of his sandals, her hands caressing his ankles. “Domitian, I beg you—”

He leaned down to touch her bowed head, his eyes dreamy and distant, and my breath stopped. “Athena,” he breathed. “Lovely Athena.” Sinking his fingers into her piled hair. “No.” He threw her away from him.

He whirled, snapping at the guards. “Kill the slave.” Two Praetorians leaped forward with drawn swords.

Thea screamed.

Paulinus reared back.

I drew an anticipatory breath.

Ganymede let out a hoarse mute’s cry as two Roman blades buried to the hilt in his stomach.

“NO!” The scream came from the fat little astrologer.

Ganymede staggered back, mouth a red square, beseeching with bloody hands. The Praetorian swords flashed again, shearing through his fingers on their way to his heart.

He fell, all his golden beauty a scarlet ruin. Such a waste.

“No, no, no—” The astrologer fell on the body. “No, no, Ganymede, no—”

Domitian dragged his eyes away from the corpse, breathing hard. His eyes turned toward me. “Thank you, Lady Lepida,” he said formally. “For bringing this man to my attention.”

“My pleasure, Lord and God.” Dropping my lashes.

“You?” The astrologer looked at her with swimming eyes. “You said my Ganymede—gods, you bitch, I’ll make you pay—” His voice choked off and he collapsed shuddering, clutching the bright golden head and rocking back and forth.

“Well, really,” I said. “As if it was my fault that—”

“Get rid of that thing.” Domitian brushed off his hands. “It stinks already.”

“Caesar, he never touched me!” Thea leaped to her feet. “Ganymede never touched me, he was innocent—”

“Then who was guilty?” The Emperor stepped over the mute’s outflung arm. “Name him, Athena. We’ll have another execution, and you can watch that, too, because that’s what every unfaithful woman deserves. To see her lover die before her eyes.”

“I have no lover, you bastard!” she screamed.

With one sweep of his arm Domitian threw her against the wall. I leaned forward eagerly. No one was paying any attention to me, but for once I didn’t mind. This was better than a play. Even the slaves clustered wide-eyed in the anteroom to watch.

“Stop.”

Marcus slid off his dining couch and made his slow limping way across the triclinium, his eyes never leaving the Emperor’s. In the voice of an Emperor he told the Emperor of all Rome, “Stop this.”

Domitian stared into the eyes of Marcus Vibius Augustus Norbanus.

“Stop this,” Marcus repeated quietly. “Now.”

Domitian let out a breath like a gasp. “No.” He sounded like a little boy whining at a difficult lesson, and when he put out both hands and shoved Marcus away it was the gesture of a little boy. But Marcus hit the floor on his bad shoulder, and when his face twisted with pain Domitian laughed, and the odd stillness broke. He drew back his foot to kick my husband, but Calpurnia flung herself over him, her yellow gown billowing, and the Emperor turned away with a shrug.