“Oh, he’s not bad,” I said. “I used to sing for him in Brundisium. Very generous with tips.”

“Let us hope he is as generous with his taxes.” The Empress leaned back in her chair, relaxing for the first time in all the years I’d observed her. “So,” she said.

“So,” I said.

We looked at each other.

“What will you do now, Domina?” I asked.

“Well—” she looked thoughtful. “I have a sister and two cousins who haven’t spoken to me in twenty years. This isn’t the first time I’ve meddled with the doings of Emperors, you see, and they have always disapproved. Time to mend fences. Afterward, I think I shall retire to that quiet little villa in Baiae and live to an extremely virtuous old age.” The Empress tilted her head. “And you, my dear?”

I shrugged. “Arius wants a mountain. He says he’s going to be a gardener.”

“How pastoral. Can he garden?”

“Lady Flavia said he killed most of the grapes in her north vineyard.”

“Perhaps he’ll get better. What about you—what do you want?”

“I just want Arius. Gardener or gladiator.”

“What about your horrid son? Will he be happy with a mountain?”

“Maybe he’ll have a few brothers and sisters he can drill into a legion.”

“You’re already carrying a child, aren’t you?”

I smiled.

“Excellent. Raise it in good health. As for young Vercingetorix—” The Empress looked thoughtful. “He may command a real legion someday, if Nessus’s horoscope is correct. That dreadful son of yours has talent, Thea. If he wants a job when he’s a little older, he will be welcome in Rome. Under a different name, perhaps. I think we may have seen the last of the Young Barbarian. Though not, perhaps, of Vercingetorix.” She shuddered.

Perhaps I should defend my son. Oh, perhaps not. I shrugged.

She produced a bundle of impressively stamped and sealed letters, counting them out one by one. “Papers of freedom for you, Arius, and that appalling child. Board of passage on a ship to Gibraltar, and then to Britannia. A purse with a sum for beginning a new life. An annual stipend to be paid anonymously on the first of every year, forwarded in trust to the governor at Londinium who will ask no questions of whoever comes to collect it.” She pushed them all across the table. “Your reward.”

I picked up the packet holding my future. “We earned it.”

“So you did.” She rose and proceeded to strip each and every emerald from her fingers and throat. “I’m done with green,” she announced. “I think I’ll give all my emeralds away to my sister and cousins.

Choose something for yourself first, my dear.” I chose a broad collar of glittering emeralds that would easily buy a house in Brigantia, or perhaps an entire mountain.

“You’ll need some new gowns before you leave,” the Empress continued, coming around the edge of the desk. “Blood is no longer so fashionable as it once was. I’ll send you some of my own clothes. We are the same size, I believe.”