Five

THEA

THE Empress?” Through the thicket of greenery in the conservatorium I heard the resonant voice of Senator Marcus Norbanus. “I have no idea if she’ll be reinstated, Lady Lepida.”

“But you know everything about the Imperial family.” My mistress’s sweet tones. I was down on my knees scrubbing the tiles of the fountain, and I couldn’t see her face, but I could just picture the breathless way she looked up at her betrothed. “So tell me . . .”

They promenaded to the other end of the conservatorium, but I could still hear every word. Marcus Norbanus may have been nearly fifty, but he had a fine clear voice, trained to carry to the farthest corners of the Senate house. “I’ve counseled for reconciliation. The Empress is popular, and with her reputation for virtue, no one believes her guilty of adultery except the Emperor.”

“What about Lady Julia? They say there’s trouble between her and her husband—will they separate, too?”

“No,” Marcus said briefly. “Julia is . . . odd, shall we say. Fragile. She needs a protector. She looked to me for a time, after her father died, but I’m too old.”

“You’re in your prime!” Lepida’s laughter made nothing of his fo rty-six years.

“No, I’m old.” Suddenly his voice turned serious. “Do you want to marry me, Lady Lepida?”

That was too much for my curiosity. I lifted my hands out of the fountain and peered cautiously through the greenery. I saw my mistress’s rich black hair, and Marcus’s aquiline face brought down nearly on a level with hers by his crooked shoulder. Like his royal grandfather Augustus, he was not tall.

“You don’t have to marry me, you know,” he said as Lepida opened her lovely mouth. “I’m old, I’m hunched, and I’m set in my ways. No, don’t interrupt. I spend half my time at the Senate, and the other half in the library. I write treatises, I despise parties, and I have a son two years your senior. Certainly I’m no match for a pretty young girl.”

“I did wonder, Marcus . . . why remarry now?” Lepida’s tone was demure, but I knew she was dying for an answer. “After so many years divorced?”

“I prefer to be alone.” Marcus shrugged his crooked shoulder. “And even if I didn’t, not many women would have a reclusive old wreck like me.” I wondered if he had ever felt bitter about that, in his youth. Or even now.

“But with your rank, your education, your lineage—”

“Ah, yes, my lineage.” A note of dry amusement entered his fine voice. “My imperial blood may have been come by illicitly, but I am the last surviving grandson of Emperor Augustus. Emperor Titus regarded me as harmless, but his brother has a more suspicious nature. Domitian likes to inconvenience me, and there are few ways to inconvenience a bachelor like forcing him to marry.” He gave a courtly bow. “Especially to a beautiful girl like yourself, who is better suited for a young man.”