Rustling. Marcus smiled wearily.

“So yes, I remember that year. A year of greedy usurpers who murdered, rioted, and dragged Rome through hell. We look at Saturninus and wonder if he’s another Otho or Vitellius. We look around at Egypt and Spain and wonder if there are any more Othos or Vitelliuses out there, waiting to pounce. Some of us will start wondering how fast we can get out of Rome. Some of us will start wondering if we can cut deals with Saturninus. Some of us are wondering if we can play both sides and come out on top whoever wins. And I guarantee you”—his eyes drifted across the rows of senators—“that some of us are wondering if we can’t just let Domitian and Saturninus kill each other off, and grab the throne ourselves when they’re dead.”

One or two pairs of eyes flickered.

“But, wondering aside, none of us wants another Year of the Four Emperors, do we? Not I. I have a son to lose now, and a daughter, and if a dungeon cell turned my hair gray at thirty-three then imagine what it will do to me at fi fty-three.” Another ripple of muffled laughter. “Even those of you who secretly think you’d make a better Emperor than either Domitian or Saturninus—do you really want another war? I don’t think you do. Not when you count the cost.” Marcus’s voice rose suddenly, snapping out to the far reaches of the room. “But that’s what you’re giving us—war—every time you meet in frightened little groups and whisper about the wisdom of giving way. You pave the road for war, and I won’t have any part of it because I—hate—giving—way.” The eyes of Augustus the God bored through them all. “Not to an ambitious little runt like Saturninus. So until you’re ready to throw your undivided support behind Domitian—because undivided support is the only thing that quashes ambitious little runts with armies—until you’re ready to do that, fellow senators, I’m going home. I’m going home to see my daughter, and wonder if your bickering has doomed her to be spitted on a German pike.”

In utter silence Senator Marcus Vibius Augustus Norbanus limped out of the Senate.

FATHER?” Sabina tugged at Marcus’s hand. “What?” Her palla had fallen back, and he tugged it forward up over her hair. Even if the winter winds hadn’t been biting keenly around their faces, the altar of Minerva was a stern marble place. No one approached bareheaded.

“Why do the gods like white bulls better?”

The pontifex glared, leading the bull forward, and Marcus put a finger to his daughter’s lips. Laughter surged wildly in his middle. White bulls, white swans, white sows—why did the gods want their sacrifices white? With so many mothers praying for sons in Germania, on one side of the rebellion or the other, there was hardly a white animal left in Rome. Limping out of the Senate house, he’d gone straight to the market in search of a sacrificial beast, and paid an exorbitant sum for a scrawny bullock whose haunches wouldn’t have fed a family of five. “The gods just want blood, Sabina.”