“His grandmother was a Caesar, before she married into my family. No doubt she’d weep if she saw him steal meat from a butcher not three streets away. I mean, it’s not as if they don’t know his face! They’ll break his arms if he does it again, and where will I be then?” Tears spilled from her eyes and, without thinking, Alexandria stepped forward to put an arm around her.

“Let’s go inside. I think I will take that room of yours.”

The woman straightened and glared at her. “I don’t want charity. We get by and the boy will learn in time.”

“It’s not charity. Yours is the first clean room I have seen and I used to . . . work for a Caesar a few years ago. Could be the same family. We’re almost relations.”

The woman wiped her eyes with the cloth, producing it again from where it made a lump in her sleeve.

“Are you hungry?” she said, smiling.

Alexandria thought of the small pile of vegetables that waited to be chopped.

“I’ve already eaten. I’ll pay you for the first month and then go back to where I’m staying and collect my things. It’s not far off.”

If she walked quickly and didn’t dawdle at Tabbic’s, Alexandria thought, she could make it back to her new home before dark. Perhaps by then they would have been able to buy a little meat with her rent.

*                                                      *                                                      *

The senators shifted uncomfortably in their seats. It had been a long session and many of them had reached the point where they were ignoring the complications of the arguments and simply voting whichever way they had agreed earlier.

With the evening shadows lengthening, torches were lit using tapers on long poles. The glow of the small flames was reflected in the polished white marble walls, and the air filled with the soft smell of scented oil. A large number of the three hundred senators who had gathered that morning had already left, letting the last few votes pass without their presence.

Crassus smiled to himself, having made sure his own supporters would remain until the torches were snuffed and the long day reached its official conclusion with the prayer for the safety of the city. He listened intently to the list of appointments, waiting for the one he and Pompey had included to be brought to the vote. Almost unwillingly, his eyes strayed to the legion list, cut into the white marble. Where Primigenia had been inscribed, there was now a blank space. It would be pleasing to undo another small piece of Sulla’s legacy, even if he hadn’t been asked to by his old friend.