“Let us be charitable and say he did not believe he could find a woman who would equal Paulina,” Cassia said. “He would ruin himself in his world if he married Paulina, even if he freed her. Perhaps he could not bring himself to marry another woman, if he could not have her.”
“Or maybe he could not convince another woman to have him.” I was not feeling as charitable as Cassia to a man who hadn’t worried about the consequences of his plans for vengeance.
“Possibly not. His legacy is fading.” Cassia made another note. “Though a woman might be persuaded, if she was of a lower status than him. It would raise her up, and also her family.”
“Would Cloelius marry a woman who wasn’t in his class?” I swallowed another bite of bread along with some lentils. “Cloelius wouldn’t despise Vibius half as much if Vibius was patrician born.”
“I think you have the right of it,” Cassia said.
“Fathers and sons.” I washed down my stew with a large quaff of wine.
“Yes.” Cassia paused in her writings, understanding what I meant. “Duilius would do anything for his sons, I think.”
“Like Livius’s father did,” I said. “He made certain Livius grew up safely, with an adoptive father who looked after him well. Priscus wanted him to prosper.”
“Cloelius wished his son well too,” Cassia reminded me. “Had him in charge of his workmen, gave his mother enough money to raise him.”
“Not the same.” Cloelius had tempered everything he did with concern about his own standing.
“I knew we wouldn’t die today.” Cassia’s soft-voiced change of subject made me raise my head from my meal.
“No?” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and reached for more bread. Surviving imminent danger made me hungry. “I thought we’d learn what smoked meat truly felt like.”
Cassia humored me with a smile. “I knew you’d find a way out of it. I never had any doubt.”
High praise from Cassia, though maybe relief at escaping made her heap compliments on me.
I held her gaze, recalling how I’d cradled her against me on the rubble-coated floor of the tower, my lips in her hair. “I am very glad we didn’t die,” I said.
Cassia’s cheeks reddened, and she bent over her notes once more.
“I am very glad too,” she said quietly.
In the morning, before I left for my job, Servius the praetorian turned up and told us we’d been summoned to the Palatine. Cassia fetched her cloak and bag of scrolls, and we joined Servius as we descended the Quirinal.
“Scaevola is dead,” Servius said without preliminary.
I was not much surprised at his news. “What happened?”
“He tried to get away. There was a scuffle.” Servius shrugged. “Saved us the bother.”
I didn’t doubt Scaevola had fought his captivity, but I’d remembered the fury in the eyes of his vigiles. Not necessarily about the murders, but because he’d deliberately endangered the city by lighting a fire.
Cassia shivered beside me but said nothing.
The roads were crowded as we crossed into the Forum Romanum, and we could speak no more. Servius led us past the Basilica Paulli, where orators pushed inside on their way to make eloquent speeches, while vendors on the portico sold passersby everything from sizzling meat to charms to cheap bracelets.
I wondered where the man who’d peddled the ring had obtained it, and whether it was real or a good forgery. Had some true descendent of Tarquinius sold it for coin or to distance himself from Nero’s suspicious wrath?
Possibly we’d never know.
At the gates of Nero’s domus we were let straight in and then taken through walkways and arched tunnels to a garden at the edge of the hill that overlooked the forums.
I’d stood on the tower roof across the valley yesterday, observing this view from the opposite side. Now I gazed northeastward at the Oppian Hill, where Livius had his villa and gardens he wanted to improve. Beyond was the Esquiline, where I imagined Cloelius wandering about his large domus, nothing in its fading glory to comfort him.
Nero stood near the edge of the cliff, his praetorians watchful around him. Servius took us through the line of guards to halt us about ten feet behind the princeps.
By the time Nero turned, Cassia and I were already on our knees, bowing low, the tiled floor of this walkway cool against my forehead.
