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She continued measuring out the fabric while I watched. After a few moments she put the cloth down. “Do you need something?”

I touched a nearby bolt of wool. “Would you like some help? I learned to sew as a tira and I’m not half bad. My stitches are even.”

She put down her needle. “Help me sew clothes? I couldn’t possibly. What would your patron think? What an idea.”

She had clearly assumed that one of the two men staying upstairs was my patron, and the other his servant.

I nodded. “Right. Silly idea. I’ll find another way to pass the time.”

She noticed the small tattoo on the inside of my wrist. “Ah, Caligine.”

“Yes.”

She had a tattoo on her inner wrist also. I could see it as she whipped the needle along the edge of the cloth. It was a pattern of crisscrossed lines: the mark of Casa Stella.

“Did you once have a patron?” I asked.

“I did. He set me up with this shop.” She kept her eyes focused on her work as she talked. Her steady hand produced the most even stitching I had ever seen.

“Where is he now?”

The rapid movement paused for just a second and then continued. “He grew tired of me and moved on. They get bored eventually, and then you get too old, so it’s good to have something beyond the pleasure house, to be able to earn an income.”

I watched the cloth glide through her hands. “I suppose they all do move on.”

She used the tip of the needle to pick at a little knot. “I wish I had learned more about arithmetic, though. My books are a mess. I am always taken by surprise when the tax collector comes around.”

“Let me help you,” I said. “I have some knowledge of arithmetic. Let me look them over.”

She frowned in surprise, then pulled a slim, leather-bound volume out from under a length of fabric.

I flipped it open and began to review the scrawled notations.

I SPENT TWO hours sorting out Tosca’s books, leaving her with instructions about how to note the money she earned on one side, and the expenses she paid on the other, and how to calculate the taxes she owed each quarter. She seemed both astonished and grateful when our lesson concluded.

“I’ve always had an aptitude for figures,” I explained in response to her wondering look.

I thought of Cassius and the effort he had put into my lessons. If only the Schola Morum taught more useful skills to girls, this woman would know how to manage her own finances. I thought, too, of Portia and the little girls she made a point of including in her humble schoolroom. She and I both knew that girls are capable of so much. What was it she had said? Then we must take care what lessons we are teaching them.

xxix

WHEN DON RETURNED IN THE EARLY EVENING, HE wasn’t alone. Sebastianus thumped up the stairs behind him. At the sight of him, my heart nearly stopped. His presence seemed to stir the air in the room. I was caught between hurt and longing. He looked much as he had when I first met him: clean-shaven, dark hair pulled back, diamond earrings gleaming, a silver cuff around his thick bicep. He carried a package under one arm.

He appeared ill at ease as he leaned on his walking stick and bowed in a stiff, formal greeting. “Anna.”

The chasm between us felt larger than ever, uncrossable. I stood up and curtsied. “Your Grace.”

He flinched but tried to hide it with a quick turn of his head to Pollux. “I was just telling Don that Clemens Fabius arrived at Caligine this morning.”

An expression of horror crossed Pollux’s face.

“By the lightning-blasted gods,” Don swore. “It can’t just be happenstance.”

Sebastianus paced across the small room and set his cloth-wrapped parcel down on the table. “Will I ever be rid of the man?”

Fear shot through me as I remembered the look of satisfaction on Clemens Fabius’s face when we met in Panpirion’s old quarter.

“Does he know you’re here?” I asked.