by Kate Quinn
“Definitely your daughter,” Marcella said.
“Old Flaccid over there has her so cowed she hardly speaks anymore. I’m divorcing him if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Your shortest marriage yet,” said Marcella. “Three weeks! If only mine were that short—”
A dutiful cheer started, and Marcella looked up to see Emperor Galba making his way into the Imperial box. He looked sour, doubtless counting the cost of everything. The chariots came out to much louder cheers. The warm surge of applause rose tier by tier, the plebs surging to their feet and screaming for their favorite faction, the patricians putting their palms together in more restrained approval. Seven teams: three for the Green, all twelve horses tossing the tall green plumes on their heads; one for the Blues with their famous blood bays; one for the Whites—and two for the Reds.
With all the cheers for the chariots and the bustle of guests, no one should have noticed the entrance of one more man in the Cornelii box. But everyone did, Marcella saw—everyone. A shorter man than Piso, with glossy dark curls and teeth that gleamed, his lawn synthesis flamboyantly patterned in gold, a ring on each hand and a gold chain about his neck. He paused in the entrance of the box to let everyone look at him, his smile embracing the crowd, lighting it as if a torch had been carried before him.
“I know I’m late,” the newcomer said airily, “but surely you all forgive me?” Most of the guests smiled involuntarily, Marcella noted. All but her sister, whose brows creased in a faint frown.
“Senator Otho?” Lollia whispered. “Gods, what’s he doing here?”
“Do you know him?” Marcella asked.
“Oh, we bounced the bed a few times back in the old days, when he and Nero were such good friends. Do you know him, my honey?” Lollia gave a reminiscent smile. “He’s well worth knowing, believe me.”
Marcella knew of Senator Marcus Salvius Otho, of course—one of Emperor Nero’s boon companions, at least until the minor problem arose when Nero fell in love with Otho’s wife, married her, then kicked her to death. But did I ever meet him before? The narrow, clever face looked familiar somehow.
Familiar or not, Senator Otho had a pair of red-and-gold Praetorians at his back, just like Piso’s.
Well, well, Marcella thought. Does Piso have a rival? Perhaps her brother-in-law’s ascension to Imperial heir wasn’t so certain as everyone assumed. Given Cornelia’s suddenly neutral expression, she was thinking exactly the same thing.
“My dear Lollia!” Otho paused before them, his black eyes sparkling amusement. “It’s been an age. You’re newly married? Congratulations, Senator Vinius,” he called across the box. “You have caught Rome’s most charming woman for a wife. And you, Lollia, have snared Rome’s wisest statesman!”
Vinius preened, mollified. Otho smiled again dazzlingly, and Marcella noted how many of the guests whispered behind their hands as they looked at him. Piso was looking decidedly nonplussed now.
“Reds!” Diana jumped up with a raucous cheer as the Reds chariots paraded past on the track below. “Reds!”
Otho’s amused gaze transferred to Diana. “There’s a young lady who likes the races.” A titter rippled through his party—like Nero, he traveled in a party of sculpted women and gleaming men; everyone young, everyone handsome, everyone amusing. He had taken over the Cornelii box like it was his own. “So this is the charming little Cornelia Quarta, for whom half my friends are perishing of love! Or I hear you are called Diana? How very fitting—”
“Sshh!” Diana hushed him impatiently, leaning forward over the railing, and let out a cry with the rest of the crowd as the cloth dropped and twenty-eight horses surged forward over the sand, noses straining and colored plumes blowing. Emperor Galba sat hunched in his box reviewing his accounts, but the plebs were all on their feet, shouting, waving colored pennants, clutching their medallions as the chariots flew into the hairpin turn at lunatic speeds. Even Marcella had to admit it was a stirring sight. Where else could you find two hundred fifty thousand people all going mad at once? Perhaps a war . . .
“Stir them up!” Diana shouted down at the first Reds charioteer as he got rattled out of the turn and dropped into fourth. “Gods’ wheels, stir them up!”
“You’ll have to excuse my cousin, Senator Otho.” Cornelia approached with outstretched hands, her smile serene and warm—but Marcella knew her sister and saw the unease at the back of her eyes as she looked at Otho’s Praetorians. “Diana lives for the Reds, and nothing we can say will quell her.”
“Don’t quell her,” Otho said. “She’s an original, and I like originals. I see you are an original as well, my very great lady.” He captured Cornelia’s hand, which she withdrew when he pressed too warmly.
“Lady Statilia, how lovely to see you—” Cornelia moved on to the ladies and praetors and tribunes in Otho’s party, each of whom she knew by name and family, and Piso, who had been hanging awkwardly in the background, was now hanging on his wife’s arm, making himself known to all, and Otho frowned. Especially when he noted the Praetorians at Cornelia’s back too, who scurried to her lifted finger like obedient slaves.
“Pity Cornelia can’t be Emperor,” Marcella mused aloud to no one in particular, and Otho’s sharp ear caught it.
“Very true, Lady.” He gave a bow, eyes raking her face. “Cornelia Secunda, isn’t it? I believe I know you already.”
“We’ve never been formally introduced, Senator.” Marcella tilted her head quizzically.
“No, but I remember that Emperor Nero once found you beautiful. I am not surprised to find him right.”
A cry from Diana as the Blues pulled ahead in the fourth lap. “I’ll die if they win,” she whispered, eyes following the storm of sand. “I’ll die—” Half of Otho’s tribunes were clustered about her, shouting down at the arena, but Marcella’s ears had blocked out the din.
“I don’t care to discuss that night, Senator,” she said finally. “What’s done is done.”
“Then you are a courageous lady—and one who holds my admiration.”
Marcella sipped at her wine, not tasting it. She had seen the former Emperor often enough, from a distance: waving to the cheering plebs with a gold wreath perched on his false curls, reciting his own poetry to properly respectful courtiers, whispering in the ears of beautiful women who were not his various ill-fated Empresses. But up close? That warm night at Lollia’s party this spring, she had seen a man with ruddy, pleasant features . . . and eyes that gleamed at all times, as if with a fever.
Marcella blinked as one of the Green teams went down on a hairpin turn, and the crash penetrated the buzzing in her ears. Even Piso, who had found someone important to bore at the back of the box, turned around. The horses staggered clear, dragging the charioteer behind them, still strapped to the reins, and a team of arena slaves rushed out behind to clear the wreckage of the chariot. The charioteer finally cut himself loose from the maddened horses, rolling limp and bloodied in the sand as they careened away, and the arena slaves rushed to pull him to the sidelines.
“Good,” Diana blew out a relieved breath. “If the Reds ran over him, they’d foul their wheels and lose half a lap.”
“Little savage,” Marcella said, still feeling Otho’s watching eyes as he twirled the gold stem of a wine cup between his fingers.
“I’m sorry, you know,” he said unexpectedly. “I wish I could have said something, that night.”
“At least you didn’t laugh,” Marcella found herself saying. Most of the guests at the party had laughed—tittered, really, when Nero had looked her over on introduction and said in his offhand high-pitched voice, “You’ll dine alone with me tomorrow.” Marcella looked up at him, startled out of her internal musing, and Nero’s gilded guests had found it all very funny. Just another Imperial whim. Everyone knew Nero’s whims; even with the Senate rumbling fire at his back, he yielded to every fancy that touched him. Whether it was a goblet of wine, a golden palace—or a general’s daughter.
�
��No, I didn’t laugh.” Otho’s eyes crinkled in a smile. “You were too brave for that.”
“I’m not sure if it’s bravery if you don’t have a choice, Senator.”
“I assure you, it is. Courage is defined by how we meet unfortunate circumstances—inevitable or not.”
Last lap of the race. Marcella forced her harried attention down on it. Diana was on her feet now, shouting as the Reds darted up to fight for the lead with sixteen legs blurring and the charioteer flapping his reins. The crowd surged up and Marcella found herself surging with them, palms sweaty from nerves that had nothing to do with the race. Otho and his sophisticated crowd never showed excitement; they just murmured and arched their plucked brows, but Lollia shouted encouragement and Diana was shouting right along with her as the Reds and the Blues battled neck and neck, eight horses strong across the track. The last turn, and Marcella gasped along with everyone else as they took it at deadly pace, but the Reds somehow squeaked clear, the charioteer white-eyed and lashing his team all the way.
Marcella looked down and saw that she was banging her hands against the rail. Fortuna, she thought in some amusement, the race got me too. Vinius looked as sour as ever, and Tullia was tight-lipped to see anyone having fun, but decent boring Piso stood muttering under his breath and Cornelia clung to his arm in excitement, and behind them the impassive centurion named Densus was swearing like a stable hand and clenching his fists as he urged the Reds on. Even Senator Marcus Norbanus looked up from his paperwork in mild interest. The pounding of hooves thudded like a heartbeat.
No conversation now as the teams pulled into the straightaway. Just Blue and Red battling it out, axles clashing, the outside horses snapping at each, both charioteers laying their whips on. Every soul in the circus was on their feet, shrieking, screaming, begging for a victory. Sour-faced Emperor Galba was busy shuffling his lists and counting his sesterces when the Reds pulled ahead, confounding all the odds to beat the Blues in the climactic race of the Ludi Plebii.
The circus exploded.
Diana yelled in triumph and flung her arms around the nearest person, who happened to be Marcella. She laughed and hugged her craziest cousin back, ruffling the mess of untidy hair. Cornelia and Piso were hugging each other too, Lollia was tossing little Flavia up in the air, and Otho looked amused. Below, the Reds charioteer blinked as he was presented with his victory palm. The Blues charioteer snapped his whip spitefully over the heads of the exhausted Reds team, making them jump and making every Reds fan in the circus from Diana to the lowest pleb leap up shrieking obscenities.
“By Jove,” Otho said as Diana shouted down at the Blues charioteer, “I’ve not heard such fine cursing since my days in the legions.”
The party was spilling outward now, and Lollia bubbled invitations to everyone to come to her house, where the winning charioteer would be hosted. “I will not have racing riffraff in my home!” Old Flaccid sniffed.
“Then I’ll throw a party for him at my grandfather’s house,” Lollia said sweetly, and Marcella laughed behind her hand to see how Otho’s entourage of beautiful glossy people brightened at the prospect of a free meal from the table of such a famous host. Senator Vinius kept hissing imprecations, flapping his wrinkled hands, and Lollia rolled her eyes openly. Marcella gave Old Flaccid another month before Lollia wangled herself a divorce.
“I thank this is my cue to go.” Otho bowed over Marcella’s hand. “I’ll be at the party later, of course—when do I ever miss a good party?—but for the time being I should go apply myself to all the dullards so they’ll all think I’m capable and well informed.”
“You are capable and well-informed, Senator,” Marcella said. “I hear you did a very good work as Governor of Hispania last year.”
“Really? I didn’t think anyone noticed.” He wandered off, calling greetings.
Cornelia and Piso had been summoned to the palace to dine with the Emperor, but the rest of the family flooded back toward the house of Lollia’s grandfather, Diana leading the charge with her arm slung companionably about the victorious charioteer. Wine at once began to flow and music to soar, and Marcella collapsed in a corner with a cup of wine to watch everything. Because that’s what I do best, she thought. Marcella, keeper of history and watcher of emperors.
She laughed aloud, mocking herself. Such purple language from a historian!
Lollia’s grandfather beamed in the atrium, welcoming senators and charioteers and giggling ladies alike with open arms, happy in everybody’s success because he owned shares in the Reds. Also, Marcella knew, in the Blues, the Greens, and the Whites, because he was careful to back all sides. No wonder he’s the richest man in Rome. He’d gone from an ex-slave running the low-rent district in the Caelian Hill to a trader with so many tentacles of business that he could marry into the patrician class and deal with emperors . . . Lollia was already pleading prettily with him in a corner, doubtless angling to get rid of Old Flaccid. Of course she’d succeed—her grandfather might be hard-nosed in business, but he was clay in the hands of his only grandchild, whom he’d raised as his own when her mother and father died in that boating accident. If Lollia wanted a new husband, a new husband her grandfather would get for her—just as he’d gotten his jewel the ponies, the dolls, the dresses, and the pearls when she was little. She had all the best toys back then, Marcella thought. I suppose she still does.
At the center of the raucous crowd was Otho, leading the guests in a toast to the Reds, cheering the return of good times in the cold onset of December. Marcella saw his brilliant smile as a Praetorian approached to whisper in his ear. “Apologies to all!” he called gaily. “But Emperor Galba summons me to the palace. Dear gods, I wonder what I’ve done wrong?”
“Why did Galba invite him?” Cornelia wailed to Marcella the next day.
“Because he’s handsome?” Marcella suggested. “Galba does like a strapping handsome man, one hears. I always thought that might be why he likes your Piso so much, but if Otho is more to his tastes . . .”
Her sister wasn’t listening. “—Piso and I were supposed to be the only guests! Otho just lay there all through dinner making jokes at Piso’s expense. And why Otho got assigned Praetorians too, I’ll never understand—”
Marcella slanted a brow. “I think you do understand, Cornelia.”
“Never mind.” Cornelia smoothed her hair with both hands, and her expression with it. “It doesn’t change anything. Piso is Galba’s cousin, after all. He’s descended from Pompey and Crassus, and he’s a serious man, not some frivolous perfumed sophisticate. Those are the things that matter.”
“Maybe so. But guess who has more money to sprinkle around in bribes? Guess who can charm the birds out of trees? And guess whose name the crowd was screaming after the races?”
Three
CORNELIA always hated the public slave market. The pushing, the shoving, the auctioneers shouting like cattle drovers, the jeers of the men who just came to see the female slaves stripped naked. So off-putting—she always attended private showings for her slaves.
“My dear ladies.” An unctuous little man bowed before Lollia and Cornelia. “You honor me with your patronage. Only the finest slaves to be seen here, all healthy and docile—”
“You know what I find depressing?” Lollia complained. “That a trip to the slave auction is the highlight of my month.”
“You have only yourself to blame,” Cornelia pointed out, filing slowly past the long row of slaves on their display pedestals. “Kissing a charioteer at a party—Juno’s mercy, most husbands would object to that!”
“Oh, it’s not kissing a charioteer that he objects to. It’s the indiscretion . ‘I will not have my wife known as a whore,’ ” Lollia mimicked savagely. “ ‘Since you seem unable to behave yourself in public, you are henceforth confined to the house. Properly supervised, you may go to the Forum, to the bathhouse, to visit your family, and to such entertainments as I deem appropriate.’ And believe me, there isn’t much he deems appropr
iate.”
Cornelia perused the line of slaves, absently accepting a cup of barley water from the hovering slave dealer. Male and female slaves alike were dressed in crisp white tunics, limbs oiled and gleaming in the lamplight, a discreet plaque hanging about each neck to advertise names and skills. Servitors, secretaries, scribes . . . a proper cook, that was what Cornelia needed. Her current cook would be quite defeated by the prospect of a forty-course banquet. Not that her own tastes were so elaborate, of course—or Piso’s—but an emperor’s heir had to keep up certain standards when he entertained . . .
If Galba chooses him. But she squelched that thought firmly. Of course the Emperor would choose Piso. There were no other possible candidates. Some people might appear more popular and charming, some people might be sprinkling money about like spring rain, but that didn’t matter in the long run. Men of character and integrity would always win over men of charm and money.
“I thought I’d buy a new maid to replace that harpy Old Flaccid set to spy on me,” Lollia was saying meditatively. “But perhaps I need something else too. Something large and handsome and male to help me pass the time.”
“Lollia, really.”
“Well, who else is supposed to keep me occupied while I’m under house arrest? Unless you’re willing to lend me that stalwart centurion of yours on your next visit. He can show me what he can do with his spear, and you can talk all you want about Piso being Emperor.”
“I hope you’re just trying to be funny, because if you sincerely think I would ever—”
“Oh, don’t ruffle your feathers,” Lollia sighed.
Pushing down her irritation, Cornelia paused before a plump slave with a bald head. She leaned closer to read the plaque at his neck: Varro, Greek, forty-three years, cook. “What kind of cook, Varro? For an equite household, or for a senatorial family?”
“I have cooked for governors and consuls and emperors, Lady. Emperor Nero himself admired my boiled ostrich.”
