Mistress of Rome

by Kate Quinn

  “I don’t know, I—ouch—”

  Irritation surged. I gave her hair a sharp yank. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not lying, I’m not—”

  A knock sounded at the door. “Domina?” A slave’s timid voice.

  “My daughter is having one of her fits,” I said. “Go away.” As soon as the footsteps retreated, I jerked Sabina’s head back nearly between her shoulder blades. “Marcus and the Empress meet often, do they?”

  “Why shouldn’t they?” She was sniveling now, tears swimming in her eyes.

  “They’re not humping each other, that’s for certain. So why else would they meet?” Another little jerk. “Does anyone else meet with them?”

  “Let me go!”

  I hauled her upright. “Oh dear,” I sighed. “Am I hurting you?” I stroked Sabina’s cheek, and then slapped her. She cried out, and rage surged up suddenly—rage I’d felt stewing in my middle since Marcus divorced me. “Who? Who do they meet?” Sabina was on the floor, shielding herself from my slaps.

  “I don’t know! I never saw them!”

  “You do know! You filthy little rabbit-faced liar, how dare you lie to me!” I seized her hair, wrenching her head around and bringing it against the corner of the table. I could hardly see my daughter through the red fog. “Where—did—you—see—them?”

  “Here,” said Sabina, and began to sob.

  READ it, Marcus.” A folded piece of parchment passed between the litters. “One of my slaves brought it to me an hour ago.”

  Marcus read swiftly. “I see.” His voice was neutral. “Will he deliver it soon?”

  “Domitian is not slow to send out death warrants.”

  “It lists only ‘treason’ as cause of arrest. Does he know something?”

  “No, I wasn’t followed to any of our meetings. But he’s wanted me dead for a decade, and whatever his reasons he’s decided now is the time. I will probably”—calmly—“be dead very soon. Unless tonight—”

  “Tonight? No. He’ll be too wary—Paulinus would have to press him, and then he’d suspect Paulinus—”

  “Domitian will certainly torture me for the names of my fellow traitors,” the Empress said crisply. “As Domitian’s wife I have acquired a certain endurance against pain, but I doubt you’ll wager Paulinus’s life on that. Will you?”

  LEPIDA

  IT—it was weeks ago—after I went to bed, I heard voices—looked out my window—”

  “Who did you see?” My hands stung, but I gave her another slap.

  “The Empress. And—and a woman with dark hair—”

  “What woman?”

  “Just a slave woman! She had dark hair and a low voice. And there was a man with her, a legionnaire or something—he, he had lots of scars—”

  Ice crawled down my spine. I took Sabina’s ear between my lacquered nails, pinching as hard as I could. “A slave woman with a low voice? Tall? Scars on her arms?”

  “. . . Yes.”

  “Thea,” I said aloud. Of course. She was always turning up in my path. “And a soldier, you say?” No doubt her latest protector, after she’d dried her tears over the Barbarian. Some aging thug she’d wiled into helping her get her ghastly son back. “Is that all, Sabina? If you’re holding anything back—”

  “I’m not, I’m not, I swear!”

  I released Sabina’s ear, and she fell forward onto the tiles, tears running down out of her eyes to mix with the blood on her mouth. I really felt quite benevolent toward her. Who would have thought such a stupid little thing could be so observant? She might not know anything more, but I could figure out the rest on my own. Put a cast-off wife, a jealous old senator, and a discarded mistress into the same picture . . . well, what did they all have in common? Who did they all hate?

  Besides me, of course.

  I bent and kissed Sabina’s forehead, brushing the tears away with a finger. “Thank you ever so much, darling. Goodness, I’m sorry about the bruises, but you really did make me very angry. I’ll buy you something pretty tomorrow to make up for it.” Now, of course, I had to leave for the Domus Augustana—perhaps a quick pause by my Palatine villa to change into my new blue silk with sapphires? No, no time to waste; the red silk and pearls I’d worn today would do well enough. I already had my good litter pulled up at the house’s back entrance, and the two big slaves I’d brought for guards—

  “Sabina, if anyone comes to the house, don’t tell them I was here—”

  My daughter stumbled to her feet and shoved me away. Her lip was bleeding, and I noticed with surprise that she was almost as tall as I was. “Get away from me!” she shrieked, and she fled the room.

  Well, really. What a whining little weasel.

  THEA

  THE steward’s scandalized glance told me that he was not accustomed to admitting wild-eyed women and scarred thugs to the Norbanus house.

  “Is Senator Norbanus at home?” I asked.

  “No one. May I ask what—”

  “No.” I swept ahead with my chin in the air as if I were still Lady Athena, and he moved out of my way. Perhaps Arius’s scowl over my shoulder helped. “Where is the senator?”

  “I really can’t let you—”

  “Shut up,” Arius growled.

  We crowded down the narrow entrance passage: the steward wringing his hands, Arius fingering his knife, me turning back to hush them all—and when I rounded the corner I bumped into a small soft figure backed by two huge slaves. A figure in red silk, smelling strongly of musk.

  For one wild second, Lepida Pollia and I gazed at each other.

  She was faster. “Grab them,” she said to her slaves, and then she stepped out of the way.

  Arius lunged, blade whipping out. But in that narrow passage his shoulder slammed into mine, knocking me sprawling, and before I could take a breath one of Lepida’s slaves grabbed me by the hair and thrust me up against the wall with a knife against my throat.

  I froze, the blade pricking the flesh under my jaw. The steward froze, his mouth a round O of surprise. Arius froze, knife paused halfway through its arc to the second guard’s belly.

  Only Lepida moved.

  “Drop that knife,” she said to Arius. “Or watch her die.”

  The knife clattered on the floor.

  “Still the same Barbarian,” she trilled. Her eyes were glowing. “My, I was certain you were dead—but I’d know you anywhere. Even with that dreadful beard. Walk,” she told the slave at my back. “Take her to—oh, Marcus’s library will do. Arius, follow slowly. One sudden move, and she dies.”

  The big slave walked me into the library. My mind was numb. Marcus, Marcus, did you betray us?

  “Tie them up.” Lepida pointed; an imperious child. “Use lots of rope on him.”

  Arius stood quite still in the middle of the room, his eyes flicking from Lepida to me and back again. The slaves roped him roughly, and his eyes blazed.

  “Better tie him to a pillar, too,” Lepida decided. “Just to be safe. As for her, you can just put her on that chair and tie her hands. She’s too stupid to be dangerous.”

  The slave took the knife away from my throat, and Arius lunged. The rope caught his feet around the ankles and he fell, taking half a dozen slaves with him. He got an arm free, and one of the guards howled as his nose exploded in a spray of blood. But the other closed in, swinging a club, and I heard the familiar sound of my lover’s bones snapping.

  No. No. No.

  They roped him to a pillar, cracking his head against the marble, and I saw a trickle of blood slide from his hair into his dizzied eyes.

  “I hope they didn’t break anything too important.” Lepida peered at Arius from a good distance. “Leave some for the Imperial executioners.”

  Arius spat a mouthful of blood at her.

  “Your temper hasn’t sweetened with age, has it?” She looked back and forth between us. “Excellent. Now, as for you”—to the slaves—“back to your quarters, all of you. If any of you make a sound,
I’ll find out and I’ll feed you to the eels. You two”—pointing to her own hulking guards—“lock the slaves in their quarters. Search the house; I want them all confined in case anyone decides to run a message to Marcus. Then wait outside with my litter.”

  She might not be mistress here anymore, but the slaves had lost none of their fear of her. They filed meekly through the door, throwing wide-eyed looks behind them, prodded along by Lepida’s two thugs. Lepida waited until the door closed, then whirled on us, color shining high in her cheeks. “Oh, how lovely,” she breathed. “What am I going to do with you two?”

  Over her shoulder through the half-open door, I saw a flicker. A pair of blue eyes in a narrow bruised little face. Marcus’s daughter? Lepida’s daughter? I expected a scream, but the blue eyes took everything in silently, and she was gone as fast as she’d come.

  “Well,” said Lepida, oblivious. “I can’t be too long, because I’ve got an appointment at the Domus Augustana. And you two have an appointment here—with my husband, I assume. Some plot against the Emperor? How like Marcus.”

  I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t even blink. No. No.

  “I can’t imagine the details of your little plot, but I’m sure the Emperor’s torturers will get it out of Marcus.” Lepida smiled. “The Emperor will be very grateful to me, I imagine. What should I ask for? I won’t have to ask him to knock the head off your beloved Arius here, or your son. He’ll do that anyway. I could ask him to leave you alive, though—you could be my maid again! Polish my nails, scrub my back, do my hair. You were always very good at hair.”

  I had nothing to say to her. I could only hope her daughter had her father’s character instead of her mother’s and had gone to warn him.

  Lepida whirled, showing off the flash of her white arms and ankles against the crimson silk, and then suddenly bent low. “So what’s your secret?”

  “Secret?”

  “You held Domitian for years. How?”

  Her pointed tongue flickered over her rouged lips, and I saw just how badly she wanted to know. From despair I dredged a smile. “I didn’t give him what he wanted.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Everything. So I didn’t give it, and it kept him interested. I imagine you gave him everything? You’ve always been obvious. No wonder he got tired of you so soon.”

  Her smile slipped.

  “Not only are you obvious,” I added for good measure. “You’re a crashing bore.”

  She slapped me across the face. “You gave him everything!” She pointed a scarlet-lacquered fingernail at Arius: roped, slit-eyed, and silent against his pillar. “You’d have spread your legs for him in the middle of the forum if he wanted! How did you keep him for so long, if you didn’t hold anything back?”

  “Because Arius isn’t insane,” I explained patiently. “Domitian, in case you haven’t noticed, is.”

  “You don’t know anything about men.”

  “Of course,” I agreed, feeling light-headed. “And that’s why they all like me better than you.”

  She slapped me again. This time I was ready for it, and I got her little finger with my teeth. She had to pull at my hair to get free.

  “You get everything!” She glared at me, shaking her fingers. “You got Domitian; you got him—” Lepida whirled on Arius. “Why her? She’s a gawky Jewish slave; there are a thousand girls like her. There’s only one of me!”

  At any other time I would have thought it funny; a decade-old insult still biting at her pride. Beautiful women are so easily crushed.

  “Why?” She drew back her silk skirts and kicked Arius in his injured ankle; he drew a breath through his teeth. “Why her? Why not me?”

  He regarded her briefly. “Because you look like a ferret.”

  She hissed, drawing back to slap him. His eyes gleamed. For a moment her hand hovered.

  Then she straightened. Smoothed her hair and her face. Turned her elegant head back toward me, pearls swinging in her ears. “Well, Thea. It’s been lovely, but I really must be going. I could take you with me, but Arius is so unpredictable in close quarters . . . no, I’d better leave you here. There aren’t any slaves to free you, after all, and Marcus is off whispering with the Empress. He won’t get to you before I get to the Domus Augustana, if that’s what you’re hoping. Yes, I’ll just leave you here. The Emperor awaits.”

  She whirled back suddenly and gave Arius a brief, savage kiss. Pulling away before he could move, she strolled to the polished steel mirror on the wall and patted her lip rouge. “He has a sweet mouth, Thea,” she said. “The next to kiss it will be the ravens flying around the Gemonian Stairs. When they eat his head off a spear.”

  PREFECT.” One of the guards snapped a salute, catching Paulinus as he restlessly paced the atrium wondering if the sun had actually come to a halt in the sky. “Someone to see you, sir.”

  “No visitors today, you know the orders.”

  “She was most insistent, Prefect. She claims to be your sister.”

  “My sister?” For gods’ sake. “Tell her I’ll visit her tomorrow.”

  “She says it’s vital, Prefect.”

  Paulinus hesitated. When had Sabina ever imposed on him here? And how had she gotten here . . . or was their father with her? “Where is she?”

  “The Tiber Gate.”

  She wasn’t alone by the time he reached her. “It’s important,” he heard the small figure in blue say in exasperation to someone behind the gateway pillar. “I have to get a message to Prefect Norbanus, and if they won’t let me in to see him—”

  “C’mon, it can’t be that serious. Why don’t you give me a kiss instead?” Paulinus quickened his pace to the gate, seeing a rough brown tunic and a familiar blunt head bent far too close to his little sister. “I’m the Young Barbarian, maybe you’ve heard of me. Seen me in the arena, even? I’ve killed two men, I’m the next great gladiator—”

  Paulinus clubbed the back of Vix’s head. “That’s my sister you’re pressing up against the wall, boy.” He usually felt more sorry for Thea’s son than anything, but Vix looked so much like his thug of a father as he loomed over Sabina that all sympathy vanished. Paulinus aimed another swat, and Vix ducked with easy speed. The Colosseum had certainly honed the brat’s reflexes. “Go away,” Paulinus ordered. “Find something to kill.”

  “Who’s gonna make me?”

  “About two cohorts of Praetorian guards if I give the order, so—”

  “Boys.” Sabina’s voice cut across them both. She stood glaring at them with the Tiber sparkling behind her, small and pretty with her blue veil pulled up over her head—and bruised, Paulinus saw for the first time. Disheveled, too, as though she had run gasping all the way from his father’s house.

  Dread prickled him.

  Sabina grabbed Paulinus’s fingers in one hand and Vix’s rough paw in the other, tugging them both back into the shadow of the gate beyond the earshot of the guards. “He can stay,” she said as Paulinus glanced at Vix. “It’s his business, too.”

  “It is?” Vix blinked.

  “Hush.” She lowered her voice and began to speak rapidly.

  MARCUS was late back to the house—a cart had overturned on Quirinal Hill, blocking the flow of litters and wagons for three blocks. He’d finally abandoned his litter and walked, worry snapping at him sharper than the ache of the limp he’d acquired in the Year of Four Emperors. Putting the plan forward, it was mad—

  “Quintus?” Marcus called for his steward as he limped painfully into his blue-tiled atrium. A muffled voice called back. Not his steward’s.

  “Up here!”

  Marcus mounted the stairs, trepidation rising, and struck open the door of his tablinum.

  “No questions,” Thea said wearily. “Just untie us.”

  He set to work on the knots binding her wrists. “What happened?”

  “Lepida.” Thea stood up, rubbing her chafed hands. “She’s on the way to the Domus Augustana now. To tell the E
mperor.”

  Marcus swore. “How did she—”

  “Does it matter?” Arius shrugged against his pillar. “She knows. Tied us up here and took off for the palace.”

  “We were going to put the plan forward anyway. Tonight—”

  “Not tonight. Now.”

  Marcus looked at the sun outside the window, just starting to slant over the Tiber. “He won’t believe he’s safe for another two hours. Until then he’ll be on his guard—”

  “Too bad.” Thea worked at the knots on Arius’s ankles. “Can you hold a sword?”

  He nodded impatiently. But when he rose his foot gave way and he staggered.

  “What happened?” Every curse Marcus had ever heard poured through his head in six separate languages.

  “Your wife’s thugs. But”—taking a series of hopping steps across the room—“if the bones aren’t poking out of the skin, they’ll hold.”

  Marcus stared at him. “You’re mad.”

  Arius bent into a series of stretches.

  “Even if you can hold yourself together, we can’t get you into the Emperor’s suite. Even Paulinus can’t persuade Domitian to receive visitors, not until the hour of his supposed death is past.”

  Thea unraveled her hair from its plait, letting it fall over her shoulders. “There’s someone he’ll receive.”

  Marcus looked at her. Arius looked at her. “No,” said Arius.

  “Can you distract him long enough?” said Marcus.

  “She’s not distracting anyone. She’s not going.”

  “I am going.” She headed for the door. Arius reached her in two strides—strides without even a trace of a limp, Marcus noticed—and seized her arm. He grabbed her elbows, lifting her off her feet when she tried to jerk away.

  “You can’t go. He’ll kill you.”

  “He’ll kill you, too.”

  “The danger’s less. He doesn’t know me, hasn’t even seen me for years. You he’ll take apart.”