by Kate Quinn
More guests pressed close, cooing congratulations, their faces all blurs. Lollia dropped her saffron bridal cloak and Thrax refastened it about her throat. She couldn’t meet his eyes somehow. He’d been so sweet the day Vinius died—when she started giggling and couldn’t stop he’d just picked her up and carried her to bed. But he didn’t try to make love to her. He just held her close until the giggles turned into tears, and then he rocked and sang soft lullabies as if she’d been about as big as Flavia. “How do you know how to be so comforting, Thrax?” she asked.
“I sang to my sister,” he’d replied unexpectedly. “When she was little. When she is four, she goes to the slave market—dry-eyed. Because I sing to her first.”
Lollia wondered what had happened to his sister—what happened to the rest of his family. He shared her bed, and she knew so little about him . . . but he was a slave. Why should she know anything about him?
“I don’t know how you can be so calm.” Lollia had pulled away, scrubbing at her wet cheeks. “The world is ending.”
“Maybe.” He dried her eyes deftly. “Then I end with it.”
“That doesn’t trouble you?”
“My Lord died. That turned out all right.” He smiled, touching the rough little wooden cross hanging about his neck. It was something to do with his god—a carpenter or maybe the god of carpenters; Lollia wasn’t sure. “You turn out all right too, Domina.”
How could he say that? How could he know that?
Ever since, Lollia found it hard to meet Thrax’s eyes. Somehow, looking at him was just one more thing that made her feel uneasy.
Emperor Otho and his brother and their wedding party of guests were already waiting when Lollia stepped out into the gardens: grouped as artistically as statues, laughing among themselves and making graceful jokes. Beautiful as any Greek frieze, but her unease just increased. For the first time in Rome’s history, an emperor had gained his throne by the sword. Could so many people really just laugh at a party afterward as if everything were exactly the same?
Perhaps it was the same. If they could laugh, then so could she: Lady Cornelia Tertia again, known as Lollia the scandalous, who did nothing but go to parties and enjoyed them too.
She gulped a goblet of strong wine under the red veil before proceeding out, and her fourth wedding went much the same as the others. The ritual cake, the words “Quando tu Gaius, ego Gaia,” the procession to the altar of Juno for the sacrifice. Emperor Otho was there only for a brief blessing at the temple before slipping off—of course he was far too busy establishing himself as Emperor with the Senate to waste much time on weddings. She swallowed another goblet of wine as she saw Cornelia’s dry hating gaze follow him out.
Lollia took her bland and handsome new husband’s hand, kneeling before Juno’s statue. She tried to pray, but the prayer trailed off before it even began. Venus had always been her goddess, not Juno—beauty and love, rather than marriage and children. Besides, Lollia didn’t know if she trusted Juno. She certainly never answered any of Cornelia’s prayers.
The priest was just leading a white bull out for sacrifice when the guests stirred. Twisting, Lollia saw a slight figure winding through the crowd: Diana, her plain wool robe not at all suitable for a wedding. She had something in her hand, wrapped in a sack, and she went straight to Cornelia.
“I brought you something,” she said. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”
She held out the sack, and Lollia saw that it was bloodstained. It couldn’t be heavy, but Cornelia staggered.
“I had to go all over the city,” Diana said sturdily, sunlight slanting on her pale hair. “I must have visited every Praetorian in the barracks before I found the right one. But I got it for you.”
“Oh, Fortuna,” said Marcella, quicker on the uptake than the priest who started fussing, or Lollia’s new husband who just looked bewildered. Lollia quieted them both as Cornelia looked into the sack.
She looked for a long moment.
She looked back up at Diana: so stalwart, so anxious to please.
Then Cornelia’s face broke into pieces.
“No,” Lollia whispered as ripples fluttered through the wedding guests. Horror stirred in their eyes, panic still close to the surface after last week’s storm of murders. “No,” Lollia said again, stupidly, as her new husband looked into the sack that fell from Cornelia’s trembling hand. He leaped back swearing, as Cornelia sobbed into Diana’s shoulder.
“No,” Lollia whimpered, but it was too late. An emperor was murdered, and she’d never be able to laugh giddy and unaware at a party again.
Looking back, Lollia thought she was the first to see it—even before Marcella, who saw everything. The first to see that Rome had tilted on its axis, and that the coming year would bring nothing good. She clutched after herself—Cornelia Tertia, known as Lollia, who could have been a better mother, who could have been a kinder wife, who could have treated the slave in her bed like a man instead of a stud.
A strong hand covered hers. “Domina?” whispered Thrax.
She gave his hand a fierce squeeze. “Call me Lollia.”
The wedding resumed, but everyone was stilted, awkward, cut short. Lollia sleepwalked through it all. So much for the Quiet Wedding. Thanks to her dear, darling, savage little cousin, this would forever be known as the Wedding with the Head.
Enough said.
PART TWO
OTHO
January A.D. 69–April A.D. 69
“By two actions, one utterly appalling, one heroic, he earned just as much renown as disgrace in the eyes of posterity.”
—TACITUS
Six
WHY am I doing this for you again?” Lollia whispered.
“Because Gaius wouldn’t let me go alone,” Marcella whispered back. “Which really means Tullia won’t let me go alone, that curled cow.”
At the front of the long room, a man in the stiff pleats of his best toga was declaiming in a nasal voice. He had a good turnout for his reading, Marcella thought—the long hall had been filled with rows of chairs, and every chair was occupied by an attentive listener. Or at least, they’d been attentive at the beginning. Now everyone was beginning to yawn and fidget.
“What’s he going on about now?” Lollia whispered. “Whatever his name is.”
“Quintus Numerius, and it’s his latest work.” Marcella made dutiful notes on her tablet. “ ‘The Administrative Problem of Cisalpine Gaul during the Consulship of Cornelius Maluginensis.’ ”
“Fascinating,” Lollia sighed.
“He was an ancestor of ours.”
“He was a crashing bore, and so is Cisalpine Gaul.”
“You owe me, Lollia! All the times I’ve listened to you rave on about your pet stud—”
Lollia’s eyes flicked toward the big blond Gaul who stood beside her, gently waving a fan. “Don’t call him that.”
Quintus Numerius concluded the latest quotation and bowed. A bored ripple of applause crossed his audience. “A brief pause,” he said, and everyone broke into a buzz of conversation.
“Thank the gods,” Lollia groaned, and peered around the throng of guests: senators, scholars, and historians all. “There’s not a one under sixty besides us!”
“Not your kind of party, perhaps,” Marcella agreed. Certainly not like the glittering parties Emperor Otho threw every night now to light up the Domus Aurea. Here the room was undecorated, the buzz of conversation was sober and sprinkled with Greek quotations, and there were far more togas and bald heads than silk dresses and painted faces. “Don’t yawn! At least not openly.”
“You should have taken Cornelia. She never yawns in public.”
“She’s still in her bedroom, slinging vases at the door if anyone knocks.” Marcella didn’t know what to do about her sister, but there didn’t seem to be anything she could do until Cornelia unlocked her door.
“I wish she’d let me visit,” Lollia fretted.
“I’d leave it a while. She still won’t speak
your name, since you married Otho’s brother.”
“Oh, dear. I don’t even like him all that much. He’s handsome enough, but he cracks his knuckles all the time . . .”
“Well, it’s not just him. You’re first lady of Rome now, since Otho doesn’t have any wife or sisters. You got Cornelia’s place.”
“Like I wanted it to begin with. It’s not as grand as it sounds, you know—Otho doesn’t need me to host his parties or manage his guests. He does that himself, and I just pay for everything. That’s what being the first lady in Rome is.” Lollia shook her head, half weary and half angry. “Even if it were different—Marcella, I’m not like you and Cornelia. I don’t want to be important. I just want a few pretty dresses, and nice parties with people who tell good jokes, and a handsome man to come home to. Does an empress ever really get that?” Lollia shook her head again. “I don’t think so.”
Marcella eyed her cousin a moment—was everyone in the family turning moody now? She’s been quieter since her last wedding. Quieter for her, anyway. “Lollia—”
“I thought you’d come,” a voice interrupted them. Marcella looked up from her chair to see a stocky boy in a tunic, perhaps eighteen, staring down at her. He looked vaguely familiar. “I asked about you, and they said you liked histories and readings—this kind of thing. So I came to see you.”
He was the younger son of the Governor of Judaea—Marcella vaguely remembered meeting him the night Piso had been acclaimed heir. Awkward, black-eyed, eighteen-year-old Titus Flavius Domitianus. “How nice of you.”
“I like histories too,” the boy continued abruptly. “I’ll visit you, and we can talk about them.” He continued to stare at her, hands clasped behind his back. Like a child looking at a toy he wants to take home.
“Yes, do visit someday,” Marcella murmured. “If you will excuse me—Marcus Norbanus, I did hope I’d see you here.” Rising, she skirted Domitian and cut swiftly across the room toward the first acquaintance who caught her eye.
“Lady Marcella.” Senator Marcus Norbanus bowed his dark head in greeting. “Delighted to see you, of course.”
“And you.” Marcella smiled at him, giving her hand to be kissed. Domitian was staring after her blackly and Lollia was talking to her big Gaul, so Marcella took Marcus’s arm and steered him in the other direction. “Though I’d rather hear a reading of your works, Marcus. I hear you’ve written a treatise on the reorganization of religion under Augustus?”
“Not finished yet, I’m afraid. I’ve had very little time to work on it, with the recent . . . unrest.”
“Unrest?” Marcella laughed. “How tactful. Yes, watching a city stab its emperor to death in the middle of a mob can be quite unrestful.”
“At least things are now quieter.” Marcus gave one of his quiet, encompassing gestures back to the flock of white-robed men now flooding back toward their rows of chairs. “Any city where scholars can meet to debate the past in safety . . . a good sign, shall we say.”
“Come sit by me for the second half,” Marcella said impulsively.
“I’d like that.”
Domitian scowled as Marcus’s quiet authority displaced him to the second row. Their host rose again, and Lollia was already fidgeting as he launched again into the declamation with a quotation by Seneca.
Diagrams. Gestures. More quotes. “You could write better in your sleep,” Marcella whispered to Marcus. He choked off a laugh but was silent. Marcella smiled too but felt irritation rising like a bubble. I could write better than this in my sleep, too, she thought resentfully as their host droned on—more Seneca! How original! But Quintus Numerius is the one who gets an audience for his works, and a publisher too. Who would come to hear me read from my histories?
Well, Marcus might. She had once showed him a passage from her study of Emperor Augustus, his Imperial grandfather, and he’d offered thoughtful praise. “Your style is a trifle florid,” he’d said as judiciously as if talking to a colleague in the Senate, “but your research is sound.” And she’d flushed pink at the praise.
She took a sidelong glance at Marcus, who appeared to be yawning with his mouth closed. An invaluable talent, he had once told her, for any senator. He wasn’t precisely handsome, but he had a certain gray-edged distinction and a face as carved and noble as a statue . . . I wonder if he admires me. Surely he must, or young Domitian wouldn’t be casting such dark looks from the chair behind them. Marcella felt sure she could manage a discreet affair without Gaius and Tullia being any the wiser—far stupider women than she managed every day. Look at Lollia, even now leaning her curled head and drooping lids toward her Gaul.
Still, Marcella had never been one for lovers. Oh, she’d had one or two back in the early days of her marriage—Lucius was gone most of the time, and even when he was home he never had much interest in her bed. But the best breasts in Rome had their share of other admirers, even if Marcella’s husband wasn’t among them—a tall broad-shouldered tribune, for one, and an aedile with a gift for epigrams. But the tribune hadn’t had much to recommend him besides the shoulders, and it turned out the aedile paid a poet under the table to write his epigrams for him. And it had all felt so grubby somehow, sneaking out of the house to meet a man at some tawdry inn. Bored wives who dallied with lovers whenever their husbands left town—was there anything more commonplace? Far better to dedicate yourself to books and writing, Marcella had decided, than to turn into a stale joke.
Only now, books and writing were beginning to feel rather flat, too.
A sudden burst of chatter interrupted the latest quote, and Marcella twisted her head. A throng of latecomers had just fluttered into the study, and far more glamorous ones. Curled and painted women in bright silks, handsome men in embroidered tunics and gold chains, a languid actress from the Theatre of Marcellus, a few star charioteers—and one man who outshone them all.
“So sorry to be late,” Emperor Otho said airily. “I couldn’t bear to miss the presentation of such an interesting work. Cisalpine Gaul, so fascinating.”
The audience murmured, and flustered slaves ran for more chairs. Marcella tilted her head, watching as Otho drifted expertly through the room—the first time she’d had to observe him up close since his ascension to the purple. Everything about him dazzled: his smile, his black curls, his gold-embroidered synthesis and gold bracelets. He trailed a wake of charm and chatter behind him in the staid crowd, perfectly calculated against the memory of sour old Galba. No wonder Otho was cheered wherever he went.
“Since when did he care a jot for scholarly readings?” she whispered to Marcus.
“What makes you think he cares a jot for them now?” Marcus whispered back.
“My dear new sister!” Otho raised Lollia from her curtsy and kissed her on both cheeks. “I feel you’ve been part of the family forever. And Senator Norbanus, yes—wasn’t your father one of old Augustus’s little indiscretions? We shall have to talk about that someday soon.” Another smile, just as dazzling, but somehow it held a cue for Marcus to bow and take his leave. Young Domitian, Marcella noticed, gave another black scowl as Otho turned and kissed her hand extravagantly. “Delightful as ever, my dear.”
“Caesar.” Marcella curtsied but lost her grip on the writing tablet.
“Taking notes?” He retrieved it for her. “How studious.”
“I have a love for histories, Caesar—I even write my own.”
“Do you?” He looked faintly surprised.
“Contrary to popular belief,” Marcella said tartly, “breasts do not preclude a brain.”
Otho burst out laughing. “You have a tongue on you,” he said as he slid into the seat at her side. “But I like it. Carry on,” he called to the flustered Quintus Numerius, still clutching his notes uncertainly at the head of the room. “I’ve been fearfully rude, interrupting you this way. Do carry on!”
Numerius cleared his throat, faltered over a few lines as the Emperor’s glittering party flopped into chairs all around the study and called for wi
ne, and at last stuttered back into his presentation. The Emperor listened a few moments, nodding at intervals. “Very interesting,” he said, and held his goblet to be refilled.
“Not really,” Marcella replied. “I could do better.”
“Could you, by Jove!” His smile encompassed her with warm intimacy, shutting out the rest of the room. “I’d like to see that.”
He can look at anyone like that, Marcella thought, amused. Like they’re the only person in a roomful of guests whom he really wants to see. I suppose it’s as useful for an emperor as yawning with a closed mouth is to a senator.
“Though I am disconcerted to see you outside your customary band of four,” Otho continued. “I just left the little Diana at the races—she won a bet for me this morning on those red stallions she loves so much. A charming little thing, that one.”
“She’s a child,” Marcella said. “No matter how many suitors pant over her.”
“Never fear,” Otho laughed, and his entourage tittered with him, though they could not possibly have overheard the joke. “I don’t fancy children, no matter how pretty.”
“Nero would have wanted her.”
“Indeed he would have. Fortunate I’m not Nero, isn’t it?” Otho applauded the latest stammering quotation, and Numerius gave a timid smile. The reading had certainly livened up; the Emperor’s entourage had brought their own wine, flowing freely between courtiers and scholars alike, and more than one solemn-faced historian was drinking appreciatively.
“And when am I to see the fourth of your quartet again?” Otho was saying. “Your poor sister, I would so like to offer my regrets for what befell her husband. You must know I never intended Piso Licinianus’s death.”
“Oh, come now,” said Marcella. We’ll see if he really likes my tongue. “You gave the order yourself.”