by Kate Quinn
“You’re always watching everyone,” Domitian scowled at Marcella.
“It’s what I do.”
Cornelia had returned to her pillar, taut and fierce in her black, rigidly rotating a gold-and-ebony bracelet around one wrist. A Praetorian paused to square his shoulders before approaching her—Centurion Drusus Densus, apparently restored to health at last, though he still looked drawn. He said something to Cornelia, or tried to before she brushed past him. So Otho restores the gallant centurion to duty in the Praetorian Guard, Marcella thought. Nice to know that loyalty is sometimes rewarded. “Centurion,” she called cordially as he stumbled past. “I’m glad to see you recovered from your wounds.”
He looked puzzled. “I’m sorry, Lady—do I know you?”
“You saved my life.” He looked blank. Marcella had been to thank him on his sickbed, but he’d been half asleep from a poppy draught and clearly didn’t remember her visit. “I am Cornelia Secunda,” she enlarged as Domitian scowled to see her talking to any handsome man who wasn’t him. “Lady Cornelia’s sister? There are four of us—you saved us on the steps before the Temple of Vesta. My cousin Lollia over there too, and Diana. The one on the statue.”
Recognition then. “I remember Lady Diana—the hair.” He gestured at the white-blond locks slipping Diana’s gold combs and tumbling over the horse’s marble mane. “Only it was bloody.”
Of course he remembers Diana. Marcella stamped down her irritation again, seeing how stiffly the centurion moved as he bowed. “Are you on duty already?” He wore his red-and-gold Praetorian armor, awkwardly formal for a party.
“No, I’m a guest.”
“Since when do guests come armed?” Domitian blurted.
“If I’m in armor, they know how to look at me.” Densus nodded out over his wine cup at Otho’s beautiful butterfly crowd. “I put on a tunic and perfume, and they laugh at me for trying to be like them. Armor’s safe.”
So the centurion was another of Otho’s oddities. A former rebel who breeds horses, a girl who loves racing, and the only loyal soldier in Rome, Marcella thought. All just curiosities for the Emperor’s parties. “Do you march with the army against Vitellius?”
“Yes. After that—” A restless movement of the burly armored shoulders. “Perhaps I’ll retire from the Praetorians.”
“Why? You’ve no cause for shame.”
“I failed, Lady. Your sister, Lady Cornelia—she made that clear.”
“The Imperium needs men like you.”
“What good is it? Every friend I had in the Guard turned traitor for Otho’s coin. I don’t blame him for buying them—but they weren’t supposed to be for sale. And now they ask me to play dice with them and go to the bathhouse and get whores at taverns. Like nothing happened.” He drained his wine cup—not the first he’d drunk tonight, Marcella saw. He looked at her, not seeing her at all, and his eyes were full of tears. “Gods, what a mess.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Marcella agreed.
“Go away,” Domitian said rudely. “She doesn’t talk to drunks.”
Densus moved off unsteadily. “Did you have to do that?” Marcella demanded.
“Why were you talking to him? He’s just a common soldier!”
“Well, he did save my life.”
“I’d have saved your life if I’d been there,” Domitian muttered.
The highlight of my evening, Marcella thought. Being panted over by an eighteen-year-old boy.
She couldn’t help looking at Lollia, laughing with her friends; Diana, swinging her feet from the back of her marble horse; Cornelia, standing in rigid dignity by her pillar and looking icily past any Othonian who attempted an introduction. They can get away with anything, all of them. But not me. “The Cornelia in limbo,” Marcella said aloud. Not a privileged wife like Lollia, not a pampered daughter like Diana, not even a weeping widow like Cornelia—just an unwanted wife living on her brother’s charity. Of course, things would be different if she were as beautiful as Diana, or as rich as Lollia, or as grief-stricken as Cornelia—money and beauty and unhappiness bought exceptions to anything. But if I started bedding slaves or throwing vases at the door or climbing on statues at parties, I’d be raked over the fire.
“What a fierce face,” Emperor Otho said in amusement as Marcella bowed before him. “You haven’t come to chide me about your husband’s post, have you? I offered him one in the city—”
“And he turned it down.” Marcella straightened, looking the Emperor of Rome in the eye. “So, Caesar—do I still have a favor to claim?”
Ten
THE hardest part about having a lover was getting out of the house. Cornelia had heard that over and over, from Roman wives of the lesser sort. There were women who took hired litters through torturous backtracking paths to hidden rendezvous, women who dressed as their own slaves to slip out of the house unnoticed, women who rented rooms in brothels to meet their lovers, women who spent small fortunes annually on bribes to keep their maids quiet.
And really, how easy it was.
“I’m going to the bathhouse,” Cornelia announced that afternoon. The nearest bathhouse was a mere block away, close enough for walking on a fine day, and no one looked askance when she took only a slave to walk at her back rather than a litter. She passed through the bathhouse doors, instructing her maid to wait; passed through the apodyterium where half a dozen gossiping women were disrobing, and passed directly out again through the bathhouse’s rear doors. She walked briskly for another four blocks, knocked once at a side door of a gracious house, and was admitted at once.
“My dear lady!” A man with a broad senatorial stripe on his toga rose to clasp her hands: the younger brother of that same Vitellius, who had so recently been proclaimed Emperor by his legions in Germania and was now marching south. “I am so very glad to see you again. May I introduce—”
Half a dozen men nodded around the circular library, but no one rose or offered wine, and Cornelia took a seat without removing her palla. This wasn’t a social call, after all, and it wasn’t any rendezvous with a lover either.
It was war.
“Otho has enlisted Marius Celsus as another of his generals,” Cornelia said crisply. “He’s also sent word to the Danube legions, but they may not be able to join his campaign in time.” She gave all the details gleaned from casual questions to Marcella. Her sister had been such a font of useful information—she seemed to have a talent for putting together one bit of overheard gossip with another, until it formed a complete picture. Of course she was only interested in the complete picture for her scrolls and notes, but she was more than happy to speculate with Cornelia about everything from the size of Otho’s army to the character flaws of his generals.
“Otho also means to launch a maritime expedition,” another senator added. “Though we don’t know where. If we could find out—” Further details. Cornelia drank in every word, nodding slowly. All her limbs felt heavy these days; marble-carved, a statue half-turned from stone to living flesh. Like the legend of Galatea, the statue brought to life by a sculptor’s love. Did anyone ask Galatea if she wanted to be alive, moving marble-slow and bewildered through a world going far too fast?
Be marble. Be stone. Far easier that way.
“My brother has crossed the Alps in two columns,” Vitellius’s brother added. “Moving fast—”
“Otho will move fast too,” Cornelia cut in. “He means to catch Vitellius north of Placentia.”
“You’re sure?”
“I had it from my cousin Cornelia Tertia, who married Otho’s brother.”
“Thank you, Lady Cornelia. Anything else you hear—”
A terse nod. She heard a great deal, and now she knew to keep her ears open. No more grief, no more attempts to join Piso in the underworld. She’d found a far better way to help him—found it the night of Otho’s banquet after the games, when Marcella had chattered on about the army’s plans to march north. Information. Information about Otho’s troops, about the orde
rs he gave to his generals, about departure dates and supply lists and road conditions . . .
Cornelia had known Vitellius’s brother for years; he’d been a mild acquaintance of Piso’s and an occasional guest at her table. “Are you communicating with your brother?” she’d asked him baldly, stalking into his airy hall.
Caution had bloomed in his eyes. “Of course not, my dear Lady Cornelia. I am a loyal supporter of Emperor Otho—”
“If you’re not, then I have information for you.”
“Ah . . .” And of course he was in communication with his brother, along with half a dozen notable men in Rome who reckoned their fortunes better with an Emperor Vitellius than with an Emperor Otho.
And a few like Cornelia, who just wanted Otho’s head in a jar.
A few more swift words traded back and forth, and they were done. They never met at the same house twice, and never lingered. Vitellius’s brother pressed every hand as his illicit guests dispersed. “Lady Cornelia, your contributions have been invaluable—that bit of news about the marching routes alone!” A squeeze of her fingers. “My brother will see your husband avenged, and you rewarded. He’ll make you a splendid marriage with one of his own supporters—”
“I don’t want another husband.” She jerked her hand away. “I want Otho dead.”
Cornelia made her way back to the bathhouse, disrobing hastily and ducking into the caldarium. The air was hot and steamy, and a dozen women lay on marble slabs in the sweating heat, talking languidly of disobedient children and thieving slaves while being pummeled by bathhouse attendants. Cornelia stayed long enough to bring a sweat to her face before ducking out again, wetting her hair hastily in the natatio pool. She returned home in time for dinner, hair damp, face flushed from steam, and not even the sharp-eyed Tullia gave her a second look.
I could be bedding half of Rome, Cornelia thought, moving statue-slow through dinner, and my family would be the last to know. Fools.
She kept her ears pricked, and when Marcella mentioned going to the Campus Martius the following afternoon, Cornelia steeled herself and volunteered to go too. She wouldn’t gather any information hiding in her bedchamber, after all.
“I’m glad to see you getting out again.” Gaius patted her hand. Only Marcella looked curious at the sudden eagerness.
“You’ll need someone to accompany you properly.” Cornelia summoned a tart note to her voice with an effort. “With your husband in town again you owe it to him not to traipse about unescorted like an actress.”
“So nice to see you caring about the proprieties,” Tullia said. “Perhaps you can talk your sister out of this mad idea of accompanying the army north!”
That news had burst on the family like a storm: Marcella had somehow talked the Emperor into letting her accompany the army when they marched to meet Vitellius. “Lucius is livid,” Marcella had chuckled in Cornelia’s ear. “But what can he do? I told Otho I’d write a glowing account of his glorious victory, and he was amused enough to order me along, no matter how much Lucius sputters.”
The family was in an uproar, but they couldn’t do anything either. Cornelia felt certain her sister had planned it that way.
“Don’t even try to talk me out of going,” Marcella warned as they strolled along the edge of the Campus Martius.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Cornelia smiled and put an arm through her sister’s as they used to walk in the old days. Now that Marcella was going with the army, she was ravenous to know everything about it—she had become Cornelia’s best source. Lollia should have been better, being married to the Emperor’s brother, but Lollia had a head like a sieve. The only information she retained was what senator was hosting the next banquet, and what praetor’s wife had a lover behind her husband’s back. Movements of armies and details of supply wagons passed through her mind like water. But Marcella remembered everything.
She chattered on about the army, the difficulties Otho was having in setting up supplies, the insistence of so many of his entourage on bringing their barbers and their servants and their silver plate with them. Cornelia asked leading questions, stored away answers. The Campus Martius was a bustle of movement around them: clusters of swaggering Praetorians, young tribunes dashing their little low-slung chariots back and forth, giggling girls making eyes at the soldiers. It was a gray overcast day with a brisk wind flapping through and setting everyone’s cloaks alight on the air, but nothing could damp the giddy sense of a party.
“Lady Cornelia!” A braying voice came behind them, and Cornelia turned. A man leaned out of a lavish gold-trimmed litter with aqua silk curtains, waving a beringed hand. Proculus, the new Praetorian Prefect—and now one of Otho’s generals.
Her smile came effortlessly this time. “Prefect!” Bestowing a warm hand. “Congratulations upon your new rank.”
“Proculus, Lady Cornelia, make it Proculus. And thank you. Wine?”
Cornelia accepted a cup. Marcella paused, brows raised, but another acquaintance called to her and Cornelia waved her on. Prefect Proculus splashed a cup for himself, spattering the slave holding the flagon. “Been a long while since I’ve seen you at the Campus Martius, Lady Cornelia.”
“With the army to leave so soon, everyone is here.” She sipped her wine. “Tell me, when do you leave?”
“Oh, two days. Three days.” Wine dribbled down his chin as he drank. “Been pushed back twice, you know. Fortuna knows if we’ll be ready in time. The legions are dragging their heels up north, and I can’t see rushing to meet them if they’re going to be late, eh?”
“Late?” Another smile. “How late?”
“Late enough. Come sit.” He patted the litter cushions beside him. Cornelia settled herself, feeling as if she were moving through deep water.
“Surely you Praetorians can handle Vitellius on your own?” She tried for Lollia’s artlessness.
“Of course we can!” he said indignantly. “That fat drunk—feasts four times daily, you know; it’s a wonder he hasn’t burst from eating by now. My lads will whip him any day of the week—”
Your lads killed my husband. Of course this fool was too drunk to remember that.
“Always admired you, y’know.” He squinted at her with a lazy smile. “Give me that pretty hand of yours. Let’s see if you taste as good as you smell—”
Cornelia managed another smile, allowing him to draw her farther into the litter. “What about the Emperor’s maritime forces?” she murmured. “Shouldn’t that make a difference to your fight?”
“Of course it will.” He nibbled the inside of her wrist, twitching the litter curtains shut. “The Emperor wants us to attack Narbonensis.”
“Narbonensis?” Cornelia managed not to jerk away as Proculus nibbled his way up her arm to her neck. The light filtered dim and aqueous through the blue silk curtains of the litter. Perhaps I really am underwater. “Really? When?”
“Jove knows—give us a kiss, will you?”
Cornelia turned her face away just enough so his lips latched onto her throat instead of her mouth. “Why Narbonensis?” Stroking the back of his neck.
“To stir up a ruckus in Gaul, of course. Delay Vitellius’s army when they start marching south—slide down a bit, will you?”
She made herself lie still, letting him suck on her neck a while and breathe wine fumes in her ear. She slid away with a little laugh when he began fumbling at her breasts. “Not here—my sister will be looking for me.”
“You’ll be at the theatre tonight, then? Perhaps meet me after in the Gardens of Asiaticus?” Proculus flopped on his back, capturing her hand and sliding it up his leg under his tunic. “You wouldn’t send a man off to die without a proper good-bye.”
“We’ll see.” Cornelia gave him as promising a smile as she could manage over her crawling throat, pulling her hand away from his thigh before it could touch—anything. Marble. Be marble. “A widow in my position, you understand . . .”
“Of course, of course. Centurion!” Proculus reached ou
tside the silk curtains, snapping his fingers. “See this lady safely home.”
The aqua curtains snapped open. Cornelia met the chestnut eyes of Centurion Drusus Densus for an instant, and looked away again.
“Prefect.” He saluted rigidly. Proculus waved off the salute, already calling in a slurred voice for more wine. Drusus Densus extended a hand, helping Cornelia out of the litter, and the little knot of nausea resurfaced in her throat.
“Marcella!” she called, but Marcella was busy watching a company of Praetorians wheel through their parade drills. No doubt taking notes for the next volume of her wretched history. “Marcella, I want to go home.”
“Go on,” she called absently, the wind rippling her light brown hair. “I’ll be back soon.”
Cornelia turned an aloof smile on Densus. As aloof as she could manage, anyway. “No need to accompany me, Centurion.”
“I have orders from my Prefect, Lady. And the streets are full of soldiers. It wouldn’t be safe.” He hailed for a hired litter, but the Campus Martius was already jammed with litters. “It will be faster to walk.”
“As you wish.”
“You should—” He fixed his gaze over her head, gesturing wordlessly at her shoulder. Cornelia looked down to see the clasp of her black dress pulled askew, a red mark from the Prefect’s leechlike mouth on her shoulder. She pulled up her black-woven palla, breasts still tingling unpleasantly from the Prefect’s pawing. It’s worth it, she reminded herself. Any information that will help bring down Otho is worth it.
Densus cleared a path through the Campus Martius to the quieter street beyond. It had rained again that morning, and muddy puddles pooled everywhere. Cornelia hoped he would walk behind her, but he fell in at her side, the wind tugging at his red cloak.
“Looks like more rain.” Densus looked up at the sky as they crossed into the Forum Romanum. The thunderheads were piling in the west, gray as charcoal. “Maybe the floods aren’t done yet.”