Empress of the Seven Hills (57 page)

“Today, maybe. And perhaps she didn’t do much harm. As you can see, the baths still got built.” Titus gestured at the graceful vaulted walls rising around them. “But she had her hands in other things too, like the
alimenta
funds, and that’s a dowry for some poor girl who just got orphaned in Ostia. That’s money that means a girl either gets married and raises a family, or has to turn to whoring. Money that puts a boy into a respectable trade, instead of thieving on the streets.” Titus wrinkled
his nose. “And after stealing from orphans, who knows what would come next?”

“But plenty of other people have to have known the Empress was skimming. Why not let one of them call her to account?”

“Because none of them did.”

Faustina tilted her head. “You’re still an idiot,” she decided. “But I’m proud of you. I’m sure your father and grandfather would be too.”

“You know, I rather think you’re right.”

“Were you terrified?” Faustina lowered her voice. “Empress Plotina turns me into absolute jelly when she’s in a
good
mood.”

“I was petrified,” Titus confessed. “My knees were knocking the whole time.”

“She’ll be your enemy now.” Faustina looked suddenly grave. “We both know why she took sail for Antioch so suddenly, and it’s not because she’s desperately missing Trajan. She’s paying him a visit so she can tell him everything, and put you in the bad. He’ll get her version of the truth—”

“Which is why he already has mine,” Titus said. “I consulted with your father, and we agreed that it would be prudent if I sent a letter with all my findings to Antioch before I ever paid Plotina a visit. Trajan knows everything by now. And he might not believe me alone, but he’ll believe me if I’m endorsed by Senator Marcus Norbanus.”

“But you promised Plotina you’d keep her secret if she stopped.”

“I lied,” Titus confessed.

Faustina gave him an approving sweep of her lashes. “Perhaps you aren’t such an idiot after all.”

“No, only an idiot would have faced the Empress down in the first place. But at least I’m a careful idiot.”

It had been all Titus could do to turn his unprotected back and walk away from the Empress of Rome. She had looked so white and strange at the end, rage sending odd ripples across her still face like a sea monster turning languid circles under the surface of a calm ocean.

I will see you dead for this.
Her voice had sent splinters of ice down
his spine. Even now, safe in the sunlit hall with Plotina half an Empire away and sailing for Antioch, Titus shuddered.

Empty threats
, he reminded himself.
The Emperor knows the truth now; he won’t listen to any of her poison.
And once Trajan was gone, well, Plotina wouldn’t be Empress anymore. She’d have no more influence in Imperial matters.

I will see you dead for this.

Well, it was a risk.

Titus realized he still had his arm about Faustina’s waist, and she was gazing anxiously up at him. “You’re worrying,” she accused. “I can always tell when you’re worrying. You get this little crease between your eyebrows, and the corner of your mouth puckers on the left side.”

“I’m not worrying too much.” He stepped back, offered her his arm. “May I show you something?”

He led her to the
frigidarium
, placed on the far side of the bathhouse complex away from the sunlight so it would keep its coolness even in the middle of summer. A pair of builders fussed about making measurements, and Titus dismissed them, going to the lamps and lighting them one by one. Faustina stood admiring the swirling blue-and-green tiles of the high ceiling, the floor waiting for its mosaic, the blue-veined marble of the sunken pool. “Why is this pool filled up?” she asked. “All the others are empty.”

“The builder was worried there might be a crack in the lining, so he had it filled. Nothing leaking so far.” Titus took a scroll from his belt and unrolled it. “All finished in here, you see, except the mosaic for the floor. That’s being commissioned now. My builder suggested naked mermaids, but I had another idea.”

Faustina bent over the scroll. A sea monster, all coiling scales in rippling shades of green and black, rearing from the blue waves toward a girl chained to a rock. “Andromeda and the sea monster?”

“Take a look at her face. Andromeda, not the monster.”

Faustina peered closer at the tall blond girl in her shackles and wind-whipped blue draperies. “It’s me!”

“Not the most appropriate myth,” Titus confessed. “Andromeda has to get rescued by Perseus, and you’re the one who rescued me with your timely corruption of the Empress’s undersecretary. At the very least, I thought I could immortalize you in a floor.”

Faustina regarded him thoughtfully. “There are other ways of saying thank you, you know.”

Titus tilted his head. “Like what?”

“Oh, dear gods,” Faustina said, and pushed him into the pool.

The cold water shocked him all over like a strike of lightning. Titus yelled in surprise, coughed as water rushed into his mouth, and thrashed to find the slippery tiles underfoot. The pool was full, just up to his shoulders, and he broke the surface spluttering. “What did you do that for?”

“To wake you up.” Faustina stood at the lip of the pool, hands on hips as she glowered down at him. “What does it take to get your attention, Titus? Most men need a hint now and then, but you need to be bashed over the head with a
brick
!”

“Um.” The heavy sodden folds of his toga weighed him down in the water; he began working himself loose of the soaked wool. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

A pair of curious slaves passing by with baskets of gravel paused to peer in, drawn by the voices and the splashing. “
Out!
” Faustina yelled, and they disappeared hastily. She turned back to Titus with another withering look.

“You think I go around bribing Imperial freedmen for all my suitors?” Faustina continued. “You think I put on my best dress on the hottest afternoon of the year to casually drop in on all the unmarried men in Rome? You think I spy on the Empress for every admirer I have?”

Titus wondered if she expected answers to these questions.
Oh, maybe not.
He yanked half a ton of sodden toga over his head and tossed it into the other end of the pool with a splash. The wet tunic he wore
underneath wouldn’t weigh him down too much if he had to get out of the pool and make a run for it…

“I was prepared to be patient—Father didn’t want me marrying too young anyway, so I thought that would give you time. But this is getting ridiculous.” Faustina folded her arms across her breasts. “I know you’ve been mooning after my sister for years, but—”

Titus spluttered again, not from the water this time.
“What?”

“You told me yourself. When I was five years old, and you carried me home from her wedding.”

“Um. You were so young, you couldn’t possibly remember—”

“I’ve seen it for myself every time you
look
at Sabina. Everyone in Rome knows! Your Ennia even gave me a warning—she said I’d have a rare problem with you and your ridiculous romantic obsession with the first fascinating girl who ever took an interest in you. When, I might add, you were younger than I am now!”

Titus wondered again if flight was an option. But Faustina was blocking the only steps up out of the pool, and she didn’t look like she was moving anytime soon. He hoped the cold water was hiding the blush he could feel spreading to the tips of his ears.

“I don’t mind that you’ve been in love with my sister,” Faustina continued. “She
is
fascinating, and she’s much cleverer than me. But she’d make you miserable with all her trotting around the world, and here I am. Much prettier than Sabina,
and
better suited to you. You think Sabina ever taught herself how to make your favorite lamb stew?”

Faustina looked serious now rather than exasperated. Serious and beautiful, cheeks flushed pink and eyes sparkling and breasts heaving.
The man I hire to put her in the mosaic as Andromeda won’t want to cover her up in blue draperies
, Titus found himself thinking.
He’ll say it’s a crime to hide those breasts, and I must say he’ll be right.

“I know you’ve known me since I was a child, but I’ve grown up.” Faustina gestured down at herself. “You had to have noticed
that
when I climbed out of the pool in a dress wet enough to see through!”

Yes, he’d noticed. Faustina rising out of the water all but naked—that image had returned to his mind this year with embarrassing frequency.

“I really think you might have taken the hint, Titus,” Faustina scolded. “If I’d minded you seeing me half naked, I’d have grabbed my cloak a lot faster and I certainly wouldn’t have walked in
front
of you into the house. Really, what does it take? I’ve been laying a trail for you ever since I was eleven and you told me I’d grow up to be a beauty someday. You liked me before I was beautiful, and I liked you before you inherited your grandfather’s fortune. Doesn’t that put me ahead of all those other girls who just want to get their hands on your money?”

She scuffed one sandal along the plain stone underfoot. “So really, I’m very flattered that you want to put me in a floor. But it’s not the best way you could have repaid me, if you were really feeling thankful.”

“I’m not putting you in a floor,” Titus said, and made a lunge. He got hold of Faustina’s wrist and gave one tremendous yank. She fell into the pool with a shriek and a huge splash, pale-blue silks darkening to turquoise. She surfaced much more gracefully than Titus had, slicking her hair back from her face with both hands. Her lashes made silky spikes about her huge dark eyes, her wet hair gleamed like a gold coin at the bottom of a river, and she looked nothing like Sabina. She looked like herself, like Annia Galeria Faustina, and she was beautiful. He could smell the faintest trace of hyacinth perfume rinsing away with the water. Hyacinth—she must have known it was his favorite flower.

“You should know a few things, if you don’t already,” he told her. “I’m not witty, I’m not brilliant, and I’m certainly not handsome—”

“What are you—”

“I once proposed marriage to your sister by telling her all the reasons I’d make her an unsatisfactory husband. She turned me down, and you should have a fair chance to do the same.” Titus smoothed a tendril of wet hair back behind Faustina’s ear. “Now. You already know about my complete lack of originality; I’ve been spouting Horace and Cato quotes for years. People used to just yawn in my face; now they
tell me I’m terribly clever. I suspect the change came somewhere around the time I inherited my grandfather’s assets.”

Dimples were starting to quiver in Faustina’s chin. Titus continued on in his sternest from-the-Rostra-to-the-back-of-the-Forum baritone.

“I live simply, and I hate pomp. I expect I’ll be a praetor someday, but nothing much grander than that. I’m a thoroughgoing plodder, I’ll add no luster to your name, and since my grandfather and father both went bald it’s a safe assumption I will too.”

“That’s a shame,” Faustina said gravely. “I prefer men who go gray.”

“So, Annia Galeria Faustina—” Titus lifted her wet hair, coiling it into a rope around his hand. “I’ve decided not to put you in blue draperies in the floor. I’d rather put you in a red veil, and in my bed. If you have no objection to having the dullest, most ordinary husband in Rome?”

She tasted like water when she leaned forward and kissed him: bottomless, calm, and sweet. Her wet silks floated around him like blue smoke as he gathered her close, and her hands pressed urgently against his chest, gathering handfuls of his tunic and pulling him closer. He reached around her neck for the clasp of the gold heart amulet that Roman girls wore until the day they married and unfastened it, letting the heart spin away into the water.

“Oh, good,” Faustina murmured between kisses. “Ennia will be so pleased.”

PLOTINA

“My dear.” Plotina couldn’t help a note of reproach. “Two years apart, and you didn’t join me to eat?”

“A busy schedule, I’m afraid.” Trajan did not look up from the dispatch he was scanning. His table was piled with scrolls, tablets, spare whetstones, a discarded scabbard missing its dagger, and a broken bust of Alexander that Trajan had used to weigh down a stack of maps. Secretaries busily took dictation, aides hovered with more stacks of dispatches, freedmen brushed past Plotina into the hall on errands and came rushing back with new messages.

“A tiresome crossing, if you must know,” Plotina persisted when he did not ask. Her husband had greeted her briefly at the docks when her ship arrived, but excused himself immediately afterward and had not bothered to make an appearance at the noon meal. She’d been forced to hunt him down in his quarters afterward, like a tardy petitioner. “Dear Publius was kind enough to dine with me, did you know? So considerate of him, seeing how busy he is with all the work you’ve given him. And what a good job he makes of it!”

Trajan grunted. Plotina sighed. One of his moods. She’d gotten out of the habit of dealing with them, these past four years. Dear Publius had been far more pleasant company—delight, such sheer delight to see the dear boy’s face again! So handsome, so distinguished. Every inch a young god.

“It looks like a magpie’s nest in here.” Plotina looked about her at the cramped little study. The quarters here in Antioch were entirely unsuitable for an emperor, much less his empress, but her husband had never paid any attention to his surroundings. “I hope you do not expect me to live in this mess?”

“It won’t be for long.” Trajan rolled up a scroll with a snap. “We depart soon for Rome.”

“Rome?” Plotina blinked. “Rather sudden, isn’t it? I’ve just arrived—”

“If you had written before your departure, I’d have had time to write you back. Tell you to spare yourself the journey.”

“Impulsive of me, I know,” Plotina confessed. “Can a wife not be allowed to miss her husband? Even an Imperial wife.”

“Some wives might miss their husbands.” Trajan looked up at her, and she noted again the signs of aging he’d acquired in the past two years since her last visit. The iron-colored hair, the sun-pitted skin, the deep lines. “Not you, Plotina. Not you.”