“Thank you, Domina.” He bowed over her hand.
“Hmmm . . .” Lollia paused before the last slave in line. “Who’s this?”
Cornelia read the plaque about the slave’s neck.
“Thrax, Gaul, twenty-eight years, body slave.”
Now there was a polite euphemism. One look at the slave—tall, broad-shouldered, with wheat-blond hair and muscles like a statue—and anyone would know what his skills were.
Lollia was looking him up and down. “You’re called Thrax?”
“Yes, Lady.” He had a deep voice, vaguely accented.
“And you’re from Gaul? That’s a long way away.”
“I hardly remember it, Lady.”
“I’m sorry, do you mind if—?” Lollia arched her eyebrows at the slave with an appealing smile. Thrax pulled his tunic up over his head and drew his naked body up for examination. Cornelia looked away, feeling another flash of disapproval. There was absolutely no reason to strip a slave for inspection—if they had defects they could always be returned, so why bother stripping them naked at the auction unless it was simply to gape? And even a slave had his pride. The big Gaul was flushing slightly, but he smiled at Lollia in genuine if abashed friendliness.
Lollia turned to the dealer. “I’ll take him.”
“You don’t buy a slave just for beauty,” Cornelia said as Thrax was led away shouldering back into his tunic. “That Gaul will distract all the female slaves in your house, and half the male.”
“I don’t care, as long as he’s distracting
me
.”
“Do you even need a body slave?”
“I certainly need a body like that.” Lollia eyed her new acquisition where he waited by the end of the hall. He brushed the fair hair out of his eyes, and the muscles of his arms moved under the skin. “Just the thing to liven up house arrest!”
Cornelia stopped. “Lollia, lovers from your own class are one thing, but bedding a slave? It—well, it demeans you. And them too.”
“You wouldn’t say that if I were a man.” Her cousin tucked a red curl behind her ear. “Every husband I ever had took a roll with the slave girls now and then. Slave boys, too.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“Any slave who looks like Thrax over there knows he’ll be bought for a bedmate,” Lollia said, exasperated. “He’s probably thanking whatever gods he worships that
I
bought him and not some middle-aged hag or nasty old senator.”
“I’m glad you think so well of yourself,” Cornelia said, disgusted.
“Your purchases will be delivered direct to your door in an hour.” The little dealer bowed. “Perhaps you ladies wish to look further? A new maid to make you even more beautiful, or perhaps—”
“I think I’ve seen enough.” Cornelia lifted a hand for her steward so he could haggle the price.
“That’s new.” Lollia captured her hand, looking at the wrist. “That bracelet—it looks Egyptian.”
“Just a trinket.” Cornelia pulled her sleeve down hastily over the little bronze amulet tied around her wrist.
“Looks like a charm to me.” Lollia winked as they left the long hall for the atrium. “Let me guess—a good-luck charm for Piso? Or a fertility charm for you?”
Cornelia blushed. “Piso doesn’t like charms—just magical superstition for plebs, he says.”
Which was why she’d felt so guilty giving over a handful of coins at the Temple of Isis. The priestess had assured her that if she wore it for a month and sewed a matching charm to her husband’s pillow . . . Cornelia had stitched the charm as directed but hidden it from Piso. He didn’t approve of foreign gods. Neither did she, really, but she’d heard such encouraging things about Isis and her fertility rituals—“It’s none of your business, Lollia.”
“Don’t snap at me, my honey. I don’t see why you’re so keen for babies, really. Flavia’s a darling, of course, but my waist has
never
been the same.”
“How is Flavia?” Cornelia said hastily. The atrium was cold, the winter skies leaden through the open roof, but she felt her cheeks flaming.
“She’s ill,” Lollia said. “Anybody would be, living in Old Flaccid’s house. I plan to be sick myself as soon as Thrax arrives—lots of headaches to keep me in bed, but I won’t be alone there—”
“Flavia’s ill?” Cornelia halted. “What’s wrong with her? Have you summoned the doctor?”
“Oh, she just has a cough. My maids are watching her every minute.”
“Why aren’t you watching her yourself?”
“I read to her every morning. What else can I do?” Lollia blinked. “The slaves know how to look after her much better than I do.”
“If Flavia were my child, I wouldn’t leave her to the care of slaves! A child should be raised by her mother—”
Lollia laughed. “Not one of us was raised by our mother, Cornelia. You, Marcella, Diana, me—all of us were brought up by slaves. And we turned out well enough.”
“Our mothers all died
young
, Lollia. I don’t see why Flavia should have to—”
“And I don’t see why it’s any of your business. Flavia isn’t your child.”
“Maybe she should be!” All at once Cornelia’s temper snapped. “Your daughter lies ill, and you’re out buying a pet stud!”
“And maybe if I loan him to you, you might
get
a child instead of envying me mine,” Lollia flared. “Because your husband clearly isn’t getting it done.”
“Don’t you dare say a word about my husband!” Cornelia rounded on her cousin in the middle of the atrium.
“Oh, he’s such a catch?” Lollia’s voice turned acid. “He turns up his nose at my grandfather every time they meet, and so do you! Just because he’s slave-born and believes in
working
for a living, making all that nasty money the whole family likes to borrow. Your Piso certainly doesn’t turn up his nose at
that
.”
“You’re jealous,” Cornelia snapped. “Just because my husband will be Galba’s heir—”
“Yes, and you can look down on me even more once you’re the Empress.” Lollia planted fists on hips, glaring. “Don’t think I never see you and Marcella smiling behind my back when I talk! You two always looked down on me, and Diana too—”
“Well, why not?” Cornelia demanded. “Why shouldn’t we look down on the pair of you? A girl who runs around like a common slave, and a girl who sleeps with them!”
“Maybe you should try it. Have you
ever
had a good screw?”
“My husband adores me!”
“Well, that’s certainly fatal. Adoration doesn’t make for good lovers, Cornelia. Why don’t you go back into that auction room and buy yourself some hulking Greek with a cock like an ox, just to see what you’re missing?”
“And you wonder why I look down on you? A mouth like a common dockside whore; anyone can see you’ve got slave blood! Someday you’ll realize what a slut you are.”
The slave dealer stared cautiously from his door. Two patrician women shrieking at each other like fishwives in the middle of his atrium.
“You’d better hope that fertility charm works, Cornelia.” Lollia’s eyes narrowed. “No emperor wants a barren wife, you know. Your precious husband will divorce you for some pretty little thing who will pump him out lots of sons, and then the most perfect wife in Rome won’t be looking down at
me
anymore.”
Cornelia slapped her. Lollia slapped her back.
They stood a moment, glaring at each other.
Cornelia stamped away, before Lollia could see the tears spill out onto her stinging face.
W
ELL
,
Diana thought,
it finally happened
.
She twirled a lunatic circle in the grass, smiling a new and dreamy smile: utterly, madly, and completely in love at long last.
“So, who’s this Briton you keep talking about?” Diana had asked the faction director for the Reds as the hired litter turned down a smaller lane. “I thought I knew every horse breeder in Rome.”
“Used to be a rebel in Britannia somewhere, now he breeds horses. Doesn’t sell many, but they’re good. He might have something that will do for the Reds.” Xerxes looked at her irritably as the litter swayed down the muddy lane. “Why did I bring you, anyway?”
“Because I’m getting my noble relatives to help pay for this new team of yours.” Diana twined a finger through one of the racing medallions about her neck. Two horses lost in the first race of the year, before the running had even begun—the Reds team had tangled badly when the hateful Derricus snapped his blue-beaded whip over their heads, and two horses had panicked in their traces. Both inside runners had walked away hobbling. “And if I’m helping to pay, I’m helping to pick.”
Xerxes grumbled. Diana knew he didn’t like her, but that didn’t bother her a bit. He had just enough respect for her family’s patronage to keep from kicking her out of the Reds stable, and that was all that mattered.
The farm where they finally disembarked was broad and sprawling, orderly pastures running down a long slope crowned at the top with a small, columned villa. All the best breeding farms lay outside city walls. Diana climbed out of the litter, sniffing delightedly at the cold clean air. So different from the smoke and stench inside Rome’s city walls. If not for the Circus Maximus, she’d quit the city altogether and stay out here where the air smelled clean to the nose.
A portly steward came out of the villa in greeting, and he and Xerxes lapsed into business. Diana looked down the hill instead, where a man stood leaning on a rail and watching two colts frisking in the field, a big black dog of no particular breed sitting at his feet. She looped her red
palla
up out of the mud and came to stand beside him. The colts were too young for racing, but she liked the look of them. “Good legs,” she said. “Do you have anything older?”
The man turned. She was used to surprise when men looked at her, but he didn’t look as if he was surprised by much. “Horses to run, or breed?”
“To run.” Diana leaned down and scratched the black dog’s head. “For the Reds.”
“I don’t think much of your charioteer this year.” The Briton’s voice was low and mild. “Doesn’t cut close enough on the turn.”
“No,” Diana allowed. “I’d do better, but no one’s offering to let
me
drive.”
A smile twitched the Briton’s mouth. No one would ever mistake him for a Roman, Diana thought—his hair was too long, iron gray and shaggy; a bronze torc clasped his neck, and he wore breeches instead of a tunic. He wasn’t old, despite the gray hair—thirty-five or forty, tall and broadly built with a cleft chin and a calm face.
Xerxes came down from the villa then, trailed by the steward, and brusquely introduced himself. The Briton grasped his wrist in greeting rather than bowing. “I am Llyn ap Caradoc.”
“Caradoc?” said Diana. “I’ve heard that name.”
“Some have,” the Briton replied, and set off up the slope where the sprawling stables began. His breech-clad legs ate the ground, and she loped to keep up.
He brought out four gray stallions and put them through their paces. Xerxes began to haggle, but Diana turned away restlessly. The grays ran well, but it would take something better to beat the Blues with their team of savage blood bays. It would take something extraordinary.
Another large paddock stood, divided into four by rails. Four stallions penned beside each other—Diana leaned against the rail.
One of the stallions nipped at another, and they lunged over the rail, manes flying. An older stallion in the next pen squealed at them with pinned ears and they went streaking off along the fence instead, racing each other. They passed Diana in a storm of red: chestnuts all, red as a setting sun.
“Wait,” Diana called to the faction director.
She was already swinging under the rail and striding into the grass as he and the Briton came to the fence. “This one,” she called, looking at the stallion who squealed at the other two. “He’s older than these other three?”
“Their sire,” said the Briton. “He keeps them in order. Careful, he doesn’t like people.”
The stallion swiped at Diana, but she ducked the slash of teeth and seized the long nose, looking him over. He glared at her, stamping.
“Too old for the circus,” Xerxes said disapprovingly.
“No, he isn’t. He’ll steady them.” She released the stallion’s nose, turning back to the tall Briton. “Let’s see them run.” Her stomach trembled and her mouth was dry.
The Briton brought the chestnut stallions in, and she fell in beside him to help with the harnessing. He gave her a long look, but she proceeded matter-of-factly among the buckles and straps, and after a moment he passed her the outside runner’s bridle without comment. The horses stood eager in the traces, red manes falling like flames along the crests of their necks.
The Briton vaulted up into the chariot, and for a moment Diana hated him—she’d have given anything on earth to have those reins in her own hands. She fell in beside the chariot as he reined toward the rough track.
“You know horses, Lady,” the Briton observed.
“These chestnuts are marvelous.” She shifted into a trot to keep up with the rattling wheels. “Have they raced? Do you breed from those big Gallic horses, or—”
“From chariot ponies out of Britannia.”
“Ponies? Too small.”
“I bred the size up, once I got what I wanted. Briton chariot ponies are bred for battle, so racing’s nothing to them.” He gave a nod of professional pride as he turned the chariot onto the rough makeshift track. “These four will keep calm even in the last lap.”
He lined them up, poised light as a breath. Diana flung herself against the rail, chewing the inside of her lip, and they leaped down the track: four horses, moving as one like a red wind.
The Briton took them on four circuits, but Diana had seen enough by the end of the first and so had Xerxes. “That
turn
—!” The old stallion leaned into his harness like a bull, bringing the other three leaning with him, and the chariot hairpinned around the turn with an inch of clearance.