Empress of the Seven Hills Read Online Free PDF

agreed. “Say, if you’re so interested in learning new things, I can teach you more than whistling—”
    Sabina looked amused but turned back to the arena, doubling her tongue expertly behind her teeth and letting out a shriek of a whistle. “
Reds!
” she shouted, and Trajan dropped the kerchief up in the Imperial box and eight chariots surged off the line.
    There was the usual jockeying against the
spina
, a team for the Whites went down promptly in a flurry of hooves and dust and screams, and then the crush thundered away toward the other end of the arena,blue plumes in front with green and red close behind. They disappeared around the hairpin turn on the far end, shouts and cries rippling to the other side of the stands, and I flopped back in my seat again. “So you’ve got suitors,” I said idly to the senator’s daughter. “Any of them leading the pack?”
    “One or two.” Her blue gaze came back from the arena to me, unblinking. “My father said I could choose whom I liked, within reason.”
    “What’s within reason?”
    “Well, the Emperor has to approve my choice of husband,” said Sabina. “And neither he nor Father would allow me to marry a freedman in a butcher’s shop, or a wastrel with a pile of dicing debts. And my father wouldn’t like it if I chose a man who travels a great deal either.”
    “What’s wrong with traveling?” The chariots thundered around the second turn, a storm of cheers going up as the Reds fought up on the outside against the Blues.
    “If I marry a general or a provincial governor I’ll be gone from Rome, and Father would rather I stayed close. But he’s going to be disappointed on that score.”
    “Why? Got your eye on a general?”
    “No.” Her gaze transferred back to the arena. “I’ve got my eye on the world.”
    “Tall order.”
    “Big world.”
    “I’ve seen Britannia,” I offered. “Londinium’s a sinkhole, but Brigantia’s pretty—that’s up north.”
    “Tell me about it?”
    “Mountains,” I said. “Mountains and sea—and it’s cold, but the mist wraps the tops of the mountains and makes everything funny in your ears—” I talked about Brigantia, and Sabina listened with her whole body, drinking in every word as the horses thundered through two more laps.
    “I’d like to see Brigantia,” she commented when I trailed off. “But I’d like to see everything.”
    “Where’ll you start?”
    “Judaea? Gaul? Egypt, maybe—their gods have animal heads, and I always thought that was interesting. Or Greece—I could visit Sparta and Athens, see which one really is better.”
    “Spartans have the better armies.” I remembered the stories my mother had told me. “Or they did, anyway.”
    “Yes, but what else have they got?” Sabina looked thoughtful, and the horses whirled past again in a cloud of dust and cheers. “Might be worthwhile, finding out.”
    “You know how they get married?” My mother had told me the story. “They take all the girls up into the mountains at night, give ’em a head start, and send all the boys after ’em. Everybody’s naked, and whoever catches who gets married.”
    “How fortunate we don’t do that in Rome. I’m a terrible runner.”
    “I’m not.” I looked her over. “Run you down in a heartbeat, I could.”
    “But would you want to? There’d be some hardy Spartan girl you’d fancy first. Much better for a legionary.”
    “I’m not going to be a legionary.”
    “Aren’t you?”
    “Twenty-five years’ service. Not bloody likely.”
    “Hmm.” Her eyes turned back to the arena again as the cheers redoubled—in the fifth lap, the Reds had pulled ahead of the Blues. “Oh, good. They’re winning.” She waved her pennant politely.
    “Hey!” I stared slit-eyed at the man sitting behind Sabina, a big bearded man who had edged forward swearing at the Blues. “Keep your knees out of her back!”
    “Maybe she liked it,” the man jeered, looking Sabina up and down.
    “Take that