Lady of the Eternal City Read Online Free PDF Page A

doorjamb with a snapping sound that echoed in Sabina’s ears like cracks of thunder.
    But only four men would die today. Not five. And the man who had been spared was one of the wealthiest in Rome, as well as one of the best-liked. “Caesar is merciful,” Titus said as he rose, and Sabina heard only the faintest quiver in his voice.
    “Caesar is always merciful,” the Emperor continued in the same affable tone.
    Tell that to the four men you just sent to their deaths
, Sabina thought.
    “Besides,” Hadrian continued to Titus just as affably, dropping his voice so only those nearest could hear, “if you prove inconvenient we can always execute you later. Do feel free to go, and acquaint yourself with my niece elsewhere. The sound of fretting children annoys me.”
    He turned his back on Faustina’s wax-white face and Titus’s inaudible swallow, snapping his fingers for his stewards, his secretaries, his freedmen and attendants. “The meeting with the Arvals next? Yes, and the Senate tomorrow. After that . . .” He began flipping between the pile of wax tablets in a secretary’s arms; Sabina glanced at her sister and saw them retreat through the atrium without ceremony. “Quite a full calendar for the next month. Gladiatorial games . . . festivals . . . donatives . . . Really, why must an emperor’s early years be entirely taken up with public addresses and trivia?”
    A few hours back in Rome, Sabina thought, and he was already bored with it. Travel had always been where her husband’s heart lay.
Perhaps I should encourage that.
Troublesome husbands were better kept occupied. Surely that went double for troublesome and occasionally murderous husbands. Sabina spared another glance behind her and saw a final flash of Faustina’s blue skirts. They were gone, all three of them, baby Annia’s angry cries fading to safety, and Sabina’s heart contracted violently and then began to beat again. Four men would die this day, and she grieved for them. But not her sister’s husband. Not her oldest friend.
    I could not save them all.
    “Caesar.” Vix had returned in his lion skin and his cuirass and his steel-gray gaze. “Are the condemned to be given the opportunity to take their own lives?”
    “They are not.” The Emperor’s eyes lifted from his wax tablets. “Behead them.”
    Vix did not move.
    “Bring me their heads,” the Emperor said. “No less than an hour.”
    “Four’s a good many necks, Caesar,” Vix said. “Can I have a day?”
    Sabina felt a wild urge to laugh. Vix usually had that effect, making her laugh when she should have been weeping or weep when she should have been laughing. Maybe because he didn’t seem to know what fear was. Where other men faltered, Vix just went bashing on through, generally with that same contemptuous show of teeth he gave Hadrian now, his russet head thrown back and his scarred arms crossed over his breastplate.
    Hadrian looked meditative. “Maybe I require five heads after all, not just four. I could add yours to the pile, Vercingetorix. No one who squawked at the execution of my brother-in-law would quibble at the addition of an ill-tempered, ill-bred guard.”
    Vix’s grin disappeared. “Caesar,” he bit out, clipping the honorific off like an insult—and Sabina stepped forward fast, laying a hand on Hadrian’s sleeve.
    “My dear,” she drawled. “Does it suit an emperor’s dignity, trading threats with a guard?”
    Vix gave her a contemptuous glance. Hadrian considered her for a moment as well, and Sabina felt pinioned between two broad walls: two tall men vibrating with tension as though they might fly clawing at each other and crush her between them.
    Hadrian’s gaze passed over Sabina’s head, meeting Vix’s eyes again. “Four heads,” he said, and his eyes had a blank, anticipatory shine. “One hour. Vibia Sabina, come with me.”
    She felt the spike of ice through her throat again, but laid her fingers over his. “Of