Mistress of Rome Read Online Free PDF Page A

remembered, smelling of mistletoe and old bones, reading the gods in every leaf’s fall. They’d call it a bad omen, breaking a wooden sword. But he’d never had many good omens in his life.
    He shook off the thought of home. The Mars Street school wasn’t bad. No women and riches as Gallus had promised, but at least no merciless sun, no chains eating the flesh off his ankles, no uneasy sleep on bare mountainsides. Here there were blankets and bread for the days, wine to drown the nights, a quick death around the corner. Better than the mines. Nothing could be worse than the mines.
    The applause of the games fans flickered uneasily through his mind.

THEA
    F ROM the moment I saw Senator Marcus Vibius Augustus Norbanus, I longed to fix him up: give him a proper haircut, get the ink stains off his fingers, take his slaves to task for pressing his toga so badly. He had been divorced for more than ten years, and slaves take advantage when there’s no mistress of the house. I would have bet five coppers that Marcus Norbanus, who had been consul four times and was the natural grandson of the God-Emperor Augustus, poured his own wine and put away his own books just like any pleb widower.
    “Your name, girl?” he asked, as I offered a tray of little sweet marchpane pastries.
    “Thea, sir.”
    “A Greek name.” He had deep-set eyes; friendly, penetrating, aloof. “But not, I think, a Greek. Something too long about the vowels, and the shape of the eyes is wrong. Antiochene, perhaps, but I would guess Hebrew.”
    I smiled in assent, backing away and examining him covertly. He had a crooked shoulder that pulled him off-balance and made him limp, but it was hardly visible unless he was standing. Seated he was still a fine figure of a man, with a noble patrician profile and thick gray hair.
    Poor Marcus Norbanus. Your bride will eat you alive.
    “Senator!” Lepida danced in, fresh and lovely in carnelian silk with strands of coral about her neck and wrists. Fifteen now, as I was; prettier and more poised than ever. “You’re here early. Eager to see the games?”
    “The spectacle always provides a certain interest.” He rose and kissed her hand. “Though I usually prefer my library.”
    “Well, you must change your opinion. For I am quite mad for the games.”
    “Her father’s daughter, I see.” Marcus made a courtly nod to Pollio.
    Lepida’s father swept his eyes with just a hint of contempt over Marcus’s uncurled hair, the carelessly pressed toga, the mended sandal strap. He himself was immaculate: snowy linen pleated razor-sharp and perfume heavy enough to tingle the nostrils. Still, no one would ever mistake him for a patrician. Or Marcus Norbanus for anything else.
    “So, you really know the Emperor’s niece?” Lepida asked her betrothed as we left the Pollio house and sallied out into the April sunshine. Her blue eyes were wide with admiration. “Lady Julia?”
    “Yes, since she was small.” Marcus smiled. “She and her half-sister were playmates of my son’s when they were very young. They haven’t met since they were children—Paulinus is with the Praetorians now—but I still visit Lady Julia now and then. She’s been very downcast since her father died.”
    The wedding morning of Lady Julia and her cousin Gaius Titus Flavius burst clear and blue as we went to watch them join hands at the public shrine—on foot, since the litters would never get through the crowds. I was jostled from side to side by shoving apprentices, avid housewives, beggars trying to slip their hands into my purse. A baker in a flour-sprinkled apron trod heavily on my foot, and I tripped.
    Marcus Norbanus caught my arm with surprising agility, setting me on my feet before I could fall. “Careful, girl.”
    “Thank you, sir.” I fell behind, chagrined. He really was far too kind to be Lepida’s husband. I’d been praying devotedly for an ogre.
    “Oh, look!” Abandoning Marcus’s arm, Lepida elbowed her way to the