Read Mistress of Rome for Free Online Page B

a resounding crash, but the door clicked quietly shut.

THEA
    J UNE. A pretty month in some places—blue skies, gentle warmth, blooming flowers. Not so pretty in Rome, where the sun beat down like a brass coin and the streets shimmered like water. Hateful, molten June. The nights gave me dreams to frighten ghosts in their tombs.
    The city spilled over with a last round of frantic gaieties as the wealthy citizens prepared to set out for their cool summer villas. The games of Matralia were breathlessly anticipated, an extravaganza of blood and excitement that would close out the season, and patricians, politicians, charioteers, courtesans, and plebs alike buzzed with the news: At the pinnacle of the festivities, the great Belleraphon was to be matched against a rising newcomer. A certain Briton named Arius, already nicknamed “Barbarian” by the mob.
    “It’s all my doing,” Lepida crowed. “I persuaded Father to pair them up. They’re starting Arius at five-to-one odds.”
    “Optimistic,” I ventured.
    “I know,” my mistress agreed. “Won’t it be fun, watching the Barbarian die bravely? I wonder if Father might consider hosting a dinner party for all the gladiators the night before . . .”
    Father would indeed consider it. Especially when his daughter pointed out that any party with Arius and Belleraphon as star attractions would be sure to attract guests of the highest rank.
    “And I’ll go, too,” Lepida concluded, tossing her blue-black ringlets. “Right next to you, Father, so you can protect me if things get, well, rowdy .” Dimpling. “I know it’ll be a wild crowd, but Aemilius Graccus might be there, and Julius Sulpicianus—very important families! Who knows? Maybe one of them will ask for me, and then I wouldn’t have to marry boring old Marcus Norbanus, and we’d both be happy. Please? ”
    The entire household was thrown into frenzy. The cook was up till the small hours designing a menu fit to be served to the expected patrician guests as well as to the gladiators who might well be eating their last meal. The silver-inlaid dining couches were sumptuously draped and the tables garlanded with visibly out-of-season flowers so that every guest from the most noble of patricians to the most menial of the gladiators should see the Pollio wealth. Too much wealth, I could have told them; too many flowers and ornaments and slaves on display for good taste, but who asked me? When the night finally arrived, my feet were sore and my cheeks stinging from slaps before Lepida pronounced herself tolerably satisfied with her appearance.
    “Not bad.” She pirouetted, angling her head before the polished steel mirror. “No, not bad at all.” Sapphire-blue silk molded artfully against her rounded body, the sway of her hips causing the golden bells around her ankles to chime, pearls glimmering at her ears and throat, mouth painted a luscious red. I smoothed the front of my rough brown wool tunic.
    “I shan’t need you again tonight, Thea,” she declared, adjusting a gold filigree bracelet. “Can’t have a drab thing like you hanging around all those glittering people; you’ll put them off their supper. Clean up this mess first!”
    “Yes, my lady.” But I left her gowns where they lay, thinking of my blue bowl and a quiet room somewhere away from the clatter of voices already rising from the triclinium. And despite Lepida’s warning, I did steal a peek around the edge of the inlaid satinwood door.
    A much better crowd than usually attended Pollio’s parties: one or two senators, Emperor Domitian’s personal chamberlain, Lady Lollia Cornelia, who hosted Rome’s most famous dinner parties and was cousin to the Empress. They lounged among the flowers and cushions in their bright silks, picking at the roast elephant ears and ostrich wings and flamingo tongues on their golden plates, and never ceasing to gossip in that elegant patrician drawl that Pollio had never quite managed to acquire. The only