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acquaintance at the games this week." His eyes roamed over Portia now, as though he had traded in Octavia for the younger version.
    They stood suspended, all of them, until he removed himself from the shop, then for a few more beats while Cato imagined him strolling down the sidewalk, and then they seemed to exhale all as one, and the women started talking.
    "What a vile man!" Octavia brushed at her clothing as though Maius had left behind some vestige on her person.
    "Hush, Mother." Portia eyed the doorway. "He may hear you."
    Octavia huffed. "Let him hear me. No doubt he is unaccustomed to hearing the truth in this town."
    Portia gripped her mother's arm. "He is not a man to be opposed, Mother. He has been duovir for longer than the five years I have been here, and commands much fear in this city."
    The young Isabella spoke for the first time, her voice low. "Someone should poison his mushrooms."
    "Isabella!" Octavia's rebuke was half-hearted, and Cato winked at his sister. She had become fascinated of late with the history of the Empire, and had been all talk about the Emperor Claudius, murdered twenty-five years ago in such a way.
    Portia turned her eyes on him, and there was neither amusement nor petulance there. "He is just the sort of man you always opposed in Rome, Quintus. You could do something—"
    Cato turned back to the spilled wine, but Remus had it all cleaned up.
    Portia had not finished. "It would give your coming here purpose. More than a rich nobleman's idle pastime with the vines."
    Cato scowled. "Not as rich as you seem to think, Portia. And my 'idle pastime' will no doubt yield more fruit than any of my efforts in Rome. Or have you forgotten?"
    Portia started again, but her mother stilled her with a gentle hand on her arm. "It grows close in here, girls." She straightened. "Let us leave the men to their work, and take some air."
    Cato passed her a look of gratitude, but the intensity of her eyes was as pointed as Portia's remarks.
    She feels it too. That I am wasting my life here.
    He walked with them to the doorway, and watched as the three women who both loved and frustrated him walked arm-in-arm down the raised sidewalk of the Arnius Pollio block where his shop huddled between others of its kind.
    Portia's words chased around themselves in his mind. It would give your coming here purpose.
    But he did have a purpose.
    He would get his hands dirty, but it would be in the fertile black soil at the foot of Vesuvius, not in the futile political maneuverings of the city government.
    No matter how much Gnaeus Nigidius Maius deserved to be brought down.

CHAPTER 5
    The evening was a fine one for theater entertainment, and Cato escorted his mother and Isabella toward the southern end of town, eager for a diversion.
    The bulk of their belongings had arrived from Rome yesterday, and between directing the slaves to place the furniture and prized statuary throughout the new villa, and instructing Remus in the final details of opening the shop, Cato had found the past few days to be more work than play. A situation he meant to rectify this evening.
    He did not acknowledge that an inner restlessness also plagued him, a stirring of unease, as if none of his frantic activity amounted to anything worthwhile.
    A half moon hung already over the back wall of the city's large theater as they approached. They could see nothing but the high wall with its curved vaults and outer staircases from this side, but beyond the wall and sloping downward lay a fine example of Roman-adopted Greek culture. The Romans had long ago left behind their barbarism and embraced the sophistication and the architecture of the Greeks, whose far-flung cities and poli the Roman military machine had swallowed.
    Cato led the two women to the outer wall. They would not enter the theater at the front. The only access to the highest tiers of seats, reserved for the nobility, was from the outside. He stepped aside at the base of the stairs and allowed them