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in his golden hair. He wore a beautifully tailored robe spun from coarse silk dyed a rich saffron hue.
    He sprang up and approached Antipater with open arms. “Teacher!” he exclaimed. “You haven’t aged a bit.”
    “Nonsense!” Antipater gestured to his white hair, but smiled, pleased by the compliment. He introduced me to our host.
    I heard a muffled roar as the air above our heads resounded with the sound of a great many people laughing.
    “From the theater,” explained Eutropius.
    “But why are you not there?” asked Antipater.
    “Bah! Plays bore me—all those actors making terrible puns and behaving like idiots. You taught me to love poetry, Teacher, but I’m afraid you were never able to imbue me with a love of comedy.”
    “Artemis herself enjoys the performances,” said Antipater.
    “So they say—even when the actors are as wooden as she is,” said Eutropius. Antipater cackled, but I missed the joke.
    Antipater drew a sharp breath. “But who is this?”
    “Anthea!” Eutropius strode to embrace the girl who had just entered the garden. She was a few years younger than I, and golden-haired like her father. She wore a knee-length purple tunic cinched with a silver chain tied below breasts just beginning to bud. The garment hung loosely over her shoulders, baring her arms, which were surprisingly tawny. (A Roman girl of the same social standing would have creamy white limbs, and would never display them to a stranger.) She wore a necklace of gilded acorns and a fawn-skin cape. Strapped across her shoulder was a quiver filled with brightly painted, miniature arrows. In one hand she carried a dainty little bow—clearly a ceremonial weapon—and in the other an equally dainty javelin.
    “Is it Artemis herself I see?” whispered Antipater in a dreamy voice. I was thinking the same thing. The exotic Ephesian Artemis of the talismans was alien to me, but this was the Diana I knew, virgin goddess of the hunt.
    Eutropius gazed proudly at his daughter. “Anthea turned fourteen just last month. This is her first year to take part in the procession.”
    “No one in the crowd will look at anyone else,” declared Antipater, at which the girl lowered her eyes and blushed.
    As lovely as Anthea was, my attention was suddenly claimed by the slave girl who followed her into the garden. She was older than her mistress, perhaps my age, with lustrous black hair, dark eyes, and a long, straight nose. She wore a dark blue tunic with sleeves that came to her elbows, cinched with a thin leather belt. Her figure was more womanly than Anthea’s and her demeanor less girlish. She smiled, apparently pleased at the fuss we were making over her mistress, and when she saw me looking at her, she stared back at me and raised an eyebrow. My cheeks turned hot and I looked away.
    “Look at you, blushing back at Anthea!” whispered Antipater, mistaking the cause of my reaction.
    Another burst of laughter resounded above us, followed by long, sustained applause.
    “I do believe that means the play is over,” said Eutropius. “Teacher, if you and Gordianus want to wash up a bit and change your clothes before the procession begins, you’d better do it quickly.”
    I looked up at the sky, which was beginning to fade as twilight approached. “A procession? But it’ll be dark soon.”
    “Exactly,” said Antipater. “The procession of Artemis takes place after sundown.”
    “Roman festivals happen in daylight,” I muttered, lapsing into my native tongue.
    “Well, you are not in Rome anymore,” said Antipater. “So stop speaking Latin!”
    “I’ll call for the porter to show you to your quarters,” said Eutropius. But before he could clap his hands, the slave girl stepped forward.
    “I’ll do it, Master,” she said. She stood directly in front of me and trained her gaze on me. I realized, with some discomfort, that to meet her eyes I had to look up a bit. She was slightly taller than I.
    “Very well, Amestris,”