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“What?” She was incredulous. “That’s what you’re concerned about? He held it during offerings, that’s all.”

“It’s very valuable, Safinia,” Livy said seriously. “I gave it to you, not Quintus.”

“It’s only use to me right now is as something to chuck at your head.”

“Listen.” His voice lost all trace of levity. “That ring carries the symbol of my home. It is a powerful one. You may yet find mercy or curiosity if you are seen with it, but not if you hand it out to virtueless, servant-class gossips. You are lucky he didn’t walk away with it.”

Safinia, in answer—the only one that made sense to her right now—grabbed a cushion and held it over her face for a long, muffled scream. When the frustration drained from her body, she found she was exhausted.

“I won’t let anyone else touch the ring,” she said. “I didn’t know it mattered that much to you.”

He looked mollified. “It matters deeply. Now—I agree that we should rely as little as possible on your ability to lie and cajole the governor. Our investigations must begin tonight. Get a little sleep before dinner, and I’ll make plans to deal with our guard.”

“Thank you,” Safinia breathed. She wrapped her arms around the cushion and lay back again. Sleep was a nonstarter, but she could at least think of what to say to Quintus, who was sure to return. She had not forgotten that his usual job was with Sylvia.

She could hear Livy offering jovial greetings to the men that stood outside; they said nothing in reply.

III

The guards took some time to succumb to the extra something in their wine Livy had stealthily prepared that afternoon. Safinia played dice with them as she waited, a little relieved Faustus wasn’t on duty. She would have felt badly for deceiving him. All of the governor’s staff, she noticed, distrusted their master—she hoped it meant they would understand her need to flee.

When she noticed the guards yawning, one of them blinking slowly, Safinia gave an exaggerated stretch herself. “I’ll sleep like the dead tonight,” she said. “Don’t exert yourself on my account.”

The guards waved her off. Safinia didn’t have to wait long, staring at the ceiling in her little room—they were asleep soon after the sun slipped from the sky. She unfolded the stola she’d yanked off earlier and cut it at the thighline for mobility. The fabric was black, good for moving in darkness—Safinia looped the excess around her neck and pulled it up over her nose. Then she went to wake Livy.

“You look ridiculous,” he said.

“I’d rather look like a bandit than like myself.”

“Fair enough.” Livy yawned. His own preparations involved putting on as many gaudy rings as he had fingers—though Safinia was relieved to see he’d packed his things as she’d insisted. “I poked around last night after you fell asleep. I’m fairly certain little Sylvia’s room is on the west side of the complex. There’s a separate building that seems to be an apartment for the family—it makes sense, as the Regia is really more of a building designed for governance—but where is the Curia for the senate? It wasn’t in the forum, so it should be here.”

“I don’t think he has one,” Safinia said. “Are you determined to wear yellow?”

“All business, you are.” Livy added one last flourish—a striped, woven belt—seemingly only to irritate Safinia. “It’s bad form to govern without a senate, you know.”

“Yes, which is why we need to get out as soon as possible.”

“Fine, fine.”

Skulking around with Livy at her shoulder was nerve-racking; Safinia feared more than once that he might be caught when a servant or guard passed by. How could they miss him, even in darkness? There was little torchlight on the grounds, but to Safinia he seemed to glow. No one noticed him, though, a fact that Livy was extremely smug about.

The apartments he’d mentioned were above the dining room Safinia had been welcomed into the night before. Here, there was more light and the remains of food next to unoccupied sofas.

“This way.” Livy led her to a thick curtain that blocked the kitchen from view. Behind, there was a narrow stairwell.

“Where are all the servants?” Safinia whispered. “No one in the kitchen, even.”

“Seems they keep well out of sight if they aren’t required. I doubt many of them are a high enough class of servant to live in the house—Latium is a slave economy. I imagine Crustumerium has more of them than Cures.”

“Cures has slaves,” Safinia said uncertainly. She didn’t like to think of them—most of the slaves in Sabinum worked the salt flats and the barges that brought trade from there up the Tiber. Some were miners. Notably though, the slaves in Sabinum, as in Etruria, were Gauls. The feeling of most Sabine was that it was bad business to take slaves from their neighbors. It risked provocation from Latium and the city-states at her edges, like Rome.

Rome, of course, had no such misgivings. It was hard, though, to feel superior on this. Safinia had seen Cures’s slaves hauling salt to the gates, their backs stooped with the weight of enormous amphorae. It was too easy to imagine Mettius or herself among them, if they’d simply been born in the wrong place.

The narrow stairwell ended behind another concealing curtain; the room beyond was opulent, clearly a private sitting and dining area for the family. Safinia peered around the curtain, her eyes adjusting to a dim oil lamp. There were only two sofas dressed for dining. A third was stripped of adornments and shoved against the wall.

“Where is Sylvia’s room?” she asked Livy. He squeezed past her, continuing down the corridor—a fork led to a set of rooms that were obviously occupied. Light slipped under the door, and Safinia could hear muffled conversation. The other way was dark. Livy motioned for silence, creeping past an illuminated stretch of hallway, and opening a door at its end that Safinia could barely even make out in the uneven gloom.

The room reminded her of Hersilia’s, not just in its luxury, though Sylvia did not sleep on a bed frame or have any vases on display, but in the feeling of absence. There were touches of a distinct person here, toys on the floor, a loom by a thin window—but the toys were stacked neatly, the loom stripped of any weaving. It was as if someone, not Sylvia, had come here and set it all aside, to wait. Only a mat in the corner of the room looked as though it was recently occupied; that would be for her personal domestici.