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It was this last thought that kept Safinia’s mouth shut. Fear, the kind that could not be excised by naming and facing it, grew in her when Livy spoke of the future, and only abated when he admitted how little it was that he truly knew. She felt, in a strange way, that those who belonged to Livy’s history ceased to belong to themselves. Kings and councilors were fine—these were figures in themselves already. But Mettius was a thousand better and worse things than whatever would be remembered of him.

“Quintus has been gone a while,” she said. Anything to stop her feeling small.

“I’ll bet he’s skipped out on us,” Livy muttered. “Run off with—did you hear that?”

No, Safinia started to say, but then—shouting, very distant. More than two voices. She took a chance and leaned out Sylvia’s small window. In the distance, emanating from the stone hall, light serrated the ground, sharpened by each blade of grass into a point. People were converging there, carrying torches. Her heart quickened.

“Let’s go,” she said, and didn’t wait to hear Livy’s protests.

The ruckus grew as Safinia and Livy crept closer. It was easy to go unnoticed between the torchlight; even if it had been day, she wasn’t sure they’d be spotted. There were some twenty or thirty people in the hall, soot-covered and exhausted. A third of them were men, and they clustered around the governor and his guards, shouting. The rest were either very young or very old women, sitting and trying to soothe the children.

A hand yanked Safinia by the scruff; she nearly broke it before realizing it was Quintus who had pulled her behind a decorative cluster of trees near the open hall.

“Faustus is in there,” he whispered.

He was next to the governor, looking flustered. A scribe and a few slaves ranged between the newcomers, offering water and bread and taking their names. “What’s going on?” Safinia asked.

“Caenina was raided yesterday,” Quintus said. “Their survivors walked here to petition for aid.”

He named a town near the Tiber Valley. Not much more than a village, but crucial to Sabinum’s salt trade. “Latins?” she asked.

“Rome,” Quintus answered grimly.

Beside her, Safinia felt Livy stiffen. His face was blank, except for the small pulsing of a clenched jaw.

Across the grass, the governor attempted to shake off the men who were shouting at him, his hands up. He was wearing loose, thrown-on clothes, but otherwise looked awake—and angry. “I don’t know what you expect of me,” he was saying. “I will shelter your survivors and attempt to find them new work, but that is all I will do.”

“Caenina was down twenty men when it fell, thanks to you!” the man who looked to be their leader yelled. “We sent them to enforce your curfew, now you say you won’t help us take the city back?”

“How many people live in Caenina?” Livy murmured in Safinia’s ear.

“Few enough for twenty to make a difference,” she answered. “But more than are here now.”

“The Romans took most of their women,” Quintus said. “Apparently Romulus sent a full Century to take the town, but they aren’t occupying. They left once it was burned and the people fled.”

“Is he mad?” A Century was far too many for a raid. It was an act of war. And Rome, nestled between three nations that despised her, populated by their worst castoffs, was not ready for war.

“Maybe.”

“You coward,” the man yelled. “I’ll make sure every last man in Crustumerium knows how spineless you are. Romulus’s lapdog!”

The governor’s face darkened. “You forget yourself, Acron. You are not much of a king tonight, either. In fact, Faustus, escort this man to a holding cell for his contempt.”

Faustus was frozen, looking between the two men. He held his spear in both hands, close to his chest, like it was something to hide behind. “I don’t—I don’t think—”

“You don’t think what?”

“The Romans, they—Acron said they gave him three days but attacked on the second. It’s dishonorable. We’re obligated to return in kind.”

“You are obligated to risk our lives for a city you have never set foot in?”

“Crustumerium is not a nation!” Faustus cried, though he was plainly terrified. “We are Sabine first!”

The governor backhanded him, swift and hard, one of his solid, golden rings cracking against Faustus’s cheek. Two sets of hands clutched at Safinia—Quintus and Livy held her from both sides. She hadn’t even realized she’d lunged to go to Faustus’s aid. “You can’t,” Quintus said urgently. “It will be worse for him.”

“Explain this, Acron?” The governor spoke as if nothing had happened, though around him all other activity had halted. “You had forewarning and still let your city fall?”

“Romulus gave me three days to reconsider the offer he made for my daughters—he wanted them married to two of his thugs.”