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“Fine.” Safinia shoved Aulus; he scrambled up—for a moment, he hesitated, looking at Anesia, but she fluttered her fingers at him. Permission enough to bolt.

“He’s quick for such a stocky thing,” Anesia said. “Oh, well. You were looking for me?”

“What is wrong with you?!” Safinia demanded. “The first man you show any interest in is Aulus?”

“I wouldn’t describe it as interest.” Anesia shrugged. “He’s a good match. Good family, good land, and if we married, I’d probably live in the city. Shouldn’t you be thinking of this sort of thing for me?”

“Are you in love with him?” Safinia asked. She dreaded the answer. Aulus could make things extremely complicated.

Anesia threw her head back and laughed. “You’re the one who gets all wound tight about love. I’m going to have nothing to do with it.”

“I don’t get wound tight about love!” Safinia insisted.

“Oh, no?” Anesia shook out her hair and went to return her and Aulus’s cups to the bar. “You and Ores forever moping around each other—that’s not some lovers’ drama?”

“Shut up,” Safinia hissed. Flora’s wasn’t busy at this time of day, but there was a cluster of women gawking at them on the other end of the courtyard. She grabbed Anesia by the arm and hauled her into the alleyway. “Don’t speak on what you don’t understand.”

“And for that matter—you’ll go wandering all over Sabinum for a woman you haven’t seen in four years? You can’t let anyone go!” Anesia pressed her hand to her chest. “Me most of all!”

Somehow this had gotten very turned around. “What about you? I do everything for you!”

“That’s the problem,” Anesia said. “You coddle and you criticize and you never let me out of your sight. Meanwhile, when you were my age, you were cavorting all over the city with Hersilia—”

“It was different then. I had Attice to help.”

“You had Attice to let you live your life!”

“And what life do you want, Anesia?” Safinia asked. “Without me, you wouldn’t get to flirt with stupid men—you’d have no one looking out for you. Has the danger we are in escaped you? Do I need to explain it again, slower?”

Anesia folded her arms. “No, I get it, Romulus is going to come growling up the Tiber with his pack of wolves and eat us all for dinner. Ama, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about the future!”

“You have a future because of me!” Safinia shouted.

Anesia stood and came nose to nose with Safinia, her face red with anger. “I didn’t ask for—”

“Oy!” A stockboy slammed open the deliveries door, the sound like a crack of thunder through the alleyway. Both girls yelped—Safinia groped for the knife strapped to her forearm, while Anesia reached for Safinia’s chiton, twisting her hands in the fabric. “Shut up,” he growled. “Take it somewhere else—you’re going to scare off business.”

Safinia breathed hard. Anesia recovered first, releasing and brushing her skirt smooth, like a cat pretending not to have fallen in pursuit of its own tail. She turned on her heel and marched away, her hand conveying the same fluttering dismissal she’d given to Aulus.

Safinia stayed where she was, hands stuffed in her armpits. She half-wanted to find Mettius and go off to pick fights. But no one wanted to fight Mettius now; they loved him too much.

One more night. Then, at least, she’d know she’d done everything she could.

XII

Finally, the day had come. Safinia took her breakfast to the ramparts at the south gate, looking out over where the Romans had camped. There had been rains last night, muddying the small contingent’s tracks and lingering campfire remnants; the summer heat oozed over the mountainside, burning away any mist and baking the night’s moist ground into cracked clay. The only way to catch a breeze in the city was to climb somewhere the buildings wouldn’t greedily block its passage.

Would she ever get to go home? She longed for her little hut now, just over the ridge, though it would be unbearably hot, all three sisters sleeping outside to escape the sweating, mud-packed walls.

She wondered why she was determined to take this risk. It felt childish, almost—was she going to force Numa’s hand simply because she couldn’t accept that people in power had broken their promises? That life was unfair? And as Mettius and the rest kept reminding her, they could expect to clash with the Romans anyway, and soon. Perhaps it would make no difference to expose Numa for fraud.

No, she thought grimly to herself. Maybe Numa doesn’t feel he has to answer to Hersilia, but I do. And even if Numa argued that he’d given his daughter willingly, there were six other fathers who had not. Most Quirites would feel the same as her. They would reject Numa as a leader once they learned what he’d done, and maybe bring forth someone else in his place.

Footsteps made Safinia turn. Attice was there, climbing the ramparts to stand beside her.

“Orestilla’s headed off to her father’s,” her sister announced.

“I don’t know how she can go back to him,” Safinia said around a mouthful of bread. She passed what was left in her hands to Attice. “Even without the danger. Any father who refused to recognize me would be dead to me forever.”