Page 69

The pressure on her head lifted for a moment. Safinia tried to wriggle backward, away, slipping again as she pivoted. The man who’d caught her wrenched her arms behind her back. Before her stood Numa. He had two more men at his shoulders.

She was done for. There was no defense for what she’d been doing. And he wouldn’t risk her telling a magistrate and making the people listening wonder about him.

“Please,” Safinia said. “I only want Hersilia safe.”

Numa stepped forward, and Safinia realized the mistake of trying to reason with him.

His face was twisted and dark with fury. She sucked in her breath, jerking back as much as she could. His hand shot out, gripping her around the throat and crawling to her chin, holding her face with bruising fingers.

“I told you to be patient,” Numa said. His voice was thick with blood. “I told you I had it under control. What did you do? You started a fucking riot.”

“I didn’t draw a knife in a wrestling match,” Safinia croaked.

“You’ve killed her,” Numa whisper-shrieked. His fingers moved back to her throat and she coughed involuntarily. One of the guards behind him stepped forward, as if to intervene—it was Aulus, she realized. “I was doing this with as little life lost as possible. But you’ve forced his hand, you idiot.”

Numa released her and nodded to the man who held her arms. He pressed on the back of her neck. Black edged her vision. Safinia tried to twist her shoulders, give some relief to the pressure, but she was held fast.

She had been a fool. Livy had told her she was an idiot to try this. What had she been thinking—that Numa would have no one watching while he was away?

Attice, she thought. Anesia.

The guard pushed her to her knees. There was muffled talk above her; the shadows moved as if gesturing. Safinia tried desperately to listen.

“—must not let anger overwhelm you,” a man with satin, stamped shoes said. The tiniest spark of hope ignited in her throat. Was it Livy? A reply came, but Safinia was underwater. The same man again: “I have plans for her yet—”

She fought, but knew she couldn’t win. Her eyes rolled into darkness, and then it swallowed her up.

Act III

753 BCE

“The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind . . . in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.”

—Titus “Livy” Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, Book I

I

Safinia kept her eyes closed as she came to. Her cheek was pressed into rough, damp wood, and her hands tied behind her back. She flexed them very slightly—the rope was tight. Footsteps, with an uneven gait, moved around her. The floor was unstable, pitching and tilting. Safinia chanced cracking open her eyes.

She was on the Tiber. On a salt barge, by the smell.

“I can tell you’re awake. Your whole body just went rigid.”

Safinia breathed out for a count of ten. Then she turned to face him. Numa sat on a simple, lashed-together chair, studying her. The sky was gray with early morning, the last stars winking away. Safinia felt bereft of their watch. It took a moment to find her voice—her throat was bruised and slightly swollen. “How am I alive?” she rasped.

“You’ve been busy, befriending my seer behind my back. I spared you only because he asked it. He’s earned a favor or two.”

“Listen—” Safinia started. She paused to cough, shifting into a seat, her arms brutally sore. “I’ll go. I’ll take my family and you’ll never see or hear from me again.”

“No,” he said. “I can’t trust you not to fuck things up even worse. Our only recourse is to throw you somewhere where you can’t do any harm.”

“I’m telling you just to exile me!” Safinia attempted to get her legs under her but found that the rope around her hands was attached to a hook on the boat’s bottom. “Escort me across the Tiber yourself if it makes you feel better.”

“No,” he said. “If I had the time I might have considered it. But I think Titus will want you in hand, as he asked you to be spared. You may see him once the plans are executed.”

Titus. It took Safinia a moment to remember: That was Livy’s personal name.

“What plan?” Safinia asked. “Where are we going?”