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Safinia clenched and unclenched her fists. “Yes.”

“Romulus can give us what Cures lacks. We have so many treaties and allies that the king doesn’t see a need to house and feed the kind of army that could really defend us, the kind we had in your mother’s day. But Romans are ferocious fighters, and Romulus is a genius tactician.” Hersilia’s eyes shone. “You should see him when he plans. His father is a god. Like in the stories, Safinia—and he walks among us. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen his mind at work myself. He was born to make war.”

“You admire him,” Safinia spat. “A brother-killer raised by wolves.”

The old adage had come to her without thinking. Salt traders and caravan guards often yelled it as they drank to Romulus’s death in the city-south. Now Safinia’s brow furrowed. The Romans were always called wolves, though now that Safinia thought about it, she wasn’t sure why. She’d never bothered with Roman stories.

“He will make war at our side, or at our gates,” Hersilia said. “So my father and I approached him with a proposal. He would marry me, and over the next year, my equivalent in every Sabine city-state would marry his council, his governors, his generals. His champions. I selected girls from Cures that I trust. Then, when the time came, so many important families would go over for the safety of their daughters that Cures will be spared war. We’ll become Roman, and we’ll be safer for it.”

Safinia was speechless.

“You have to think of the whole picture to see the brilliance,” Hersilia hurried to say. “Yes, Cures goes over to Rome. But think of the wealth that will come to both cities, with the salt road unobstructed, and no taxes or scuffles to get to the flats. Romulus will go off and conquer Veii, and Collatia, and eat into Etruria and Latium, and who will have his ear? Who will have each important Roman wrapped around their fingers? Me and my women.”

She was so excited she sat up on her knees, reaching for Safinia’s hands. Safinia snatched them away, but it didn’t diminish the thrill in Hersilia’s eyes. “We’ll nudge and whisper, and when every Roman tough is off battling, we’ll run the councils and write the laws. My father is going to be the next king of Rome—Romulus promised it, and a seer confirmed it—do you not see what we could build? Safinia, say something!”

Safinia had to work to find saliva enough to talk. “You’re insane,” she croaked at last.

“I’m not,” Hersilia insisted. Her expression dropped to a glower. “Insane is thinking you better our lot by walloping on any man who pisses you off enough. You make a fool out of yourself with your fighting. Let the magistrates settle it.”

“The magistrates say a man can do anything to a wife.”

“A smart woman would know how to manage her man,” Hersilia said. Her voice was ice. “And a brilliant woman would gather power to change the fucking laws.”

Safinia curled her fingers so tight they creaked, and her wrists ached. She remembered breaking the nose of one man, once. Laying him flat in the street while Mettius whooped his approval. She’d hated how good it felt, though now she couldn’t remember what he’d done to anger her. “You didn’t hate my fighting when you asked me to be your guard.”

“It was never a real offer,” Hersilia snapped. “I gave it because I wanted you near. I didn’t realize you thought it was still on the table after you went half-feral. I can’t have a guard ruled by fury.”

“So you took a husband ruled by his!” Safinia yelled. She hit the side of her fist against the wall; in doing, Orestilla’s pendant and Livy’s ring swung forward, out of her shirt. Hersilia leaned forward and took the stone, narrowing her eyes. Then she yanked it from Safinia’s neck, breaking the chain and sending Livy’s ring skittering.

“This is Aurelia Orestilla’s work,” Hersilia said.

Safinia put her hand over the ring before Hersilia could notice it. “So what if it is. It was Ores who came to find me when you disappeared.”

“She did?” Hersilia asked, astonished. “I thought it had to be Tarpeia, she hates when I keep secrets. Not a mouse like Orestilla.”

“Your sister is ten times the woman you are.”

Hersilia snorted. “So you know that detail. Let me tell you about my sister, Orestilla: It was cruel to let her glimpse the life she might have had as a child. My father shouldn’t have entertained her at all. Orestilla will always want family, and she will never be satisfied with what she finds.”

Safinia fought to keep her face blank. Was that true? Would she never be happy, in the end, with just Safinia and her sisters? Safinia tried to push it to the back of her mind. “At least she’s smart enough not to believe the word of a barbarian. Romulus will never let you taste real power.”

“He will.” Hersilia’s eyes glittered. “Men are weak to their women. My girls will work on them in concert. Rome will be the strongest nation in the world, bigger than Athens or Carthage or Veii, and it will be shaped by the women who birth it. The women in my walls will not fear violence for their daughters—the laws we write will say their lives are worth something. They’ll own land, inherit property, serve on council or as magistrates. We may even see a new Calliste.”

Her cheeks were flushed. Hersilia could never help talking herself to a peak. Safinia saw her envisioning it, this shining, perfect city, so solid before her eyes that she’d forgotten what a fantasy it was. Safinia looked at her hands to try to calm her anger. “Why does a woman need to own land?”

“Are you stupid? So that it can’t be taken.”

“I’ve never found that to be true,” Safinia said. “I own land. What difference has it made?”

“You don’t really own land.”

“I inherited it. Why do you call me Safinia and not Amaryllis? I’m the head of my line. Everything that belonged to my parents belongs to me now.” Supposedly, there was some invisible line in the rocks between Safinia’s and Mettius’s homes that denoted one side as hers, one side as his. Supposedly she could get satisfaction from a child who picked and ate olives from her tree. Absurd, all of it. If it was what the king needed to distribute allotments, then fine. But Safinia’s name in the census wouldn’t stop a raider from taking it. Land—ownership—was as temporary as anything that sat in Feronia’s watch.

What did Hersilia expect? That soon Tarpeia would be able to point to a building and say, That’s mine, actually, and have an invading army bow and mutter their apologies?

“Your little hut doesn’t count. You’re . . .”

“Unimportant?” It was what Numa said.