“Where did you rustle the fledglings?” scoffed Pa. “Bit skinny for roasting. By the time they can go in the pot, they’ll see you as their mother!”

I grinned, gamely. Helena must have told him about my new rank and the fine job that came with it. He would waste days thinking up bad jokes.

Petronius shoved Nux between his boots under the table. Julia was handed to her doting grandfather. Pa was hopeless with children, having abandoned his own to run off with a girlfriend. He loved Julia, however, preening himself because her other grandfather was a senator. She loved him back without needing a reason. The next generation all seemed eager to revere Pa even before they reached the age when they could sneakily visit him at his antiques emporium and be bribed with trinkets and tidbits.

Fighting my irritation, I found a stool and sat down.

“Drink?” offered Petronius, hoping to get one himself. I shook my head. Remembering Famia temporarily spoiled my taste for it. That’s the most poisonous aspect of drunkards. They cease to enjoy their own liquor-while observing the results of their excess kills its pleasures for the rest of us.

Petro and Pa exchanged raised eyebrows.

“Hard business,” commented Pa.

“You always like to be obvious.”

Helena laid a hand on my shoulder, then removed it. I had come home a hunched, miserable bastard who needed to be comforted but would not allow it. She knew the signs. “You saw Maia this time?” she asked, though my filthy mood surely confirmed it. “Where had she gone yesterday?”

“She took one of her daughters to some function where young girls were being introduced to Queen Berenice.”

Helena looked surprised. “That doesn’t sound like Maia!” Rather like me, my sister despised establishment formality. Being asked to attend on Titus’ exotic lady friend would normally make Maia as rebellious as Spartacus.