Hedia gave her husband's hand a final squeeze, then crossed her fingers on her lap. Composed again, she glanced to her right at Alphena, Saxa's daughter by his first wife. The girl sensed her stepmother's interest and immediately blushed, though she didn't respond in any deliberate fashion.

Hedia nodded minusculely and turned her attention to the audience. She suppressed her knowing grin, just as she had swallowed her laughter at the monkey's antics.

As she expected, Alphena had been looking toward Publius Corylus, who sat at the edge of the knights' section. He was a striking young man, taller than most citizens of Carce. His hair was buttery blond, His father had been a soldier, so the boy probably had Celtic blood. Soldiers couldn't marry, but informal arrangements on the frontiers were regularized on retirement, for those who survived to retire. Acknowledged offspring became legitimate and, in Corylus' case, joined the ranks of the Knights of Carce to whom his father had been raised.

A very striking boy. Spending the afternoon with him would be a good way to climb out of this swamp of disquiet…

Hedia's face hardened for an instant before she consciously smoothed it back to aristocratic calm. She could appreciate better than most why Alphena found the boy attractive, but she was by law the girl's mother and she took her duties seriously. Hedia would do whatever was necessary to keep Alphena a virgin until the girl was safely married; and marriage, for the daughter of Senator Gaius Alphenus Saxa, meant an alliance with another senatorial house.

After that, well… After that, Alphena's behavior would be a matter for negotiation between husband and wife. Nothing to do with the girl's stepmother.

Hedia had never pretended to be a wife who embodied all the virtues of ancient Carce, but she had never failed to do her duty as she saw it. She would not fail in her duties now, neither to her husband nor to the girl to whom she was now mother. She would not fail for so long as she lived.