Alphena giggled, then worried that she shouldn't do that now. Fortunately, what was happening on stage had absorbed everyone's attention.

Two tall Nubians had entered, bearing a platter with a domed silver cover. The actor playing Mercury cried, "Behold, great leader! The head of Geryon, conquered by your prowess!"

He whisked off the cover, pointing toward the platter with his free hand. On it was the head of a man whose tawny moustache flared back into sideburns of a paler color. His face had mottled during strangulation, and his eyes started in their sockets.

"The bandit Corocotta!" shouted a spectator who recognized the dead features.

"Corocotta!" shouted the crowd as a blurry whole. "The head of Corocotta!"

Alphena had heard-from gossiping servants-about the coup that Meoetes, the impresario, had arranged with a help of a great deal of Saxa's money. A noted Sardinian bandit, Corocotta, had been captured after years of terrorizing the countryside. Instead of being crucified in Caralis, Corocotta had been brought to Carce and marched through the streets before being strangled in the prison on the edge of the Forum.

Corocotta's body had been dumped in a trench outside the religious boundary of Carce, but his head had been preserved for this performance. Saxa's triumph was greater than that of the Governor of Sardinia, who had caught the fellow to begin with.

The audience stood and began stamping its feet in delight. Saxa sat straighter on his golden throne: beaming, flushing, and happier than Alphena had ever seen him before.

She grimaced. She hadn't given her father much reason to be happy in her presence. She had resented him, and she had resented the world that said that a daughter wasn't free to do the things that sons were encouraged to do. Varus could be a military officer, could rise to general even-but Alphena, who was easily able to have chopped her brother to sausage in battle, had to threaten a tantrum merely to be taught the manual of arms by the family trainer.