"Hello!" cried Vespasian. "You look very efficient!"

He shouldered himself in. Caenis put on an expression of pious surprise. She had been aware that his posting to Thrace must have ended. She had somehow expected him.

* * *

Men of his status were not supposed to saunter into the imperial suites looking for female scribes. Completely unabashed, Vespasian took a good look around.

Antonia had borrowed a large office for her copy clerks. She ran a frugal household, and was more ruthless in seizing advantages than her sovereign reputation might suggest. Tiberius would once have been mean enough to demand rent even from a widowed relative, but no one had ever told him she was here; he suspected that people deceived him, so inevitably they did. Still, Antonia could act as she liked nowadays. She was the Mother of Rome.

The room had a depressed air. It was cold. It smelled of hibernating animals. The paintwork on the frescoes was faded. In the Emperor's absence large areas of his palace were declining in neglect; unsupervised, the imperial stewards had a slack attitude toward redecorating any quarters they did not wish to lounge in themselves. Caenis, a girl who could get things done, intended to make friends with the prefect of works.

Vespasian prodded at a patch of wall plaster that was effervescing oddly: "Bit rough."

"The whole of Rome is collapsing," Caenis observed. "Why should the Emperor's house be different?"

Tiberius had a desultory approach to public construction; he began a Temple of Augustus and began restoring the Theater of Pompey, but both remained unfinished. He had occupied the Palace only fitfully before retiring from Rome. Vespasian grumbled, "He should build properly. He should build more, build better, encourage others, and set a decent standard."

He turned his critical attention to Caenis.

She showed distinct signs of improvement. She looked clean and neat; Antonia's staff was allowed to attend the women's sessions at the public baths.