Caenis was too single-minded and intense; she would have to make a life for herself some other way.

"We seem to be lost," explained the cautious man, Sabinus.

"Your footman let you down?" Caenis queried, nodding at his companion.

"My brother," stated the senator; very straight, this senator.

"What's his name?"

"Vespasianus."

"Why no broad stripes too?" she challenged the brother directly. "Not old enough?" Entry to the Senate was at twenty-five; he was probably not long past twenty.

"You sound like my mother: not clever!" he quipped.

Citizens never normally joked with slavegirls about their noble mothers; Caenis stared at him. He had a broad chest, heavy shoulders, a strong neck. A pleasant face, full of character. His chin jutted up; his nose beaked down; his mouth compressed fiercely, though he seemed good-humored. He had steady eyes. She looked away. As a slave, she preferred not to meet such a gaze.

"Not ready for it," he added, glaring at his brother as if it were a matter of family argument.

Against her better judgment she replied, "Or is the Senate not ready for you?" She had already noticed his obstinate roughness, a deliberate refusal to hide his country background and accent; she admired it, though plenty in Rome would call it coarse.

He sensed her interest. If he wanted it (and she reckoned he did), women probably liked him. Caenis resisted the urge.

"You have lost yourselves in Livia's pantry, sir," she informed the other man, Sabinus.

There was a sudden stillness, which she secretly enjoyed. Though the cubbyhole looked like a perfumery, the two men would be wondering whether this was where the famous Empress had mixed up the poisons with which, allegedly, she removed those who stood in her way. Livia was dead now, but the rumors had acquired their own momentum and even grew worse.