"I've drawn Cyrenaica and Crete."

"Crete will be pleasant. . . . When do you leave?"

"Tomorrow." Immediately he looked up. "Sailing when the seas are closed is traditionally the first test in the job. Sorry. I should have come before this. Stupid!" he added tersely.

Caenis did not reply.

The awkward low seat finally got the better of him. He stood up, stretching, though not yet ready to go. He began to pace about the room.

"I see you had the place cleaned up."

"How did you know it was me?" she demanded. Vespasian let out a little laugh. Caenis blushed. "Well, I finally nudged the prefect of works."

He had been inspecting the new fresco. The painters had wanted to do a gladiatorial scene; painters always did. Instead Caenis had insisted on a soothing panorama of gardens, like the one in Livia's House: cranky trellises laden with creepers in whose shade three-legged herons pecked fruit from funereal urns amid unlikely combinations of flowers.

"What does nudging entail?" Vespasian cracked, looking back over his hefty shoulder with a contempt that startled her.

"Oh—the usual!" When caught off guard Caenis could be a belligerent tease. She glanced down, then up again through her eyelashes. Veronica imbued this gesture with resonant sexuality; Caenis got an eyelash in one eye. "I just took an interest in his work."

Vespasian stared.

To soothe him, while she fiddled with the eyelash she commented that Antonia was unlikely to keep this office once Tiberius either died or came home to Rome. It was years since he decamped to Capri. There he now owned a dozen villas, plus a series of grottoes and bowers that provided a pretty playground for acting out orgiastic fantasies—or so it was said. Some of the terrible stories were probably true.

Sometimes the Emperor did make journeys to mainland Italy and circled Rome like a wary crab, informing the Senate that he intended to visit and yet then fleeing back to his hideaway with the headlong panic of a haunted man. Astrologers had decided that the hour of his leaving Rome had been so inauspicious that returning might be fatal. Caenis scoffed at the idea, but Vespasian folded his arms over his glossy new toga and said, "Not if he really believes the prophecy."