Daughters of Rome by Kate Quinn Read Free Book Online Page A

here?” she asked Marcella. “Arresting us?”
    “No, they’re Cornelia’s new toys.” Marcella took a handful of grapes from a silver bowl. “Piso’s bound to be announced heir any day now.”
    “Piso likes the races,” Diana said, hopeful. “He won’t cancel festivals if he becomes Emperor, will he?”
    “He likes everything and will cancel nothing. It would be too much of a decision for him.” Marcella looked over at her sister’s husband where he stood with a wine cup and several senators. He was nodding seriously at something, but then he was always nodding seriously. Lucius is bad enough , Marcella thought, but eight years of Piso would have me dead from boredom. “Your precious Reds will be safe.”
    “Don’t joke. It’s looking like a lean winter for the charioteers, with Galba canceling celebrations left and right. ‘Frivolous waste of funds,’ he calls them.” Diana flopped her folded arms on the marble balustrade, contemplating the circus with its fantastic carved spina and golden dolphins, shut up and shrouded for the long Galban winter. “The horses will go stale.”
    “Cheer up. Galba’s sure to die soon.”
    Diana looked at her. “And they all think I’m the shocking one.”
    “I run around with parchment and pens, not charioteers,” Marcella said cheerfully, reaching for more grapes. “Much more respectable.”
    Diana cast her eyes back to the circus. Marcella turned to take a goblet from a slave and noted Lollia and her new husband hissing at each other in low voices, almost nose to nose.
    “—disgracing me! No wife of mine paints herself in public like a whore.”
    “Your last wife was a whore, Vinius. You divorced her for humping half of Gaul, or did you think we hadn’t all heard about that here in Rome?” Lollia looked very bright and pretty in violent magenta silk checkered in silver around the hem and a pearl-and-silver necklace, but the glare she aimed at her new husband was ferocious.
    He glared back. “Wipe your face, or I will send you home.”
    “I’ll speak to my grandfather about this.” Scrubbing at her cheeks in angry little jerks.
    “Do. That vulgar old freedman will never—”
    “ What did you call him? After he paid your debts and funded your campaign for—”
    Cornelia’s voice broke through the hissing. “Flavia, be careful!”
    Lollia’s little daughter had escaped her mother’s lap and was trying to climb up the railing of the box. Cornelia started forward, but the centurion at her back had moved first. He swooped the little girl up capably, his professional hardness cracking into a friendly grin as he returned her to Lollia’s lap. Lollia gave a last scowl to her new husband and hugged her daughter absently.
    “Thank you, Centurion.” Cornelia touched his arm in thanks and rounded on Lollia. “You couldn’t keep a closer eye on her? Three years old, you know she’s climbing into everything—she could have fallen!”
    “With your gallant centurion standing guard?” Lollia fluttered her lashes at the chestnut-haired Praetorian. Senator Vinius glared again.
    “I see you’d rather flirt than watch your own daughter.” Cornelia looked as if she’d like to say more—a great deal more—but she just gave Lollia one last heartfelt glare and glided away to join Piso. Lollia just shrugged, gave a final narrow-eyed look to her husband, and moved pointedly away to join Marcella. Little Flavia wriggled in her arms, crowing, and Lollia set her down and gave her a diamond bracelet to play with. Flavia cooed, twirling the bracelet around her chubby wrist.
    “Definitely your daughter,” Marcella said.
    “Old Flaccid over there has her so cowed she hardly speaks anymore. I’m divorcing him if it’s the last thing I do.”
    “Your shortest marriage yet,” said Marcella. “Three weeks! If only mine were that short—”
    A dutiful cheer started, and Marcella looked up to see Emperor Galba making his way into the Imperial box. He looked