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

sour, doubtless counting the cost of everything. The chariots came out to much louder cheers. The warm surge of applause rose tier by tier, the plebs surging to their feet and screaming for their favorite faction, the patricians putting their palms together in more restrained approval. Seven teams: three for the Green, all twelve horses tossing the tall green plumes on their heads; one for the Blues with their famous blood bays; one for the Whites—and two for the Reds.
    With all the cheers for the chariots and the bustle of guests, no one should have noticed the entrance of one more man in the Cornelii box. But everyone did, Marcella saw—everyone. A shorter man than Piso, with glossy dark curls and teeth that gleamed, his lawn synthesis flamboyantly patterned in gold, a ring on each hand and a gold chain about his neck. He paused in the entrance of the box to let everyone look at him, his smile embracing the crowd, lighting it as if a torch had been carried before him.
    “I know I’m late,” the newcomer said airily, “but surely you all forgive me?” Most of the guests smiled involuntarily, Marcella noted. All but her sister, whose brows creased in a faint frown.
    “Senator Otho?” Lollia whispered. “Gods, what’s he doing here?”
    “Do you know him?” Marcella asked.
    “Oh, we bounced the bed a few times back in the old days, when he and Nero were such good friends. Do you know him, my honey?” Lollia gave a reminiscent smile. “He’s well worth knowing, believe me.”
    Marcella knew of Senator Marcus Salvius Otho, of course—one of Emperor Nero’s boon companions, at least until the minor problem arose when Nero fell in love with Otho’s wife, married her, then kicked her to death. But did I ever meet him before? The narrow, clever face looked familiar somehow.
    Familiar or not, Senator Otho had a pair of red-and-gold Praetorians at his back, just like Piso’s.
    Well, well , Marcella thought. Does Piso have a rival? Perhaps her brother-in-law’s ascension to Imperial heir wasn’t so certain as everyone assumed. Given Cornelia’s suddenly neutral expression, she was thinking exactly the same thing.
    “My dear Lollia!” Otho paused before them, his black eyes sparkling amusement. “It’s been an age. You’re newly married? Congratulations, Senator Vinius,” he called across the box. “You have caught Rome’s most charming woman for a wife. And you, Lollia, have snared Rome’s wisest statesman!”
    Vinius preened, mollified. Otho smiled again dazzlingly, and Marcella noted how many of the guests whispered behind their hands as they looked at him. Piso was looking decidedly nonplussed now.
    “Reds!” Diana jumped up with a raucous cheer as the Reds chariots paraded past on the track below. “Reds!”
    Otho’s amused gaze transferred to Diana. “There’s a young lady who likes the races.” A titter rippled through his party—like Nero, he traveled in a party of sculpted women and gleaming men; everyone young, everyone handsome, everyone amusing. He had taken over the Cornelii box like it was his own. “So this is the charming little Cornelia Quarta, for whom half my friends are perishing of love! Or I hear you are called Diana? How very fitting—”
    “Sshh!” Diana hushed him impatiently, leaning forward over the railing, and let out a cry with the rest of the crowd as the cloth dropped and twenty-eight horses surged forward over the sand, noses straining and colored plumes blowing. Emperor Galba sat hunched in his box reviewing his accounts, but the plebs were all on their feet, shouting, waving colored pennants, clutching their medallions as the chariots flew into the hairpin turn at lunatic speeds. Even Marcella had to admit it was a stirring sight. Where else could you find two hundred fifty thousand people all going mad at once? Perhaps a war . . .
    “Stir them up!” Diana shouted down at the first Reds charioteer as he got rattled out of the turn and dropped into fourth.