Daughters of Rome by Kate Quinn Page B

arm. The crowd’s silence shattered; half of them were screaming and buffeting to get away, and half were screaming and pushing forward to see an emperor get hacked to pieces. Marcella saw Lollia’s husband dragged from behind Galba’s fallen chair and stabbed through the gut as he shrieked for mercy.
    Lollia gave a strangled whimper.
    “Run!” Diana snarled, and gave such a yank to both their elbows that Lollia staggered halfway to her knees. Marcella steadied her, and suddenly they were all running. “The temple,” Marcella gasped, and suddenly the crowds were behind them and the round curve of the Temple of Vesta loomed ahead, impossibly serene, as they lunged up the steps to the sanctuary.
    Silence inside, incredible silence. The flame crackled quietly in its eternal hearth, and the marble coolness of the temple was empty. Marcella skidded to a halt, feeling the breath burn in her lungs, and Lollia collapsed at the base of the nearest pillar. “He’s not dead,” she kept saying blankly. “He’s not dead.” Marcella didn’t bother answering her. The word kept throbbing in her own mind— dead, dead, the Emperor dead.
    Oh, Fortuna, where was Cornelia?
    Diana went to hammer on the inner sanctum and came back with a string of curses, flinging the hair out of her eyes with a savage hand. “We’re locked out. It looks like the Vestal Virgins have fled.”
    “Wise,” Lollia said with blank calm. “They won’t stay virgins long if the Praetorians find their way in.”
    “Nor will we,” Marcella said, looking around the temple. Just a few pillars to hide behind—no doors to bar and close.
    “You can’t be much of a virgin by this time, unless your husband doesn’t know his job.” Lollia managed to stand, her red curls sticking to her temples with sweat although she still shivered violently.
    “Well, I still don’t fancy being ravished by half a cohort of Praetorians,” Marcella retorted. “Does any of us have a knife, in case it gets to that?”
    “I have one,” Diana volunteered, producing a neat little blade.
    “You would,” Marcella said, somehow feeling irritated.
    More shouting, and they all froze. The street below was empty, the crowd long scattered into the side alleys or gorging itself on the Forum’s hysteria, but there was shouting, and suddenly torches. A knot of Praetorians, and two figures before them, running and stumbling. It wasn’t dark yet—plenty of light to see who they were.
    Marcella lunged from behind the pillar, and Diana caught her just in time. “You can’t!”
    Cornelia was gasping and limping—she’d lost one of her sandals, and her dark hair unraveled down her back. Piso helped her along, wild-eyed, his toga in shreds around him. Behind them, whooping, grinning, fanning out in a leisurely pack, spread half a dozen Praetorian guards.
    No , Marcella thought wildly, only five . The one in the lead wasn’t with the rest. He pushed Piso ahead, up the steps of the Temple of Vesta, and he whirled around with his gladius drawn. Cornelia’s centurion, Densus. He’d lost his plumed helmet, and a gash beside one eye masked his face in blood, but his teeth bared in a snarl as he flung himself on the guards.
    One went down as Densus’s short sword plunged through his neck and out again, but Cornelia went down too, tripping over the first of the temple steps. A guard lunged at her, and Piso gave a cry and flung himself at the man. Blood bloomed on his sleeve.
    Densus booted the first man off his sword and turned on the second, slashing his knee out from behind. The man shouted, crumpling, and Piso staggered back, staring in disbelief at the blood on his arm. Cornelia seized his hand, screaming something, dragging him up the stairs. Densus half-turned, pushing at them both and shouting, and then they took him from behind.
    A tall tribune with an ugly stub of a knife found the gap between Densus’s breastplate and back plate and drove the blade in deep. Densus doubled over