Mistress of Rome by Kate Quinn Page A

errands, smiling into the soup. And you were gone far too long at noon today for a simple shopping trip. So—who is he?”
    “Um. He’s—” Damn her sharp eyes. I pulled the comb through her long black hair again, wishing I could yank it all right out. “He has a tavern. In the Subura.”
    “A tavernkeeper in the slums? Oh, Thea, what a prize. What else?”
    “He has, um, black hair. He’s from Brundisium. He has a scar over his knuckles. From when a drunk pulled a knife.”
    Lepida laughed. “And does he want to marry you? No, let me guess: He’s married already!”
    I took my cue, muttering, “Well, she’s gone most of the time. They don’t get on.”
    “I’m sure they don’t. From gladiator to tavernkeeper, Thea—I always knew you had low tastes. In fact—” She twisted, eyeing me. “Lift your hair off your neck. Goodness, a bruise of passion?”
    “He loves me hard,” I murmured in Greek, and hid a smile of foolish happiness.
    She caught it, and something in her face soured. “Run along back to your slums, then!” she snapped, and whirled back to her mirror.
    Too close , I thought as I put down the comb. But to Arius that night, I just laughed. “Don’t worry, I put her off the scent. Maybe it’s a good idea she noticed. From now on whenever I run off to you, she’ll think I’m running off to the tavernkeeper.”
    “So who’s this tavernkeeper?” He bit my earlobe. “Can I kill him?”
    He fought in the Colosseum a fortnight later. An enormous Trinovantian; a close and grueling fight. They slashed and battled across the sand for twenty minutes. I couldn’t have moved to save my life, but Lepida was too busy sulking to notice my frozen figure.
    “Really, I don’t see what everyone makes such a fuss about,” she pouted. “He’s just a big ugly barbarian.”
    “The mob dotes on him,” Pollio said absently. “Do admit, he’s splendid. He’s got the Trinovantian on his knees—”
    But for all Arius’s disdain as he stalked out through the Gate of Life, he was bloody and winded. And a voice in my head whispered, How long before he’s killed?
    I prayed at every temple in Rome. I visited witches and astrologers and fortune-tellers. I spent the coppers I had earned singing and bought charms by the armload. I wore down my knees praying to every god and goddess I’d ever heard of, and quite a few I hadn’t. Arius was highly amused by my efforts, or pretended to be.
    “You only believe in one God,” he pointed out one long night.
    “Yes, but my God is the god of the Jews,” I said, curling against him under a scratchy blanket. “He’ll look out for me because I’m one of the Chosen People, but He doesn’t care a thing about you.”
    “I don’t care about him.” Arius ran his hand up the length of my back, leaving a trail of tingles and shivers. “So we’re square.”
    “Who are your gods? Maybe I can pray to them.”
    He propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at me with the rare boyish grin that utterly banished his usual stoniness. “There’s Epona. Goddess of horses.”
    “What can she do about the Colosseum?”
    “Artio, then.”
    “Who’s she?”
    “Goddess of the forest. Also of bears,” he added gravely.
    “Be serious.”
    “There’s Sataida. She’s the lady of grief.”
    “That’s better. I’ll tell her not to kill you off and come paying me any visits.”
    “You’d grieve?” His grin slipped away.
    I’d die.
    I didn’t say it aloud. That would be to tempt God, who doesn’t like to take second place in any human heart. But Arius’s sword-roughened hand slipped through my hair as if to feel my thoughts on his fingers, and then he caught me up so hard and close that I had no time for any thoughts at all.
     
     
     
    A RIUS?” I whispered through the dark. No answer. I felt the whisper of his breath on my bare shoulder.
    Careful not to wake him, I turned my face into his hard chest. I closed my eyes against the blackness. And I spoke,