The brothers came from Reate; Caenis burrowed it out. Reate was a small town in the Sabine hills—a birthplace Roman snobs would mock. Their family arranged contracts for seasonal labor and had made their money in provincial tax collection. Their father had also been a banker. They would be notables in their own country, though in Rome, among senatorial pedigrees that trailed back to the Golden Age, they must be struggling. Since Sabinus had qualified for the Senate, the family must own estates worth at least a million sesterces, but it was obviously new money, and if it were all tied up in the land she could well believe their day-to-day budget was tight.

With some difficulty, since no one knew or wanted to know anything about him, she discovered from the usher that the younger brother, Vespasian, had returned to his military duties abroad.

* * *

On 17 October a letter came to Antonia, brought by Pallas from Capri. She read it in private, then stayed in her room. Pallas did not reappear.

By nightfall word had run through the household notwithstanding, and the next day the results of Antonia's action became known throughout Rome: To sidestep the Praetorian Guards, the Emperor had called into his confidence past and present commanders of the city police force. One, Macro, had been secretly appointed as the new commander of the Praetorians. He entered Rome incognito and laid plans with Laco, the current Prefect of the Vigiles. After taking elaborate precautions, Macro had persuaded Sejanus to enter the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, where the Senate was meeting—only a few yards from Antonia's house. A letter from the Emperor to the Senate was to be read. Sejanus let himself be persuaded that this would be offering even greater honors to himself.

Once Sejanus had gone inside the Temple, Macro dismissed the escort of Guards, ordering them back to their camp (which ironically Sejanus himself had built for them in the north part of the city). He replaced them with loyal members of the city Vigiles. Macro himself then went to the Praetorian camp to assume command, confine the Guards to barracks, and prevent a riot. Sejanus meanwhile discovered that the letter from Tiberius was a bitter denunciation of himself. Striding from the Temple, he was arrested by Laco, the Prefect of the Vigiles, and hustled off to the state dungeon on the Capitol. The Guards did riot, but they were soon controlled.

Sejanus and his fellow conspirators were executed. The strangled body of Sejanus was dumped on the Gemonian Steps, which led down from the Capitol, where it was abused by the public for three days before being dragged off with hooks and thrown like rubbish into the Tiber. His statues were torn down from the Forum and theaters. His children were killed too, the teenaged daughter being raped first, to spare the public executioner from the crime of killing a virgin. Rome had harsh rules, but they did exist.

Antonia was acclaimed as the savior of Rome and of the Emperor. Praising her role in uncovering the conspiracy, Tiberius offered her the title Augusta, with the formal honors of an empress. This she declined with the modesty her admirers would expect.

From the middle of October until well into November no visitors were admitted to Livia's House. Some normal life continued. A certain amount of correspondence had to be written, and the correct procedures of daily life were grimly observed. Meanwhile Antonia's daughter, Livilla, had been brought to the house and consigned, with the Emperor's permission, to her mother's custody.

Unlike previous errant daughters of the Imperial House, those who merely led scandalous, adulterous lives for their own pleasure but who had refrained from poisoning the sons of emperors or letting themselves be manipulated into damaging the stability of Rome, Livilla was not to be exiled to a remote island or executed by soldiers. She had shamed the rigorous principles of her mother, Antonia, and those of her even more famously strict grandmother Octavia. She had been stupidly deceived by Sejanus. She had defiled the house of Augustus and dishonored her own children, the grandchildren and rightful heirs of the Emperor. Her position saved her from the public executioner, yet her fate was merciless.

Antonia took Livilla into her own house, locked her in a room alone, and left her there until she starved to death.

FOUR

Grief and rejoicing each have their moments, and then fade. The screams and pleas for help from Livilla were reduced to weakening groans, then silence. Those who had been shaken by having to overhear what happened recovered as much as they ever would.

Gradually the House of Livia relaxed, returning like Rome itself to what passed for normal domesticity. Certainly a shadow had been lifted from the Empire, and the city was full of relief.

Years passed. Nightmares ended. Individual lives improved. That was why, when the younger brother of Flavius Sabinus opened the door to a certain office in the administration sector of the Palatine nearly two years later, Caenis was singing.

She was singing quite loudly because she thought there was nobody nearby. Besides, she liked to sing. Livia's House would hardly be the place for it.

She stopped abruptly.

"Hello!" cried Vespasian. "You look very efficient!"

He shouldered himself in. Caenis put on an expression of pious surprise. She had been aware that his posting to Thrace must have ended. She had somehow expected him.

* * *

Men of his status were not supposed to saunter into the imperial suites looking for female scribes. Completely unabashed, Vespasian took a good look around.

Antonia had borrowed a large office for her copy clerks. She ran a frugal household, and was more ruthless in seizing advantages than her sovereign reputation might suggest. Tiberius would once have been mean enough to demand rent even from a widowed relative, but no one had ever told him she was here; he suspected that people deceived him, so inevitably they did. Still, Antonia could act as she liked nowadays. She was the Mother of Rome.

The room had a depressed air. It was cold. It smelled of hibernating animals. The paintwork on the frescoes was faded. In the Emperor's absence large areas of his palace were declining in neglect; unsupervised, the imperial stewards had a slack attitude toward redecorating any quarters they did not wish to lounge in themselves. Caenis, a girl who could get things done, intended to make friends with the prefect of works.

Vespasian prodded at a patch of wall plaster that was effervescing oddly: "Bit rough."

"The whole of Rome is collapsing," Caenis observed. "Why should the Emperor's house be different?"

Tiberius had a desultory approach to public construction; he began a Temple of Augustus and began restoring the Theater of Pompey, but both remained unfinished. He had occupied the Palace only fitfully before retiring from Rome. Vespasian grumbled, "He should build properly. He should build more, build better, encourage others, and set a decent standard."

He turned his critical attention to Caenis.

She showed distinct signs of improvement. She looked clean and neat; Antonia's staff was allowed to attend the women's sessions at the public baths. Her dark hair was knotted at the nape of her neck, and she had acquired a better-quality dress. Although she worked at a rickety table with a fillet of wood to prop up one leg, she occupied her place with an air of grand possessiveness. She had been promoted to be in charge. None of her juniors were present; she stayed here late on purpose, adoring her authority as she read and corrected their work. Faced with somebody she knew, Caenis openly glowed.

The returning tribune absorbed everything; she was sure he had noticed the subtle change in her situation.

"A tyrant of the secretariats!" he teased as he approached. He seemed larger and even fitter than she remembered, deeply tanned by outdoor army life. "That marvelously frightening glint in the eye . . ." Caenis ignored this.