Rome. Then he turned to his sister. “Keep a better watch on your child.”
The halls emptied of soldiers, and when Octavian’s men were gone, Marcellus moved toward his mother.
“I don’t want to see you!” she cried, pushing him away.
“But it’s not what you think. Mother, just listen!” He leaned over and whispered something in her ear that made her step back and look at him anew. “Please don’t tell Octavian,” he begged.
“Everyone back to your rooms,” Octavia ordered. “Go to sleep.”
But the vestibulum was suddenly filled with a woman’s cries for help, and everyone froze.
“It’s Gallia,” Marcellus said, recognizing her voice. “I’ll bet they’ve taken Magister Verrius!” He glared at his mother. “I guess any blond on the Palatine will do.”
Gallia burst into the hall, looking as if she had run all the way from her house at the bottom of the Palatine. In a weeping tirade, she confirmed Marcellus’s fears. “What has he done? Was it something he taught?”
“No,” Marcellus said angrily. “There’s information that the Red Eagle looks like a Gaul, but they haven’t found him yet. So now anyone with light hair is suspect.”
Gallia looked to Octavia.
“It’s true,” she said quietly. “My brother was here searching Marcellus’s chamber.”
She gasped. “His
Octavia raised her chin. “No one is above suspicion.”
Gallia put her head in her hands. Even that night at Gaius’s villa she hadn’t wept. But the sobs that racked her body made everyone turn away. Her own pain hadn’t been enough to break her, but now that it was Magister Verrius….
Octavia put her arm around Gallia’s shoulders and told Vitruvius to fetch some blankets. We followed her through the hall into the library. There would be no ludus in the morning, and there was no use telling us to go to sleep. A slave arrived to light the brazier, and we sat together around the fire, drinking warm wine and huddling in our cloaks. Marcellus looked the worse for his night.
“He’s probably been taken to the Carcer,” Octavia guessed. “They’ll search his rooms, and when they don’t find anything to suggest he’s a traitor, they’ll set him free.” But she hesitated. “He isn’t a traitor, is he?”
Gallia put down her cup more loudly than she probably intended. “I have lived with him for nearly a year. I think I would know if he was the Red Eagle!”
Octavia nodded. “Then once they’re finished going through his scrolls—”
“So let them read! I hope they enjoy Simonides and Homer!”
The fire crackled in the brazier, and an uneasy silence settled over the library. Vitruvius returned with blankets and warm
As dawn broke over the sky, doing its best to lighten the leaden clouds, little Tonia put her head in her mother’s lap. “It’s time for ludus,” she said. “Why aren’t they going?”
“Because there’s not going to be any ludus today. Antonia, take your sister back to your chamber.”
Although I would certainly have argued with my own mother, Antonia rose quietly and did as she was told. The ensuing stillness in the room felt crushing.
“Did you hear about the theater?” Octavia asked to fill the silence.
Vitruvius nodded. “Caesar has approved of Selene’s help,” he said quietly. “I look forward to seeing her ideas.”
The conversation lapsed into silence, and just as my eyes were becoming too heavy to keep open, a shadow darkened the doorway.
“Verrius!” Gallia cried. She rushed from her seat and threw her arms around his neck, searching his face for signs of torture.
“He wasn’t there long,” Juba assured her. “The soldiers searched his rooms and didn’t find anything.”
“Of course they didn’t!” Gallia said harshly. “What did they do to you?” she asked tenderly.
“Nothing. Juba arrived to get me out before they could even put me in chains.”
Tears dampened Gallia’s cheeks. “Thank you, Juba—”
“So nothing was found tonight,” Octavia cut in angrily. “Not here, not in the ludus, and not in Magister Verrius’s home.”
Juba’s gaze did not waver. “Those were my orders.”
“And what have you been
“Inform you that Octavian is resigning from office.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BY THE next day, there was no one in Rome who hadn’t heard the news. Thousands of people flocked to the Senate, where Octavian had promised to relinquish his powers and resign his office in its entirety. Soldiers kept peace in the courtyard outside, where the men looked solemn and a few hysterical women were beating their chests. We stood around the open doors of the Senate, where a space had been cleared for us, and I heard Octavia say, “Make way!”
Vitruvius appeared with a young man at his side, and for a terrible moment I wondered if he had taken a new apprentice.
“Alexander, Selene. My son Lucius,” he said.
Lucius gave me a dazzling smile. He was shorter than my brother, but, like Octavian, he had small heels on his bright golden sandals. When I extended my hand, his kiss lingered. “So you are the one who is bearing my burden,” he said gratefully. “Without you, I would be chained to ink drawings and cement.”
I laughed. “It’s a pleasant burden,” I told him.
“Well, with someone as pretty as you watching over them, the builders must be begging for more work.”
Marcellus laughed at this empty flattery, but Lucius just turned his attention to my brother. “Alexander —”
“There he is,” Marcellus interrupted, pointing through the open doors into the Senate. “He’s taken the podium!”
Octavian was dressed in a plain white toga, and nothing on his person gave any indication that he was Caesar. He was flanked by Juba and Agrippa, and behind them stood the Praetorian Guard. Although Alexander and Lucius were whispering, everyone else in the courtyard was silent.
I had asked Julia whether her father was doing this because of the Red Eagle, but she’d only laughed. “There’s nothing he does without planning it first. He’s probably considered this for months. Years.”
“Then you don’t think he plans on giving up his power?”
Julia had given me a wearied look. “No,” she’d said with practiced cynicism. “He would only be doing this if he thought it would increase it.”
I didn’t see how resigning his office would make Octavian more powerful than he already was. But as he rose to speak, the senators began to revolt. They shouted for him to remain, citing the civil wars that had ripped Rome apart before he had taken power and swearing that this would happen again if he refused. Men pumped their fists in the air, cursing like sailors from Ostia. But Octavian raised his arms and the room fell silent.
“It is time,” he shouted, “for me to give up the reins of power and return the Republic to the citizens of Rome.”
“He can’t mean that!” Marcellus exclaimed.
Octavia twisted her belt strings nervously in her hands. But Livia was smiling, and I thought,
“I believe we all remember my adoptive father, Gaius Julius Caesar, who stood before you only seventeen years ago in the purple robes of
