26 A.D.

The clack of hickory batons striking reverberated through the atrium. Veronica’s arms were tiring, and Claudia was taking advantage. She swung her rudis[7] in a slashing motion, crossing Veronica’s just above the leather bell, sending a shock up Veronica’s arms. All Veronica could do was lean back and point, hoping Claudia wouldn’t knock the wooden sword from her two-handed grip. In a few strokes it was over. Veronica’s arms sank under the force of the blows, until she could no longer keep her hands firm. Claudia smacked the rudis and sent it skittering across the stone floor.

“No fair!” Veronica whined.

Claudia stomped her foot. “If you’re going to cry every time you lose, you shouldn’t play.”

Theodosius picked up the rudis, slicing the air with a flick of his wrist. He took a step toward his daughter. Claudia responded by raising her weapon. A swing and a loud crack sent Claudia’s rudis into the reflecting pool. She huffed and stomped, not daring to offer a verbal complaint. She waded into the piscina[8] and plucked her weapon from the surface of the water.

“The point of training,” Theodosius stated calmly, “is not to embarrass your partner, but for each to do what is necessary to improve his skills.”

Claudia tried to shake the water off her rudis, only to have it slip from her hand, bouncing again into the piscina, scattering the fish. She flopped down on the lip of the pool and began to pout.

“If you’re going to cry every time…”

“Shut up, Veronica!”

Theodosius took a deep breath. “Perhaps that’s all for today.”  He signaled for Claudia to retrieve the rudis from the pool. Adrianna, the Greek slave who tutored the girls, appeared in the doorway, and remained standing until Theodosius acknowledged her with a curt nod. “Time for your lessons.”

The girls left the atrium scowling at each other. When Adrianna didn’t follow, Veronica turned back to listen.

“It is not my place to be critical, Master Theodosius,” Adrianna almost whispered. “But it seems this activity raises passions in the girls. Makes them difficult to manage.”

“They’re difficult by nature.”

“Perhaps, but activities which discipline boys only seem to make girls more willful.”

“What makes a girl willful is having attendants to order about. To sit while three slaves paint her fingers, toes and face and a fourth brushes her hair. Idleness and entitlement.”

“But is swordplay the antidote?”

“She should mind her own business,” Claudia whispered. Veronica agreed; Adrianna had complained when Uncle Theo first taught the girls to ride horses at their estate in Tuscany. But swords and horses were what her uncle knew, and even though he’d retired from the military, and like other Senators[9] made his living as a gentleman farmer, he was in great demand to train the sons of wealthy patricians[10] in various martial skills.

“Clearly, I’d do better with sons,” he admitted. “But let me ask you, Adrianna. When you look at Claudia, do you see Julianna?”

Adrianna hung her head at the mention of Claudia’s mother. “You cannot blame yourself, Master.”

“But I can act upon knowledge. I can make a reasonable judgment that Julianna died in childbirth because she was not strong enough to handle it. Because her life of privilege had made her soft.”  He clacked the two wooden swords together, then continued. “Now, I don’t want to see my girls playing harpastum[11] on the Campus Martius[12] any more than you. But I want them to be strong.”

“As you wish, Master,” Adrianna acquiesced. “Perhaps you might con-sider keeping them in the country?”

Veronica’s heart swelled. She loved the summer estate. She’d spend hours with her greyhounds racing through its open fields. By contrast, Rome was close and congested, filled with foul odors and rude people. But Theodosius banished the possibility with a shake of his head. He would not discuss his reasons, but Veronica knew that his Senate duties weighed upon him lately. He dawdled in the house before leaving for the forum, and always returned exhausted and distracted. And there was Claudia. At fourteen, she was eligible for marriage, and it was customary for the father to settle on a husband before the girl turned fifteen. While Theodosius did not seem anxious to have his only true daughter leave his home, everyone in the household was growing tired of the tedious introductions to young men who fell way short of expectations. Unfortunately for Claudia, her father was too diplomatic to refuse any Senator’s request that his son should meet the lovely Claudia. Her afternoons had become tightly scheduled, and exceedingly boring. Boring for Veronica, too, because as much as the two girls squabbled, Veronica was desperately dependent upon her cousin.

In the seven years she’d lived with her uncle, Veronica had not made friends out of the home. Claudia had several, and would be invited for lunches and parties, but those invitations were rarely extended to Veronica. Theodosius blamed the difference in their ages, but that did not explain why Veronica did not receive invitations from girls her own age, or why it seemed so much more complicated getting her guests to attend a luncheon than it did Claudia’s. Again, Theodosius stressed how girls of marrying age needed to be trained in social graces, and so there were more parties. Still, Veronica suspected some other force at work.

She also suspected that, as bored as Claudia was by the awkward boys who appeared on her doorstep bearing flowers, aromatic oils, pewter statuettes and bolts of fine cloth, she was not bored by the prospect of marriage. In fact, it seemed to inflate her sense of self-importance. Claudia was — as always — dreamy, lazy and petulant, but suddenly, at least where Theodosius was concerned, no longer willful. She listened to him at every opportunity, asking questions, not simply about facts, but about his attitude toward things, his opinions. She wanted to know how men thought and felt. Rather than resisting the idea of marriage, she seemed to be looking forward to it. This frightened Veronica, who couldn’t imagine this home without her “sister.” The fear spiraled downward to shame as Veronica realized she still didn’t much feel like Theodosius’ daughter. She was an orphan, an object of charity, the friendless girl who needed a lofty Senator’s political machinations to ensure attendance at her play dates. Veronica feared what might happen when she came of age, whether Uncle Theo would be as meticulous in choosing a husband as he seemed to be for his own, true daughter, and even if there would be any interest in a girl who’d been dropped on a doorstep after her mother’s suicide.

Veronica sought distraction with her dogs, the birds in her aviary, and occasional trips to the theatre. On evenings when Theodosius had other Senators to the house, Adrianna would take the girls to one of the many free performances. But while it was a chance to laugh, listen to music and see other children her age, the focus would invariably come back to Claudia, as all the older boys loitered nearby, hoping to get a chance to converse with her loveliness.

Veronica imagined they all ran home to their fathers and begged them to arrange introductions, because not two days would pass before the same boys would appear, one by one, laden like Greeks bearing gifts, and stammering about the horses their fathers owned and planned to race in the circus. Not that they would ride; they’d pay some poor plebeian[13] to do that. They’d quote some oration of Cicero[14] they had memorized. They’d recite Homer, in Greek, which, to her tutor Adrianna’s disappointment, Claudia could barely follow.

After several weeks of this, Claudia’s willfulness had reemerged. She vowed to fight her father if he suggested she marry any of the soft, slack-chested boys. She and Veronica lost their desire to go to the theatre. Instead, the girls would creep onto the veranda overlooking the courtyard, and spy on the men who came to dine with Theodosius. Their talk was filled with intrigue and crises in the empire. And, from what little the girls could understand, the gravest threat to Rome was Emperor Tiberius himself.

For one thing, Tiberius was a recluse. He trusted very few people whom he met only in private; first among them was Sejanus, who had removed Veronica from her home. Tiberius was extremely paranoid. He jealously held onto power, and was suspected of having killed Germanicus, with whom he had jointly ruled. Most of the men who visited Theodosius seemed to think that if Germanicus had been planning a revolt, he’d had good reasons. They sympathized with the old Republicans who had assassinated Julius Caesar when he’d started acting like a dictator.