He greeted her with clumsy gallantry, insisting she hadn’t changed.

She snorted at that. “You are a fool, Ambrosius Aurelianus, and from what I remember you always were. But you are a brave fool to try such endearments on a vicious old hag like me.”

He laughed. “I have the diplomatic skills of most soldiers, madam. But I am glad to see you.” It was strange to hear the British language spoken so fluently; even Brica rarely spoke more than the odd phrase nowadays.

They walked to a tavern she knew, a respectable popina, not far from the Forum; it was built in a cellar, and its dark, sweet-smelling interior, reminding her of the Crypt, made her feel at home. Ambrosius bought a pitcher of wine, which she drank with water and flavored with herbs and resin. He seemed hungry, and ordered olives, bread, and roasted meat cut into cubes; he said he relished the richly flavored Roman cuisine.

He described his visit. He was staying with a rich sponsor who entertained him with lavish Roman hospitality. “They say that everybody should see Rome before they die, and I am glad I have done as much.” Regina was sure he was sincere. Despite times of trouble and uncertainty, the crowds in the markets were as busy and affable as ever, there were still wrestling matches and the slaughter of beasts in the amphitheater, and chariots still raced around the Circus Maximus. “But there are so many empty spaces. It seems to me that Rome’s statues must outnumber the living.”

“Perhaps. But it is not statues you have come to visit, Ambrosius Aurelianus, for statues have no purses.”

He grinned ruefully. “And you never were a fool … No wonder Artorius always relied on you. And he needs you again, Regina.”

He gave her a brief account of Artorius’s career since her departure. His kingdom, based on the dunon, still thrived. But the Saxons continued their relentless advance. One leader called Aelle was proving particularly troublesome; he was said to have ambitions of founding yet another new Saxon kingdom on the south coast. Only Artorius, it seemed, offered any resistance to the Saxons’ expanse, and their terrible cleansing; Regina listened somewhat impatiently to tales of his glorious exploits.

But his grander dreams remained. Each time the Saxons were driven back, Artorius would take his troops away to Gaul, where he continued to campaign season after season against the troops of the new kingdoms that were coalescing there, and even against the remnant Roman forces — all part of his long- standing ambition to march on Rome itself and claim the purple.

And, of course, Ambrosius was here to request money to support Artorius’s campaigning, money from the Order’s already fabled coffers.

“How ironic,” Regina said, “that you have come to Rome to seek funds, so you can return with soldiers!”

Ambrosius spread his hands. “One must do one’s duty, no matter how ironic.”

Artorius must have been desperate even to have considered such an approach, she thought; and that made her decision not to waste any of the Order’s funds even easier to make. “Here we celebrate life, not death,” she said. “Here each life is to be cherished, not spent like a token in some military adventure. That is our fundamental philosophy — it has always been my philosophy. I have said as much to Artorius, not that I imagine he listened.”

Ambrosius was a man of sense, who didn’t believe in wasting time. He didn’t try to change her mind. “I suspect Artorius already knows your answer,” he said wryly.

“Yes, I suspect he does. Wish him my blessing …”

She urged Ambrosius to stay for another day, for tomorrow there would be the coming-of-age ceremony, which she invited him to attend. “I would like you to leave with positive memories,” she said.

He agreed to stay.

He told her something of the fate of Durnovaria, the town closest to Artorius’s dunon. Its decline had never been reversed, and now it had been abandoned for perhaps forty years. “In places you can see where the buildings used to be, from courses of stone, rectangles and lines across the ground. But otherwise it is like a patch of young forest, where oak trees are spreading and foxes lurk, with only a few hummocks to show that once a whole town existed …”

It was only after their conversation was over that Regina remembered the ceremony she had invited him to would be the awkward affair of Agrippina, her granddaughter.

Fifteen years after the first of these ceremonies, for Venus daughter of Messalina, the coming-of-age celebrations had evolved their own rituals, as had so many of the practices of the Order. But this time, Regina felt instinctively, a new precedent must be set.

At first Regina let events follow the time-honored pattern. Agrippina’s sisters, aunts, cousins, and mother formed a circle around her on the stage of the Crypt’s tiny theater. They were in a pool of light cast by an array of lanterns and candles, and they were surrounded by as many of the Order as could squeeze in.

The only male, apart from some small boys with their mothers and sisters, was Ambrosius. Standing tall in his dark brown armor, amid women and girls in their costumes of white and purple, he was like a pillar of male strangeness, utterly out of place.

As the final preparations were made, Regina approached him, amused. “You don’t look terribly comfortable.”

“I can’t deny that,” he said, and he mopped his neck. “It is the low ceilings. The dense air. The smell.” He eyed her uneasily. “I don’t wish to give offense — perhaps you have become used to it. It is a smell of people — or of animals, perhaps — almost like the amphitheater, during the hunting shows.”

“And this makes you uncomfortable. You, a veteran of a hundred battlefields!”

“Then there’s the sameness. Everywhere I look I see the same corridors, the chambers, the decorations — even the same faces, it seems. Though beautiful faces — those haunting eyes, like slate — I feel buried in this pit of yours — turned around, dizzy. It isn’t for me!”

“It isn’t meant for you,” she said sharply.

The little ceremony began at last, Agrippina blushed prettily, and her gravid mother held her hand. Agrippina dedicated her childish clothes to the matres by feeding them into a brazier, and was given her first adult stola, simple white with a fine purple line woven in.

But when it came to the point where Agrippina was to burn a scrap of linen stained with a little of her first bleeding, Regina stepped forward.

“No,” she said loudly, into a shocked silence. She had had time to think through her first instinctive refusal of this event, and she thought she understood what must be done. She took the scrap of linen from Brica, and held it up. “This is to be destroyed, but not celebrated.” She fed it into the brazier, and as the little flames licked she heard the shocked gasps of those who watched. She took Agrippina’s hand and placed it over Brica’s swollen belly. “ This is what is important. This, your unborn sister.

“Agrippina, your bleeding is no shame. But you are to hide it from others, and you will not remark on it. Your life belongs, not to your daughters, but to your sisters — the one here in Brica’s belly, and those born thereafter. When Brica’s blood dries — well, perhaps then your turn will come to serve. But until then, if you choose to bear a child, then you will bear it beyond these walls.”

Agrippina looked terrified. “You would exile me for becoming pregnant?”

“It is your choice,” said Regina. Though her tone was gentle, she knew the menace in her words was unmistakable. She turned and faced the watching group. “Do not question this. It must always be so — not because I say it, but because it is best for the Order. Sisters matter more than daughters. ”