Gratian led her to a series of couches set in a semicircle, where they sat.

“If I am meant to be impressed,” she said, “I am.”

Gratian actually winked at her. “It’s an old trick and not a subtle one. Rome herself has always been the emperors’ most potent weapon. Do you know the history of the palace? The Emperor Domitian made his great platform on top of the Palatine by leveling earlier buildings, or filling them in with concrete. It is as if this mighty complex has used whole palaces as mere foundations! …” His talk was smooth and practiced.

“Perhaps,” she said. “But this is power projected from the past, not the present.”

He was apparently surprised at this sally. “But power even so.”

A girl brought them wine — from Africa, Gratian said — and olives, bread, and fruit. She took a little of the wine, but watered it heavily; wine seemed to go to her head these days, perhaps because her blood was drawn by the thing in her belly.

“I take it,” she said dryly, “that Romulus Augustus will not be receiving me today.”

“He is the Emperor, and a god, but also a boy,” Gratian said gently. “And today he is with his teacher of rhetoric. Are you disappointed?”

She smiled. “Is he?”

That made him laugh. “Madam, you have a spirit rarely seen in these difficult times. You have made a success of your life — and you have made your Order rather wealthy in the process.” He waved a hand. “Our records are almost as good as yours are reputed to be,” he said dryly. “Your Order contributes a great deal to the city — far more than most, in these times of declining civic sentiment. The Emperor understands, and he wants me to transmit his gratitude.

“But, madam,” he went on, “we face a grave problem. The Germans are in Italy again. Their leader is a man called Odoacer: not a brute as some of these fellows are, but resourceful and uncompromising.”

“Where are your legions?”

“We are overcommitted elsewhere. And tax revenues have been declining — well, for decades. It is not so easy to raise, equip, and pay an army as it once was …” He began a dismal litany of military commitments, triumphs, and setbacks, and the complexities and difficulties of the taxation system. What it amounted to was that Gratian was trying to raise a ransom from Rome’s richer citizens and foundations: a bribe to make Odoacer go away, with minimal loss of blood.

And suddenly she saw what this thin, elegant man wanted of her. Sitting in this grand, ancient room, surrounded by the trappings of imperial power, she felt as if the whole world were swiveling around her.

So it has come to this, she thought with gathering dismay. That an emperor should come to me for help: me, helpless little Regina.

She had always believed that one day things would get back to normal — that the security she had perceived in her childhood would return. In the Order she had found a place of safety, even if they were “huddling in a hole in the ground,” in the unkind words of Ambrosius, a place where they could wait out the storm, until it was safe to emerge into the light again. But Rome wasn’t going to recover — she saw this clearly for the first time in her life. The fall had gone too far. “Normal” times would never come back.

She felt angry. The Emperor himself and his incompetent predecessors had betrayed her — as had her mother, Amator, Artorius in turn. And she felt afraid, as she hadn’t even when the Vandals were raging within the walls of Rome. The future held only darkness. And all she had was the Order, which would have to preserve her family, her blood, not just through an uncertain hiatus, but — perhaps — forever.

I must go home, she thought. I have much work to do, and little time left.

She stood up, interrupting Gratian’s monologue.

He seemed bewildered by her abruptness. “Madam, you haven’t given me an answer.”

“Bring him here,” she said.

“Who?”

“Your German. Odoacer. Bring him here to the palace. Show him the marbles and tapestries, the statues and mosaics. Impress him with Rome’s past as you have me, and perhaps he will spare the present. You’re good at it — the act.”

He looked at her angrily. “You’re unnecessarily cruel, madam. I have my job to do. And that job is to preserve Rome from bloodshed, perhaps ruin. Is that ignoble?”

She felt a stabbing pain in her stomach — as if the thing in her belly had rolled and kicked, like a monstrous fetus. But by a monumental effort of self-discipline, she kept her posture upright, her face clear. She would not show weakness before this creature of a boy-Emperor.

She walked out of the palace without regret, and hurried home. But the pain followed her, a shadow in the brightness of the day.

After the birth, Lucia recovered quickly.

Chapter 33

She understood what she was going through. She worked through her postnatal exercises for her abdomen and waist and pelvis. Her uterus was returning to its normal size. Her postpartum discharges did not trouble her and were soon dwindling. Like everything about the pregnancy, her recovery seemed remarkably rapid.

But she was not allowed to see the baby again.

Lucia tried to immerse herself in the workings of the Order once more, to forget as she was supposed to. But her anger grew, as did an indefinable ache in her belly, a sense of loss.

Rosa worked in a small office on the Crypt’s top story. She had a role in the management of the larger corporate clients of the scrinium.

Lucia stood before her desk, and waited until Rosa looked up and acknowledged her.

“Why can’t I see my baby?”

Rosa sighed. She stood, came around her desk and had Lucia sit with her in two upright chairs before a low coffee table. “Lucia, must we go through all this again? You have to trust those around you. It is a basic principle of how we live. You know that.”

Perhaps, Lucia thought. But it was also a basic principle that they should not have conversations like this. You weren’t supposed to talk about the Order at all; ideally you wouldn’t even be aware of it. Rosa had her own flaws, she saw. Perhaps it was inevitable that Rosa, who was once a contadino, had a broader perspective than the rest, whether she liked it or not. She said none of this aloud.

She insisted, “I want to see my baby. I don’t even know what name you have given her. ”

“So? … I think we’re talking about your needs, not the baby’s. Aren’t we, Lucia? You grew up in nurseries and crиches. Did you know your mother?”

“No—”

“And did that harm you?”

Lucia said defiantly, “Perhaps it did. How can I know?”

“Can you be so selfish as to blight your baby’s life?”

Rosa’s calm composure enraged Lucia. “Why didn’t you tell me that my pregnancy would only last thirteen weeks instead of thirty-eight?”

“Is that what the Internet says a pregnancy ought to be? Lucia, there are twenty-seven mamme-nonne, who must among them produce a hundred babies a year — three or four each and every year … If you hadn’t filled your head with nonsense from the outside, you would have expected a thirteen-week pregnancy, because that’s the way we do things here. And whether you knew what was going on or not — Lucia, there was nothing to fear. It is what your body is designed for, you know.” Rosa leaned closer and touched her hand. “Let her go, Lucia. You are one of the mamme now. In a sense you are already the mother of us all.”

Lucia tried not to draw back. We always touch, she thought with a faint sense of distaste, we are always so close we can smell each other. “And this will be my life? Morning sickness and labor rooms forever?”