The Flavian Amphitheatre roared with fifty thousand voices.
Marcus sat in the Valerius family box, dressed in his finest toga, with Claudia Metella beside him. She was pretty in the way that expensive things are pretty — polished, perfect, and completely without character. She had spent the past hour commenting on other women's jewelry and asking Marcus if he thought her hairstyle suited her.
"It's lovely," he said for the third time, scanning the crowd below.
His father sat behind them, watching. Always watching. Senator Metellus sat beside him, both men radiating satisfaction at their arrangement. Two great families, joined by marriage. Rome's social machinery grinding forward, indifferent to the people caught in its gears.
"Oh, look!" Claudia pointed to the arena floor, where gladiators were being led out for the afternoon's entertainment. "I hope they have the Thracian today. He's simply thrilling."
Marcus said nothing. He was looking at the painted banners decorating the amphitheatre's walls — commissioned for the games, depicting scenes of Roman triumph. Most were conventional: eagles, legions, conquered barbarians kneeling in chains. But one banner, near the eastern entrance, was different.
A storm breaking over wildflowers. Gold light cutting through dark clouds.
He recognized the style immediately. His pulse quickened.
"Excuse me," he said, standing.
"Where are you going?" Claudia looked confused. "The games are about to start."
"I'll return shortly." He was already moving, weaving through the crowded corridors, following the curve of the amphitheatre toward the eastern entrance.
He found her on a wooden scaffold, putting finishing touches on the banner. She wore the same plain tunica, her hair tied back, paint on her hands and forearms. She was so focused on her work she didn't hear him approach.
"You painted the banners," he said.
Livia startled, nearly dropping her brush. She looked down from the scaffold, and he watched recognition — then alarm — cross her face.
"Dominus — Marcus. You shouldn't be here. If someone sees you speaking with —"
"I don't care."
"You should. Your father is fifty paces away. Your future wife is waiting for you. And I am a hired painter who is behind schedule." She turned back to the banner. "Go back to your seat."
"The banner is beautiful."
"It's a commission. Beauty is what they're paying for."
"No — the other banners are impressive. Yours is beautiful. There's a difference."
Her brush paused. She didn't turn around, but he saw her shoulders shift — a crack in the composure she wore like armor.
"You shouldn't say things like that to me," she said quietly.
"Why not?"
"Because I might believe them. And believing a patrician is how girls like me get destroyed."
The words landed hard. She was right — every story about a nobleman and a commoner ended the same way. The nobleman returned to his world. The commoner was left with nothing.
"I'm not trying to destroy you," Marcus said.
"No. You're trying to escape your own life, and I happen to be standing in the doorway." She finally looked at him, and her eyes were fierce. "I'm not your rebellion, Marcus. I'm not your way of punishing your father or avoiding your marriage. I'm a woman who paints walls to survive. That's all."
"That's not all. And you know it."
The crowd roared above them — the games had begun. The sound of fifty thousand people cheering for blood washed over them like a wave.
"Your father arranged your marriage," Livia said. "You will escort the senator's daughter. You will sit in your family's box. You will clap when the gladiators fight and smile when the crowd cheers. That is your life."
"And yours?"
"I'll finish this banner. I'll collect my fee. I'll go home to a rented room in the Subura and start the next commission." She climbed down from the scaffold, standing close enough that he could smell paint and linen and something warm beneath. "Our lives don't intersect, Marcus. Today is an accident. Don't turn it into something it can't be."
"What if I want it to be something?"
"Then you're more selfish than I thought." Her voice was steady, but her eyes betrayed her. There was want there — real, painful want — held in check by the same iron pragmatism that kept her alive in a world that offered women like her nothing.
"Livia —"
"Go back to your seat." She picked up her brushes. "Your father is probably already looking for you."
She was right. He knew she was right. He turned to leave.
"Marcus."
He stopped.
"The painting. In your garden. I'll finish it tomorrow." She paused. "If you happen to be there, I won't object."
He looked back at her. She wasn't smiling. But something in her expression — guarded, careful, barely visible — told him that the door she was trying to close hadn't quite shut.
"I'll be there," he said.
He walked back to the Valerius box, to Claudia Metella's commentary on hairstyles, to his father's calculating gaze, to the roar of the crowd and the smell of blood and sand.
But all he could think about was wildflowers in a storm, and a woman who painted them like she was painting her own way out of a cage.
From the Nocturnal Observer, posted the following morning:
Citizens, your Observer was at the games yesterday, and what a spectacle — not in the arena, but in the stands. Young Valerius, heir to one of Rome's greatest families, was seen leaving his future bride's side to visit the eastern corridor. Where, dear readers, a certain painter was at work on the festival banners.
A painter. A freedman's daughter. And the most eligible bachelor in Rome.
One does wonder what they discussed. Art, perhaps? Or something rather more dangerous?
The lions in the arena are not the only ones who smell blood, dear readers.
— Your Nocturnal Observer