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A s soon as Felix left, Dihya reappeared in Lucretia’s office, taking the chair he had just vacated. Their office consisted of two rooms, a front room where Dihya dealt with visitors, and a back room that served as Lucretia’s private workspace. “What did he want this time?”

“You’ll never believe it.”

Dihya leaned forward, eyes lighting with interest. “Tell me!”

Dihya was the widow of Cornelius’s former right-hand man.

Both men had died in the same shipwreck a year ago, and she and Lucretia had bonded over their shared grief.

Once Lucretia found her footing with Cornelius’s business, it became clear she needed a trusted partner to help manage things. So, she’d hired Dihya.

The woman could read and write, and she knew much about the business already from her late husband.

A freedwoman, she hailed from the province of Mauretania, on the African coast, and spoke Berber, which helped communicate with merchants and suppliers in that region.

Of course, all Lucretia's contacts spoke either Latin or Greek, but Lucretia had noticed that letters written in Dihya’s Berber script tended to get a faster, more helpful response.

While Lucretia appreciated all of Dihya’s wide-ranging skills, she had come to value her friendship and advice most of all.

“If you can believe it, he proposed marriage,” Lucretia said. “With my ships as a dowry, of course.”

Dihya’s mouth dropped open. “And what did you say?”

“No, obviously!” Lucretia threw her hands up. “Even if I liked him—and I despise him—I’m never going to marry again. And I would certainly never marry a man whose sole desire in life is to take my business from me.”

“I don’t think that’s his sole desire,” Dihya said with an arched eyebrow.

“Stop that,” Lucretia said in her sternest tone.

Felix might once have harbored certain… feelings toward her.

But those feelings, whatever they might have been, hadn’t stopped him from trying everything in his reach to acquire her ships for himself.

He grasped for power as greedily as Caesar Augustus, who’d been steadily consolidating his influence in the handful of years since the civil war.

Her stomach growled. “I need some sustenance after that conversation. Are you hungry?”

Dihya smiled. “If you mean Caeso’s bakery, then I’m always hungry.

” Caeso operated a stall very close to Lucretia’s office that sold freshly baked bread, honey cakes, and flatbreads with various toppings.

Lucretia and Dihya often visited him when in need of a quick lunch or afternoon snack to get them through a long day.

They rose to their feet and left the office, Lucretia locking the door behind them.

The day was pleasant, with a strong, cool breeze whipping at the edges of Lucretia’s garments.

Even several blocks from the harbor, she could smell the sea air on the wind.

She used to love nothing more than to linger at the harbor’s edge, looking out over the rolling waves as flecks of saltwater dampened her face.

But after Cornelius’s death, she only went to the harbor when business required.

They passed through the Square of the Guilds, where all of Ostia’s merchants and shipping enterprises kept offices, and soon arrived at Caeso’s stall. At certain times of day, his wares would attract long lines of people, but now, they were his only customers.

The young baker sat on a stool behind the wooden counter but jumped to his feet when he saw them.

“Good afternoon, ladies. Always a pleasure to see you both.” His wide smile lingered on Dihya, and Lucretia suppressed a grin of her own.

She had lately noticed a certain rapport growing between Dihya and Caeso—lots of prolonged smiles and extra treats that somehow found their way into Dihya’s hands.

Caeso was undeniably a handsome man, with broad shoulders, strong arms, and an easy smile. But Lucretia’s stomach never fluttered when she saw him, and her eyes weren’t drawn to linger on the planes of his face.

Her mind went back to Felix’s visit. It irked her that she found him handsome, even as he’d issued a proposal in a bare-faced attempt to seize control of her ships.

How unfortunate, that the only man to kindle such feelings since her husband’s death was the one she found intolerably scheming and avaricious.

Lucretia returned her focus to the much more pleasant matter of purchasing an afternoon snack.

“Hello, Caeso,” she greeted the baker. She glanced over the items on display.

There wasn’t much left by midafternoon, only a few round loaves of bread and flatbreads topped with olives, which weren’t Lucretia’s favorite. “Busy day?”

He nodded. “Though I had a feeling you might be paying me a visit, so I took the liberty of holding a few things back.” He reached beneath the counter and withdrew a platter of four hand-sized honey cakes topped with sliced figs and berries.

Lucretia let out a sigh of pleasure at the sight of the sweets. “Just what I needed.”

“Has it been a trying day, then?” Caeso asked as he withdrew a clean cloth for wrapping.

Dihya shot a grin at Lucretia. “She’s been proposed to.”

Caeso’s dark eyebrows rose. “Really? Are congratulations in order?”

“No,” Lucretia muttered. “I rejected him.”

“It was Lucius Avitus Felix. Do you know him?” Dihya continued.

“Yes, of course,” Caeso said. “In fact, I supply the bread to his household. He’s quite picky—only the finest flour—but then again, I suppose he can afford to be.”

Dihya rested her hands on the wooden counter, leaning close and lowering her voice. Lucretia didn’t miss how Caeso’s cheeks flushed beneath his tanned skin as Dihya put her mouth within a handsbreadth of his face.

“Do you think you could poison him?” Dihya asked in a whisper. “He doesn’t need to die…just make him a little bit uncomfortable.”

Caeso cleared his throat, his gaze flicking from Dihya’s eyes to her mouth.

“She’s joking,” Lucretia hastened to say. “We’ll take two of the cakes, please.” She handed over a few bronze coins.

Caeso broke away from Dihya and took the coins. He laid two cakes on the cloth, then added the other two, tying the cloth neatly around them. “Take them all. This late in the day, I’ll probably not be able to move them.”

“You’re too kind,” Lucretia said with a nod of thanks.

Dihya rewarded the young man with a gleaming smile as she hefted the package. “You’re going to plump us up if we’re not careful!”

Caeso’s eyes swept over Dihya’s body from head to toe, and his ears turned as pink as the berries atop the cakes. “I-I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” he stammered.

Lucretia took pity on him and steered Dihya away. “We’ll be back soon, no doubt,” she said to Caeso in farewell, and they turned back toward their office.

Once out of earshot of Caeso, Lucretia looped her arm through Dihya’s. “Have some mercy on the poor man.”

Dihya cast her a confused look. “What do you mean? Oh, I was only joking about the poisoning.”

Lucretia shook her head with a smile. Dihya’s obliviousness was amusing, as her mind was sharp as an arrow when it came to matters of business. “Of course.”

Lucretia worked until late afternoon, drafting replies to merchants who wanted to know if she was interested in another shipment of lavender-flower honey from southern Gaul, or to alert her that a poor harvest in Hispania would drive up the price of olive oil.

Shipping ventures like Lucretia’s depended on networking with merchants who didn’t want the hassle of buying, crewing, and sailing their own ships.

Instead, Lucretia took on the risk and expense of maintaining a fleet, and the merchants sold their cargo directly to her at a favorable price.

Lucretia’s ships then distributed that cargo throughout places like Gaul, Hispania, and northern Africa, returning laden with wares from those regions that would be transported down the Tiber to Rome for a handsome profit.

Cornelius had mostly concentrated in the western Mediterranean, and Lucretia had maintained that focus.

Felix, on the other hand, concentrated on the eastern part of the sea, areas like Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt.

Those eastern regions yielded wares with higher profit margins and also traded with far eastern lands for luxury goods like silk and spices, which was how Felix had managed to accumulate so much capital.

Once the shadows lengthened, Lucretia set aside her work, bid Dihya goodnight, and returned home.

The atrium of her house was quiet, lit with flickering oil lamps at this hour, and the scent of dinner cooking wafted from the kitchen.

The last rays of sunlight glanced off the central pool, beneath where the atrium opened to the sky.

Now, she remembered the unpleasant matter from earlier—Marcus’s thieving. She’d forgotten all about it after Felix’s visit and the other demands of the day. But she had to confront Marcus, even if she already knew it would end in nothing but another argument.

With a sigh, she went to Marcus’s room. The door was closed. She tapped gently on it. “Marcus?”

A grunt sounded from within. She took that as an invitation and eased open the door.

Her gangly son faced her with arms crossed over his chest, a scowl on his face. She noticed straightaway that he wore a different tunic than the one he’d worn this morning when he left for school. Her eyes flicked to fabric balled in the corner of the room—the old tunic, no doubt.

“What do you want?” Marcus snapped, drawing her attention back to him.

She frowned. “As if I need a reason to speak with my son?”

He rolled his eyes. Dirt streaked one of his forearms, and there was a scrape on his jaw.

Her lips tightened. It wasn’t the first time he’d come home with the signs of having gotten into a fight, and she’d chided him many times for engaging in violence.

She held back from scolding him again, though.

Better to focus on one infraction at a time.

“I was reviewing my accounts and noticed ten denarii missing.” She fixed him with a steady stare. “Would you happen to know anything about that?”

He met her gaze for a moment, then his eyes slid to focus on something behind her. His jaw clenched in a mulish expression. “No.”

Frustration rose in her chest, a hot, prickly tide. “Don’t lie to me, Marcus.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you accusing me of something?”

“You took that money. I don’t know why, as your allowance is more than generous, but—”

“Search me, then.” He waved an arm around the room. “If you think I’ve taken it, then surely you’ll find it here.”

She doubted that was true, as she would bet double the amount he’d taken that he’d spent it already. “Consider this a warning. If I notice anything else missing, I’ll dock your allowance by that amount.”

He shrugged again, an affectation of nonchalance.

Lucretia left the room, closing the door behind her. She crossed through the atrium, taking deep breaths in an attempt to ease the powerless frustration clogging her throat. Lately, talking to Marcus felt more like negotiating with a recalcitrant supplier than interacting with her son.

She paused in front of the ancestral shrine at the side of the atrium.

Here, a collection of death masks were mounted on plinths, allowing the ancestors of the Cornelius family to keep watch over their descendants.

The most recent death mask was her husband’s.

She gazed at his face, remembering a simpler time when they had been a happy family of three.

When Cornelius was on a sea voyage, she used to take Marcus to the harbor to watch the ships coming in and out.

He would crow with delight every time he spotted a new set of sails, asking eagerly if Papa was on that ship.

The game never got old, even when Cornelius was gone for weeks at a time.

Those homecomings had been the best. Even now, she could feel the tight clasp of her husband’s arms around her as he stepped onto the dock, could recall Marcus jumping up and down with excitement as Cornelius showed them the treasures he’d brought back from Syracuse or New Carthage or Melita.

Their marriage seemed strongest when they missed each other. After the joy of each homecoming faded, their interactions would inevitably turn stiff and uncertain, cordial rather than tender. But there was always another voyage on the horizon, and another joyous return.

Then, a year ago, Cornelius and his ship had not returned.

Eventually, she’d received word of the shipwreck, the entire crew lost in an unlucky storm.

After his death, Lucretia had not been able to set foot within sight of the harbor, the memories too raw and painful.

But, as she became determined to keep his business running, she forced herself to, in order to inspect her ships and speak with her captains.

Now, she laid a hand gently atop Cornelius’s mask. She sent up a silent prayer that he would watch over Marcus, impart some of his steadiness and maturity to their son.

But she felt no answering spark, no sense that Cornelius was listening. She withdrew her hand with a sigh. Perhaps his message was clear. Lucretia would have to deal with their son on her own.