A young head pops up from the gardens. Biting her lip in frustration she takes a step toward the domus. Her planned foray into the city itself will have to be cut short, in light of her mistress' rage. All the servants knew better than to risk such wrath. As if adding proof to her thoughts, she hears the sound of breaking glass.

...the domina looked at it as emotions chased each other across her face. The anger was dying down, the impatience still smouldered, and now to her disgust and dismay, a certain desolate sadness crept into her mind. She had to leave the house, at once! It held nothing but empty prayers and dead hopes.

Suddenly, the anger flared up once more, as she realized her own thoughts. She was a Senator's daughter, the wife of an Roman official, and mistress of a grand house. She would not be defeated--and certainly not by weak emotion. Her lips curled, twisting as she scowled. It was not until she felt something warm in her hand that she realized she had cut her palm on the broken edge of the shard.

...tripped as she entered the room at a dead run.  Sharp pieces of a recently hurled vase lay in pieces all over the floor.

Daring to take a quick glance at her mistress she noticed the colours of all too familiar rage on the domina's cheeks.  Then...

Chloe pulled up short. Her friend was gone, and the shout of the mistress all but still echoed among the colonnades. It was a foregone conclusion that her ornatrix friend had been--perhaps violently--pulled away to coif the ill-tempered domina.

...the mistress of the house could have been a stone figure for all she moved while the Greekling girl coifed her hair. The domina's injured hand lay wrapped and slowly bleeding in her lap, but she ignored it--as she ignored the half-puzzled, half-apprehensive look from her slave.

"I am going out," the lady finally said, and each word could have been a shard of broken vase--or of plain winter ice.

"As you wish," replied the ornatrix.

"Do my hair as elaborately as you can stand," the mistress went on curtly. To herself, she muttered, Or as elaborately as I can stand, which isn't much at all these days. "If I'm to be jeered at in the Forum Romanum, then I wish to be laughed at for my husband, not for my hair. Understood?"

She lost herself in thinking afterwards--vain, painful memories she needn't have indulged. How long had she been married? Three years, four? She smiled, a small, mirthless smile. Three years or four of Tartarus almost every day, not because he abused her or wasted her dowry, but because he never remembered that he was married at all. She hated him...almost as much as she hated herself.

Then the ornatrix was handing her a silver mirror, and she held it up to peer in it with a critical eye. But there was nothing to criticize: her hair lay in neat, intricate braids and careful curls, and throughout the entire perfumed mass, jeweled pins sparkled.

The domina blinked against the hot Italian sun which pierced even the curtains of her litter. One hand, bright with rings, reached forth to draw back one of the silken curtain panels, and she looked forth. The Forum was crowded as usual, despite the heat, as Romans and foreigners alike went about their business or pleasure.

The domina sighed. Perhaps she would tell her litterbearers--an excellent group of steady, liveried Nubians--to take her to the library...or perhaps to purchase a ticket for the theater...or the Forum Boarium, for some desultory shopping. Perhaps the library. Yes. Arete could make herself useful carrying new scrolls of Greek home.

Unthinkingly, the Senator's daughter played with her emerald eardrops. It was another day alone in Rome, the capital of the known world, and the home of thousands.

She thumped the side of the litter with her fist and let her head appear from the curtains.

"Your wish, my mistress?" asked the nearest bearer, inclining his graceful dark head.

"To the library, please." She added as an afterthought, "Perhaps you could tell Arete to run ahead and find some scrolls of Greek history for me. It will take us some time to maneuver though these crowds."

The bearer paused uncertainly, and the domina asked, "What is it?"

"I am sorry, my mistress."

"Sorry?" Her mouth set in a firm line. "What is wrong?"

The servant girl slipped out from the graceful colonnades and sparkling fountains.  As she blinked against the harsh summer sun, she shielded her eyes with one hand, as her other hand grasped a basket full of kitchen scraps, hastily covered with a ragged cloth.

The domina was gone for the day...Chloe would have ample opportunity--she hoped--to hurry out and hurry back, without anyone ever noticing her absence. Despite the Italian heat, she covered her head with a veil and scurried out into the open and into the city, toward toward the uncertain darkness of the catacombs.