“Not the most original opening line, is it?” Sabina swallowed the last of her giggles with an effort.
“I marched twenty miles today, and built maybe twenty more miles of fence, and I haven’t slept more than two hours in the past forty. I’m too damned tired to be original. So, how did you get in here?”
“Don’t blame your friends.” Sabina looked around the tent. “All they did was tell me which bedroll was yours once I showed up.”
Vix’s eyes went over her. Sabina supposed she looked a far cry from the elegant legate’s wife he’d met last week after the Emperor’s dinner party. She’d borrowed a plain wool dress from her maid, roped her hair in a careless plait down her back, and strapped on a pair of hobnailed sandals. The kind of sandals built for long walking.
“I don’t know what you’re playing at,” Vix said finally. “But you can get out of here and go home.”
“I think this is home, Vix. Isn’t that the point of building all the legion camps exactly the same whenever you’re on march?” She looked around the neat sturdy walls of the tent, pegged immaculately into place. The bedrolls were already laid in a neat pattern, and a clutter of smaller possessions—dice, good-luck charms, private talismans—marked each square of personal space. Sabina picked up the whetstone that had sat by Vix’s bed when he lived in her father’s house and now sat by his bedroll here. “Home away from home wherever you are.”
“Not your home.” He snatched the whetstone out of her hand. “Go back to your husband’s tent.”
“You don’t think we share quaters, do you?” Sabina raised her eyebrows. “He’s quite cross with me at the moment, actually—he already has a nice arrangement with a tribune from the Sixth, much prettier than me, and didn’t want me tagging along on this campaign at all. Dragging a wife to parts unknown; most unsuitable. But I begged the Emperor very prettily, telling him it wasn’t really so unsuitable as all that—Emperor Augustus’s granddaughter Agrippina followed her husband on all his military campaigns, after all. Trajan just chucked me under the chin after that, and said I could tag along as long as I didn’t try to lead any charges like Agrippina did. So, here I am.” Sabina wiggled her toes inside her rough sandals, pleased. “Hadrian makes me ride with the baggage train in a special wagon, and set up my own tent a good distance from anything interesting, but he couldn’t send me away after the Emperor gave permission.”
“Why did you beg to come along?”
She spread her arms wide, encompassing the tent and the camp beyond it. “To see the world.”
“At the back of an army?”
“I think it will be interesting.”
“Mud, blood, battles, danger—”
“Better than sitting around at home weaving cloth and ducking Empress Plotina’s good advice. Besides, I can do some good here. I’ve only been traveling with the army for a day, and I can already tell you your supply trains could use an overhaul. Do you know your native auxiliaries don’t get the same ration as Roman legionaries? I don’t know if it’s supposed to be that way or if your supply officers are cheating them, but I’m going to speak to Trajan.”
Vix sputtered. “You’re out of your mind if you think that bastard you married will let you traipse around with us common legionaries!”
“Who says Hadrian needs to know?” Sabina said airily. “He’ll eat with his officers and sleep with his aide and dance attendance on the Emperor. I doubt we’ll see each other more than once a day once this march gets underway. If I’m going to see a war, I plan on seeing it properly—on foot, and on the same level as you.”
“And you thought I’d be grateful for the chance to be your guide?” Vix turned his back and started tugging at the laces of his breastplate. “You have no shame.”
She grinned. “I’m glad you remembered.”
“After everything you—” Vix struggled out of the breastplate, dropping it on the ground beside his helmet. “After the way you used me five years back, you really think I’d let you stay here with me?”
“Apparently I’d have to pay a tax to your four friends out there for the privilege,” Sabina amended. “According to your friend Julius, anyway. Though he might be fibbing. He already told me some long yarn about being descended from Julius Caesar—”
“Get out!”
“If you want.” She rose, brushing at the mud on her hem.
“You want fun with the unwashed soldiers, you can find someone else,” Vix sneered. His ears still got bright red when he was angry, Sabina noted with interest. “There’s always some smelly optio willing to share his bedroll with a whore.”
“I doubt it will come to that,” said Sabina, unruffled. “If you don’t want me to stay, I’ll go back to the baggage train and get a good night’s sleep. I understand legions start early, and I’ve a mind to try walking the first leg. I may only be a legate’s wife with soft feet, but surely I can keep pace with you legionaries since I’m not burdened down with a pack and two fence poles.”
Vix stared at her.
Sabina picked up the dirty sheepskin she’d decided to use for a cloak instead of the fine wool palla that would probably just get her robbed once outside the sheltered circle of the baggage train and the officer quarters. “Are you going to let me by, Vix?”
He still stood square before the tent flap, looking down at her. She’d forgotten how tall he was. He bent, rummaging briefly in his pouch, and lobbed something at her. “Take that with you.”
Sabina looked down at the heavy silver-and-garnet earring in her hand. “I thought you’d have sold it by now.”
“No one would pay me what it was worth.” He scowled. “Tried giving it to my girl, but she didn’t see the point of just one earring. You might as well take it. I sure as hell don’t want it.”
Sabina felt something small and warm in the pit of her stomach.
“Why are you here?” he blurted out.
“I told you. I want to see the world. Maybe change it a bit for the better too.”
“No, I mean—” Vix raked a hand through his hair, almost snarling. “Why are you here? Why do you keep bothering me?”
“If I’m going to see the world,” Sabina said, “I’d rather see it with you.”
He reached out and took her by the shoulders in his big hands, lifting her up so her eyes were on a level with his own. His face was cold and hard.
“I’m going to regret this,” he told her grimly.
Then he kissed her.
“Hello,” Sabina greeted the rest of the contubernium as she and Vix emerged from the tent. “I’m Sabina. I’ll be sharing your tent in the evenings sometimes, but I’ll always pay for the privilege. Let me know what I owe you. We’ll try not to be too loud, at least not in future. Is that lentil stew? I’m hungry. Boil, however did you get that nickname?”
She helped herself to two bowls of stew, handed one to Vix, and settled cross-legged by the fire. The rest of the contubernium looked at her, then at Vix.
“Not a word,” Vix warned, and put an arm about her shoulder as he settled in at her side.
TITUS
A week on the road marching with an army, Titus thought, and most legates were starting to show signs of wear. Mud on the boots, perhaps, or a stubble of beard on a once immaculately shaved chin, or puddles of water tracked into a tent. Most legates—but not Hadrian.
“If you will see these letters delivered, and then collect the next batch of correspondence,” Hadrian told Titus, not looking up from a wax tablet where he was jotting rapid figures. “Send the prefect of the camp to see me tomorrow before march; I don’t like the situation with the grain stores. Someone’s skimming, and if it’s not him, he’ll know who.”
He’d better. “And the report for the Emperor?” Titus reminded him, juggling an armload of slates and scrolls.
“I’ll copy it out myself. Lucius, that report from the chief centurion about insubordination in the fourth cohort—”
Legate Hadrian’s immaculate tent hummed like a b
eehive: an aide rummaging among the books stacked in their orderly cases, the desk tidily divided into stacks of completed work and half-completed work and work yet to be touched, the slave with the wine flagon perfectly matched to the slave with the pen case. Another tribune hovered, waiting with a batch of slates. A third tribune was just dashing out with a message, brushing past Titus. A secretary filed scrolls while a slave brushed mud from the boots the legate had worn that day and set out a second immaculate pair for the following morning. Another secretary took down a letter Hadrian was dictating—“Sign it By the hand of Publius Aelius Hadrian, will you?”—while Hadrian himself simultaneously finished writing his own report in perfect, unhurried script. The only one in the room not hard at work was the old dog lying asleep with her head on Hadrian’s foot.
“The chief centurion sent a message.” Titus waited for a gap in his legate’s even dictation. “A reminder that you wished to inspect the second cohort tomorrow?”
“Thank you, I had not forgotten.” Hadrian, as far as Titus could tell after a week’s work on active march, forgot nothing. He attended punishment details and promotion ceremonies in person, no matter how lowly; he made a point of remembering the names of not only the higher officers but the centurions; and when the legionaries had a complaint, they learned they could take it direct to their legate, who would listen and pronounce judgment rather than shove such problems off on a tribune. Hadrian rode all day in full armor rather than be carried in a litter, as much a part of his big horse as a centaur; he worked far into the night wearing out secretaries, aides, and tribunes by the handful; and he rose in the morning as early as any legionary. All looking as calm, clean, and impeccable in his superbly polished armor and neatly trimmed beard as if he had just stepped out of a bathhouse.
“Lady Sabina sent a message as well, sir,” Titus said. “She asks if she will be dining with you this evening?”
“No, I will work. Send my regrets.”
Titus sighed a little. He’d been delighted to find that Sabina was coming along on the Dacian campaign—surely when he was working under Hadrian, he’d see her every day? But she’d hardly once stepped into Hadrian’s busy whirl of a tent. And the last time he’d taken his horse back to her luxurious palanquin, she hadn’t even been riding in it. “She’s off exploring,” her maid had said.
“You’ve got it comfortable, haven’t you?” Titus couldn’t help remarking. The maid lounged on her mistress’s cushions, fanning the dust away with Sabina’s plumed fan.
“Don’t tell on me, will you, sir?” The maid grinned: a scrappy urchin of thirteen Sabina had plucked from a begging bowl and a street corner in Brundisium, Titus knew. Sabina was always picking girls up in odd places and offering them jobs in her household. Half of them robbed her blind and ran away again, but it never seemed to discourage her from picking up another one. “Lady Sabina told me she doesn’t mind if I take things easy here.”
“I wouldn’t dream of telling on you,” Titus had promised. Still, he’d hoped to see more of the girl’s mistress on this campaign…
“Thank you, Tribune.” Hadrian put his seal to the bottom of his report, took a second letter from the secretary for signing, lifted a hand for a fresh pen, and still found the time to look up at Titus with a smile. “I think I’ve used you up quite enough for one evening. Dismissed.”
“Used up is right,” one of the other tribunes grumbled as he and Titus left the tent. “Why couldn’t the old legate have stayed? He never made us do anything except keep his wine cup full.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I like Hadrian. Can’t say he doesn’t work harder than we do.”
“I still wouldn’t mind a layabout. Legate Parminius’s tribunes don’t spend all day dashing up and down the column with his correspondence. They get to hunt, ride in litters. I’ve got blisters!”
“Rub them with goose grease,” Titus advised. A cure he’d picked up from Vix. Perhaps he’d drop in on Vix’s contubernium tonight—the first time since they’d started the march that he’d had an evening to himself.
“I hope you didn’t come for dinner.” Vix looked up from the cooking pot he was stirring over the low fire. “Julius made this stew before he went on sentry duty, and it tastes like boiled boots.”
“I’ll put up with the dinner for the company, Slight.” Titus settled himself by the fire, folding up his long legs under his tunic. He always changed out of his tribune armor and insignia before coming to visit Vix and his contubernium brothers, since it saved them the trouble of won-dering if they had to salute him or not. They looked up at him—the little Greek Philip tossing his dice and big fair-haired Boil half asleep by the fire and bearded Simon whittling a stick—and they all gave friendly nods. Titus nodded back, taking a bowl of stew from Vix just as they did, and settling in to eat. Night had fallen by now, the last streaks of red sunset gone behind the line of trees, and the flickering light of the fire cast a pool of warmth in the black. A black broken by thousands of tiny pools, Titus thought as he looked out over the orderly expanse of camp. A field of fires in every direction as every contubernium in the Tenth settled to eat dinner, sharpen swords, doctor blisters, trade stories—and do it all the next day, and the next, until either they or a Dacian king was dead.
“You’re right,” Titus told Vix after a taste of the stew. “Boiled boots, I’m afraid, is putting it kindly. I suppose you’re missing Demetra and her lamb stews now, eh?”
Simon and Philip let out identical snickers. “Not exactly,” Vix said, rubbing a hand over the back of his head. “I’ve got another girl.”
Titus raised a disapproving eyebrow. “Would it do any good to tell you that the mother of your child is due not only courtesy, but fidelity?”
Vix kept eating. “No.”
“Then I won’t bother.” Titus had heard of the old saying about a man who could fall into a sewer and come out smelling of roses. Vix, he thought, could fall into a sewer and come out with a pretty girl on each arm.
A female voice sounded behind Titus. “Is there room for one more?”
Sabina?
Titus looked up in astonishment. His legate’s wife, looking nothing like a legate’s wife, with a sheepskin cloak and a sunburned nose and a rope of hair over one shoulder.
Did she come looking for me? But the flush of pleasure had barely started to spread through his chest when she took two steps forward and jumped up into Vix’s arms.
For a moment Titus wondered if he was dreaming. Dreams were like that sometimes—people and places mixing up in mad ways, nothing like it was in real life. But it occurred to him that if this were his dream, then Sabina would be jumping up into his arms, holding her face up for his kisses. It wouldn’t be Vix twining a hand through her hair and tipping her head back so he could set his mouth at the base of her throat. It would be Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus.
Not a dream, he thought numbly. No, not a dream at all.
“Titus!” Sabina exclaimed as Vix finally set her down on her feet. “I didn’t even see you sitting there. Since when are you and Vix such friends?”
He was surprised at how evenly his voice came out. “I could ask you the same.”
She smiled and put a finger to her lips, eyes flicking sideways to where Simon and Boil and Philip had pushed their bowls aside for a game of dice. “Later, I think. Dear gods, Vix, don’t tell me you let Julius make the stew?”
Titus felt a twist in his stomach at the casual way she used Vix’s name. Not so Slight at all, if you got a girl like that. Because Sabina clearly came often to sit by this fire, from the way she teased Philip about cheating at dice and begged Simon to teach her the Hebrew prayer for bread. From the way she sat curled in Vix’s arms, her head leaned back against his shoulder as he reached around her from either side to stitch up his torn helmet lining… Titus concentrated on his stew, very carefully spooning up every last drop and swallowing it down. He got another bowl, not tasting it at all, and that lasted him until Boil and Simon
at last went yawning into the tent to sleep, and Philip finally staggered off to see if he could find a whore. Then, and only then, did Titus look up.
“Well?” he said.
Sabina smiled. “So how did you and Vix meet all the way out here?”
“He saved my life a time or two when I first arrived in Dacia.” Titus took a deep breath. “And you?”
Vix and Sabina looked at each other for an instant, and then their eyes cut away as they both started laughing at the exact same moment. That was when Titus felt a shaft of pure jealousy bolt through him. Jealousy, he noticed in passing, tasted a sour yellow on the palate—yellow as bile.
“It’s a long story.” Sabina reached up and smoothed Vix’s hair back from his eyes.
“I like long stories.” Though Titus had a feeling he wasn’t going to like this one.
“She couldn’t resist me five years ago, when I was a guard in her father’s house.” Vix kissed the side of her neck complacently. “And she can’t resist me now.”
“Maybe it’s not that long a story after all,” Sabina concluded. “Though if we’re talking about who couldn’t resist who, Vix—”
Five years ago. So when I was bringing her violets and Hadrian was quoting her poetry…
Oh, dear gods. Hadrian.
“You’re both utterly mad,” Titus burst out. “You think Legate Hadrian won’t find out? A legion is no place to keep secrets!”
“I’m not keeping any,” Sabina said equably from within the circle of Vix’s arms. They made quite a picture in the flickering firelight: utterly at ease, utterly content. Sabina had laced both her small hands through one of Vix’s big ones, and his long hard fingers played idly with the ends of her plaited hair. “Hadrian already knows I explore more than I should. And he probably assumes I have a lover of some kind. He’s made it clear over the years that he doesn’t mind, as long as there are no inconvenient bastards and as long as I’m discreet.”
Now you tell me, Titus couldn’t help thinking. If I’d known that back in Rome after you married… He thrust that thought away, at least for the present. “Discretion or no, I doubt Hadrian would take kindly to learning you’ve chosen—well, a common legionary.”