“You saved my life at least twice on this journey, Slight.” Titus repressed a shiver. He had a feeling those screaming Dacians were going to be bearing down on him in his dreams for some time yet. “I think you can call me Titus now.”

Vix laughed. “Centurion’ll have the skin off my back.”

“Out of his earshot, then. Perhaps that’s best. As Ovid would say, ‘One who lives well, lives unnoticed.’”

“Ovid must have known a few centurions.” Vix took his proffered hand, a little self-consciously. “Titus, then.”

“Good night to you, Vix.” Titus staved off a bone-cracking yawn. “I think I’ll go see if I can scrape up some of that burned barley and boiled pork. I could eat a dead horse raw.”

Vix hesitated a moment. “Tribune—Titus. I’ve got a girl in town, and she’s a better cook than any of those legion butchers. If you want—”

Titus interrupted. “Lead the way.”

The lamb stew smelled tantalizing, but Titus was still trying not to stare at the girl who eyed him nervously as she put the bowls down on the table. Full lips in a lovely oval face; skin as clear as new cream and dark-honey hair roped into a thick braid that lapped the back of her knees… Vix’s girl should have been wearing silk and jewels in a golden palace, not a flour-dusted smock in a one-room tenement over a bakery.

Then Titus took a bite of the stew.

“Oh, gods.” He closed his eyes as the first swallow went down. “Marry me, lovely lady?”

“Told you my Demetra could cook.” Vix threw a careless arm around the girl’s waist. She smiled but cast a nervous glance at Titus. She had gone quite white when he introduced himself.

“Tribune?” Demetra squeaked. “What’s Vix done? I swear he doesn’t visit me often, sir, only when he’s off-duty, and I never come into the fort! I know the rules—” It had taken all Titus’s reassurances to convince her he wasn’t here to haul Vix off for a flogging. Even now she was eyeing Titus as if a dragon had come to roost in her kitchen, despite the ecstatic noises he couldn’t help making as he bolted down her stew.

“You’re a lucky man,” he told Vix in a low voice as the girl retreated to the stove. “Emperors would beg for that girl’s favor, Vix—for the stew alone, not to mention the beauty. How did she end up cooking your supper?”

“I found a few auxiliaries pestering her at the market one day last year and ran them off.” Smugly. “It’s easy to get a girl when you’ve got that rescuer glow.”

Titus filed that bit of advice away for future reference. On the other hand, what was he ever going to rescue a girl from? A misattributed quotation?