“How grand,” said Titus, amused. “For myself, I’m just hoping to make it through my tribune posting without anyone else trying to kill me. After that a quiet post looking after census records or inspecting the occasional aqueduct.” With a quiet house in a garden, sturdy handsome children like Demetra’s boy, and a wife who wasn’t Sabina. Hard to fit Sabina into any fantasy of domestic bliss. Even in her own immaculate house in Rome, she’d never looked like a contented Roman matron. More like a cheerful but untidy guest who might float out the door at any moment and depart for the ends of the earth.

Well, no use musing.

“You might get that promotion to centurion,” Titus said. “Somehow I don’t think this go-round with the Dacians is going to end in a treaty. A few months before we move out, maybe, but—”

Demetra burst suddenly into tears, scooping up her son and running from the room.

Titus half rose as the door banged behind her. “What did I say?”

“Who knows? She cries when anyone talks about war. She cries whenever she thinks about me leaving. She cries when her bread doesn’t rise.” Vix mopped up the last of his stew, unconcerned. “She cries a lot.”

“Shouldn’t you go after her?”

“Why? Better to let her sob it off. I usually go sleep somewhere else for the night. There’s a redhead I like on the street behind the big theatre…”

CHAPTER 10

SABINA

Two luxurious wagons had been provided for the wives of the officers traveling north—covered, cushioned, padded, and shuttered for maximum comfort. Within four days Sabina had the first wagon to herself and all the other wives found excuses to ride in the second.

“What on earth did you do to them?” Hadrian ducked his head as he entered.

“Left the shutters open so I could see out.” Sabina looked up from the nest she had made for herself: a cushion for her back, a fur over her knees, a dog at her feet, and a scroll in her lap. “Enjoying the fresh air is apparently a criminal offense. I might also have told a few stories about cannibal German tribesmen who burned women alive in wicker cages.”

“Did you have to do that?” Hadrian said mildly.

“After four days of listening to their complaints about disobedient children and thieving slaves? Never mind the German cannibals, I wanted to burn those wretched women alive in wicker cages.”

Hadrian gave his faint flick of a smile, stripping off his gloves and giving them to the dog to chew. He already wore his legate’s cloak and breastplate, and very handsome he looked in it too. “How’s my old lady here doing?” he asked, reaching down to stroke the gray-muzzled hound curled in the furs at Sabina’s feet. “She gets stiff in this cold—”