“Three months,” Titus had said, and he’d been right after all—we were all the way through winter and into spring now with no sign of marching yet. Nor were the legions done pouring in—the Second Adiutrix had come first, swaggering and boasting that they’d take care of the king of Dacia without needing to stir us from our cozy fort; then the Fourth Flavia Felix came, swaggering and boasting of their lucky reputations without which nothing could be won, and just last week a division of the Sixth Ferrata had come as well, swaggering and boasting of their feats along the Rhine; and now there weren’t enough women to go around in Mog, and the girls who looked like my Demetra had to be careful when they went out.

“How many legions do we need?” I’d snarled to the rest of my contubernium one night when we were all out whoring. I’d dragged Titus along too, though he and my brothers-in-arms still regarded each other with wary bemusement. He was a tribune, after all, an officer even when off-duty, and they were my fellow soldiers, the four men with whom I bunked, slept, ate, trained, and fought. Usually a contubernium was made up of eight men, but we’d lost one to a Dacian spear thrust the year I entered the Tenth, and two more had died of camp fever last fall. The five of us left—Simon, Boil, Philip, Julius, and me—might as well have been brothers.

“Titus and I saw off three of those Dacian bastards,” I complained. “I don’t see why the Tenth can’t handle the rest, outnumbered or no.”

“Correction,” Titus murmured around his mug of beer. “You saw those three Dacians off. I just hung on and prayed.”

“It worked,” I pointed out. “We’re both still alive. Hey, why haven’t you grabbed yourself a girl? It’s why we came here.”

“I don’t really go whoring very much,” Titus said. He cut an odd figure in that dim smoky little room among my brothers-in-arms: sitting with one heel crossed over his knee, sipping his beer as if it were fine wine as Philip on his right side sat dicing with two half-naked whores, Boil on his left fumbled under the dress of the girl on his lap, and Julius across the table was halfway into his signature tall tale about being descended from Julius Caesar. “Besides, there aren’t enough women to go around with three and a half legions in town.” He gave a courteous nod to the various half-naked girls around him, and they all dimpled back. “I’m sure the girls are overworked enough as it is.”

“Too right,” grumbled the redhead in my lap—my favorite for the nights I didn’t spend with Demetra. “The men from the Sixth, they’re arrogant bastards. Worst tippers in Mog—”