“I’ll have a list for you by tomorrow,” Titus promised over his shoulder as he dashed back up the stairs. They liked him after that, tribune or no.

A long impatient winter, though it passed faster and warmer with Demetra’s savory stews in my stomach and her long body in my bed. The other four in my contubernium came for dinner as often as they could get out of evening duty, and they got comfortable enough with Titus to start groaning openly whenever he quoted Cicero. Titus still made Demetra nervous, and so did Simon. “You’re sure he’s not a devil?” she whispered to me, watching him mutter his Hebrew prayers over his plate. “They say Jews mutilate their babies!” She cast an uneasy look at her little boy who tussled, solemn and absorbed, with his carved horse.

“Only their own babies, I think,” I said vaguely.

“But Vix—”

“Stop fussing!”

She bit her lip, and I bit mine too. Demetra had a harder time of it with so many more men in Mog, after all—a girl who looked like she did couldn’t even go to the market alone now without being harassed by off-duty legionaries. She’d tried to hide how relieved she was when I brought my pack to stay in her cozy little home, but she’d cried tears of relief the first time I’d tossed some drunken bastards from the Second out on their heads when they came pounding on her door. She’d been so happy that night, she even let me love her on top of the blankets in the firelight where I could see how beautiful she was. Her hair rippled over my hands like a fall of honey, and I pulled her down to the bed on top of me. She put her arms about my neck, but she was so plainly uneasy that I laughed and tugged the blanket over us both. “Have it your way, prig.”

“I am not a prig! People don’t make love in plain view where I come from.”

“I’m a barbarian.” I growled and bit her shoulder. “We do things differently.”

“I know,” she giggled, and kissed me. An easy lovemaking—she lay still beneath me, smelling sweetly of fresh bread, and afterward she lay against my shoulder chattering of little things. The gossip she heard from the bakeshop, the rumors that the Dacian king had a lion’s mane and three horns, the new play coming to the theatre soon. She didn’t expect me to listen, and I didn’t, just dozed in the cradle of her hair. Dozed, and dreamed of glory.