Titus perched on the edge of his box, trying not to stare. Sabina had skewered her hair at the back of her neck by jabbing a stylus through it, and she was wearing what was clearly one of her husband’s tunics, which left her long legs bare below the knee. Vix can have his blond Bithynian goddess, Titus decided. I like them blue-eyed and coltish.

A slave girl hovered at Sabina’s elbow with a questioning look. Sabina glanced at the crate in her arms and pointed. “Books go in the back. I’ll organize them later. Did you bring a message, Titus?”

“A note from the Emperor. He wants to dine with all the legates this evening.” Any of the aides or freedmen could have delivered it, but Titus had seized the excuse to take it over himself.

Hadrian stalked in then, brushing dried mud off his arm. “No progress on the chaos yet?”

“I’ve extricated the library, but the box with my clothes is still nowhere to be found.” Sabina rose to kiss her husband’s cheek with casual wifeliness, and Titus felt a shaft of pure envy go through his chest. “Goodness, what happened to you?” she added, eyeing the mud that literally daubed Hadrian’s toga.

“An accident.” Hadrian frowned, unwinding the muddy folds and presenting them with the tips of his fingers to a waiting slave. “One I shall have to give some thought to correcting. You have a dispatch for me, Tribune?”

“Yes, from the Emperor.” Titus handed it over. He had met his legate formally a few days ago, during formal introductions to the young officers, and had been astonished to be singled out.

“Titus,” Hadrian had said with a charming smile. “I had not thought to find a familiar face so far north.”

“I’m surprised you recognize me at all, sir. I’m far too insignificant to be noticed by a man of your stature.” Titus had met Sabina’s husband many times in Rome, of course, at dinner parties and plays and formal occasions, but Hadrian had had little time then for some callow young friend of his wife’s. He had merely nodded at Titus in passing and looked on to more important people. But finding Titus among his staff in Germania, he had smiled as if at an old friend. “Delighted to have you, Tribune.”

He really did sound delighted, Titus had thought—and he looked pleased now as he took the dispatch from Titus’s hand and broke the seal.

“We’re dining with Trajan tonight,” Sabina explained.

“He doesn’t allow me to call him by name,” Hadrian grumbled.

“But I get special privileges. I’m his little pet, after all.”