“Good, then you can take me back.” She managed to find his arm in the dark, tucking her hand neatly into his elbow. “Trajan and his legates are busy refighting the Republic’s wars, so I came out here to catch my breath from those smoky lamps—why does German lamp oil smoke so much? Now I’m not sure I know the way back.”

“Straight left and up.” Vix tugged his arm loose from her hand. “The legate’s quarters are always on the far side of the principia. Every fort in the Empire, they’re all laid out the same.”

“Really?” Sabina said, interested. “I didn’t know that. Tell me more.”

“No.”

But her hand had found his elbow again, and he was towing her resignedly back up the path between the barracks toward the Emperor’s quarters. A yellow flash of torchlight cut across the path as they turned the corner, and he turned from an anonymous armored shape into—Vix. But a very different Vix from the tall boy who had shared her bed at eighteen. He’d finally filled into his height, all those long bones knitted together with a man’s muscle. He looked brown and lithe and watchful, and he wore his breastplate and sword as naturally as a dragon wore its scales. She tilted her head up at him in frank admiration. “You look well, Vix.”

“You don’t,” he said rudely. “You look haggard.”

“I still read too much at night.”

“Not much else to do at night, I reckon. Not with a husband like you’ve got.” His eyes went over her as they passed another torch, and Sabina was glad she’d managed to unearth her black stola from the chaos of unpacking. She knew she looked well in it—the cloth woven so fine it shimmered and ran under the torchlight like dark water, and a single massive gold cuff shaped like a lion covering one wrist. Somehow she found herself still wanting to look well for Vix, even if he didn’t care either way.

He lengthened his stride as if he were trying to leave her behind, but Sabina kept up, swinging the black palla over one arm. “Have you got a woman now, Vix?”

“Plenty of them,” he shot back. “Lots of high-born ladies like a bit of rough.”

She laughed. “Gods, I’d forgotten how you can glower. You’re in the Tenth, aren’t you? My father wrote your letter of recommendation.”

“The Tenth’s the best in Germania. We’ll be the vanguard, when Trajan takes us into Dacia.”

“I hear the Fourth wants the vanguard.”

“The Fourth can bugger themselves on their own javelins.”

“I’ll tell them so for you, if I meet any.”