Legate Hadrian’s immaculate tent hummed like a beehive: an aide rummaging among the books stacked in their orderly cases, the desk tidily divided into stacks of completed work and half-completed work and work yet to be touched, the slave with the wine flagon perfectly matched to the slave with the pen case. Another tribune hovered, waiting with a batch of slates. A third tribune was just dashing out with a message, brushing past Titus. A secretary filed scrolls while a slave brushed mud from the boots the legate had worn that day and set out a second immaculate pair for the following morning. Another secretary took down a letter Hadrian was dictating—“Sign it By the hand of Publius Aelius Hadrian, will you?”—while Hadrian himself simultaneously finished writing his own report in perfect, unhurried script. The only one in the room not hard at work was the old dog lying asleep with her head on Hadrian’s foot.

“The chief centurion sent a message.” Titus waited for a gap in his legate’s even dictation. “A reminder that you wished to inspect the second cohort tomorrow?”

“Thank you, I had not forgotten.” Hadrian, as far as Titus could tell after a week’s work on active march, forgot nothing. He attended punishment details and promotion ceremonies in person, no matter how lowly; he made a point of remembering the names of not only the higher officers but the centurions; and when the legionaries had a complaint, they learned they could take it direct to their legate, who would listen and pronounce judgment rather than shove such problems off on a tribune. Hadrian rode all day in full armor rather than be carried in a litter, as much a part of his big horse as a centaur; he worked far into the night wearing out secretaries, aides, and tribunes by the handful; and he rose in the morning as early as any legionary. All looking as calm, clean, and impeccable in his superbly polished armor and neatly trimmed beard as if he had just stepped out of a bathhouse.

“Lady Sabina sent a message as well, sir,” Titus said. “She asks if she will be dining with you this evening?”

“No, I will work. Send my regrets.”

Titus sighed a little. He’d been delighted to find that Sabina was coming along on the Dacian campaign—surely when he was working under Hadrian, he’d see her every day? But she’d hardly once stepped into Hadrian’s busy whirl of a tent. And the last time he’d taken his horse back to her luxurious palanquin, she hadn’t even been riding in it. “She’s off exploring,” her maid had said.

“You’ve got it comfortable, haven’t you?” Titus couldn’t help remarking. The maid lounged on her mistress’s cushions, fanning the dust away with Sabina’s plumed fan.