He sighed. “You haven’t.” Could one really fault any woman married to a man of Hadrian’s tastes? Everyone in the Tenth knew Hadrian had an arrangement with one of Titus’s fellow tribunes, not to mention a handsome young aide and an even more handsome engineer. “I don’t think less of you,” Titus said, and the smile returned to Sabina’s eyes.

But couldn’t you have picked—someone else? he couldn’t help thinking. Someone besides crude, cocky, grinning, lying, unfaithful, uncouth Vix?

Or was that tall, strong, brave, ambitious, confident Vix, at least to Sabina? Titus looked down at himself: his legs, which still stuck out long and bony from his tunic; his skinny wrists, which had never been broadened by using a sword.

His hair was probably sticking up in back.

“So I’ll have to work with my legate for the next six months or however long this campaign lasts,” Titus said finally, just to be saying something, “and keep him from finding out that I spend my nights sitting around a fire with his wife and her legionary lover?”

“That’s right,” Sabina agreed. “Thank goodness you can keep a straight face. I think it’s something to do with how we senatorial children are brought up.”

“Excuse me,” Vix objected. “The vulgar pleb is feeling insulted.”

“Admit it! You can’t hide your feelings to save your life—”

I can, Titus thought with a wrench. And dear gods, I’m going to have to.

CHAPTER 13

VIX

Memory is as full of holes as a wormy apple. I thought I remembered that Dacian campaign so clearly—even now, so many years later, I wake in the night smelling the tang of those dark pines. No other pines smell like that, at least not in any of the places I’ve traveled, and I’ve traveled most of the Empire at one time or another. I remember the pines as if it were yesterday, and I remember other things too, but mostly details. The larger things are hazy.