“Me too,” said Sabina, her head still in Titus’s lap. At the beginning she had been mortified to discover she could stand only an hour or two of marching before she had to climb back in the wagon to rest. She had rubbed her sore feet and bandaged her blisters and cursed at her own aching muscles, unable to believe how long and stolidly the legionaries could march—carrying weapons, armor, and heavy packs to boot. But slowly she felt her muscles strengthening as the campaign went on, and now she could walk all day on her tough new feet and have breath left over to sing a good dirty marching song. She sometimes made up obscene new verses and taught them to Vix and his friends.

“None of this is worth anything,” Vix was proclaiming at length, “if we haven’t got a few heads on spikes to show for it at the end. What else did I join the legion for—the canings and the pay?”

“You really are a barbarian,” Sabina informed him.

“I concur,” Titus agreed. He had begun to stroke Sabina’s hair, very lightly, as if afraid she would brush him away. She closed her eyes instead, comfortable. “No need to do anything drastic about Sarmizegetusa, Vix—we know they haven’t got a water source up there; sooner or later they’ll get thirsty.”

“Not when they’ve got pipes to bring their water in.” Vix lobbed a new chunk of wood into the fire, sending another drift of sparks skyward toward the white sparks of stars in the sky.

“True, and there’s a heated discussion about those pipes every night in the Emperor’s tent. I stand in the back with message cases while he argues with all his legates.” Titus was still stroking Sabina’s hair—he had a lovely light touch. His wife will be a lucky woman. “Legate Hadrian wants to poison the water supply, but it’s unreliable, and the Emperor wondered if the pipes might be big enough for a few men to slip through and under the wall at night, but the diameter is too narrow—”

Vix threw back his head and laughed, tossing his sword in the air in an exuberant overhand toss and catching it again on the way down. Sabina’s heart squeezed, looking at him. “I love the Emperor,” Vix said, still laughing. “And I love you, Titus. But you think too much like nobles. Poison, night raids—think like a barbarian for once! Break the damn pipes!”

“Only possible if you know where they come out,” Titus said. “We don’t.”

Vix grinned. “But I do.”

CHAPTER 14

TITUS

“You think we haven’t considered breaking the pipes, lad?” Emperor Trajan sounded kindly as he looked at Titus. “There’s no access.”