“So tell me.” Sabina tilted her head up at me. The pipes were broken, and the days stretched out warm and idle again as the whole army waited for the Dacians to get thirsty. “Why do you dislike my husband so much? You must admit, he’s a very good legate.”

I grunted but couldn’t really deny it. I might not like having Publius Aelius Hadrian as my commander, but he’d turned out better than I expected. He was even-handed, he didn’t overmanage the centurions, he enforced discipline but wasn’t a flogger. “He just models himself on the Emperor,” I said scornfully. “How much brilliance does it really take to look for the best there is and copy it?”

“He does do that,” Sabina admitted. “He watches Trajan very carefully. Picked up the same habit of greeting all the men by name and clapping them on the shoulder in that friendly way. It’s a touch studied, but Hadrian’s always a little stiff when he’s first settling into a role.”

“That’s all everything is to him. This role or that one.”

“But he plays them all very well, you must admit. Why are you so set against him? He’s never done anything to you.”

“He had thugs beat me up in an alley!”

“You have thugs trying to beat you up in alleys every day. You never hold it against them.”

“Well, he’s a supercilious lizard.”

“Yes,” Sabina conceded, “but so what?”

“See here, why are you defending him? Don’t you hate him?”

“Of course not.”

“But you don’t love him.” I groped for words. “So I thought—”

“Love or hate, with nothing in between?” She cocked her head at me, amused. “Is that how it is for you?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Generally.”

She chuckled. “My husband’s a bit more complicated than that. He’s not lovable, perhaps, but he’s interesting. We talk a great deal.”

“About what?”

“Greek poetry. Syrian architecture. Hunting lions. The declining condition of Roman literature. Why Egyptians worship cats. The Sibylline Books and what could possibly be written in them. How to play the flute. The mechanics of oratory. The possibility of taking a river journey down the Nile some springtime. Whether paving stones should be made rectangular or polygonal for maximum stress displacement. The best way to build a trireme…”

“All right, all right,” I grumped. “You’re the best of friends.” I didn’t know what half those things she reeled off even were.

“Friends?” Sabina mused. “Mmm, no. Hadrian and I might be friendly enough, but we aren’t friends. He might have comrades, but he doesn’t really have friends. He doesn’t like people getting close.”

“And that’s a nice husband?” I jeered.

“He’s courteous, he’s considerate, and we have some decent conversations over the dinner table. That’s a good enough husband for me.”