A few centuries were led into the smoldering city to beat down flames and crush any resistance, the rest of us left arrayed before the temples. Roman temples were square pillared things, roofed and grand, splendid houses for splendid gods, but the Dacians apparently worshipped in stone circles beneath the sky, gray lintels propped on each other and carved with runes. There was a vast flat circle of stones all tightly fitted together like a stone disc lying on the grass, and I watched Trajan vault off his horse and stride toward it with a face like a storm cloud. He snatched the standard pole from our aquilifer, leaving the startled man in his wake, and stormed out into the middle of the stone circle. He stood for a moment, breathing hard as if he’d forgotten what to do or what to say, and then without a word he slammed the Tenth’s pole into a gap between two stones, so our eagle glared proudly over the heathen circle.

I felt a sting in my throat and realized I was screaming, along with thousands of others. Trajan raised a hand as if to quiet us, but we banged our javelins against our shields, and the grim look began to leave his face. He grinned like a boy, and our eyes streamed from the smoke that the wind had carried from the burning city to eddy around our splendid, arrogant eagle.

The legion’s augurs came out then, to pronounce a lengthy benediction and proclaim Trajan the lord and conqueror of Sarmizegetusa, but we kept interrupting the droning prayers with more cheers and they kept flapping their hands at us. Pompous fools—who needed their benediction? Trajan became lord of Old Sarm when he jammed that eagle down on the stone circle. I could see Dacians—a woman with her arms about a baby, an old man, a boy a few years younger than Titus—watching with helpless, sullen hatred, but I had no thought for them. Only for my splendid Emperor.

His bad temper had gone now. When the priests were done gabbling he looked up at the burning fortress and grimaced. “I’ll rebuild it,” he said to no one in particular. “More splendid than before, I promise.” He turned to us all, bellowing conversationally. “See your centurions for orders. Any of you poor buggers set for sentry duty, you’d better show up sober. The rest of you can have the night to yourselves—take what you want, if there’s anything still unburned and worth taking, but if any of you get caught with a Dacian woman who doesn’t look willing, I’ll have your cock off with a dull sword!”

We roared again at that, javelins thumping. He raised a hand again, the smoky breeze stirring his short hair.

“And tomorrow we go after that bloody king in his lion skin. I don’t care if he’s gone to hide in Hades!”