I shifted from one foot to the other, trying to keep my face solemn as the centurion droned on in his loud flat voice about all the good qualities I didn’t have. I was struck with a sudden image of Sabina strutting around a tent stark naked, swinging a rolled-up bedroll for a swagger stick as she imitated perfectly the centurion’s bellowing voice, his tone-deaf cadences, and his habit of adding a little sniff to the start of each new platitude.

“—killing two with his own hand, and one of those our greatest enemy, Decebalus himself.” Sniff. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek to keep from guffawing out loud and ruining the solemnity of the moment.

And it was a solemn moment. The whole legion had been arrayed, spit-polished and shined, the cohorts aligned with mathematical precision, and all eyes fixed front. The centurions stood stiffly with their helmets beneath their arms; the tribunes yawned and fidgeted as only bored patrician boys could yawn and fidget—although Titus’s face was a beacon of pride behind them. I’d polished my breastplate till it gleamed, the stiff red horsehair crest stood up proudly from my helmet, and Sabina had flattened my spiky hair smooth with a few desperate applications of water and goose grease. “You’ll do the Tenth proud,” she’d judged, and my friends nodded agreement—Julius and Simon, Boil and Philip, who might still be my brothers-in-arms but who were no longer my contubernium.

The centurion coughed, and I realized I’d missed my cue. Hastily I removed my helmet, bowing my head as he reached up.

It was light—so light. Just a few twigs and leaves twisted into a wreath. It was too big, and I had to cock it back on my head or else have it slip over my ears. I felt it under my hand, the victory wreath I’d dreamed so many countless hours, and my solemnity cracked. I looked up, past the centurion to the Emperor, who stood in his breastplate and red cloak like any one of us soldiers, and I grinned at him.

He grinned back, infectiously, and strode past the centurion who was still droning. “Give me that,” he ordered, and yanked the pelt from the hands of the hovering optio. “Quit smiling like a loon, boy, and bow your head. This is a serious moment, damn it.”