Mog, thought Titus. It had seemed such a backwater mud-hole when he first arrived, drab and charmless with its endless taverns and raucous theatres and half-paved streets. Now all he could think was, Real beds instead of bedrolls! Roast pork and grapes instead of barley broth and wormy biscuits! Clean linens instead of blankets with lice! Mog sounded like a paradise.

The rest of the legion clearly thought so too, marching along double-pace and bawling out marching songs in tuneless good humor. The Emperor sang too, riding just ahead on a big black horse with his legates. Titus could hear his loud tuneless voice, joining into the marching song’s more obscene verses. “Everyone looks like they can taste that homecoming wine already,” Titus said. “From the Emperor on down.”

“What they’re tasting is the hero’s welcome we’re all going to get,” Vix said with relish. “The girls will flop on their backs the moment they see us coming. Who doesn’t like a victorious hero?”

“I think you have enough girls to contend with already, Slight.”

“Just two!”

“Does Sabina even know about Demetra, or—”

“Oh, not Demetra. Sabina’s my first girl. She’s my second.” Vix glanced up the length of the standard pole to the eagle who paced the air serenely over his head. “Of the two, I think she’ll be the more demanding.”

“And what about Demetra?” Titus gave a withering look from his horse’s height. “Her child will be born soon, you know. Your child.”

“I’ll give her some money to take care of it.” Vix whistled between his teeth, cheerful. “She’ll find a new man soon enough afterward. No girl who looks like her will be lonely for long. You want to make her an offer? You’re a rising man now—Emperor’s tribune!”

“I don’t really know what he promoted me for,” Titus confessed. “I just brought him that head. Not like I had anything to do with collecting it. Maybe it was a reward for not throwing up all over him when I handed it over? I admit, that took a fairly heroic effort.”

Vix pushed the lion’s mane off his hair, looking at Trajan’s big armored figure on the black horse up ahead. “I’d die for that man in a heartbeat.” Frankly. “I think I love him.”

“Quiet, or you’ll make Sabina jealous.”

“Oh, she knows I love her too.”

He said it so lightly, as if it were no great matter to love a girl and be loved in return. You’re the lucky one, Slight, Titus thought. And not for the lion skin and the victory wreath.

“I thought it would be different,” Vix confided, shifting the standard pole to his other shoulder. “Like a fish getting caught—some girl finally gets her hooks into you. But this is easy. Like breathing.”