“Yes, Caesar.” I gave my sharpest salute and wheeled about, headache receded to a manageable throbbing. Trajan’s infectious enthusiasm was more reviving than a draught of cool water on a hot day.

“Emperor’s pet,” the courier smirked as we made our way back through the hall crowded with its lines of petitioners. “That’s the real reason the legate agreed to let you go along on this delivery, you know—thought that if the Emperor had a chance to bugger you, he’d be quicker to grant that request for more engineers. Is he buggering you?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“I don’t care if you believe me or not.” Everyone knew the Emperor liked handsome young men, and married to Old Stoneface Plotina, I couldn’t blame him.

I could have been one of the Emperor’s more intimate friends, if I wanted. Right after I’d been made aquilifer, Trajan had paused one night in Dacia to give me his usual greeting as he headed back to his tent for bed and I headed the opposite direction with the eagle. He’d clapped me on the shoulder as he usually did, but his hand lingered a moment and he smiled a little and quirked one eyebrow in cheerful invitation. I’d had a hard time turning him away—not because I’d ever bedded a man or wanted to, not even because he was the Emperor and I feared what he’d do if I refused—but because I loved him so dearly as my Caesar and my general that I found it hard to refuse him anything. But I mumbled something about duties to attend to, sliding my shoulder out from under his hand, and he’d thumped me on the arm, not at all annoyed, and gone off to one of the many other young officers who happily shared his bed. Not all Emperors stayed so sanguine when you refused their whims—I remembered the last Emperor I’d attended in this palace, a cheerful and not very sane sort of person who liked to stick flies on pens. I didn’t care much for serving Rome, but it was all different—it was all right—as long as Trajan was at the helm.