There was fish, there was roast lamb, there was more wine. More prayers were uttered at intervals, and I half recognized the Hebrew words. For my sake the family spoke in Latin—and as the wine kept circulating, several of the younger nephews spoke more heatedly about Judaea and how she had been wronged by Rome. I wondered if Rome was so terrible, then why were they living here in such comfort, but Simon was nodding along with them and looking a bit more like the fierce fighter who’d been such a rock at my right side during drills.

The conversation turned to the possible rebuilding of Jerusalem, and I dipped a toe in the water. “You might get your chance,” I addressed one of the bearded young nephews. “The Emperor will be taking himself to Parthia soon, so I doubt he’ll be much concerned with what anyone does in Judaea.”

“Oh?” The nephew looked pointedly at the eagle on my arm. “What has Parthia ever done to the Emperor, that it deserves invading?”

I couldn’t speak for Trajan, but I wanted to invade Parthia because I was bored. This didn’t seem the place to say so, however. I took another bite of roast lamb rather than answer.

“So now it’s Parthia that gets to fight off Rome.” One of the other nephews sloshed more wine into his cup, despite a quelling look from his mother. Apparently even good Jewish boys got drunk at the table and disappointed their mothers. “They’ll find out what that means. Masada, that’s what it means.”

I picked my head up sharply. Masada was a name I knew, and very well. There were sighs about the couches; Simon looked heavy and his pretty freckled niece made a gesture that reminded me sharply of my mother: a gesture to ward off sorrow.

“Masada was a tragedy,” Simon’s brother said ponderously from his position at the head of the table. “It is not to be mentioned at Shabbat.”

“It wasn’t just a tragedy,” I said.

They all looked at me. I took another bite of lamb, defiant.

“An entire city dead because of Rome.” The black-bearded nephew looked at me coldly. “Dead down to the last child. That isn’t a tragedy?”

“Not just a tragedy. It was a triumph too.”

“What would you know about it?”

“My mother was there.”

Silence spread out. I looked up from my lamb, around the frozen couches. “What?”

“No one survived,” Simon said finally. “No one. It’s known.”

“My mother survived.”

The silence deepened, and again I felt the line that separated me from them. Even the servant girls seemed frozen in place with their decanters and platters.