“Oh, perhaps the news can wait. I can hardly improve on your lovely wife’s surprise, after all. Tell me, have you thought about names yet?”

“Tell me, you bastard!”

“Foul language,” Titus reproved me, eyes dancing. “You’ll have to curb your tongue, with a child around.”

“Bugger the child, and bugger you. What have you learned?”

“Nothing of interest. Emperor Trajan has decided to reinforce his army in Parthia with three cohorts from another legion—namely, the Tenth Fidelis.”

“Blast and bugger,” I snarled. “The aquilifer won’t march with just three cohorts. I’ll be stuck in Mog—”

“Yes,” Titus agreed. “The aquilifer will be stuck in Moguntiacum. But not the Tenth’s newest centurion.”

I stared at him.

“The Emperor has done some rearranging of the legion’s officers,” Titus continued airily. “Accordingly, there is a century with a gap…”

“Which one?” I gripped him by the shoulders.

“First cohort, last century.” Titus lifted his cup. “Congratulations, Centurion.”

First cohort. First cohort was the best men, the seasoned men, and the centurions were even better. Men on their way up the ladder. Thirty years old, bare minimum age for promotion, and I’d made first cohort.

I let out a whoop and flung my wine cup across the atrium against the wall of the house, where it shattered into a dozen joyous pieces. Centurion at last.

“—you’ll likely have to return to Moguntiacum first, make preparations with the rest of the cohort for the march to Parthia—”

The march, I thought, heart thumping in my chest. How long would the journey to Parthia take? Where was Parthia? Likely we’d have to take ships, at least part of the journey. Hell’s gates, I hated boats. But there’d be marching too, and eighty men looking to me for their orders. Many of them likely older than I was, and resentful about it. My stomach fluttered, and I couldn’t help a nervous swallow.

“Never mind,” Titus said at last, looking amused. “You’re not hearing a word.”

Mirah’s mother got teary when we shared the news, and Simon along with a few of the firebrand nephews grumbled about the Parthian invasion, but I didn’t hear them over the golden roar in my head. Titus and I drank a toast to Parthia, to Trajan, to the goddess of good fortune who had just kissed me on the cheek. Mirah drank a toast with me too, then retreated early to bed as soon as I began toasting the Parthians for being obliging enough to have a war just for me.

“I’ll get Boil and Julius and Philip into my century,” I decided, escorting Titus down the darkness of the hall after he’d been persuaded to stay for supper. “Centurions can do that, can’t they? It’ll be like the old times in Dacia.”