Besides, if I took her with me I wouldn’t need to rely on whores like most of the legion’s men did when separated from their women for the long months and even years of a campaign. Nice if I didn’t have to be unfaithful to my new wife just yet.

“I can’t come,” Mirah was arguing. “Wives don’t march to war with the legion!”

“Legates bring their wives sometimes. They go on ahead of the men, set up somewhere civilized. You could do the same.”

“Your legate wouldn’t allow it,” Mirah pointed out.

“It won’t be up to him. The detachment will answer to the Emperor. And the Emperor likes me.”

“Does he?”

I smiled into the dark. “The day I met you, I delivered a load of dispatches to him at the palace. He said he wanted to take Parthia, and I said he should take me and the Tenth with him to get it.” I felt foolishly happy that he had remembered. That he had taken a moment, in the middle of planning an invasion, to arrange my future along with the legion’s.

“Hmm.” Mirah moved against my shoulder. “Why does he want Parthia, anyway?”

“Something to do with their new king.” I stroked her hair where it lay across the pillow.

“What about him?”

“Who cares? The Emperor’s spent the last few years building roads and arches and columns in Rome. He’s bored.”

“No one,” Mirah declared, “should go to war because they’re bored.”

It seemed a good enough reason for me, but I had the sense not to say so.

“What did the Parthians do to deserve getting invaded?” she persisted. “Especially the ones whose crops will get trampled over by your big feet?”

“They aren’t so big.” Hoping to deflect her.

“They’re like boats,” she said, undeflected. “Why do you follow Emperor Trajan, Vix?”

That was easier to answer. “Because he’s splendid.”

“He’s just another Roman emperor who invades a helpless country for fun.”

“He isn’t!”

“Why not?” she persisted.

“You haven’t met him. When you do, you’ll see.”

“I don’t understand you Romans,” she said tartly. “You’ll forgive a man anything for a little charm. I’m sure the Emperor who ordered the siege of Masada was charming too.”

“Now you sound like Simon.” He’d gotten very fiery and indignant over the state of poor wronged Judaea the past few months. He certainly didn’t like being reminded of his days in the Tenth anymore.

“Well, doesn’t Uncle Simon have a point? Romans see something they want, and they take it. Whether it’s a cup of wine or a new province. And your charming Trajan is just the same.”

“Why all this raking over past sins?” I demanded. “Trajan didn’t siege Masada, so what does it matter?”

“But—”