I don’t remember much of that initial march. We set out of Mog at double speed, eager to join the fight, and we tumbled down every night too tired to spit. Centurions could pass their marches on horseback, but the last thing I needed was to get dumped on my head in front of the men who were supposed to obey me, respect me, but above all be in awe of me. I loaded myself up with pack and weapons, just like the rest of them, and set a killing pace. I heard them grumbling behind me the first day, but I just roared, “Marching song! I’ll have it loud, or I’ll have you all flogged!” and soon they were bawling out cadences about Parthians buggering sheep, and giving me sour looks. I ignored the looks, stifled the flutter of nervousness in my throat, whipped them into setting up camp that night, and had them take it all down when three of the tents looked sloppy. “Call that a camp?” I stood back, watching with benign ferocity as they began redoing everything to my satisfaction. “Do it again!”

“Picky bugger,” I heard a low voice grumble behind me as the men began erecting their tents for the third time. “Last month he was just one of us. He gets a pat on the back from the Emperor and he thinks that makes him a real centurion?”

It wasn’t much to go on, but I wanted everything settled right off. “You—front, now,” I snapped. The other legionaries had formed a rough circle around me before the man reluctantly stepped forward, and my heart sank. The grumbler was Julius, and my old friend’s eyes over his beaked Caesar nose were resentful and unfriendly.

So much the better, I told myself brutally. After today, the whole century will know you don’t make pets out of your former comrades.

“Let’s cut this short,” I said, pitching my voice loud and stamping down the dread in my stomach. Boil grimaced from the ring around us, knowing what was coming, but the rest just looked wary.

“What?” Julius’s voice was sullen, but there was an insolent edge to it. Of all the tentmates in my former contubernium, he’d been the most resentful about my promotion—but I hadn’t thought him as resentful as this.

“That’s ‘What, Centurion,’” I barked. “We’re going to skip the part where you spend the next three days grumbling just loud enough for me to hear, Julius, and I pretend I’m deaf until you say something too rude to ignore, and then I have you beaten for insubordination. I’m just going to beat you tonight, and we’ll save everyone the time. Hit me back if you want; we used to share a tent and we’ve saved each other’s lives a few times, and I haven’t got the crest and the medals on now.”