Antioch was stuffed, crowded, bursting with Romans. I’d thought Mog was full in the weeks before the Dacian campaign, but the Dacian campaign had only been three and a half legions, and this was a full seven, plus a vexillatio or two reinforcing from the legions in the west, like ours from the Tenth. There wasn’t a spare room to be rented anywhere in Antioch by the time the year ended, and I was glad I’d sent Mirah ahead of me to secure us living quarters. Once I stopped kissing her hello, Mirah put her hands over my eyes and walked me blindfolded and stumbling into a cozy little set of rooms that stayed our home for the rest of the winter. My century settled into their barracks for the winter business of dicing, drinking, keeping weapons sharp, and waiting for the mountain passes to open up, and I settled in with Mirah.

“Vix!” Her voice floated in from the kitchen. “Come get your helmet out of the wash basin!”

“What’s it doing in the wash basin to begin with?” I ventured into the tiny snug kitchen, where Mirah had lifted a leg of lamb from the brick oven and stood muttering over it. “Why is my helmet full of water?”

“It stank, so I washed it,” she said absently. Her belly was rounded now beneath her apron. “I don’t even want to think about all the times you boiled soup in it over a campfire. What exactly does helmet soup taste like?”

“You don’t want to know.” I emptied my helmet out, drying it off on the hem of my tunic. “This needs a polish.” I looked over at Antinous, where he sat playing with a carved wooden horse. “How about it, sprat? You can put a better shine on metal by now than most of my men.”

He zoomed off after the polishing rags. Mirah thumped the top of his head gently as he flew past. “Be sure to get it done before sundown! Polishing armor counts as work, Antinous. You know we don’t do any work on Shabbat.”

“You’re supposed to eat a proper meal on Shabbat too.” I looked over her shoulder at the lamb, which was a little black in places. “That doesn’t look like a meal. Are you still learning how to manage that Antiochene oven?”

“Right now it’s managing me,” she muttered.

“Maybe we should get your mother out here—”

Mirah hit me with a spoon, chestnut hair gleaming in the orange light from the brick oven. “Out!”

I kissed her wide mouth. “Yes, Lady.”