“I take them out of formation, Caesar. I want them able to move through rough ground, fight independently, but still snap into a turtle or a wedge at a word.” I tried to find the words for what I tried so hard to get from my men. They didn’t like it, they complained about being asked to leave the safety of their formations—all legionaries hate change—but I had drilled them and drilled them this winter in Antioch, and now I was honing them among the rocks and rivers of Armenia. “I want them able to fight anything. Anywhere. Any way.”

“Still bent on using that gladiator training of yours, eh?” My Emperor forgot nothing.

“In its place, Caesar.”

“I’ve still got that scar you gave me. Ten years ago?” He rolled up his sleeve to look at the faded pucker of purple, shaking his head at the graying hairs on his still-strong arm. “Gods’ bones, we’re getting old. I’ll send you out with Quietus again.”

Out we went, on scouting missions, on foraging expeditions, on deadly strikes across rivers at night. My century and I were flicked out into the twisting mountain roads, sent scrambling across rocky hillocks, inching on our bellies through short summer grass, plunging through the rivers leaning on our shields to keep from being swept off our feet. I killed Armenians with narrow faces and fierce beards, I collected three more campaign tokens, and my men stopped grumbling when I told them to split out of formation into a dozen smaller darts that could thread an enemy block and hack it to pieces in seconds. They called me a hard bastard, but they jingled more campaign tokens than any other century in the Tenth detachment, and I moved up two ranks. The centurion above me got killed in a raid, and the one above him died of camp fever, and the Emperor jumped me over their empty places.

“No more junior centurion!” Mirah crowed when I came to her that night. Her nimble needle had earned her a place among the Imperial servants, where she rode in a wagon with a clutch of other women, gossiping and mending endless piles of linen for the vast entourage Trajan managed to maintain on campaign. “How much do the other centurions hate you for jumping up the ladder so fast? I know your First Spear must have been delighted.”

“Thrilled.” I put a pearl ring on her finger, holding her hand up to the light. “You like it? I took it off a fat captive prince.”

“Very grand,” Mirah teased, admiring the ring. We had a tent now instead of the snug little apartment in Antioch, but Mirah just swept out the sand at night and shook the spiders out of the bedrolls and kept everything so neat I had no idea where anything was. “Where are the children?” I nuzzled Mirah’s neck.