That was when the ground started to swing under my feet. For a moment I wondered if I was drunk, but the other men were reeling too, and I heard shouts of alarm. The earth bucked and I dropped to my knees, hearing the splinter of glass somewhere. I clutched at the ground with both fists, trying to hang on to the cobbles, and my men were all doing the same. I heard the crash of masonry, of stones falling. It was an age before the ground stilled.

“What,” I breathed, looking up, “was that?” At my side, Antinous was looking up cautiously. He’d dropped to the ground in a ball but kept a firm grip on my sword.

“Just an earthquake,” one of my scouts volunteered. He was on his feet already, dusting his hands off. The rest of us stayed huddled where we were, staring warily at the ground. “The earth trembles. Quite common where I come from, near Pompeii. No one pays attention to them back home, unless it’s a big one.”

“Not too comforting,” I shot back. “Considering that Pompeii’s just a heap of ash and rubble!” Warily I stood up. I wanted to stay down and possibly mutter a prayer or two, as little Antinous and half my men were doing, but a centurion had to set an example.

Another roar of falling stone sounded. “Now the buildings start falling down,” the Pompeiian added cheerfully. “My father was a builder—he said earthquakes were always good for the building trade, since half the houses fall down and have to be rebuilt. Centurion, where are you going?”

I was sprinting for a horse, and Antinous was right on my heels.

The Emperor, I heard later, narrowly escaped dying. A roof caved in on him, but he managed to jump out of a window, though one of his visiting consuls was crushed by a falling beam. A great many others were killed too in the collapsed wreckage: dignitaries from Rome, Antiochene officials, visiting embassies. I heard screams from people trapped in their fallen houses, but I never stopped.

Until I rounded a corner and saw that nothing was left of the tenement where I’d left Mirah and our daughter but a heap of rubble.

SABINA

Sabina’s reed sandals made no sound on the path, but Hadrian spoke without turning to face her. “How did you like Egypt?”

“Beautiful.” She halted beside him where he stood in the shade of a laurel tree, hands clasped behind his back as he stared at the glassy surface of the little spring. “I took a barge down the Nile like Queen Cleopatra. And I stayed in Alexandria, Bubastis, Karnak—”

“Yes, Plotina sent me word of your… exploits.”

“For such a virtuous woman, Plotina has a fevered imagination.”