“Because looks like his just mean trouble. You know at least three men have come up to me on the street and offered to buy him?” Mirah wrinkled her nose. “You wouldn’t believe what they offered. Or how hard they were slavering. I wanted to take a bath afterward.”

“Antiochenes and pretty boys,” I muttered. “I’d better take him with me on campaign this year.”

“Won’t that just make things worse? Roman soldiers are even worse than Antiochenes!” My wife’s mouth firmed. “Vix, I know what goes on between men in your camps, and I know you take an easy view of it. But that doesn’t make it right.”

“Not when it involves my nine-year-old son, it’s not right.” I dropped a kiss on the part in her hair. “Don’t worry, we’ll keep him safe.”

“You’ll have to do it yourself, I’m afraid, because I’m staying in Antioch this year. Hard enough following the legion with one baby, let alone two. We’ll stay cozy in the city, thank you.”

“Just not in a ground-floor apartment,” I made her promise. I missed having Mirah beside me on campaign that year, but there was enough army business in Antioch that I could manage visits often enough. I’d come through the door calling Mirah’s name, Antinous at my heels; Dinah would toddle over to cling to my boot and I’d set my helmet down on her head and laugh when she took it off and began chewing on the feathered crest. And Antinous would pry Dinah off my boot and toss her in the air, and Mirah would come in with Chaya on her hip, wiping her hands on her apron and scolding me for not letting her know we were coming; she would have bought a goose if she’d known she’d be feeding five, or more like seven considering how much it took to fill my bottomless hole of a stomach…

“This war has been good to us,” I said, and held out my arm as Mirah closed the door of our bedchamber. Her hair gleamed red in the last flare of light as she blew out the lamp, and I could hear the uneven pad of her feet as she came to bed and slid in beside me. She limped a little now at the end of the day, when she was tired. The ankle she’d broken in the earthquake had healed well but stiff.

“I know the war’s been good to us.” Mirah plaited her fingers together with mine under the blankets. “But surely that’s a sin of some kind, rejoicing in the benefits of war? It doesn’t feel right.”

“It isn’t a sin to be among the winners.”

“Even when the winners rape and loot their way across the world?”