“Else be scolded till your ears bleed,” Sabina agreed. “How long is she staying?”

“Not long, I wager. She doesn’t like the east—too dirty and exotic for my Plotina. She’ll stay long enough to make a few public appearances and give me two years’ worth of good advice, then take her leave. And in the time she’s here, little Sabina, you can refrain from needling her! I’ve got enough to fill my time without adding a houseful of quarreling women on top.”

“Yes, Caesar.” Sabina gave a meek little salute. “I suppose I can take two years of advice right along with you.”

“Not just the advice.” Trajan sounded gloomy. “Just you wait and see, she’ll want me to go back to Rome with her.”

“Why don’t you?” Sabina said it lightly.

“I’ve still got Hatra to crack, girl. A tough nut, that is. After that, I’ve a mind to head back into Mesopotamia and put out a few fires…”

Trajan arranged a plate of cheese and grapes into Hatra’s defenses, eating the enemy troops that had been killed in the siege, marching a chunk of bread through the city gates for the attack he was planning when he returned. Sabina watched him thoughtfully. She had not seen Trajan for more than a year, with her own journeys to Egypt and Greece and his dashing all over Parthia. He had lost weight; his arms were still powerful but the skin over them seemed loose and papery; and she thought she saw a tremor in his hands when he reached for another chunk of bread.

“Are you well, Caesar?” she asked quietly. “I heard you collapsed outside Hatra.”

“A man gets a little dizzy from the sun and everyone starts having the vapors,” Trajan complained. “I’m well enough.” He applauded the acrobats as they leaped down from their pyramid, and immediately called the handsomest of the tumblers over to his couch. Sabina slid discreetly away. Hadrian stood bearded and benign in a circle of senators beside a frieze of lascivious satyrs, a half-dozen hangers-on vying for his attention: He had been made governor of Syria recently (though he would have to pretend he hadn’t heard already when Plotina arrived to gloat with the news), and next year he would take another consulship. “Will you deign to accompany me to Syria?” he’d asked Sabina coldly this evening as they readied themselves for the banquet. “Or do you prefer to travel with your lovers?”