“No, alone.” He turned to his wife. “I won’t be long. Be on your guard—that flabby bastard in the toga over there has been eyeing you all night, and once you’re alone he’ll probably ask you to be his bedwarmer.”

“Be on your guard,” Mirah whispered back, almost inaudibly, but Sabina’s ear caught it. “Someone’s eyeing you for the same reason.” Sabina didn’t smile until Vix had stalked through the crowded banqueting hall to the atrium, moving people out of the way with a quirk of his lowered brows. As they reached the moonlit shadows outside, Sabina released the laugh she’d been holding in. “I like your Mirah. Ginger in the soul as well as the hair—and she’ll need it, if she married you. Do you have children?”

“Two. Girls.” Vix ran a hand through his hair, a gesture she’d forgotten but now it came back vividly. “I don’t want to talk about Mirah.”

“All right.” Sabina drifted past him toward the pool sunk in the floor, a glossy black square reflecting the half moon through the open roof above. It looked like the moon was trapped in the pool. A couple wandered out the other end of the atrium, giggling softly on their way to the gardens, but otherwise they were alone. “Last time we talked, it was in an atrium like this,” Sabina said. “Don’t toss me in the water this time, will you?”

Grudging amusement laced his voice. “You deserved it.”

“Maybe I did.” She turned, leaning against a slender carved pillar. “What is it, Vercingetorix?”

“The Emperor.” Vix folded his arms across his chest. “He listens to you?”

“He won’t let me divorce Hadrian.” Sabina traced one idle finger along the pillar. “But otherwise, yes. He listens to me.”

“You tried to divorce Hadrian?”

“It’s not important. The Emperor?”

“Yes. Well. I want you to talk to him.”

“You already have your legion, don’t you? Congratulations, by the way.”

“No—this isn’t about me. You don’t have to talk to him about me. I’m making my own way.” Vix’s face was mostly in shadow, but Sabina could see the worry that brought his brows together and tightened his jaw. More than worry—fear. “Persuade Trajan to go back to Rome.”

“What?”

“He collapsed during the siege at Hatra.” Vix spoke jerkily. “Six hours on a horse under the burning sun, the idiot—he fainted right out of his saddle. He was up again in a day, but he’s not the same, I see him getting tired and his hands shake—”

“I noticed that.”