“That reminds me.” He waited until I turned. “Empress Vibia Sabina. I am told by Dowager Empress Plotina that you and Sabina were much in each other’s company the day Trajan died. And previously.” Hadrian looked up from his wax tablet. “Have you slept with my wife?”

I remembered Sabina telling me I couldn’t lie to save my life.

I thought of my men, of Mirah and the children.

“No,” I said.

“Then you may go, Vercingetorix.” Hadrian returned to his tablet, the dog curling up at his feet again. “That will be all.”

A day later and the new Emperor was ready to take sail. He’d ordered the pyre for Trajan’s body built on the beach before the assembled throng, and had already prepared an urn to take the Imperial ashes back to Rome. The abandoned harbor throbbed with activity as the trireme was draped in black, officials jostled for place, slaves ran about frantically loading last-minute items into the ship, and soldiers pressed into position to give their Emperor—their real Emperor—his final salute. A good many were weeping, but even more were gabbling on about Hadrian. Such a fine man, they said. So learned. So experienced. A worthy successor for Trajan.

I couldn’t stomach it, and fortunately I didn’t have to. I wasn’t to go on the trireme back to Rome, after all. So I wandered up into the hills behind Selinus, up the path overgrown with weeds to the ruined temple where I’d wept for Trajan with no idea what fresh hell was coming for me.

Sabina was there. She sat slumped on a fallen pillar, already dressed in black for the leave-taking ceremony. A stiff mourning stola, obviously Plotina’s choice, with a gold veil and a wig of false blond plaits very properly covering her cropped hair.

“Go away.” Her back was stiff too, and she didn’t turn as she heard my footfall. “I’ll come down when it’s time to leave, not before.”

“It’s me,” I said.

She turned, and I saw her eyes were red. “I thought I’d given my Praetorians the slip,” she said, eyeing my new armor.

“Not quite.” I looked down at the whole loathsome outfit: the useless muscled cuirass, the ridiculous red kilt, the absurd fine-woven cloak too flimsy to keep out the rain. “I feel like a damned rooster. Probably about as useful. Can’t lay eggs, can’t go kill Dacians.”

“No worse than me.” Sabina swept the blond wig off her head and flung it into the weeds beside the column. “We’ve both been promoted. I never saw that happening, did you?”