There’s nothing like being young and obsessed. There were prettier girls in the world than Sabina—overall I usually liked girls with more breast and fewer questions. But no other girl had ever dragged me to bed before and had her way with me. That was usually my line. But Sabina couldn’t get enough of me. Me, Vercingetorix, son of a slave and a gladiator, and soon I couldn’t get enough of her either. There were long hot damp days where I fidgeted at the gate through my guard duties, fidgeted through a dinner too hot and sticky for eating, fidgeted in my bed till the moon went up, and by the time the shadow slipped in and barred the door, half the blood in my veins would be smoking and I’d lunge across the room and pin her up against the wall. Afterward we’d stretch out and talk for hours, and that was something else new for me. I’d never done much talking to girls. Mostly under the blankets it was just giggling, and me trying to get out without being spotted by fathers or brothers. And it wasn’t like I had much to talk about. “You’re sweet, Vix,” the Brigantian girl who had broken me in once said. “But you’re not the brightest, are you?” I couldn’t say she was wrong, but Sabina had me talking anyway.

“Brundisium,” she’d say, propping her chin up on her hand in the dark. “You grew up there, didn’t you? Tell me about it.”

“Don’t you ever get sleepy?” I yawned.

“Not when there’s things to be learned. You grew up so differently from me—tell me something that happened to you when you were a child. Something funny.”

I thought about that for a moment. “When I was seven years old in Brundisium, a bald man in a toga collared me on the street and offered me oysters for dinner. I knew what he really wanted, but I wasn’t about to pass up free oysters.”

“What happened?”

“I went back to his house with him, and as soon as I was done stuffing myself he started edging his hand up my thigh. I took his first two fingers”—demonstrating—“and yanked in opposite directions. While he was screaming and leaping around in agony, I climbed out the window.”

“This is a funny story?”

“The way he rolled around on the floor cursing at me was funny. Served him right. I stole a very expensive vase on my way out the window too.”

“You’re a savage.” Sabina’s eyes sparkled. “Tell me more.”