“And why did you come back to Rome, Vix?” She cocked her head up against my shoulder, her blue eyes just dark pools in the night. “Your parents hated it.”

“I didn’t.”

“Rome made you a slave. Rome put you in an arena to fight for your life. Rome nearly killed you.”

“That was all a madman’s fault. The madman’s gone now, so there’s no reason for me not to come back. My father didn’t want me to, but—”

“Ah.”

I scowled. “What, ah?”

“Your father hated Rome, so you like it.”

I shrugged. “A mountaintop in Brigantia might get a little small for us both. He’s a big man.”

“I remember. I saw him just once, up close—he was all tied up and bleeding and cold-eyed. He looked like a big wounded dog, all bound and determined that if he was going to die, his enemies were going down with him. You look like him, you know.”

“I know, I know.” My little brother had my mother’s dark hair and eyes, but I was my father’s spitting image and tired of being told about it. We had the same russet-colored hair and gray eyes, I was a finger’s breadth away from his height and growing into his heavy shoulders, I was left-handed like him and had his knack with weapons, and so what? “I’m not my father.”

“No, you’re not,” said Sabina. “You’ll be a bigger man than he is someday.”

“You mean taller? I’d like to be—”

“No, not taller. Bigger. Too big for Britannia, much less a mountaintop. Rome might not even be able to hold you.”

“Thanks. I think?” I snugged her in against my shoulder, yawning, and soon drifted off to sleep.

“Dream, Vix,” she whispered, or I thought she whispered. “Dream about those stars of yours, the ones that are going to lead you to glory. For all your crashing and shouting, I think you’re a bigger dreamer than me.”

Senator Norbanus and his family dined at the Domus Augustana once a week with the Emperor and Empress, but I never took duty those nights. There might still be slaves or guards who remembered me from the old days at Emperor Domitian’s side. But as Saturnalia approached I realized I’d get my chance to see Emperor Trajan up close after all: when he and his entourage honored the Norbanus house by coming to dinner.

“I don’t see what all this fuss is,” Senator Norbanus said mildly, looking up from his scrolls at his madly rushing wife. “He’s a soldier; he’s easy to entertain. Put a slab of meat on his plate and enough beer in his mug, and he’s happy.”