“Fine if you’re in formation, Caesar.” Vix rested the tip of his blade against the gravel. “What if the formation breaks?”

The Emperor’s arrogance was quite unconscious. “My formations don’t break.”

Empress Plotina cast her eyes to the heavens, but Titus couldn’t help smiling. Vix smiled too and spread his arms wide, sword still in hand. “That’s because I haven’t tried to break them, Caesar.”

“Care to try, boy? My way against yours?” Trajan cocked an eyebrow at Vix.

He won’t, Titus thought. He won’t take him up on it, not the Emperor of Rome.

But Vix just bowed acknowledgment, and Emperor Trajan vaulted off his bench laughing like a boy. “Somebody lend me a sword.”

Open whispers now. “Caesar, it is not fitting to your dignity,” his wife reproved, but he shouted her down.

“Gods’ bones, Plotina, it’s been weeks since I’ve had a good fight. No one’s got a shield, do they? No? Then someone just lend me a sword and we’ll settle this.”

To Titus the first cuts looked lazy, exploratory. The grin had fallen away from Vix’s face now, replaced by taut focus. Trajan held himself closer together than his opponent, feet planted, head hunched to present as little a target as possible—yes, that was how it was done, as Titus remembered from his boyhood tutors. It was the way the legions were all trained, the way they won their battles across the world against armies of howling savages. Every Roman knew that. Vix moved very differently, spreading himself wide, a tempting target begging to be struck. Trajan’s short sword began to flicker out like a snake’s tongue, darting for a neck, a knee, an elbow. Vix beat the point of the gladius aside and slashed at him, but Trajan retreated in solid order. Vix came after him, swinging, and found himself rebounded off the Emperor’s nearly fifty-year-old but still rock-hard shoulder. They fell back and began to circle again.

Dear gods, Titus thought. He really means to fight the Emperor of Rome. Fight him properly.

And the Emperor of Rome was clearly having the time of his life.

“All this hopping around,” Trajan complained as they circled each other. “You think you have the advantage, making me chase you?”

“Don’t I, Caesar?” Vix looped another cut at his shoulder.

Trajan deflected it. “Maybe if you’ve got a whole ring of sand to move around in, but battles aren’t roomy.” He chopped at Vix’s knee, and the guard dodged. “Battles are tight! Tight as a virgin boy.”