“Not at all. I know how to keep my mouth shut. Anyway, I’m rather glad I didn’t end up empress. I used to dream of it now and then—most girls do—and I suppose in some ways it would be quite interesting. But it does tend to be a job one holds for life. And I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a palace under a diadem for all the rest of my days. Though Trajan would have made a good enough husband. I do adore him.”

“These simple soldiers are easy to like.” Hadrian sounded grudging.

“He’s more than that!” Sabina argued. “He’s so good at keeping the Senate in one hand and the legions in the other… he may look like a simple soldier, but a bluff legionary couldn’t do the balancing act he does.”

“He should concern himself with the Empire’s administration rather than its expansion.” Hadrian’s voice took on the teacherish tone he often used when telling Sabina about Greek philosophers, whether or not she’d already read them. “He should begin a building program—temples, aqueducts, a new forum. I’ve told him a hundred times, but he ignores me.” A scowl. “He doesn’t care for my advice. Or for me. You saw that, the night of your family’s dinner party. When your bodyguard made me look a fool.” Hadrian’s face hardened briefly.

“I don’t think Trajan dislikes you, exactly.” Sabina thought it best to keep the conversation well away from Vix. “He’s just warm-blooded. You’re cooler. Hot and cold don’t mix.” Like Vix and Hadrian… but I’m cool-blooded too, and Vix and I mix just fine.

Better not to think of that, at the moment.

“Anyway,” Sabina continued. “Even if Trajan doesn’t favor you, Empress Plotina does. And he listens to her. You may get your building program yet.”

“And be too busy making this city beautiful ever to think about leaving it.” The words burst out of Hadrian like a flood of water from a broken dam. “Half my life I’ll spend debating in the Senate house, making speeches and overseeing officials and reviewing lists, and there’s so much in the world to see! The Nile in flood, and the Sibyl at Delphi, and those mist-covered mountains you told me about in Brigantia—” He was waving his arms again, the way he always did when enthusiasm ran away with him. “The temple of Artemis in Ephesus—the great forests in Dacia—”

“Will you ever see them?” Sabina asked. “Plotina has so very many plans for your future…”

“Yes, she does.” Hadrian worried at the corner of his thumbnail.

They walked along in silence for a moment.