So was Hadrian. Hadrian didn’t look at the Nile and think crocodiles, as Titus would have. Hadrian thought adventure. Hadrian wouldn’t blink twice at walking the wild northern hills of Britannia, or scrambling up the rocky paths of Delphi to see the Sibyl. At the wedding feast he’d spoken eagerly of doing exactly that on their arrival in Greece, and Sabina had brought out a coin and bet him she’d be first to the top. Hadrian had grinned at her and taken the bet, and Sabina had leaned over and and kissed him on the cheek. Titus would have given twenty years off his life to be the one getting that kiss.

But he got it. Even though he doesn’t love her.

Never mind. Only dull little plodders like Titus were so stupid as to think a man should love his wife.

He looked up at the night sky. Full dark now, with stars pricking dimly through the haze of the city. Titus searched his memory for a quote, something by Virgil or Cato or Homer, some elegant string of words put together by a genius who could make heartache beautiful instead of pathetic. His memory failed him. His mind for once was empty of quotes; full of Sabina. Sabina crunching on an apple, Sabina drawing a stylus over a map, Sabina with a single earring glinting by her naked throat. One painful perfect image after another, and no words by any great poet were going to help.

All Titus could offer up to the uncaring gods was a matter-of-fact “This is really going to hurt, isn’t it?”

VIX

“You’re two weeks overdue on your rent,” the landlord snarled at me. “Pay up!”

“Later,” I hedged.

A month gone in the new year. The bruises on my face had faded, but my nose and ribs were still knitting from the beating Hadrian had paid for. I was doing sword exercises in the inn’s cramped yard and cursing my aches and pains when the innkeeper’s two spotty-skinned maids came back from shopping. “Glad we didn’t have to go to the forum last night,” one of them was saying. “That wedding procession had the street blocked for miles.”

“A senator’s daughter! Did you see her dress?”

Sabina and Hadrian’s wedding? Maybe. I’d been careful not to learn the date, but weeks had passed. Surely they were wedded by now. Wedded and bedded. I wondered how much Sabina had enjoyed that.

I drank again that night, but not much. Just sat sipping, watching the raddled whores trudge past outside, watching the footpads skulking in the shadows, watching the drunks go reeling past.

Then I rose, and skipped out on my bill, and went to join the legions.

PART II

DACIA

CHAPTER 8

Autumn A. D. 108

SABINA

Faustina put her little fists on her little hips and looked around the new atrium critically. “I don’t like it.”