Rain was dripping outside even now. Nothing stayed dry in the fort; the camp was a sea of mud half the time, and so were the half-paved streets of the town that had sprung up between the camp and the river. “Moguntiacum, it’s called.” Titus rolled the word off. “At least I can finally say it now—only took me a month. Mostly everyone calls it Mog. Not much of a place. Mostly it’s here to keep the legionaries in taverns and whores and all the other things that keep the men from mutiny during the cold months.”

Precious little for entertainment. No arena, no libraries, just taverns with never-ending dice games and a few wet and forlorn-looking shrines. “I don’t think Grandfather has to worry about the whores,” he told his father. “They all look so sullen, I wouldn’t dare make any of them an offer.” The only other women were legionary wives—the soldiers weren’t supposed to marry, but wives and mistresses found their way into the fort anyway: tough and terrifying creatures in hobnailed sandals who could have snapped Titus over one knee.

A year he would be stationed here, and just one month of it gone. A year in a wet dark place that sounded like a cough full of bile, without a good book or a pretty woman or a decent conversation to be had for five hundred miles. “‘The same night awaits us all,’” he quoted, but Horace wasn’t much comfort tonight.

A brisk tap sounded on the door. “Tribune!”

One of the legate’s aides greeted him, frowning over a wax tablet. “You’re the one who quotes, aren’t you?”

That should make you proud, Father, Titus thought. A whole month in the Tenth Fidelis, and I’ve already made a name for myself. I’m universally known as ‘the one who quotes.’ “That’s me,” he sighed.

“The legate wants a thorough report on the Dacian garrisons,” the aide went on. “A tribune, a centurion and optio, and double guards. You’re to go.”

“Me? The Dacian garrisons—you mean all the way across Pannonia?”

“That’s how you get to Dacia, yes,” the aide said irritably. “Tribune Celsus was supposed to lead the party, but he came down ill this morning.”

More like he doesn’t want to spend the next two weeks riding through the mud and getting shot at by Dacian bowmen. “I’ve never been on a route march,” Titus hedged. “I’ve just come last month, I haven’t even left Mog yet—”

“Legate said it would be good for you. Suit up! They leave in an hour.”

“I’m supposed to lead them?”

“Just do what the centurion tells you.” The aide smirked. “You might make it back alive.”

“That’s what I love about the Tenth Fidelis,” Titus said. “Such humor and wit, such encouragement and support. So comforting to a newcomer like me.”