‘Why do you like me to keep these on?’ she asked.

‘So you can always run away if you choose to,’ he said, his mind blissfully hazy and unable to think of anything witty.

‘If anyone has been listening to us they will be very jealous.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Most of the men fancy me.’ He dodged a slap.

‘Take Vepoc as well as Ivonercus,’ she said, once again the queen.

‘Aren’t they both sworn to kill me?’ Even if Enica wanted to return to business, Ferox was determined to make the most of this moment and started to kiss her neck.

‘Yes, but it will be a mark of faith and trust to take them with you.’

He pulled away. ‘Lovely.’

‘And do not trust Sosius.’

‘I never have.’

‘Then trust even less. He must go for he is Hadrian’s man, but from what I have seen and from what Bran and poor Minura said, he is bad and a very dangerous man.’

‘So I am going then.’

‘You are going. The tribune says so, and much more importantly so do I.’

Ferox sighed. ‘You have just given me a lot of good reasons to stay here with you.’

The queen freed herself from his grasp and stood up. ‘Well you will not have any more of those reasons until you have saved us all.’ She bent down to pick up her scattered clothes and Ferox bit his lip rather than risk a comment.

‘Are you trying to get rid of me?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Go – but come back.’

‘I do not trust Piso either.’

‘Jealous, eh? Think I want you out the way for that reason?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So I am too old, too plain.’ The old Claudia was back now. He still found it hard to cope with so many very different women all inside the same person. She laughed and took pity. ‘I reckon he would try if he thought that he had a chance. Be the last thing he ever tried, and I suspect he knows that now.’

They finished dressing in silence and when they were done she again reached up and this time pecked him on the cheek.

‘I did not think that it would be like this.’

The urge to say something flippant about a man trying his best died as he saw the emotion in her eyes.

‘The fighting just goes on and on, and so many fall.’ Sometimes the smoothness with which she killed made it easy to forget that she had seen little of war.

‘It can be just hard work and butchery,’ he said. ‘And luck matters more than skill.’

‘How have you stood it all these years?’ she asked. ‘I do not believe that I would ever again seek this out, save only to defend my own family and folk.’

Ferox was not sure what to say because he did not know what the answer was. Much of his life had been spent in fighting and killing and seeing friends die. It was not that he was used to it, but it was easier and he no longer really knew any other life. Somehow he kept surviving and then the next fight would come and he was still there at the end of that.