Empress of the Seven Hills (27 page)

“If you will see these letters delivered, and then collect the next batch of correspondence,” Hadrian told Titus, not looking up from a wax tablet where he was jotting rapid figures. “Send the prefect of the camp to see me tomorrow before march; I don’t like the situation with the grain stores. Someone’s skimming, and if it’s not him, he’ll know who.”

He’d better.
“And the report for the Emperor?” Titus reminded him, juggling an armload of slates and scrolls.

“I’ll copy it out myself. Lucius, that report from the chief centurion about insubordination in the fourth cohort—”

Legate Hadrian’s immaculate tent hummed like a beehive: an aide rummaging among the books stacked in their orderly cases, the desk tidily divided into stacks of completed work and half-completed work and work yet to be touched, the slave with the wine flagon perfectly matched to the slave with the pen case. Another tribune hovered, waiting with a batch of slates. A third tribune was just dashing out with a message, brushing past Titus. A secretary filed scrolls while a slave brushed mud from the boots the legate had worn that day and set out a second immaculate pair for the following morning. Another secretary took down a letter Hadrian was dictating—“Sign it
By the hand of Publius Aelius Hadrian
, will you?”—while Hadrian himself simultaneously
finished writing his own report in perfect, unhurried script. The only one in the room not hard at work was the old dog lying asleep with her head on Hadrian’s foot.

“The chief centurion sent a message.” Titus waited for a gap in his legate’s even dictation. “A reminder that you wished to inspect the second cohort tomorrow?”

“Thank you, I had not forgotten.” Hadrian, as far as Titus could tell after a week’s work on active march, forgot nothing. He attended punishment details and promotion ceremonies in person, no matter how lowly; he made a point of remembering the names of not only the higher officers but the centurions; and when the legionaries had a complaint, they learned they could take it direct to their legate, who would listen and pronounce judgment rather than shove such problems off on a tribune. Hadrian rode all day in full armor rather than be carried in a litter, as much a part of his big horse as a centaur; he worked far into the night wearing out secretaries, aides, and tribunes by the handful; and he rose in the morning as early as any legionary. All looking as calm, clean, and impeccable in his superbly polished armor and neatly trimmed beard as if he had just stepped out of a bathhouse.

“Lady Sabina sent a message as well, sir,” Titus said. “She asks if she will be dining with you this evening?”

“No, I will work. Send my regrets.”

Titus sighed a little. He’d been delighted to find that Sabina was coming along on the Dacian campaign—surely when he was working under Hadrian, he’d see her every day? But she’d hardly once stepped into Hadrian’s busy whirl of a tent. And the last time he’d taken his horse back to her luxurious palanquin, she hadn’t even been riding in it. “She’s off exploring,” her maid had said.

“You’ve got it comfortable, haven’t you?” Titus couldn’t help remarking. The maid lounged on her mistress’s cushions, fanning the dust away with Sabina’s plumed fan.

“Don’t tell on me, will you, sir?” The maid grinned: a scrappy urchin of thirteen Sabina had plucked from a begging bowl and a street corner
in Brundisium, Titus knew. Sabina was always picking girls up in odd places and offering them jobs in her household. Half of them robbed her blind and ran away again, but it never seemed to discourage her from picking up another one. “Lady Sabina told me she doesn’t mind if I take things easy here.”

“I wouldn’t dream of telling on you,” Titus had promised. Still, he’d hoped to see more of the girl’s mistress on this campaign…

“Thank you, Tribune.” Hadrian put his seal to the bottom of his report, took a second letter from the secretary for signing, lifted a hand for a fresh pen, and still found the time to look up at Titus with a smile. “I think I’ve used you up quite enough for one evening. Dismissed.”

“Used up is right,” one of the other tribunes grumbled as he and Titus left the tent. “Why couldn’t the old legate have stayed? He never made us do anything except keep his wine cup full.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I like Hadrian. Can’t say he doesn’t work harder than we do.”

“I still wouldn’t mind a layabout. Legate Parminius’s tribunes don’t spend all day dashing up and down the column with his correspondence. They get to hunt, ride in litters. I’ve got blisters!”

“Rub them with goose grease,” Titus advised. A cure he’d picked up from Vix. Perhaps he’d drop in on Vix’s
contubernium
tonight—the first time since they’d started the march that he’d had an evening to himself.

“I hope you didn’t come for dinner.” Vix looked up from the cooking pot he was stirring over the low fire. “Julius made this stew before he went on sentry duty, and it tastes like boiled boots.”

“I’ll put up with the dinner for the company, Slight.” Titus settled himself by the fire, folding up his long legs under his tunic. He always changed out of his tribune armor and insignia before coming to visit Vix and his
contubernium
brothers, since it saved them the trouble of won-dering if they had to salute him or not. They looked up at him—the little Greek Philip tossing his dice and big fair-haired Boil half asleep by the fire and bearded Simon whittling a stick—and they all gave friendly nods. Titus nodded back, taking a bowl of stew from Vix just as they did, and
settling in to eat. Night had fallen by now, the last streaks of red sunset gone behind the line of trees, and the flickering light of the fire cast a pool of warmth in the black. A black broken by thousands of tiny pools, Titus thought as he looked out over the orderly expanse of camp. A field of fires in every direction as every
contubernium
in the Tenth settled to eat dinner, sharpen swords, doctor blisters, trade stories—and do it all the next day, and the next, until either they or a Dacian king was dead.

“You’re right,” Titus told Vix after a taste of the stew. “Boiled boots, I’m afraid, is putting it kindly. I suppose you’re missing Demetra and her lamb stews now, eh?”

Simon and Philip let out identical snickers. “Not exactly,” Vix said, rubbing a hand over the back of his head. “I’ve got another girl.”

Titus raised a disapproving eyebrow. “Would it do any good to tell you that the mother of your child is due not only courtesy, but fidelity?”

Vix kept eating. “No.”

“Then I won’t bother.” Titus had heard of the old saying about a man who could fall into a sewer and come out smelling of roses. Vix, he thought, could fall into a sewer and come out with a pretty girl on each arm.

A female voice sounded behind Titus. “Is there room for one more?”

Sabina?

Titus looked up in astonishment. His legate’s wife, looking nothing like a legate’s wife, with a sheepskin cloak and a sunburned nose and a rope of hair over one shoulder.

Did she come looking for me?
But the flush of pleasure had barely started to spread through his chest when she took two steps forward and jumped up into Vix’s arms.

For a moment Titus wondered if he was dreaming. Dreams were like that sometimes—people and places mixing up in mad ways, nothing like it was in real life. But it occurred to him that if this were his dream, then Sabina would be jumping up into
his
arms, holding her face up for
his
kisses. It wouldn’t be Vix twining a hand through her hair and tipping her head back so he could set his mouth at the base of her throat. It would be Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus.

Not a dream
, he thought numbly.
No, not a dream at all.

“Titus!” Sabina exclaimed as Vix finally set her down on her feet. “I didn’t even see you sitting there. Since when are you and Vix such friends?”

He was surprised at how evenly his voice came out. “I could ask you the same.”

She smiled and put a finger to her lips, eyes flicking sideways to where Simon and Boil and Philip had pushed their bowls aside for a game of dice. “Later, I think. Dear gods, Vix, don’t tell me you let Julius make the stew?”

Titus felt a twist in his stomach at the casual way she used Vix’s name.
Not so Slight at all, if you got a girl like that.
Because Sabina clearly came often to sit by this fire, from the way she teased Philip about cheating at dice and begged Simon to teach her the Hebrew prayer for bread. From the way she sat curled in Vix’s arms, her head leaned back against his shoulder as he reached around her from either side to stitch up his torn helmet lining… Titus concentrated on his stew, very carefully spooning up every last drop and swallowing it down. He got another bowl, not tasting it at all, and that lasted him until Boil and Simon at last went yawning into the tent to sleep, and Philip finally staggered off to see if he could find a whore. Then, and only then, did Titus look up.

“Well?” he said.

Sabina smiled. “So how did you and Vix meet all the way out here?”

“He saved my life a time or two when I first arrived in Dacia.” Titus took a deep breath. “And you?”

Vix and Sabina looked at each other for an instant, and then their eyes cut away as they both started laughing at the exact same moment. That was when Titus felt a shaft of pure jealousy bolt through him. Jealousy, he noticed in passing, tasted a sour yellow on the palate—yellow as bile.

“It’s a long story.” Sabina reached up and smoothed Vix’s hair back from his eyes.

“I like long stories.” Though Titus had a feeling he wasn’t going to like this one.

“She couldn’t resist me five years ago, when I was a guard in her father’s house.” Vix kissed the side of her neck complacently. “And she can’t resist me now.”

“Maybe it’s not that long a story after all,” Sabina concluded. “Though if we’re talking about who couldn’t resist who, Vix—”

Five years ago.
So when I was bringing her violets and Hadrian was quoting her poetry…

Oh, dear gods. Hadrian.

“You’re both utterly mad,” Titus burst out. “You think Legate Hadrian won’t find out? A legion is no place to keep secrets!”

“I’m not keeping any,” Sabina said equably from within the circle of Vix’s arms. They made quite a picture in the flickering firelight: utterly at ease, utterly content. Sabina had laced both her small hands through one of Vix’s big ones, and his long hard fingers played idly with the ends of her plaited hair. “Hadrian already knows I explore more than I should. And he probably assumes I have a lover of some kind. He’s made it clear over the years that he doesn’t mind, as long as there are no inconvenient bastards and as long as I’m discreet.”

Now you tell me
, Titus couldn’t help thinking.
If I’d known that back in Rome after you married…
He thrust that thought away, at least for the present. “Discretion or no, I doubt Hadrian would take kindly to learning you’ve chosen—well, a common legionary.”

She tilted her head to gaze up at Vix. “Hardly common.”

Titus looked at Vix too. “You’d be flogged. Maybe executed.”

“Only if he finds out.” Vix sent a cocksure glance over Sabina’s sleek head. “Who’s going to tell him, Titus? You?”

Titus considered that for a heartbeat. But only a heartbeat. “You’re both mad,” he repeated.

“Possibly,” said Sabina. “Here, I brought a wineskin. Have something to drink before you faint.”

Titus poured out a cup of wine and swallowed it unwatered for the first time in his life. He barely felt the burn as he offered the skin back to Sabina. “I didn’t think you were the kind to take lovers,” he said at last, quietly.

“Does it lessen your opinion of me?” Her smile faded to something gentler. “I’d be very sorry if it did.”

“Why should it?” Vix hooted. “You know what Hadrian is!”

“I suppose only us old-fashioned sorts believe in fidelity anymore.” Titus knew he sounded like a pompous ass, but he couldn’t help it. “Fidelity to our wives, our husbands—and to the mothers of our children, Vercingetorix.”

Vix sent a stare of grim warning over Sabina’s head:
Don’t you dare mention Demetra.
Titus wondered if he should.

Sabina was still looking at him, her face grave. “I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you, Titus.”

He sighed. “You haven’t.” Could one really fault any woman married to a man of Hadrian’s tastes? Everyone in the Tenth knew Hadrian had an arrangement with one of Titus’s fellow tribunes, not to mention a handsome young aide and an even more handsome engineer. “I don’t think less of you,” Titus said, and the smile returned to Sabina’s eyes.

But couldn’t you have picked—someone else?
he couldn’t help thinking. Someone besides crude, cocky, grinning, lying, unfaithful, uncouth Vix?

Or was that tall, strong, brave, ambitious, confident Vix, at least to Sabina? Titus looked down at himself: his legs, which still stuck out long and bony from his tunic; his skinny wrists, which had never been broadened by using a sword.

His hair was probably sticking up in back.

“So I’ll have to work with my legate for the next six months or however long this campaign lasts,” Titus said finally, just to be saying something, “and keep him from finding out that I spend my nights sitting around a fire with his wife and her legionary lover?”

“That’s right,” Sabina agreed. “Thank goodness you can keep a straight face. I think it’s something to do with how we senatorial children are brought up.”

“Excuse me,” Vix objected. “The vulgar pleb is feeling insulted.”

“Admit it! You can’t hide your feelings to save your life—”

I can
, Titus thought with a wrench.
And dear gods, I’m going to have to.

VIX

Memory is as full of holes as a wormy apple. I thought I remembered that Dacian campaign so clearly—even now, so many years later, I wake in the night smelling the tang of those dark pines. No other pines smell like that, at least not in any of the places I’ve traveled, and I’ve traveled most of the Empire at one time or another. I remember the pines as if it were yesterday, and I remember other things too, but mostly details. The larger things are hazy.