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“You only say so because you didn’t know her,” Safinia said. “My mother was stronger than I am. Levelheaded. She was a born leader.”

“Mm, yes, you do seem keen to your differences. What kind of leader would you make, I wonder, as passionate as you are?”

“What does it matter?” she asked crossly. “I’m not my mother.”

“Where I come from, it’s considered a stimulating intellectual pursuit, considering the kind of world you would build, had you the blocks. Didn’t you ever play ‘if I were king’?”

There was a shorthand now between them—enough for Livy to know she was a moment away from saying something rude. He set aside his dinner, digging around in his pack before producing, with a flourish, a small wooden box—Safinia could tell, in the way he moved, that he wanted to cheer her up.

“Here we are!” he said. “How about this, my disgruntled friend—celebrate our progress with me, and I will reward you with a story about a woman who is remembered by history.”

He offered a skin of wine to Safinia as he set about fussing with the contents of the little box—dried seeds. The wine he must have been hiding from her this whole time was sweet, expensive. Livy sprinkled the seeds and stems over the hearth. Some caught with a flare of fire; the rest cracked and simmered. “I noticed the right sort of hemp growing in quantity outside Cures and took the liberty,” he said. “It’s plenty dry enough now—breathe deeply, and your head should feel light and warm. It’s very pleasant.”

Safinia closed her eyes. The hut glowed behind her eyelids. “I haven’t done this in a long time.”

“Here I thought I was teaching you something new.”

She shrugged. “As you said, it grows in quantity. My father used to throw hemp on the hearth to treat his headaches.”

“In my time, it’s used less medicinally. Men of status will occasionally consume vapors, hemp and other substances, as they socialize.”

The light softened and grew like the tide. Occasionally, Livy reached over to stir the coals, and a new buffet of smoke would wash over them both. “Stronger than when I was young,” she mumbled.

Livy watched her, eyes glittering and reddish with firelight. She watched him back. “I’ll break your nose if you try to kiss me,” she said.

He snorted. “I have no interest in such things, even in an altered state. My only love is history. I was only thinking that I wish you could see all that I have.”

“Why me?”

“Because watching you think about the future is a joy,” Livy said, his lips stretched wide over his teeth, wet and white. “I suspect such things have never occurred to you before our paths crossed. Me and my contemporaries, all we do is think about legacy. That which came before us, that which we’ll leave behind.”

“You always say contemporaries, never friends,” Safinia pointed out.

“I have a few friends. Mostly I have acquaintances, who scrutinize my table manners, titter over the few provincial mannerisms I haven’t managed to excise from my muscle memory,” Livy said. “Vultures.”

“I remember that feeling,” Safinia said. Despite herself, she smiled as she thought of Tarpeia. Back when she was determined to catch Hersilia’s eye, the insults had felt catastrophic.

“What would you know of society? You can’t have been welcome at Numa Pompilius’s table.”

“I told you that I was friends with Hersilia. I was her—” Safinia swallowed the word she wanted. “Guard.”

Safinia pillowed her head in her hands, stretching out on the soft floor, not caring that there would be dried leaves and shit in her hair. Livy shuddered.

“Weren’t you going to tell me a story?” she asked. “Some woman more interesting than my mother?”

He laughed lightly. “I’m not so sure about that. I’m the first to admit the concept of a female Centuria is alien to me. No, the woman I’m going to tell you about was responsible for the fall of a monarchy—a powerful one, lasting hundreds of years. Her name was Lucretia.”

“Sounds like a busy girl,” Safinia mumbled, closing her eyes again.

“Hush. Do you want to hear this?”

She hushed.

As Livy spoke, the world around Safinia fell away; his hands moved in the air, illustrating characters as they spoke, or the things they touched. She could almost see it, beyond the rippling light of the hearth. A beautiful woman, sitting by her spinning wheel, her hair covered in the Latin style.

“Lucretia,” Livy said. And then he went on.

A man rose from his fingertips: Sextus Tarquinius, third son of a tyrant king. He was a friend to Lucretia’s husband, and visited their home as he passed through town. There, he met Lucretia, trailed his fingers over the skin of her shoulders. She flinched at his touch. Safinia knew what came next. When Lucretia’s husband left for a battlefront, Sextus doubled back to visit her again.