I leaned forward in my camp chair and contemplated the back of the hunched figure occupying the far side of my bed. She clutched a dagger – years of warfare let you recognize what that turn of shoulder likely meant. How old was this northern princess – sixteen, fifteen? By the gods, not only was I unsure of my newly acquired wife’s age, but I was hazy on her actual name. All her countrymen addressed her as Maela, but that was just the Celts’ word for Princess. 

Was she going to plunge her closely held weapon into her heart or mine? Both courses of action would be a disaster – well the latter would relieve me from experiencing the fallout from the recent and rapid destruction of my carefully laid plans. Taking another swallow of the appropriately sour wine, I told myself to stop wallowing in the past. The Fates cared not for sentiment, and neither should a soldier of the Empire. I began to plot a way forward.​​