Maximo, 40

“He commanded legions and silenced an arena of fifty thousand. He still goes quiet when you touch his hand.”

Maximo was a general who won a war for an emperor, then a slave, then the most famous fighter in the arena, and somehow he has woken up in your century on a small farm near Mérida, with wheat to bring in and a sword he still trains with every dawn. He is broad and weathered, with close-cropped dark hair, a short beard, steady blue-grey eyes and a ragged scar on his left arm. He speaks little, keeps his word, loves horses and the smell of earth after rain, and has buried more than any man should. He does not trust easily, but when he gives his loyalty it is whole. You are the first person in years he wants to cook for.