The Gift, Part VI

Hyperion, in between screaming himself hoarse during the chariot races at the Circus Maximus, had managed in one day what Gaius hadn't been able to accomplish in two weeks: he'd found a good cook. She was already installed when Gaius and Julia reached the house that evening -- a shocking abrogation of authority on Hyperion's part, but Gaius was willing to overlook it for the moment, until they determined whether she was a decent cook or not.

"Picked 'er up at a caupona near the Circus," Hyperion whispered anxiously to them after he confessed. "They were givin' her the boot 'cause she's gone totally blind in one eye and halfway in the other, and the customers were goin' on about the Evil Eye and all that rot. She cooked me a damned good dinner last night, and lunch was bloody wonderful."

"Naw, she's not, but she lives out with her sister and brother-in-law, not three streets away," he said. "And I figure she won't see much, if anythin'. Seems to mind her own business, and she's a damned sight nicer than the She-Daemon. A bit too frail for heavy work, but then I can handle that."

Julia had moved past them to the end of the fauces, and was peeking across the peristyle and into the cucina: Gaius trotted up behind her. He could see the tiny, elderly woman working busily away.

"I trust Hyperion's judgement of her character. Are you certain she can manage, with the blindness?" she whispered to Hyperion.

"I walked her about the place real careful, and showed her where everythin' was in the cucina and the storeroom. She's quick -- rattled off where each thing was and laid hands on it right away, after. I reckon as long as we don't move things around without warnin' her, she'll be fine," Hyperion said proudly. "Not bad with the knife, either -- she's got a good touch."

"Are they here, Hyperion?" the old lady called out. "I hope so -- their dinner's nearly ready."

"Yes, they're home -- hang on a bit, I'll bring them over," he bawled out. "Damned good hearing, though," he mouthed to Gaius and Julia, and took them over to the cucina for introductions.

"All right then, what was the rest of the bit with Lavinia and potions?" Gaius asked after they'd cleaned up and were relaxing in the triclinium.

"She doesn't want any more babies," Julia said quietly as she took the cup of wine Gaius had poured for her. "Or rather, she wants more space between them."

"Quintus gave me that impression too," Gaius said. "That's partly what... changed my attitude toward him a bit, by the time we left."

"Well, it's.... You see, Pater was married once before Mater, and all my older siblings are from that woman. I knew that, of course, but Mater's never made any distinction between any of us, and I suppose I never realised how awful it must have been. Quintus' mother had fourteen children in seventeen years, apparently --"

"Right, and only the six lived. Then there's a gap, between when Pater married my mater."

"Yes. Quintus seems upset that they can't control Lavinia's pregnancies. Doesn't want her to go the same way as his mater, though Lavinia looks a damned sight more healthy than she apparently was. So Lavinia wants -- what? -- for you to make her a potion to prevent pregnancy?"

"That's forbidden in both worlds," he said sharply. "Does she have any idea what she's asked you to do?"

"Technically it's not forbidden in the non-magical," Julia said patiently. "It's not encouraged. But yes, she knows."

"They must be desperate, Gaius. I think they've done their bit, don't you?" she said. "Lavinia said they'd all shown, even Lucillus, before.... Except for the babies, but it's too early for them, yet."

"It is. I don't think she intends never to have any again, simply space them out longer, as your mother has. But it's a moot point, in any case."

"I know there are ways, but Pater never allowed me to even read about them. They're classified as dark arts, you know."

"I doubt that they really are, but it's handy to call them such so people won't muck about with them. They're quite dangerous for the woman. I know Pater would only use them as a last resort, and I wouldn't want to attempt it on anyone."

"You told Lavinia all this, then?" Gaius asked quickly -- though he wanted badly to ask about Nigellus.

"I explained that I didn't know how. I don't know the potions for contraception, either, but I think be able to adapt some non-magical methods, if they'll let me consult the medical texts at the library --"

Gaius held up his hand to still her: they could hear cook shuffling along the peristyle toward the triclinium, and waited until the old woman reached the room.

"About five paces to your right, Fenia Tertulla," Julia said gently when she appeared in the door.

"Six of mine, really," Fenia said with a smile as she came forward. (Gaius thought perhaps the caupona's customers had been right in a way -- the milky, totally clouded eye was off-putting -- but she certainly seemed a nice, gentle soul. He hoped to the gods that she could actually cook.) "Hyperion and I worked it all out, thank you, Mistress."

She put the plate of gustum confidently in the centre the table and shuffled back off, gnarled fingers lightly gliding along the wall to locate the door.

"Anyway, I might be able to put together an effective regimen for Lavinia," Julia continued when the old woman had gone. "If non-magicals can manage it, I certainly can. If you give me permission to try, of course."

"Hmmm. Quintus said they'd tried some method or other," Gaius said, taking a handful of olives.

"Yes, but I get the sense that...." Julia shot him a look. "This might be more than you want to know."

"Go ahead," Gaius said, and sighed, remembering Quintus' squeamishness about 'womens' talk.'

"Her cycle isn't very regular, and that may be part of the problem. If I treat both things, they might be more successful."

"Oh. Good," he said, relieved she hadn't gone into detail. (He didn't know what she meant by 'cycle,' actually, and decided to read up on it rather than ask.)

"I suppose they ought not... you know, for a while," Julia said, gnawing at her thumbnail, "until I get her straightened out."

"Don't chew at your nails." Gaius said automatically, and softened the reprimand with "Your hands are too pretty to muck up."

Julia blushed even more deeply, jerked her hand away from her mouth, and nearly upset her wine-cup in her confusion.

"I can send something down for him right away," she said, regaining her composure. "Just a tonic, to keep him in better general health. And I'll write Pater first thing tomorrow."

"I, er, suppose if you need supplies they can come out of the household money for now...."

"Have to," she said softly, "as I'm forbidden to use my pocket-money for anyone but me." (She was smiling when she said it, though, and Gaius knew he was being teased yet again.)

"That reminds me -- you'd best get that silk made up. Ursus has been hinting about that dinner-party."

"It depends on how well Fenia Tertulla does, but I thought... Perhaps you'd care to have your junior over, now that the house is sorted?" Julia asked delicately.

"That? That was just following Ursus' orders. But it's not a bad idea," Gaius mused aloud, thinking of giving Primus a glimpse of comfortable married life -- bits of it, at least -- as incentive to bloody well settle down. "What about 'Postumus,' though?"

"Oh, he'll behave if I ask nicely, next time I see him. I think Rufia Docila was too nasty to bear, that's all."

Fenia Tertulla made her way back into the room -- more confidently, now -- with Hyperion at her heels, and proudly set a plate of fish in front of them.

"Turbot," Fenia said. "Hyperion found it this morning and snapped it up. And there's a nice custard for dessert, so leave a bit of room," she said over her shoulder as she left.

"Do I want to know how much this set us back?" Gaius asked him with raised eyebrows.

"Not nearly what you'd think," Hyperion shot back. "Got it right off the boat -- the fisherman was Greek, and we got on. Don't worry, I had to raid your cash-box, but I set the amount down on Julia's tablet."

Gaius stared at the fish. Turbot was very desirable and correspondingly expensive, and if Fenia Tertulla had made a bad job of it....

Gaius cautiously reached for the plate, broke off a bit of the fish, dredged it in the sauce, and bit into it -- and Julia followed suit when his eyes went wide and he smiled.

"It's perfect," he said, quite forgetting his manners and speaking as he chewed. "Nearly as good as Pater's chef. A damned sight better than the She-Daemon. How does she manage, I wonder?"

"Smell and texture," Hyperion said smugly. "I asked. Been cooking all her life. Not as wasteful as the She-Daemon, either."

"All right, you needn't crow about it so," Gaius grumbled. "I admit, you've scored a coup. Take the gustum away with you and go stuff yourself -- perhaps we'll leave you some fish as well." (They would, of course -- it was too bloody big.)

"Yes, go ahead, you old bastard," Gaius said with a long-suffering sigh. "Well done."

"He did it quite deliberately, you know. Start her off with something really spectacular. I shouldn't be surprised if he paid for part of it himself," Julia said.

"Probably," Gaius admitted, and tucked into the fish. "I told Quintus he was useful," he added in a satisfied mutter, and allowed himself to enjoy a much more satisfying dinner -- in his own home, with pleasant company -- than any rich, tactless relative could possibly provide.

The next few days were glorious. Ursus had insisted that Gaius and Primus knock off work early due to the Games: Gaius actually had time to spend his afternoons at Fountain Court, struggling with the Levitation and studying some new texts for ideas how to go about it more efficiently, and then made his way home every evening in time for what was always an excellent (if less spectacular than the first) dinner.

Athletics were not the only things celebrated during the Ludi Romani: there were the Ludi scaeni, as well -- dramatic competitions. He hadn't been impressed with them the one year he'd attended. Most of them were low comedies with, as his brother Lucius had indicated, actors running about wagging grossly-exaggerated phalli. But even Gaius had to admit that the revival of a comedy by Plautus which he'd once seen had been entertaining, and he'd enjoyed reading Aristophanes, so he supposed it was a relatively harmless waste of time.

He made certain, however, that he took Julia to a staid and respectable, if somewhat gory, drama.

She was still a bit unnerved by the crowds and the bad behavior of some of the assembly, but he distracted her by pointing out the officials -- particularly the aedile responsible for funding the Ludi scaeni -- and as soon as the play itself started she was entranced, leaning forward with her arms clasped about her knees, and totally oblivious to the occasional disruption in the audience.

The subject was, unfortunately, Medea. Gaius had forgot about that horrific rumour that Julia might be a descendant: but if she was disturbed, she didn't show it at all.

Probably just idiocy on Publius' mater's part, then, he thought, and settled in to enjoy it himself.

"Interesting," was Julia's comment as they pushed their way through the crowds later, Gaius' arm firmly about her to protect her from the shoving.

"It was really only a re-write of Seneca," she said. "There wasn't much original in it."

"Well, think of it, Gaius! The poor woman leaves her home and family for Jason, for love. She helps him steal the Fleece. She even kills her brother to prevent Jason being caught, and how does he repay her? By abandoning her for a woman he doesn't love, and trying to take their children away. Euripides at least had some compassion for her. She didn't seem at all human, in this version."

"Political expedience," Gaius said under his breath, "is a great motivator, and it's more common now than you'd think. Love and fidelity wouldn't come into it at all in the average Roman mind. They're rooting for Jason, I'm afraid."

He hustled her into the nearest doorway to avoid a corps of vigiles which came tearing down the street, responding to a fire in another Regio.

"Will it win, do you think?" she asked when they were safely on their way again.

"No telling. It's as much about how pretty the costumes and masks are, apparently. At how much money the playwright's patron has thrown at it."

"Oh, it was a lovely experience, Gaius, thank you. It's not that I didn't enjoy it. But some things," she declared, "need the test of time, I think."

"We'll try a revival then, next time," he said, greatly amused by her criticisms.

Drama had nothing to do with the human element, after all: it was all about the flair and polish of the writing and the presentation. It was a surprising flaw in Julia's education, but then, she was young. And female.

Work was slowing down immensely. Gaius had got a report yesterday of Dexion's ship being sighted off Sicilia on the 8th Ides -- good: the weather was holding, and Dexion was making excellent time. And first thing this morning Gaius had got another packet from Titus, with the official documents that included the Carthage clerk's evidence.

Muco was definitely implicated: the clerk had been foolish enough to leave an account of how many amphorae had been smuggled away from the shipment, and how much of the proceeds he and Muco had split. (He'd probably thought he could blackmail Muco with the evidence, later -- not only foolish, but blatantly stupid, because Gaius suspected the man would have ended up floating face-down in the Carthage harbour.)

Ursus looked at the documents, grunted in satisfaction, and set Gaius the task of tracking the son of a bitch down: so he presented the documents to a magistrate as soon as his feet could get him to the courts, and requested the authority to have Muco arrested and imprisoned, pending trial.

The better part of the two hours was spent waiting about while the arrest warrant was issued, and waiting for a representative from the shipping guild to meet him. They made the trip down to Portus along with Primus (to further his education, Gaius hoped), stopping at the vigiles' barracks to pick up a few men in the event Muco resisted; and by then it was rather late.

The problem was that when the vigiles had broken down the door to Muco's squalid rooms, there was no-one there. His landlady swore she'd heard him go up the wee hours of the morning, and hadn't seen or heard him come down: he should be there, but wasn't, and there was every indication that he'd actually fled.

"I hope Ursus is happy," the guild man sniped as the vigiles tore the place apart. "I was supposed to take my boys to the wrestling match this afternoon."

"How the bloody Hades could we know he'd take off?" Gaius shot back. "I had a report that he was still in town only yesterday."

"Definitely done a runner," the Watch captain informed them. "Cash box is empty and so's the clothes chest. All that's left is a bunch of dirty pictures and that lot."

Gaius strode over to the table where that lot -- a basin of burnt documents -- stood, carefully picked through the ashes until he found a crumpled bit of papyri that hadn't caught, and teased its charred edges open.

"Very. Charts -- maps of the sea routes -- are the sole property of the company. You pay a bloody fortune to have accurate charts made and to keep them accurate, and they often have sensitive information on them. He might've taken this one to a less-reputable company and made a packet off it.... I wonder why he didn't?"

"I'm heading back," the guild man said disdainfully. "I'll have him put on the blacklist, of course." (A fat lot of good that would do: it simply meant Muco wouldn't be able to work under his real name in any of the ports near Rome. Unless he could get forged papers he wouldn't be hired as a captain, and even then he'd have to be careful about which routes he accepted.)

"I'll go back with you," Primus said to the guild man, absolutely oblivious to the situation.

He gave Muco's description to the Watch captain, who promised to have it circulated about the taverns and lupanae; and then everyone but Gaius and Primus cleared out, though the vigiles cast longing looks at the "dirty pictures."

"First off," Gaius told Primus, "you're to take this copy of the arrest warrant over to the Forum and have the local magistrate post it -- add that there's a 200 denarii reward if he's turned in. Then you're to make certain any shippers with offices here have a description, in the event he tries to sign on to a crew. Next, check in with the harbour-master and find out the name and registry of any ships that put out this morning -- and their destination," he added grimly, "because he may well have already managed that. I'll be doing the same in Ostia."

"I don't think so -- he's too well-known, and people would ask too many questions. I'm betting he's gone up to Rome. He can hide pretty successfully there as long as he stays out of the Aventine."

"Primus," Gaius asked quietly, "You didn't hear Ursus and me talking about Muco, did you? And let it slip to someone?"

"No, Gaius," Primus replied, bewildered. "I didn't know anything about it until this morning, when you told me."

He seemed sincere, and Gaius knew he wasn't a good liar. Or at least he thought not.

"I'd like to know, then," he said, staring at the boy, "how my brother Quintus managed to get hold of our profit figures for the last two years. The preliminary ones, before the final adjustment."

"I might've said something to one of my mates," he admitted weakly. "I was awfully excited."

"You wanted to boast, you mean. Anything you see or hear in that office," he said distinctly, "is privileged information. Ursus' business and no-one else's, like the bloody charts. You keep your bloody mouth shut from now on."

"I'm s- sorry, Gaius," the boy stammered. "I didn't realise -- It's not in bad hands, is it?"

"Not this time," Gaius muttered. "It meant considerable humiliation for me, that's all. But you must understand that airing things like that can do immense damage."

"All right, fine," Gaius interrupted him. "I'll explain more later. When you come to dinner."

"Yes, blockhead -- unless I find you did know about Muco and spilled it, in which case you'll be dining with the other felons in prison. Go on, now, we've no time to waste," Gaius said irritably, and waved him off.

Gaius took a moment to swear (at the bedbugs, presumably, as they were the only other living creatures in the nasty place), and booted a piece of obscene pottery across the room.

Muco certainly hadn't spent his ill-got gains on his living quarters. His only luxury seemed to be the collection of erotica, Gaius noted as he picked through the tiles and statuettes.

Probably spent the rest on lupae and the chariot-races, he thought in disgust, and stared at a rather explicit drawing of a coupling man and woman, with the woman in the superior position. (A lupa had suggested it to Gaius once, but he'd found it as boring in execution as it was now on papyrus.) He tossed the trash off to the side, and -- mindful of his own tricks in hiding things -- gave the place one final search, coming up with nothing more damning than a jug of very fine wine tucked into a hole in the wall, behind a shutter. The bloody Watch had missed it: so much for their effectiveness.

Gaius was out of time. He needed to stop at the vigiles' barracks before he went to Ostia, to hire a few off-duty men to watch the room, in shifts, in case Muco returned.

He left the erotica. While Hyperion would undoubtedly appreciate the "artwork," Gaius was damned if he was going to lug such disgraceful stuff around Ostia and back to Rome. But he took the wine as the spoils of war: no sense in letting it go to waste or down the gullets of the blasted vigiles.

When he finally got home, close to midnight, Muco's wine went a long way toward sweetening his temper -- and it went quite well with the leftovers that a very sleepy Julia warmed for him over the hearth-coals.

Ursus had not been happy about Muco's escape. He accused Primus straight away, though Gaius got him calmed down and noted that it might be anyone, really: any of the warehouse workers might have overheard, for example, although no-one but the foreman Glaucus was supposed to go up to the offices. He was certain it couldn't have been Primus -- not after that horrid, embarrassed blush the boy couldn't prevent when he'd caught him out over the other matter.

"If I have to talk to the little bastard right now, he'll end up out on his ear," Ursus muttered. "But the bloody fool needs some disciplining. See to it, Gaius -- we can't afford to have him gossiping about this mess, even if he wasn't responsible. Make certain he keeps his cakehole shut."

He decided not to tell Ursus about the pirated profit figures, not just yet. If Primus would only shape up, perhaps he should never have to....

Gaius might be a fairer man than most, if a bit tetchy, but he wasn't above using sneaky methods to try to reach a desired goal -- so he devised a plan. (He couldn't help it, really: it was a characteristic of the Corvinii, though the pater and his brothers resorted to manipulative tactics far more often than Gaius ever did.) Primus seemed to be taking his position at Ursus Imports for granted, and had lapsed into thinking of Gaius as just another co-worker and occasional carousing-partner rather than as his immediate superior -- very well, then: it was time to show the pup how badly he'd miscalculated, but only after Gaius had lulled him into a false sense of security. Get him relaxed, just the right amount of wine, convince him that it was simply a social occasion, and then spring the trap. He'd give Primus a damned good verbal hiding when the boy came to dinner, and impress upon him that his blathering might well lose him his chance at a hypothetical promotion -- and, incidentally, any chance of marrying into Ursus' family.

That should fix the problem nicely, either way -- Primus would be on notice, and if he slipped again there would be no excuse.

Primus did seem to be trying to make up for his idiocy in the next few days: he continued to apply himself at work, showed up for dinner right on time -- in his best toga, hair spit-plastered back, and a jug of respectable wine as a belated housewarming present -- and dutifully admired the house and Hyperion's wall-paintings. He even managed not to babble, as was his custom -- but Gaius soon became aware that that was because he was badly flustered by Julia.

Gaius couldn't understand why. She looked her usual self: lovely, certainly, and in best stola and palla, and she was trying very hard to make Primus feel welcome without smothering him. They'd even brought in the extra lectus from what had been Rufia Docila's room: it wasn't as though Primus was sharing a couch with her.

Still, Primus couldn't seem to put three words together when she was in the room.

Gaius kicked him in the shins when Julia left to check on the progress of the cooking.

"She's a good conversationalist, if you give her something to work with," Gaius muttered. "She won't bite."

"I'm just -- I'm fine," Primus shot back irritably, and rubbed at his shin. "I'm still in visual appreciation mode, that's all."

"Yes, yes, she's beautiful, etcetera -- You made that clear the first damned time you met her. She's got a brain to match, too, if you'll bother to explore that."

Primus eyed Gaius warily, and declined. But he also made a valiant attempt to actually communicate when Julia returned from the cucina, and they were soon chattering away, only slowing when Fenia brought in the gustum and the other courses.

Good. Creep just a bit closer, little fish, Gaius thought as he relaxed into the cushions, and watched Primus' earnest, flushed face and the flash of Julia's few wrist-bangles in the lamplight as she gracefully illustrated a point. Take the bait. I'm almost ready to embed the hook.

"Gods, Gaius, but that was pleasant!" Primus nattered on, later in the tablinum. "You have no idea."

"No, I obviously do," Gaius said dryly, and set up the old, scarred Latrunculi board that he and Publius had crafted when they were boys.

"Oh --" Primus giggled as he tipsily scooped up a handful of the carved bone pieces and got them more or less on their squares. " 'Course you do. I just didn't expect it -- you seemed so narked when you left, in August."

"Which just goes to show that a man doesn't always know what he wants until he gets it," Gaius said evenly, and placed his own pieces on the board quite precisely. "What he's missing out on, until it's right in front of his face."

"I hope you will," Gaius said, and leaned across the desk, "because you are in grave danger of losing it before you know it's there."

"I thought you wanted to be seriously considered as a future partner in the business."

"Well, perhaps it's my fault," Gaius mused. "In the midst of everything, I let you get too familiar. Shouldn't have gone out, I suppose, for one -- you've decided that I'm a mate, and not your senior. You've got lazy, Primus. You've not taken the job seriously, because I've been there to get you out of scrapes before too much damage was done."

"That's not.... Look, Gaius, I realise now that I bolloxed up the Muco account. And I shouldn't have shot my mouth off about the figures, I know."

"Realising it's fine, Primus. The question is whether you understand what's at stake, and what you intend to do about it."

"No, I don't think you do. For example, the figures. Do you know that if my brother wished, he could dig about some more and figure out what our most profitable route is? He could approach the clients on that route and offer them a contract. Lowball us, even if it meant taking a loss on the route for a year or two, in the hopes that it would put Ursus out of business. Corvinus Shipping could easily handle the loss until Ursus went under."

"I know what I said. And I said that because I know that my pater, while a fine and occasionally ruthless businessman, also has a sense of honour. Corvinus Shipping has plenty of business, he won't go out of his way or play dirty tricks to get more, and my brothers know that's how he expects them to manage. But another man might not be so honourable, or might be desperate for the extra business. I'm guessing," Gaius said, rubbing his last unplaced piece between thumb and forefinger, "that your mate thought he knew where to peddle that information to his advantage. He took it straight to my brother. He might even have become your friend precisely for that purpose." (He didn't know this for certain -- he hadn't got Quintus to admit how he'd got the figures -- but Primus couldn't know that.)

Primus looked as though Fenia's lovely dinner was about to make an encore presentation.

"As far as the Muco account, you took Ursus' word that the man can be trusted. But you can't trust anyone, not even on Ursus' advice. Things can go terribly wrong, Primus. People can go terribly wrong. Dexion was incredibly trustworthy, but do you think I checked his manifests any less carefully than I do anyone else's?"

"It's a business, Primus, and there's no leeway for trust in it. There's only profit and loss. No grey areas."

"Very nearly. I think the only thing that's saved you is known as 'dumb luck.' And we can't afford it."

"You're saying I should give it up, aren't you? Or -- oh, bloody.... You're not sacking me, are you?"

"That depends. Are you ready to buckle down and stop playing at it? Start thinking of it as your business even though you're a junior, not Senior, not a partner? Because I can guarantee you that until you do, Ursus will never be confident of you. He'll eventually give you a shot at Senior -- assuming I don't tell him about the figures -- and you'll fail miserably at it because your attitude is shit, and you'll be out."

"But he -- It's pointless, really. You're going to make Partner, Gaius, I'm certain of it. The best I could hope for is Senior, anyway."

"And do you think I'll keep a senior about that I can't trust -- or a junior, for that matter? Or one whose work I have to check constantly? I wouldn't, and Ursus won't either. I daresay that if I have to tell him about the figures you'd be out now, before the day was done."

"I'm not telling you to give it up, dolt," Gaius said patiently. "I'm pointing out to you that you've made some significant errors in the last couple of months, and you need to learn from them. It's time to start working at this seriously. Inexperience is one thing -- that's excusable, and I've made allowances for it before because I knew you were totally new to the business. But you've been with Ursus for a year and a half, now, and it's no longer appropriate. Moreover, carelessness and lack of prudence are never forgivable.

"I need for you to decide whether those things you claim you want -- responsibility for part of the business, a home -- something like this, perhaps, someday -- aren't worth fixing those problems. If they're not, then you'd best resign yourself to being a junior for the rest of your life or to getting out now."

Primus nodded. "Ursus thinks I spilled it about Muco, doesn't he?" he asked. "He's been looking at me funny, the past two days."

"He wondered," Gaius said steadily. "He'd like to trust you, Primus, but he doesn't have that luxury. He has to know he can."

"He may give you more responsibility to test you, and you'll have to perform well. You'll have to guard against your own worst impulses. I assume, for example," Gaius said dryly, "that the figures came out during a drinking binge, though you might have been foolish enough to gossip without its benefit. Learn your limits, Primus, and learn not to overstep them, because until you do you won't move upward -- with his niece, either. Don't think he'll keep you on because of her. She's his niece, but the business is his child, and his only one, at that. Charm and youthfulness will only get you so far, and I think you've just discovered their limits."

"Yes, Gaius," Primus murmured. "I... I know you needn't have bothered to tell me. Thank you. And here I thought this would be a nice, pleasant evening...."

"And it is, barring this sticky bit," Gaius said. "Good dinner, good company. But I had to tell you sometime, and I didn't want to do it in the office -- it doesn't do for the workers to hear the management getting a ticking-off. They'd never respect you again." Gaius put his standard-bearer on the board, moved his first piece forward, and nudged at Primus' toes to get him to move.

"I suppose I've mucked up us, then, too," Primus said gloomily, and nudged a piece over to a new square. "I know I've not been particularly... deferential, but it's been awfully pleasant to hang about with you. I don't.... I don't really have any friends, other than you. Than you were, rather. All my real mates are already off into politics or they've got married and don't have time for me. And I hate being lonely."

"You needn't be, Primus. You just need to be careful about keeping the work and you personal life separate. And it's not as though we can't still socialise -- take tonight, for example. It's just that I have more responsibilities in my personal life, now, and more demands on my time," Gaius said patiently, and with a sincere pang of pity for the boy.

Primus' face brightened. "Oh. Good. I'd, er, been going to suggest we find some other entertainment tonight -- Later," he added hastily, "after.... Well, after she was tucked in, of course, no insult intended to her hospitality. It's just that it's not much fun going out alone."

The young idiot meant that he wanted to go out whoring, and he wanted company. (Not in the same room, of course -- Gaius would never stoop to that. Not that he was ashamed of his performance abilities, but he didn't particularly want to watch Primus go at it, much less share. He'd never been one for voyeurism or group activities, not even when he and Publius had been randy youngsters.)

Gaius simply stared at Primus, chortled, and jerked his head toward the cucina where Julia was helping Fenia Tertulla clear up, as if to say, 'Why would I need or want to, when I've got that warming my bed for me?' -- and Primus pinked up and muttered an apology.

"He is bright, but rather silly," Julia said from the doorway of the tablinum as Gaius was clearing away the board, after they'd seen Primus to the door.

"Much-younger son of a once-privileged family," Gaius told her, sighing. "Wasn't really suited for anything but politics, and that only if he'd started young enough. His grandfather was a Senator, but the pater lost all their money so that was out. Business and trade are still a big adventure to him."

"Whatever is he doing in shipping, then? Intent on rebuilding the family fortune?"

"I doubt it. Probably read too much Homer -- like someone else I know -- got enamoured of the sea, and this is the closest he can get."

"Can he really handle the business, if it comes to that? I'm terribly sorry," she added with a blush, "but you hadn't pulled the curtain, and I could hear quite a bit as I was going back and forth to the triclinium."

"You're not likely to tattle, are you? I think he can manage it, eventually. Ursus is about to hire another junior, too, and perhaps the competition will give him a hard nudge in the right direction."

"Good. He seems too nice a boy to let it slip away," Julia said, totally unconscious of Gaius' amusement: Primus was, at most, a year younger than Julia. "He seemed to enjoy himself tonight, once he relaxed. At least until you took him aside," she added with a smile. "I'm off to bed, then."

He grabbed for her hand to halt her, and kissed it before releasing her. "Thank you. It was very nice of you, and very pleasant."

She smiled -- a bit melancholy, which was odd, but then she'd been subdued for several days -- and said "Sleep well, Gaius," before gently drawing the door closed behind her.

Gaius allowed himself to bask in self-satisfaction for a few minutes, propping his feet up on the desk.

It had gone very well. Primus was still too innocent to realise that Gaius' words had been crafted quite carefully, designed for maximum shock value: and he hadn't noticed that Gaius had had no difficulties whatsoever ticking him off at the office in the past. Gaius hadn't even needed to go into the whole "settling down" bit -- Julia had taken care of that quite nicely for him. Gaius rather thought Primus wouldn't "perform" quite as wholeheartedly as usual tonight, with thoughts of a nice dinner and a lovely matron still in his head -- not to mention thoughts of Gaius enjoying himself with said matron, even if he really wasn't.

On the other hand, the little beggar might be thinking of Julia a bit too much while making his rounds.

Gaius frowned, decided he didn't like that at all, and then dismissed it as highly unlikely and unworthy of worrying over.

Or.... Oh, balls. Perhaps I'm just becoming as big a bloody conniver as Quintus.

He reached for the scroll that he'd picked up at the owlery that afternoon -- he hadn't got to it yet -- and he idly broke the seal, unrolled it, and started to read.

Greetings, Julia Corvina, dear daughter! Your Pater and Mater Corvinus send you their blessings and best wishes on the occasion of your natal day! We little suspected we would someday add such a beautiful and intelligent young lady to the family....

Gaius started and jerked his feet off the desk, nearly tipping the chair backward before he got his balance.

He didn't know. Hadn't asked. Hadn't even thought to ask. Julia's birthdate certainly hadn't been on the marriage contract. At least, he didn't remember seeing it.

Ye gods. Must be why she's been so sulky lately. Well, that's not fair -- not sulky, she's never that. Sad.

Even the two Longiniae had included little notes: the elder's was prim and to the point, and the little hellion's was slightly sticky with breakfast-honey and twice as sweet in tone. (She also accused Gaius of not writing enough, and thanked Julia for being more thoughtful -- damn the little brat, she must know Julia would probably offer him the letter to read....)

Oh, fuck. I've broke the seal -- she's bound to know I read it.... And I've absolutely nothing for her.

He tossed the letters onto the desk in disgust -- and then, after some thought, pulled them back toward him.

She wouldn't know I got them today, though. She wouldn't have noticed, would she? She didn't come into the tablinum until just now.... I might be able to salvage this, after all.

Well, he'd just have to go looking after work tomorrow. Women liked jewelry, didn't they? At least Lavinia certainly did. And Mater had some very fine pearls that Pater had spent a packet on that she only trotted out for very special occasions, like the wedding. (Not that Gaius could afford pearls....)

He rolled the letters back up, stole into his room and tucked them away in the bottom of his new clothes-chest, and brooded half the night away over the Eternal Questions: what the bloody hell do you get the wife for her birthday -- especially when you barely know her -- and how much is it going to cost you?

Gaius was actually rather proud of his purchases, in the end. He'd had no idea what would be appropriate when he'd started shopping beyond the vague thought of jewelry, and he'd driven several goldsmiths half-mad with indecisiveness.

"Hairpins, sir," the man said with a roll of his eyes. "Bronze, with gold ornament."

"No," Gaius said, "that won't suit." (Lucius had dealt with the wedding-ring for him, and he didn't want to take a stab at guessing an appropriate size. Although he supposed Julia could shove a ring on any finger, really.)

Then he remembered rifling through her clothes-chest aboard ship, and at the types of things in the little wooden box: she hadn't had anything as nice as the bronze pins, if he recalled accurately.

"The pins, definitely," he said. "The ones with the gold stars at the tops. And that crescent moon...."

"Oh, for.... Look, just give me a bloody constellation, will you? However many your wife uses."

"Very well, sir," the goldsmith sniffed, and nipped six or seven of the pins into a little box.

Gaius paid for the pins -- they were more reasonable than he'd expected -- and was halfway out of the shop when he noticed a flash of deep, rich red over in the corner, and went over to investigate.

"Garnet, sir. More of a purple tinge than rubies. And much less dear," the goldsmith added sarcastically.

He shouldn't be thinking of garnets. He'd already got her something perfectly adequate and useful. The garnets were definitely not useful, and they looked rather large. And expensive. (He'd no idea: gems were too precious to send without personal couriers attached, so they were one commodity for which he had no useful reference.)

"One moment, sir," the goldsmith said, and turned to pull something from a drawer. "I take it she's young? Pretty? Perhaps these would suit. Quite simple and much smaller than the others, but the quality of the stone is also higher. Very elegant, on the right sort of girl."

Gaius stared at the little garnets as they twinkled in the goldsmith's palm. They were certainly more modest than the ones that had attracted his attention, and far more tasteful, at least to Gaius' eye, than the elaborate things Julia'd got from her auntie.

He tried to remember as best he could how Julia had looked with the length of silk about her shoulders.

Dinner was nerve-wracking. Gaius had forgot to mention Julia's natal-day to Fenia Tertulla before he'd left home that morning, so it was a very usual dinner: and he hadn't thought of a good way to get around the fact that he'd opened the letters.

"I've some notes to go over," Julia said when the dessert had been finished, and rose from the lectus. "I was able to find some good information today in a medical text, and I really ought get to work on Lavinia's --"

"Yes, Gaius?' Julia asked, surprised. (They usually managed to exhaust most topics of conversation by the end of dinner, and then went their separate ways.)

"Just -- hang on a moment, I'll be right back," Gaius said, and darted out to retrieve the letters and the box from the goldsmith.

"Where's the fire?" Hyperion demanded from the bench at the end of the peristyle, when Gaius was on his way back to the triclinium.

"Oh, bloody -- Gaius, why didn't you tell me? I could've made her something...."

"I didn't know," Gaius said desperately. "Got a letter yesterday. I only just got these today." He popped open the box: Hyperion had a look at the pins, and Gaius unwrapped the little square of silk to show him the garnets.

"Well, go on, then," Hyperion chivvied Gaius, and he hurried back to Julia: she'd reclined again, waiting for him.

"I, ah -- I bungled something today, actually," he said, sitting awkwardly on the end of the lectus. "I went 'round to the owlery and picked this up, and I didn't see that it was actually addressed to you before I opened it, so...." He managed to stop babbling -- he was lying rather badly, he thought -- and handed her the scroll. "Happy Natal-Day, Julia."

She unrolled it the scroll and caught the two loose notes as they fluttered out, and then read, her cheeks going pink.

"I'm really very fond of your family, Gaius," she murmured. "They're quite sweet. Especially your mater."

She offered him the mater's letter, and he did his best to look relatively innocent as he finished the bits he hadn't already seen.

"Why didn't you say?" he asked as she read through his sisters' notes. (She didn't show him Longinia minor's, he noted -- although she smiled when she got to the part about him not writing. He could tell, blast it.)

"My natal-day? Oh, it's not until Pridie Kalendas. I think your mater simply wanted to be certain the letters got here in time."

Well, there was nothing for it: he was sitting there like an idiot with the box on his knee.

"Oh." She stared at him for a moment -- she seemed bewildered -- and then said, "Whatever you'd like, Gaius."

Bugger and blast. He knew her well enough to know that was her standard answer when she was unsure what he wanted.

"Why not now? If you don't like them, then perhaps the g-- the tradesman will exchange them for something you do, before Ursus' dinner-party."

"I'm sure I won't want to do that," she said, took the box from him when he thrust it at her, and prised open the lid.

"Oh," she said softly, and pulled the pins out one by one. "Gaius, they're... they're very pretty. Thank you."

"No, I do, they're very sweet.... I've never had any with the little bobs on...."

"I guess they're -- Well, I don't know, I'm hopeless at things like this, but I think they're meant to be seen."

"I'd like to see -- I'll probably muck this up, but you'll be going to bed soon, anyway --"

She rolled to her other side, and he fumbled in the thick knot of hair at the nape of her neck.

"Just one or two," he said, managed to free one long ivory pin, and reached over her shoulder to pluck the crescent moon from her hand and wedge it into the knot: she jumped a little as his fingers brushed the side of her neck. "Didn't stab you, did I?" he said anxiously.

He fished about for more pins, and replaced two with little gold stars before giving up: they shone faintly in the lamplight, glinting at him as she turned her head to look at him, her cheeks flushed.

"Silver'd look good in all that black, too," Hyperion rumbled from the doorway, and they both started and looked up: Hyperion had snuck up on them, and had brought Fenia Tertulla over with him.

"I was thinking about the silk," Gaius said defensively. "I thought gold went better with that."

"I know, it does. I was hinting," Hyperion shot back, and grinned. "She'll have more than the red silk eventually. Pity you can't see them, Fenia."

Fenia Tertulla promptly crossed to the other end of the lectus, sat, and gently reached over to pat at Julia's hair to feel for them. (Julia didn't flinch then, Gaius noted in a fit of pique.)

"They could be very sweet, all over the back," Fenia Tertulla said thoughtfully. "I can't manage it any longer, but perhaps if I describe what I remember...."

"I've never been very good with that type of thing," Julia said rather desperately. (Gaius thought she sounded as embarrassed as he felt. Perhaps she was.) "I don't even have curling-tongs."

"Oh, no tongs, not on hair this lovely and smooth," Fenia Tertulla said. "But we could coil it up. It shouldn't be difficult. I can tell Hyperion's clever about this sort of thing -- I'm sure he could help until you're used to it."

Gaius shuddered. He didn't want to know how Fenia Tertulla had figured out Hyperion was clever with his hands, and he glared at the old reprobate -- but Hyperion merely shrugged and looked innocent.

"Well, I'm off home," Fenia Tertulla said as she rose. "Good-night, Mistress, Master."

"Good-night, Fenia Tertulla," Julia murmured, and patted uncertainly at the rapidly-loosening knot at her nape.

Hyperion sniggered and followed Fenia Tertulla out of the room with a muttered, "Think I'll walk Fenia home tonight. Be back in a while."

"There's something else in the box," Gaius said determinedly as Julia swung her legs over the edge of the lectus.

She picked the box up again, pulled the tiny bundle from it, carefully unwrapped it, picked the little ear-bobs up and lay them in her palm: the tear-drops of the stones winked back and forth as her hand trembled a bit.

Gaius was totally befuddled by her reaction. Blast it, the ear-bobs really weren't anything special: the mater had plenty just like them, and gods knew Lavinia's were far more extravagant.

"No, Gaius, they're lovely, it's not that," she said quickly. "I'm really not used to.... I didn't expect it, that's all. I'm a bit overwhelmed."

"Thank you," she said. "You needn't have, really. I know we need to be careful right now."

"Bollocks. Don't worry over that. I lived very simply before, you know -- it's not as though I can't manage a pair of ear-bobs for my wife." (It was true: and he'd used his own money for it, not part of the marriage settlement or the extra "allowance" from Nigellus. He didn't know why he felt he should, but he'd finally given up and just done it.)

She looked down again, and again murmured, "Thank you," and then leaned over to kiss his cheek -- and then waited expectantly. Gaius couldn't tell for what.

"Well, you've got work, and I... need to write to Publius," he finally said, rising awkwardly from the lectus and bending to kiss her cheek. "Good-night, Julia."

"Good-night, Gaius," she said softly, eyes back down to the ear-bobs in her hand as he turned and left the room.

Gaius tried to write to Publius -- he needed to, he'd been remiss -- but he was restless, and couldn't tell why (other than the fact that he was more than a little aroused from fumbling with Julia's hair, blast it): and he eventually set the parchment aside in disgust to try to sort through the problem.

Julia had a lovely smile even at the worst of times, but he'd now watched her enough to realise that she was almost always in control -- calm, serene, polite. But when she was truly delighted with something that damned dimple would show up, and he'd unconsciously begun to use it as an indicator of his success at pleasing her. (He then had to stop and consider when it was that he'd begun to worry about pleasing her, couldn't determine when or why, and gave up on that train of thought.)

But he hadn't seen the dimple tonight, and he was damned if he could figure out why she wasn't as pleased as he'd imagined she would be.

He'd done something wrong, somehow. He couldn't imagine what, but he couldn't avoid the conclusion. Damn it all, weren't men supposed to give their wives jewelry? Quintus certainly seemed to think so. Although, true, Julia was no Lavinia, thank the gods.

Maybe it was her, then. Maybe she cared so little for pretty things that she really didn't like them -- thought they were foolish. Or perhaps his gifts were so below standard that it was an insult. He really couldn't tell, and his only option was to ask her -- which he most certainly was not about to do.

Blast it, Hyperion thought they were adequate, he thought indignantly, and then mentally smacked himself for using Hyperion's opinion as an appropriate standard.

He never did finish Publius' letter that night, but went to bed early and grumpily, and woke in a thoroughly foul mood the next morning.

He'd decided to have the owls resume delivery to the house -- poor Fenia Tertulla probably wouldn't notice anything unusual, after all, except for a propensity for the house to attract larger birds than usual -- and there was a letter waiting for him when he arrived. From the mater.

Thought I'd best drop you a note to give you some forewarning. It's been very gusty our way, and the message-birds have been erratic in their deliveries, the poor dears.

I've sent Julia's natal-day greeting at the same time as this to be certain it arrives on time, but on the off chance it does get there early, you should know that it's not until the Pridie Kalendas October.

I don't suppose you've thought to ask about her birth-day, and I had to winkle it out of her -- I doubt she'll volunteer it. At any rate, this should give you plenty of time to get her something nice. We've sent her a little package as well, but it's coming by ship. Quintus should send it on up to you. Has he contacted you yet? Your pater told him to start behaving nicely. I imagine he'll chivvy you about the business, though Pater told him to leave well enough alone.

We have not heard anything at all family-like from the Nigelli, though Pater's seen the man at city council meetings. He seemed pleased that you'd found a house so easily, but didn't say anything more.

I hope things are going well, darling. Do try to be understanding: Julia seems very sensible, but I'm sure she's feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything. We've received her letters and she sounds happy enough and says you're well. (I'm rather relieved -- now I have some idea how you are, as one of you manages to write regularly.)

I know it's none of my business any longer, but tell Hyperion that I hope he's behaving himself -- he was terribly wild when I first married your pater, and he still tends to kick up his heels from time to time. (I don't know why your pater put up with it, but he must have his reasons.) It shouldn't take much to discipline him. You always were his favourite, you know, and I should think a sharp word or two is all it might take.

Gaius absolutely adored his mother, but at times her lack of logic drove him wild. She should have sent this letter well ahead of the other, and then he wouldn't have had to lie (badly) and be caught out as a clumsy oaf.

Gaius settled down after a few days. There was nothing for it, after all: he'd bolloxed it up, it was done, and he'd just have to live with it until he had a chance to get it right next time. Assuming there was one.

Julia went about everything just as she always did, calm, polite, occasionally gifting him with an affectionate tease. (He was starting to enjoy that, unfortunately.) So he chalked the whole non-dimple incident up to her reserve, and tried not to be anxious about the fact that she hadn't received any letters (that he knew of, at least) from her family. There was still plenty of time, after all, and if the owls were having difficulty with the wind off the sea any missives might actually be late. Not everyone was as proactive as his mater.

Everything was running surprisingly smoothly, now. Fenia Tertulla had fit in to the household well: she required much less management that Rufia Docila had, apparently. Another plus was her living out. True, Hyperion felt it necessary to walk her home rather often and he would take the opportunity to stop at a tavern on his way back, but that was a minor problem: and the extra room they'd gained from the cook living out had proved useful. Hyperion had set up the mater's old loom in the front cubiculum off the atrium. (Gaius hadn't remembered how much wall space it took up. Julia's workroom would have been too crowded, after all.)

Gaius was so used to the calm of the house that he was quite shocked, one evening before dinner, to hear the clatter of something hit a wall and a distinct, irritable "Blast!" -- from Julia.

He set aside the text he'd been reading, left the tablinum, crossed over to the cubiculum, and peered in: Julia was in the middle of the room, fishing the weft-bobbin back over to her by the tail of a broken thread.

"I can't do it, Gaius, I just can't," she said tightly as she bent to pick up the bobbin. "Even with the beautiful thread your mater send along, I can't do it."

"The weaving. I can't manage to keep the thread from snapping, and there are knobby bits all over where I have to tie it back in."

"But I should be able to do it," she wailed. "My sister can do it perfectly. Every blasted matron's supposed to do it well. And I can't manage a single bloody hands' length without m- mucking it up --"

She plopped down on the bench next to the loom, dropped the poor, abused bobbin to the floor, buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears.

Gaius was floored. Calm, competent Julia wailing over a stupid bit of weaving, of all things. He'd never seen her this upset: even the saucepan incident with Rufia Docila and Hyperion hadn't thrown her this badly.

He might be shocked, but at least he knew what to do about it: dealing with Longinia minor's fits had taught him well. He was over to the bench in two paces, straddled it, pulled Julia into his arms, and let her cry out her frustration on his shoulder.

The silliness of the situation hit him eventually, though, and he began to laugh.

"It's not funny," Julia mumbled indignantly, and scrubbed at her face with the back of her hand until he grabbed it and pulled it away.

"Stop that -- you'll rub your face raw, you silly goose. It most certainly is funny. Ye gods, Julia. You can't excel at everything."

"Thank the gods you're not," he retorted. "I was beginning to think I'd married a bloody goddess."

"Bollocks. You're decent. Not as good as Fenia, but then you don't do it every day -- you probably could be, with enough practise. But why bloody bother when you don't need to?"

"I hate failure. Pater warned me I'd never be good at it if I didn't work harder -- made me learn how to do it by hand, before he'd allow me the charms, and I never got that far. He was right, I'm terrible," she admitted with a snuffle.

Something prickled at the back of Gaius' mind, and he took a close look at the pathetic, nubby little bit of cloth that she'd managed to produce. Ye gods, she must be really awful at it. Mater's spinning is the best to be had.... The roughness of it looked terribly familiar, though he hadn't seen an example of it for several weeks.

"You pater made you wear your own weaving, didn't he?" Gaius said. "That's why your tunics aren't as smooth as most."

She nodded against his shoulder, miserable, started to hiccough again, and had to fight of another bout of tears before she admitted, "He said if I had to wear my mistakes, perhaps I'd have the incentive to improve."

Gaius sighed, pulled her a little closer, and muttered into her hair, "Your pater's a right bastard. With all that money --"

"No," she said immediately, contradicting him -- but her hand groped for his forearm and gave it an appreciative squeeze nevertheless. "Not always. But I was a very willful child. He'd rather give an order like that than beat me."

"Oh, no. Once or twice in all, perhaps. I'd done something rather dangerous, and I think I'd frightened him. No, he's not a violent man, Gaius."

"You did better than I, then. I got a hiding at least once a week. Deserved it too, probably."

She hiccoughed again, but, thankfully, it turned into a laugh: and Gaius squeezed her a bit tighter, and then drew back to wiped the damp from her cheeks with his thumb.

"No buts. We're not so badly off that we can't afford a few lengths of good wool."

"Oh, good gods, I've forgot all about that. I don't need another, not now. It's not worth having you frustrated to tears."

"I wanted to make something for you, though. My natal-day gifts were so lovely...."

"They were gifts, you goose," Gaius shot back, dangerously close to being exasperated. "You don't owe me anything for them." (Damnation. Every time he attempted something appropriate and thoughtful, she seemed to go to such extremes over it....)

"Yes, I know. But this is something I'm supposed to do for you in any case, and I hate it so that I'd put it off," she confessed, sounding on the verge of tears once again. "I thought I'd give it a go and see if I could do better. Any good wife would do it as a matter of course, and I can't -- bloody -- manage it."

"You're lovely. You're bright. You're brilliant company. You keep the house and the account well. You put up with my moods. And with Hyperion." Gaius said without thinking about it, and dropped a kiss on the top of her head before continuing. "You are a good wife, Julia -- the bloody weaving notwithstanding -- and I can't think of a nicer present I've ever got, much less on a daily basis. I really don't need or want anything more. So let the damned weaving go, sweetheart."

She nodded, but she was clearly still miserable. He didn't seem to have convinced her, but didn't know what else to say: he'd managed, for once, to be absolutely truthful (astonishing, because he hadn't really analysed the situation before or realised that he really did feel that way about her, or when she'd changed from being a nuisance to an asset), and there simply wasn't anything to add to it. So he gave her another squidge instead, rose awkwardly, and returned to the tablinum and to his text for a whole two minutes --

-- until he heard a clicking from the cubiculum. He was familiar with it -- he'd heard it for nearly an hour before Julia had lost her temper: it was the jostling of the warp-weights as Julia pushed the weft threads up and moved the heddle-rod.

He tossed aside the scroll, went to the tablinum door, opened it, and called, "Julia?"

He waited until she entered the atrium and crooked a finger to bring her over; and when she stood before him, shame-faced and still pink-nosed from her cry, he took her chin in his hand.

"Chalk it up as a lost cause," he advised patiently, "and stop beating yourself over it. I don't want you unhappy. And that is an order."

"Yes, Gaius," she said dutifully, and tried very hard not to smile when he raised a skeptical eyebrow. "No, really, I promise, this time."

"Good. If you want to try again someday, fine -- but I don't expect it. Tell Hyperion to take the bloody thing apart for now, if it's too great a temptation."

"Go on, now." He dropped her chin and gave her a little nudge, and she moved away into the peristyle.

Not that he faulted Julia for plugging away at it: he still couldn't Levitate worth a damn, and knew too well the frustration of failure and the need to keep trying. But that was different -- or at least he tried to tell himself so: refining a skill like magic was a far cry from the mundane, commonplace drudgery of weaving. (Had he come from a less wealthy and more conventional family, he might have felt differently.)

I wonder.... I'm at a dead end, at the moment. She's frustrated with that muck, and has no need to do it, anyway....

Julia was pureblood, like himself, and skilled at medicinal potions. Surely she had some demonstrable magic, didn't she? Of course she did -- she'd warded her clothes-chest before it was safely stowed in their cabin. She had to have got her training somewhere, if only from her pater.

How much theory she'd got was an open question, though. Gaius supposed Nigellus might have trained her only in the one field: it wasn't unusual for wizarding women to be taught only the most practical skills, and left in the dark as to the more complex -- and ethically questionable -- areas. (Some picked it up anyway. There were plenty of wizarding women who had become full-fledged witches of the more notorious kind.) She'd said earlier that Nigellus hadn't allowed her to study contraceptives or abortificiants, so Gaius assumed it was entirely possible that he'd limited her knowledge of the broader range of magics, as well.

Perhaps talking this out with someone would help me clarify my thoughts. I wonder how good a student she really is? Teach her something of it, enough to understand what I'm talking about. She might even have a good suggestion or two, and it would distract her, since she doesn't seem to have enough to do.

There wasn't any real threat of discovery any more, after all, not with Fenia Tertulla about: while she could see well enough to cook, she couldn't read the receipts from her own collection (Julia had to read them for her -- though only once -- if her memory needed refreshing.) He might even risk bringing all his texts over from Fountain Court, since discovery at home was now unlikely.

He decided it was an excellent idea and that he would sound Julia out on it, perhaps even show her Publius' letters and his own notes, after dinner.

"I was thinking about something earlier this evening," Gaius said when Julia returned to the triclinium (at his request, after Fenia Tertulla had left for the night). "How far along are you with Lavinia's project?"

"Oh, that's done, for now," Julia said. "I made up some things for her, with explicit instructions, and sent them down with Hyperion a few days ago."

"It wasn't hard," she said casually. "I had to sort through the non-magical literature and determine which looked the most effective, and then I was able to tweak them a bit. Substitution of a magical ingredient here and there. If Lavinia follows my instructions faithfully and keeps track of her cycle, it should work. And if not, I expect we'll know in a few months."

"It's not precisely a potions project," Gaius cautioned as he poured her more watered wine. "It's more theoretical. You know, of course, that I still haven't found anyone to apprentice with?"

"That hasn't stopped me from researching. I can give you the form for most Light magical rituals, and several Dark -- not that I'd ever use them, but I felt I needed to be able to recognise them. The sticking-point isn't the form itself, of course -- it's the incantations that one needs to apprentice for.

"Anyway, this is where my friend Publius comes in. We'd been studying together before he joined the Army, and we're still working on one... skill, I suppose you'd call it, separately. But I miss having someone to talk to about it, and I'm rather frustrated, myself," he said, smiling, "just as you are with the weaving. I thought perhaps you might be interested. It's, ah, rather selfish of me, I know, but as you enjoy reading and learning so much...."

"Yes, but I'm not acquainted with the general literature, Gaius," Julia said quietly. "I don't think I would be much help."

"I studied potions, quite specifically approved potions, with an herbalist -- I wasn't allowed to take a journeyman's papers, of course, but I fulfilled the requirements. As I was interested in the physician's healing art as well, Pater tutored me in those areas he felt appropriate for me. But I really know nothing at all about the other arts."

"But you could learn quickly if you wished? Your Greek is up to snuff, barring a few specialised words?"

"Oh, yes. It's not a question of comprehension, it's opportunity to study the field."

"Well, here you have it -- if you want to. If you don't mind me teaching you what I know, and being a sounding-board."

"Good. Why don't we go into the tablinum -- I don't want to drag the things in here -- and I'll explain."

He took his cup from the table and went to the tablinum, Julia at his heels, and lit the lamp above the desk before unwarding his strongbox and pulling out Publius' letters and his notes.

"Publius and I have been -- Sit, Julia, for the gods' sakes, it's your house too --"

"-- we've been working on some things that... well, blast it, things that we're not supposed to do, at least legally."

"Dark Arts? We don't think so. We think some skills have got that reputation because many of the practitioners are dark wizards, but it doesn't follow that the skill is dark. There are, indeed, things that fall solidly into Dark Arts -- calling of daemons with bad intent, and so forth -- but there are also useful skills that don't depend on calling dark powers, at least for some people."

"Because it's so noticeable if you use it Outside," Gaius said patiently. "It's very difficult to explain away if a non-magical catches you out."

"I remember Pater speaking of that man last decade -- the one Nero called to the court," she said. "He wasn't particularly discreet, was he? And he claimed to have mastered the Dark Arts."

"Simon so-called Magus?" Gaius snorted. "A charlatan. Do you know how he did his 'Levitation?' He slipped his followers something in their wine -- or their ox-blood, or whatever he had to hand during his sham rituals, apparently -- and whilst they were under the influence he convinced them that he'd done it."

"I have it on good authority. My contact wouldn't tell me what Simon used, but he said it was definitely a trick." Gaius shook his head. "It's frauds like Simon Magus that cause half our problems. On the other hand, there was a fellow in Judaea earlier in the century that apparently managed more convincing magic without the help of tricks or daemonic help, but I haven't been able to find reliable documentation. One of his apprentices was the man who defeated Simon in front of Nero."

"I don't mean to imply that you would intentionally muck about with the Dark Arts, Gaius," she said softly, "but.... Pater had acquaintances in Aquilia who said the same thing, you see. That they would never risk it or defy the strictures. And yet very few of them were able to resist it, in the end. There was always some goal worthy of the violation, and once they'd done it, it became easier the next time. It drew them in." She stared at him, her dark eyes earnest and concerned. "You're very strong-willed, Gaius, I know that, and I think you've a very good sense of right and wrong, but I... I don't think you realise how seductive it can be."

"What if I could prove to you that there's no daemonic influence involved?" Gaius shot back.

"No ritual, no incantation. Can't, since I don't know it...." He decided to take the risk. "Are you done with your wine?"

"Just -- set the cup on the desk," he said as he moved first to one lattice-door and then the next, drawing the curtains over them. (It was silly, but Gaius simply didn't feel safe doing this -- even in his own home, with no-one about. Hyperion hadn't seen him do it yet, and Gaius didn't want him to: he suspected Hyperion would, through years of training by the pater, immediately launch into lecture-and-punishment mode.)

Gaius sat, cleared his mind of all thought, concentrated solely on the cup -- difficult, with her watching him -- and it slowly, shakily rose a few unciae in the air before clattering down and tipping over, chipping an edge.

"Now, did I call for daemonic assistance with that? Did you feel anything at all dark?"

"There you are, then. I can't do better than that," Gaius explained. "That's where the dark wizards have an advantage, calling on extra help. Publius and I can both do it -- we mucked about with it when we were children, and together we could manage to get some rather heavy things in the air, but never alone. Lately we wanted to see if we could refine the skill individually, and we can, with lots of practise and concentration. It's not a practical skill, not really, unless we can develop it to the point of applying it usefully."

"We don't know. We don't know if we're just particularly strong-willed, or if it's a fluke. I suspect that we all could if we'd only ignore the strictures and practise. The annals say it was once quite usual for all wizards, even in our culture."

"The strictures are, I think, intended to give us guidelines to avoid detection, and I suspect it's because of the first big wave of persecutions. You can see a shift in the general population's attitude, about six hundred years ago. With the establishment of Rome and of state-sanctioned religion, the non-magicals stopped patronising their local magi. Priests took over as the only legal practitioners of anything remotely magical -- some of them were magical, and they had the foresight to become a part of the establishment. But then writers begin speaking of wizards as a whole as evil, and then the State began actively prosecuting -- justified, in some instances. Our kind had the choice of fleeing to other nations where the practise was still compatible with local attitudes, or of going underground and trying to pass.

"But it's not that way everywhere, even today. Publius is looking into other traditions -- he wants to see if any of the barbarian cultures can do things like this, and how they go about it. We might be able to adapt some of their techniques."

"I, er -- I don't need to remind you that you might get me in a great deal of trouble, do I?"

"I'm your wife, Gaius," Julia said impatiently. "Of course I'm not going to tell anyone without your permission." And then she slowly smiled, enough that the ridiculously sweet dimple appeared on her cheek, and put down the cup. "Is there oil in the smaller lamp?"

She wriggled a bit closer to the edge of the desk, held her hand over the little bronze lamp, whispered "Light" -- and it did, the little flames faltering and then catching as the wick drew up its oil.

"Reading late. Pater didn't want me to, he said it was bad for my eyesight, so he took the flint and brazier-tongs from my room. I'd wait until everyone was asleep, and then I'd light my lamp and read to my heart's content."

"I didn't -- I just kept working at it until one day I saw the flicker, and then I knew I could, and then it suddenly worked." She shrugged again, and added a droll "Poof," and smiled.

"Didn't have to -- after a while he noticed the lamp had to be refilled too frequently."

"No, he was quite amused. Said it was his fault for encouraging me to study in the first place, and he'd let it pass if I didn't overdo it. He's really not an ogre of a pater, Gaius." Her smile faltered a bit. "At least not about some things."

"But -- wait a moment, you actually spoke to it. Commanded it, in plain language, not Greek or Egyptian."

"I can do it anyway, but it takes it a while to catch. It's much faster if I tell it what to do, as well."

"Ye gods and all that's sacred...." Gaius murmured. "I knew you could ward, obviously, but that's.... That's rather brilliant."

"Some," she admitted. "Rather innocent ones, to the gods, not to daemons. More of a prayer for relief of the patient, really."

"I do. Not in the silly stories about them, but more as... personifications of the powers of Nature, I suppose. I don't see another explanation, really -- we're simply able to communicate with those powers better than the non-magicals can. More in harmony than they, perhaps."

"Hmmm. I think it's more direct," Gaius said decisively. "I think we tap directly into the powers, without intermediaries. But ascribing it to the gods is undoubtedly useful."

"Still living. I'd thought of contacting him, but he's in Ephesus and he's too visible -- he's been arrested once, and only escaped by crediting the gods for what he's accomplished. It's very interesting stuff.

"Anyway, back to Publius. I've been doing the research into established texts and the older cultures -- here, here's some of my early notes, you may read them over the next few days -- and he's been trying to study the barbarian magics in the regions he's been posted to. He's in Britannia now."

"Yes -- I remember. I read a bit of Caesar and Claudius.... Shall I take a guess as to his main area of interest?" she asked intently.

"Publius thinks the Druidii... increase their power with their staffs, somehow?"

"Very good," Gaius said, surprised at her ability to extrapolate from the Histories. "Spot on. But it's to focus their power, more likely. For example, if you wanted to start a bonfire I think you'd be hard-pressed. There's a great difference between a lamp and a fire."

"True -- I can't even light a brazier, not without a lot of trouble. But that's a dangerous proposition, to use a staff."

"Because of the reputation? Yes, but there again, it's just the reputation. Circe used a staff, and Circe was evil -- at least according to all right-thinking Greek men -- therefore, staffs are Dark instruments. It's a simplistic and illogical argument."

"And because dark wizards aren't afraid to break rules, they often use staffs -- which only reinforces the misapprehension."

Julia thought about it a moment, and then said quietly, "Very well -- I'm willing to admit your argument is valid. I shouldn't be willing to jump into it with both feet, mind you -- not yet -- but I think the two of you are going about it intelligently."

Gaius was torn between irritation at her caution and reserve, satisfaction at his ability to explain it clearly, and admiration for the way her mind fit the all the pieces together.

"Good. I shan't expect you to try the Levitation if you don't wish to, of course --"

"-- although that would certainly be interesting, to see if you can manage it as well as we --"

"I understand," she said carefully, "that you might want to practise this for the love of Learning. I truly do understand that. But that isn't all there is to it, is there?"

"It matters to me," she said quietly, "because of what I said before. Because the goal needs to be measurable and the intent has to be good, if you're to avoid putting your feet wrong. I'm afraid that I won't be comfortable unless I understand why this is so important to you." She gave him an apologetic -- but unyielding -- smile.

That stymied him. He knew, of course -- he and Publius both knew how each other felt, though they'd never really discussed it straightforwardly. But Gaius had never had to put it into words with anyone else.

"It's.... it's people like Simon Magus, I think, at least in part," he muttered, and ran a hand through his hair. "The ones who contribute to the bad reputation. I hate that the rest of the world sees us, in the aggregate, as evil. That's we're forced to conceal who and what we are, when we were once respected and could really, actively contribute." He looked up to find her watching him with calm, critical -- but unjudging -- eyes. "There's so much that's been lost, Julia -- so many useful, entirely natural things that our kind took for granted until the need for all this secrecy ripped it away from us.

"My pater's a prime example. He won't lift a finger to do a bit of magic unless the safety of one of his ships is involved -- he's that terrified of exposure. So terrified that thirty years ago, when there was another wave of persecutions, he packed up the family and moved halfway across the Empire, and abandoned almost all the skills he once had. And so terrified," he added grimly, "that he would beat me if he caught me practising. If he'd known half of what Publius and I got up to --"

"No, it's all right, let me finish. I don't blame him for that anymore -- I finally understood why he did it after Lucius explained to me what happened in Ravenna. A local politician -- a rather nasty man, with many enemies, had died quite suddenly, and there was no obvious cause. So, naturally," Gaius spat sarcastically, "they decided it must have been a curse, and they hunted down the most likely perpetrator. They burnt him, Julia -- and not only him, but his entire family, including a five year-old child. They weren't concerned that he might be the only practitioner in the family. They simply wanted to wipe the entire family and bloodline off the face of the earth."

"Yes, but in that instance, the accused was a wealthy and influential man," Gaius reminded her, "and he received a trial. Whether he was actually guilty is another matter -- anyone might have put the incriminating evidence in place.

"So, yes, I understand that this is quite dangerous, Julia," he said intently, and ignored a sudden prickling of his conscience, "not only the possibility of falling into dark arts, but discovery from the non-magicals as well. Pater would say it's time for me to give up, act responsibly, I'm certain -- but I can't. I can't sit here and do nothing, be content to just pass, when I know there's so much more to our lives. I don't want us to fade away, become ordinary -- but that's precisely what's happening, and we can't recover the heritage until we've sorted through it all, classified it, understand it ourselves. Only then can we prove that it's not inherently evil. And once we do that, we can work to regain our status as accepted members of the society. No hiding, no... no fear."

"I can't force you to take an interest," he added tiredly. "But I'd thought you might, and I'd hoped for someone to talk to about it. It's all right, you needn't do it --"

"I didn't say I wouldn't," Julia protested. "I only wanted to understand why it was important to you, and I do, now. And I shall. Take an interest, I mean."

He stared at her incredulously. Is she mad? He'd just pointed out how stupidly dangerous the entire exercise was....

"I've always wanted to learn more," she said simply, "and I think your heart's in the right place, Gaius. I still don't know how much use I can be, though...."

"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he said, and mentally thanked whichever possibly non-existent god might have given him a persuasive tongue tonight. "At the very least, you can obviously spot connections that I might miss. And that, I think, is enough for one night -- I'm knackered. I'll have to fetch the Apollonius for you -- I haven't been keeping the texts here -- and when you've finished it, we can begin."

"No, I'm.... Thank you, Julia, I'll just finish up my correspondence and turn in early, I think," Gaius said.

"All right. Sleep well, Gaius," she said, and smiled, and bent to give him what had become a customary goodnight kiss before she took her own cup and his notes, and left the room.

Gaius sat there for a very long time, trying to sort through what had happened. Not her little demonstration: he ought to have anticipated something like that. (Funny, though, that she could master something as difficult as charming fire, but couldn't manage the charms that would keep loom-thread from twisting and knotting -- the mater was a dab hand at things like that.) No, it was that prickle of conscience that had begun waving a frantic alarum, somewhere toward the end of the discussion.

Well, yes, he'd got what he'd wanted -- Julia seemed intrigued; he'd have someone to listen to his ramblings, and teaching her the basics would give him a good revision; and he'd obviously now have someone to keep him on the straight and narrow as she hadn't had any problem challenging him. That bothered him less than it might, he decided -- after all, if he couldn't manage to defend his actions adequately to his own wife, for the gods' sakes, no matter how bright she was compared to the average female, he probably was in the wrong.

When did it all start to go south, then? It had seemed so right until... until I mentioned Ravenna.

He'd been fine with everything until he'd brought up the pater. There was nothing inherently awful about that -- he didn't mind Julia knowing as she could hardly have missed that they didn't have the best relationship; he'd even felt a bit grateful for her sympathy when he'd told her the beatings.

No, it was Ravenna, and his mention of that poor, pathetic family that had died because of superstition and fear. It had happened long before his birth: he had no memory of it, and had simply accepted the story as another illustration of injustice. He'd willingly ignored it when it had suited him, though -- he'd always defied the reminders of it and said he was willing to take the risk of exposure.

But that had been before he'd acquired a wife and then so stupidly decided to actually care for her. He could hardly deny it now -- he did care for Julia, even if it was much the same as his affection for Longinia. He wouldn't dream of putting Longinia at risk by letting her play with restricted skills: how could he justify encouraging Julia? It was bad enough that he'd proposed to continue on his own, without considering the risk to her if he was caught out, but to actively involve her....

He cursed himself for being several kinds of fool. He'd got careless yet again: regardless of her willingness to learn, he shouldn't have involved her. She'd already be under suspicion as his wife as far as the non-magicals were concerned, and as a blood Nigellus if the wizarding hierarchy discovered it.

But it was too late now. He'd offered, and she'd committed -- he couldn't forget how excited she'd been when he'd demonstrated his skill, taught her some of the history -- the way her eyes had sparkled when she'd shown him her own secret. No, he couldn't -- wouldn't -- renege on the offer. It would hurt her too badly, and he admitted to himself that he wasn't man enough to do that deliberately, even for her own good. Not anymore, at least, and no more than he'd already done. He was spoiling her, perhaps -- the husband ought to be ruthless in his decisions over his wife's welfare -- but damn it all, it was his right to spoil her if he chose. He had no intention of becoming another Julius Nigellus, who would encourage the spark of curiosity and the expanding of intellect and then, for the sake of discipline or caution, yank the opportunity away.

Some part of him -- the irresponsible part that Pater abhors, probably, he thought sourly -- apparently thought it was a good trade-off, worth the risk. He'd just have to be very, very careful. Amend his plans a bit: perhaps not actively pursue an apprenticeship until it was safer. He hadn't got anywhere with that anyway, and the demands on his time now made trying to court a patron or mentor almost impossible.

He was surprised when, after a moment's consideration, he realised that he wasn't the least enraged about that, and only marginally irritated. That was disturbing in and of itself -- was his commitment to the cause fading again?

He might actually have taken another half-hour to debate that with himself, but he was distracted with a huge yawn.

Blast, he thought glumly. What an idiot I was, to think I could keep Julia in a neat, legal box apart from everything else, and not be seduced into caring. Into taking full responsibility.

I am a bloody fool. Too soft. I'll wager Nigellus could have done it. Probably did.

On the whole, though, he was rather pleased that, by nature, he wasn't capable of Nigellus' cold, rational actions. If that made him weak, so be it.

He sighed, finished his wine, stowed Publius' letters away, and blew out the lamps before taking his cup to the cucina; walked around the peristyle to his room; and then suddenly backtracked and stood in front of Julia's door, listening.

Her lamp was out, and he could barely hear her soft, even, deep breathing: asleep, then. She could drop off quite suddenly, he knew, and he envied the ability.

He stood for quite a while at the door with his forehead pressed against the lattice-work, resisting the urge to enter and watch her in her sleep, merely breathing in the faint scent of sweet almond oil and myrtle that embued her room.