The Gift, Part VI

"All right, my boy," Ursus said, beaming, as Gaius went about locking up for the day. "We've put if off long enough. Think you're settled enough now for that dinner? Ready to show off your little girl?"

Gaius stifled a snort. (Considering the fit Julia had had last time, he rather thought that they weren't ready. But then, that had turned out all right in the end.)

"Oh, the third Kalendas. We're having Antius Bubo and a prospective client over as well. And I'm debating Primus...."

"Right. Of course, poor Camilla will be there as well. S'pose she'll moon over him, as usual," Ursus said. "But that can't be helped. You check with your little wife and let me know tomorrow then, Gaius."

"Er, Julia," Gaius said cautiously, just after Fenia Tertulla brought in the gustum, "have you made progress with having the silk made up?"

"Ursus has invited us to dinner on the third Kalendas.... I know it's only three days' notice --"

"Oh, that's all right. It should be done tomorrow, actually," she said cheerfully.

"There will be other strangers there, I'm afraid," he said cautiously. "Besides Ursus, I mean -- but Primus may be there as well."

"I think I can manage, Gaius," she said. "It's crowds that seem to put me off, not a smaller group."

They ate their gustum in silence for a while, and then Julia said, "There was something that happened today...."

"No, no, not at all. I've been to the herbalist's shop a few times -- I needed some things for Lavinia's potion -- and I noticed that he has a few things already made up. When I asked today, he said he doesn't do them all himself, but sells some of them on commission for others...."

"Oh, none of the strictly magical ones, Gaius -- I don't mean those. You see, what he has are mostly cosmetics, things like that. I showed him the burn ointment and a liniment -- very ordinary -- and he thought they might well move. But I wanted to check with you first...."

Gaius wasn't at all certain what to say. Julia seemed so excited about it: but it wasn't as if they needed money, or that he thought it was appropriate for his wife to become a tradesperson, even margnially.

Or is it just that you're a proud bastard who's afraid she'll get full of herself? Or too proud to admit that a little extra might be welcome, even if it's not necessary?

She looked a bit surprised, and then said, "I suppose I miss it, that's all. I often brewed things for Pater's patients. But as I'll never be able to work directly with a physician here, I won't be able to keep my hand in." She searched his face closely for a moment, and then added, "The money itself won't be much, you know -- I'm not thinking of huge batches. I'm just used to providing it as a... a service, I think, for more than just the household. And it would offset the costs I have at the herbalist's, for Lucillus and Lavinia."

"Well," he finally said, "As long as you don't provide him with anything that might get you in trouble, it's all right, I suppose. And as long as you don't neglect your duties here or to yourself."

"-- I have more than enough time, now that Fenia is settled in. And I'll be careful, I promise."

Fenia Tertulla brought in the mensa prima and exited -- far more gracefully, now, she didn't need to grope for the door any longer -- and after Gaius had taken a portion, Julia set to hers with more appetite than he'd seen from her for quite some time.

She's gone a bit thinner, he noted as they ate, and realised with a start that he hadn't noticed how her appetite had waned over the past few weeks.

And that's the first time I've seen the blasted dimple for... well, for a long time.

In the end, he decided that if dealing with the herbalist made her happy -- if it offset whatever it was that had kept her quiet and subdued -- it was probably a good thing, and his pride and worry over the money could simply go hang.

She had taken to the discussions of magical theory well enough, after all: every other day or so, after Fenia Tertulla left for the evening, they'd wade into the materials and notes Gaius had provided. Julia was an apt pupil, and Gaius was finding it all quite enjoyable. It was nearly as good as having Publius there. Nearly, but not quite.

Of course, Publius didn't have lovely, earnest black eyes and a dimple. He didn't smell of sweet almonds and honey, either.

Work was both quiet and frustrating for the rest of the week: there was little to do in the way of trips to the port cities, much laying-off of the portion of the workers not needed for the slow season, and there was absolutely no word or sighting of Muco. (Gaius decided the man must have shipped out after all, though it was entirely possible that the vigiles weren't taking the work particularly seriously.)

But in the end Ursus had decided not, against Gaius' advice. There was certainly a practical reason not to -- the publicity of a public prosecution wouldn't do Ursus Imports any good -- but Gaius suspected that Ursus didn't really want to catch Muco, either out of embarrassment for being diddled or for misguided loyalty to the man's pater, or a combination of both.

All too soon it was the day of Ursus' dinner-party: Gaius was busy going over the figures he knew he'd have to produce for the potential client. He stopped at a hostelry on his way home from work and hired a litter -- it wouldn't do to show up at Ursus' door on foot, even though the man lived just over the hill, in the nicer part of the Aventine -- and then stopped by the balnea for the full treatment: and then he hurried home far too soon and spent the next two hours fidgeting while Fenia Tertulla and Hyperion kept Julia closeted in her cubicula and absolutely refused to let him see or speak to her. He managed to contain his impatience until the litter-bearers arrived: and then he paced the peristyle for what seemed like an hour, and finally, irritably shouted, "We're going to be late, blast it -- how long does it take to dress one woman's hair?"

Fenia opened the door and shot him a reproachful look -- or as close as she could get, toward the blurry outline Gaius must be to her.

"A great deal longer than it takes you to throw on a clean toga, Master," she scolded. "She's just pinning her palla down now -- be patient, please." And she popped back into the room.

He flopped down onto the bench next to the garden-plot, and belatedly tried not to wrinkle his toga.

Two minutes later the door slid open, and Julia quietly said, "I'm sorry, Gaius -- I'm ready, now."

He'd thought she couldn't look any lovlier than she had on their wedding-day, and he'd been wrong. Mater was right (again): the wine-coloured silk beautifully complimented the smooth honey-tone of Julia's skin, heightening the blush that rose to her cheeks at his frank assessment. She'd found a much lighter-weight silk of a deep blue to serve as her palla, quite sheer, and Gaius could just see the garnet ear-bobs under the neat wings of her hair as they dipped under her cheekbones and over her ears, back up to an intricate mass of coils secured with the hair-pins. He supposed she'd used a bit of cosmetics -- her eyes seemed just a bit more defined and the lashes longer -- but it was artfully done, he assumed by Hyperion.

"A lot of ladies wear a false-front of curls," Fenia murmured from the doorway. "but I don't think she needs them, do you, Master?"

"Yes, you old goat, but then she always is. Don't get any ideas about becoming a ladies' maid for hire."

"Don't intend to. It's much easier to work with a nice, smooth, new fresco than some old raddled bit of pocky wall."

Gaius snorted at the comparison, and Julia blushed even more deeply and murmured, "Really, Hyperion --"

"Get along with the pair of you," Hyperion said matter-of-factly. "I'm taking Fenia home -- I'll get her dinner on the way -- and I think I'll stay out for a while tonight, Gaius, if that's all right."

"No, you won't get me dinner," Fenia said. "My sister's invited you in tonight -- no need for that. There's plenty."

"That's fine," Gaius muttered, and ignored the wink that the old reprobate gave him. (He also ignored that Hyperion and Fenia might well be taking a liking to each other. No good could come from a relationship between a slave and a freedman or woman, however lowly their station, and he ought put a stop to it -- but he admitted that he didn't really have the heart to, at least not while he was being distracted with other matters.) "Come along, Julia."

He crossed to her and guided her to the front door with a hand at the small of her back, helped her into the litter, and then clambered in himself: and he tried rather desperately to ignore the fact that Hyperion and Fenia stood at the door-step like anxious parents, watching the litter move away.

Gaius cursed himself all the way to Ursus' door. Like Primus, he couldn't seem to put two words together: Julia had used a perfume that evening, and it smelled damnably good in the close confines of the litter. (He was chuffed to buggery by the fact that she'd chosen to wear the ear-bobs he'd given her rather than her auntie's, too, and for the life of him he couldn't understand why he was so pleased about it.)

He wracked his brain to remember who: thinking was very difficult at the moment, and he was concentrating on keeping his increasingly willful penis from reacting too noticeably to her closeness.

"There's, er, Antius Bubo -- he's Ursus's financial partner -- and a potential client, Gracchus. And, ah, Aemilia Ursa, and probably his niece Camilla... and Primus. I don't know if the client will bring anyone, that's only eight."

"I should think so," he said absently, and tried to focus on the view outside the litter. "You handled Quintus and Lavinia quite well."

A few minutes later the litter-bearers stopped at Ursus' door, and Gaius stepped out (carefully -- he was in a bit of pain) and helped Julia down: and the doorkeeper swung the gate open and ushered them over the threshhold.

Ursus' jaw dropped when he got a good look at Julia, and he ambled over to them, leaving Primus to fumble himself to his feet.

"Julia, this is my employer, Marcus Furius Ursus," Gaius said, and pulled her forward a bit more. "My wife, Julia Corvina."

"Julia Corvina, welcome to my home," Ursus said formally, and then quite informally took her hand and saluted it. "My word. No wonder you've kept her hidden away," he said to Gaius, deep-set eyes sparkling with mischief, and then turned to Primus and muttered, "All right, you little prat, you weren't exaggerating."

"You know Primus Eugenus, of course," Ursus said, blatantly removing Julia from Gaius' arm and leading her over toward the centre of the peristyle: Gaius stayed in the doorway, rather amused by the two men fussing over Julia, and at her efforts to gracefully ignore the fuss.

"Come in, Gaius, sit down," Ursus chivvied him as Primus launched into a continuation of the discussion of Homer that he and Julia had left, the night he'd visited.

"Oh, no. Well, just barely," Ursus admitted. "Bubo will be fashionably late, and I asked Gracchus to come just a bit later, so we could organise. And Aemilia and Camilla are fussing over something, and will be with us shortly --"

And they were, just at that moment, descending the stair that led to the family rooms on the first floor (Ursus had the whole, four-story building): Amelia Ursa, thin, long-nosed, with a brittle, bleach-blonde prettiness, and Camilla Ursa....

Poor Camilla Ursa, who did indeed take after Ursus' side of the family, Gaius thought as Ursus chattered on in his ear: the poor girl was heavy-boned, taller than average, thick-featured, and had dull, dirty-blonde hair that no style could make appear neat, much less fashionable (and as she was unmarried and not required to wear the palla, it was on full display). Any other woman might be euphemistically called plump at worst or voluptuous at best, but Camilla Ursa simply seemed fat.

Gaius imagined she must keep her maid busy with depilation, considering how hairy Ursus himself was.

Which wasn't to say Camilla Ursa wasn't capable of being attractive, in a way: her mud-brown eyes lit up hopefully when she saw Primus. (Gaius recognised that, as well -- he'd been on the receiving end of that look the first two times he'd interacted with her, until Ursus had sounded him out as a potential suitor and he'd managed to wriggle more-or-less gracefully out of it.)

"Huh? Oh, 'lo, Camilla Ursa," Primus said absently, and turned back to Julia. "No, Julia Corvina, I looked it up after I got home. He specifically uses the archaic form in that passage -- probably to stress the old Greek value of --"

Camilla stared at Primus, shocked by his inattention, and then took note of her competition -- Julia: her eyes widened, and she twisted the edge of her tunic between her fingers. She looked as though she was about to cry.

Gaius felt immensely sorry for her. He ought give Primus a good, swift kick at the first opportunity.

"-- no word on the bloody man, I suppose you're right, Gaius," Ursus nattered on, oblivious, "and he's.... Ah. Gaius, you know my girls, of course --"

"Aemilia Ursa," he said, and took the limp hand she offered him. "You are looking well, as usual."

"Thank you, Gaius Longinius," Aemilia Ursa said, giving him a thin-lipped smile. (She didn't entirely approve of Gaius: he didn't flirt with her.)

"Welcome to our home, Julia Corvina," Aemilia Ursa said formally, obviously sizing Julia up much as Lavinia had done. "You're finding Rome pleasant?"

"Quite different from the provinces, of course," Aemilia noted with a sniff. "I suppose it's all very new to you, coming from a little backwater. I wouldn't know myself, and I don't know how anyone can bear to live outside Rome...."

"And this," Ursus said, rising and putting an arm about Camilla's shoulders, "is my little niece, Camilla Ursa."

Unfortunate choice of words, there, Marcus, Gaius thought, and managed to avoid wincing visibly. (But then she was little, compared to Ursus.)

"Thank you, Camilla Ursa," Julia said, and -- unlike her interaction with Aemilia Ursa -- gave the poor girl a smile. "It's quite an adventure. I'm learning so much...."

"Julia Corvina's studied Greek literature," Primus piped up suddenly. "She can quote huge chunks of Homer, and the commentary on him, too. Jolly good company."

Definitely a kicking, as soon as possible. How does the pup think he's going to win her, if he's so insensitive?

"Ah, but it's not a very practical skill," Julia said easily. "It doesn't help me with the weaving, for example. I'm terrible at that."

"But it's easy!" Camilla blurted out, and blushed when Ursus nearly roared with laughter (Aemilia Ursa was far less amused with the faux pas). "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean --"

"I really don't understand where I'm going wrong...." Julia said thoughtfully. "Perhaps if I told you the problem --?"

"Oh, certainly," Camilla said, sallow cheeks flushing pink again, and she stepped away from Ursus' arm and a bit closer to Julia. "What happens?"

"No matter what I do," Julia said, and took Camilla's arm, steering her away from the group and down the arcade, "the thread snaps, and I have to tie it back in...."

"That girl," Aemilia Ursa pronounced as she sat on the bench next to Gaius's and fussed with her palla, when Julia and Camilla were barely out of earshot, "always manages to be as tactless as possible. Really, Marcus, putting a matron on the spot like that --"

Gaius tended to think the same. He preferred Camilla's blunt, tactless honesty to Aemilia's thinly-veiled snipes. How Ursus wound up with catty Aemilia Ursa was beyond anyone's ken: they didn't seem at all compatible.

She married up, probably. And now she gives herself airs, and picks on poor, graceless Camilla Ursa....

"I think Julia Corvina understood, at any rate," Ursus added. "My word, Gaius. Lovely, intelligent, and understanding, if unable to weave...."

"She makes up for it," Gaius said absently, and watched as Julia coaxed a laugh from Camilla, as they strolled on the other side of the peristyle -- and then Ursus and Primus began to snigger like naughty schoolboys.

Aemilia Ursa didn't approve either, and told Ursus and Primus in no uncertain terms that they should behave themselves on a formal occasion.

Titus Antius Bubo arrived next: a skinny, sharp-faced middle-aged man with a receding hairline -- he'd reminded Gaius of a balding rat at their first meeting -- and Ursus called Julia and Camilla back over for introductions. (Bubo seemed unimpressed with Julia and totally ignored Primus and Camilla, but then he seemed intent on observing the social hierarchy, and split his attentions between Ursus and Aemilia Ursa.)

"Now, look, best behavior when Gracchus arrives," Ursus cautioned everyone in an impromptu war-council. "I hadn't planned on having him over tonight, but he leaves for Herculaneum tomorrow, for the season. Lots of business-talk, ladies, my apologies. You," he said sternly, turning to Primus, "are to keep your cake-hole shut, let Gaius deal with any figures that come up, and watch how Titus and I reel him in, if we get the chance. Learn how it's done. Got that?"

"Gracchus won't bring his wife tonight, so unless he decides to latch onto Julia Corvina -- and who could blame him -- Aemilia will escort him in, I will take Julia Corvina, and Titus, Camilla. You two poor sods take the rear. Gracchus has the locus consularis, of course, and Aemilia and Camilla are on my lectus. Gaius, I'd rather you took the head of the third lectus rather than third place on the second -- it'll be easier to talk to the man. Julia Corvina between you and Primus, of course."

"All right, here we go," Ursus said, and nodded a dismissal to the child. "With any luck, he'll take off before the entertainment, and then we can really enjoy ourselves," Ursus added in a whisper.

And then Gracchus was escorted in by the little slave-boy, and the whole round of introductions was begun again, although far more formally. (Gracchus did latch on to Julia for the procession into the triclinium, as it happened, and Ursus had to escort his own wife in.)

Gaius made certain, as he and Primus brought up the rear, to give the idiot a discreet punch on the shoulder.

" 'm not --"
"Yes, you are. Do you want to marry into the business, or not? And you need to give Gracchus a chance to speak with Julia, anyway. Good business."

Primus glared at him, and then they were in the triclinium and he had to behave himself.

Gracchus finally relinquished his hold on Julia for the foot-washing, everyone took their appointed places on the lecti, and the gustum was served.

Julia acquitted herself well in the idle conversation that preceded mensa prima -- Gaius was quite proud of her, actually -- and only when Ursus and Titus got around to speaking of the business and a potential partnership, over the mensa secunda, was Gaius able to fully concentrate on anyone but her.

He supposed he couldn't blame Primus for being enchanted. His only regret was that he couldn't really look Julia in the face given their placement -- but on the whole, that was probably best.

Not for the first time in his married life, Gaius thanked the gods for the concealing length of his toga.

"Oh, good gods," he groaned when the bearers hit a bad patch of cobble and gave them a particularly nasty jounce.

"Just warn me if it gets too bad so I can shove you out. I don't want you mucking up such a lovely gown."

He held on to his composure until they reached the edge of their neighborhood, and rapped on the door for the bearers to stop: then he got out -- staggering just a bit -- and helped Julia out, thanked the bearers and paid them, and he and Julia walked the rest of the way home.

"No telling, until he signs a contract. The numbers we gave him were good, but not spectacular -- Quintus could easily best us if he wished, but I'm hoping he's too damned busy to bother. It's a smallish contract for Corvinus Shipping, but a huge one for us."

"Oh. I'd thought Gracchus seemed pleased. He certainly liked that you had the numbers off by heart."

"Standard procedure -- I'll send him a formal write-up tomorrow. It's already written, in fact. I was more surprised that he stayed for the entertainment, until I realised he was talking mostly with you. I think everyone was impressed with you, actually, short of Aemilia Ursa."

"The fact that your employer's partner is carrying on with his wife, of course."

"No. You didn't notice all the glimpses and the little signals going back and forth?"

"I pay attention to books and clients, not idiots playing at flirtation over the dinner-table."

"Oh, it went far beyond playing at flirtaion," Julia said matter-of-factly as Gaius unlocked and opened the door, and ushered her in. "They've got a full-blown affair going. Hand signals, gestures, significant looks."

Gaius poked his head in Hyperion's room -- no Hyperion: undoubtedly still out carousing, so Gaius refrained from barring the door, and followed Julia into the tablinum.

"Not intentionally, of course, but I did," Julia said, lighting a lamp with a careless wave of her hand and a quick Lux. "She's smart enough to take advantage of everyone's distraction."

"Poor partner, when Ursus finds out," she said as she unpinned her palla and carefully folded it. "As nice as he seems, Ursus doesn't impress me as the kind of man to put up with a partner who'd commit adultery with his wife." She stopped, looking a bit puzzled, and said, "You know, I can't quite make Ursus out. He seems a very nice man, and very doting toward Camilla, but he seems oblivious to Aemilia Ursa's... well, nastiness."

"He tends to take people at face value," Gaius said. "Too trusting by half -- that was part of the reason the business was in a bad way when I came aboard."

"I'm glad you got Primus sorted," she said with a sly note in the tone of her voice.

"He kept rubbing his shoulder throughout the gustum, and he paid far more attention to poor Camilla."

"Oh, that. I might have given him a good thump while everyone else's backs were turned, yes."

"I'm glad you took the poor girl away from the harpy, by the way -- very nice of you, to throw yourself on the weaving-bobbin, in a manner of speaking...."

A scroll was lying on the desk-top -- a delivery that had arrived after they'd left -- and Gaius picked it up to be certain it wasn't from the pater or Nigellus.

Gaius dove for the lectus in the corner (a belated and fine wedding-present from Ursus), ripped open the seal, and devoured it with his eyes.

Gaius whooped and tossed the scroll in the air: Julia fumbled for it, anxious to read to the last.

"My gods," she breathed. "who would have thought some silly barbarian trick would work...."

"It's not beyond us. We don't need all the stupid rituals, Julia -- we don't need to beg some damned daemon, or supplicate to the blasted gods to do us a favour. It's in here," he said, stabbing at his chest. "It's in us, and it just needs the right focus. It's part of Nature and part of us, not some dark craft -- it's just another skill and art, like being a great sculptor or painter --"

He wasn't certain why he acted as he did next: relief at finding he and Publius were on the right track, perhaps, or the hope that maybe this, finally, would redeem wizarding to the normal population, put a halt to the purges and killings. Or perhaps it was simply the sight of his wife, his lovely wife in the beautiful wine-dark gown: the pins he'd given her twinkling in the thick, black coils of her hair like the stars they represented in an inky sky, her skin glowing in the light from the oil-lamp and her eyes shining, a smile curving those delectable lips....

He lunged for her and caught her up, intending simply to hold her, to share his joy: a mistake, because her arms went about his shoulders and her cheek was there to be kissed, and then her eyes, and then he was caught up with her lips as well -- and she didn't stop him, so he began to taste, and was lost for quite some time before he was able to tear himself away from her mouth.

"Hush," was all he could manage to grate out as he went further down, kissing and nipping at her neck and the hollow of her throat, tasting the sweet oil that lingered on her skin and immersing himself in the scent that he knew, even with such little acquaintance, was quintessentially Julia.

I was bloody well wrong, he thought as his free hand wandered, definitely wrong, her breasts weren't small -- they were just right, and he should take the time to stop and look and worship them properly, take care with the gown and remove it, but there just wasn't time. He'd been an idiot to wait this long, deluding himself that he could get accustomed to thinking of her as a friend, a sister: he felt as though he'd burst at a moment's delay. A very small, rational portion of his brain told him to stop, that he was frightening her -- she was having difficulty breathing, in part from the arm he had clamped tight about her waist.

Yes, but her arms are free, and she's not fighting you, a sly and canny voice whispered in his head. She's had more than enough time to get used to the idea. She's your wife, damn it. It's time.

He rucked up the front of the gown with his free hand and pushed her back on the lectus, pinning her down with his weight, and fumbled under his tunic.

He stopped her mouth with another hard kiss, found and parted her, thrust -- she went rigid and whimpered -- and he managed a stupid and panicked "It's all right," in her ear before he thrust again, forcing his way past the resistance and deep into her. She cried out, then, and he managed to stop long enough to shift some of his weight off her, drop kisses on her face and whisper a few idiocies to try and calm her: how lovely she was, his wife, and how much he wanted her, and gods, she felt wonderful; and then he couldn't hold on to even that tenuous control any longer and thrust again, twice, three times -- and felt everything give way.

He was panting and shaking when he came to again, lips pressed to her temple: for a brief, sated moment he was absolutely content, and untangled his hand from between them to reach up and stroke the other side of her face.

"Oh, gods," he muttered, voice strangled. "Julia, I -- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... I knew I'd have to hurt you, but I didn't mean to --"

He dragged himself up and collapsed on the other end of the lectus, wiping sweat out of his eyes with the back of a shaking hand.

"Gaius, would you stop.... I simply didn't want Hyperion walking in on us," she said, carefully sitting up -- but not before Gaius got a good look at how dreadfully he'd pulled the gown up about her waist, exposing her, and at the faint streak of blood along one slender thigh.

"No," she said firmly, and gingerly scooted off the edge of the lectus. "I.... I need to wash this out before it stains. I'll be quite all right, Gaius."

She left the tablinum, and he heard the snick of her workroom door as it opened and closed.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Brilliant, Gaius. What a considerate and thoughtful lover -- to use her like a common harlot..

He staggered off the lectus, went to the kitchen, poured water, and scrubbed at his groin until it burned; disposed of the water down the toilet-drain; went to his room, threw the soiled tunic into a corner, and crawled into bed, wishing he could curl up and die.

He woke up an hour or two later, restless, and thought perhaps he ought check on Julia: so he pulled on a fresh tunic -- no sense in frightening her with his nakedness -- tiptoed to her room....

After a moment's panic he thought to check her workroom, raced through the house to it, and cautiously slid open the door.

A lamp still burned on the long table, and it was cluttered with objects: telling, that -- she always cleaned her instruments and put things away properly. She'd ground something in the mortar and Gaius could smell a sharp, stinging residue in the air (though he couldn't place what it was), and a pot of one of her ointments sat out next to a mixing-bowl. Something to soothe the harm he'd done, he hoped.

She was curled up in a blanket on the Rufia Docila's former, tatty lectus in the corner, fast asleep, and the gown was on the foot-rest with its skirt spread out to dry: her tunic was draped over the high stool.

Gaius thought she was quite possibly too frightened or disgusted to sleep in the room next to his, and he couldn't blame her for it. No woman deserved such rough treatment on the first go, at least not in Gaius' estimation.

He watched her for several long moments with guilty, regretful, hungry eyes -- greatly tempted to draw the blanket off her and look at everything he'd so foolishly ignored earlier -- and then he gently closed the workroom door, returned to his room for his sandals, grabbed his cloak, and left the house, riddled with shame.

He couldn't bear to sleep there, not knowing what she must think of him: and he decided not to go home for at least a week. If ever.

He rolled and sealed the scroll, took it to the owlery, and sent it off with the fastest bird the proprietor had in his fleet.

He fully expected to be impatient, to have to school himself to wait for a reply and to try to concentrate on work until the twelve or so days had passed before he might reasonably expect a letter in reply: but Fate had a rather nasty surprise in store. One that made his problems seems positively idiotic in comparison, and gave him a respite from them -- for which he was grateful, though it came at great and terrible expense to others.

The trouble started the morning of Gaius' fourth day away from the house. He'd stumbled out of bed, quite early -- he was due to travel to Portus that morning to pick up the last two shipments of the season (barring Dexion's problematic return trip) and needed a good head start, so he pulled on the cleaner of his two tunics and his toga, stopped by a baker's for a quarter-loaf of bread, and ate it as he walked to the office. He unlocked the main door to the warehouse so the workers shouldn't have to wait for Primus, and then made his way upstairs to the office from the front stair, without passing through the storerooms.

He was nearly ready to go (manifest sorted, leave for the ships' captains tucked away in his satchel -- by the time Primus stumbled in, hung-over.

"You look as bad as I feel," Primus muttered as he groped his way over to his desk. "Things not going well?"

Primus grinned, opened his mouth to make a ribald comment, winced, and carefully sat on the edge of the table.

"I don't know how you make it to the office on time after those outings, I truly don't," Gaius said, scrubbing with his stylus at an old tablet to erase it for its next use.

"Live above a bakery," Primus said. "Bakers are the first ones up in the morning. Can't sleep for the ruckus, no matter what -- not that I actually made it home today for anything but a clean tunic. Which ships are due it today?"

"The Jason and the Minerva. Minerva's late, and she's carrying four Hispanian horses --"

"Oh, fuck. So this place is going to be loud and busy today," Primus moaned, and swiped at his eyes.

It was already loud -- unusual, this early in the morning, as the workers hadn't all arrived to begin loading the outgoing wagons: Gaius could hear someone in the warehouse below yelling for Glaucus. They sounded panicked.

"Why can't Ursus give up horse transport? Or hire a stable for the damned things? The place smells like horse shit for weeks after."

"Cuts into the profit, you know that. No sense in stabling a horse that may still go belly-up from the trip, not until you're certain it's recovering -- he's had owners refuse to pay when that happens, never mind the contract, and if it has to go to the knacker's he damn well wants the proceeds. You waste more money prosecuting for payment than you get, in the end."

"You'd.... You'd better come down, sir. There's a problem in the amphorae room."

"He's not doing much of anything, sir. It's a body. I don't know who -- he's head-first in one of the culleae, and I thought it best to leave him there until you saw. He's dead."

Gaius stared at the man, shocked, and then dropped his satchel and raced down to the warehouse. Primus was fast on his heels, hangover forgot.

The amphorae room was a misnomer, although it certainly contained them: but most of the floor space was taken up with huge culleae, vats sunk into the ground for bulk storage of liquids. Ursus made a bit of money on the side by buying when there was a glut of oil or wine, storing it in the warehouse, and selling it directly to the taverns and cook-shops in the area for less than they might get them from the proper merchants. (It was a slightly dodgy practice, of course, since Ursus' clients wouldn't be happy if they knew that he was competing with them -- but it was legally above-board as Ursus didn't fudge the manifests, and paid all the appropriate taxes.)

There was indeed a body forced into the neck of a culleus, and the man was undoubtedly dead: the body had already voided itself.

"The poor sod's past help. Go get the Watch captain first," Gaius ordered. "Tell him it may be a murder."

That was an understatement -- it had to be murder. Romans opened their veins: they didn't drown themselves in a vat of cheap oil or wine. Or at least not in this manner.

"We'll find out," Gaius said grimly. He had his suspicions, though he didn't want to air them yet: he thought he recognised those spindly legs.

It took nearly a half-hour for Glaucus to return with the Watch captain and, surprisingly, a city commissioner -- a grim-faced man who introduced himself as Sergius Honoratus, and whose secretary trotted along at his heels.

Two of the workers gingerly worked the shoulders free. It was a tight fit (even though the dead man was a skinny little sod) and rigor had begun to set in. They hauled at the body, dragged it over to a clear spot on the floor, and nudged it over so it was face-up, its stiff limbs flopping about.

"Shit --" Primus hissed, and the workers backed away hurriedly, gesturing against the evil eye.

"Yes," Gaius said shortly. "Titus Antius Bubo. Our employer's business partner."

"So you were the first on the premises today," Honoratus said as his secretary scribbled frantically on his tablet. "And yet you didn't notice anything strange?"

"I didn't walk through the warehouse," Gaius said tiredly. (They'd been going over this for forty minutes, and Gaius had come to the conclusion that he was the prime suspect.) "I unlocked the front door, but I left the rest for Primus or Glaucus to take care of. I went up to the offices, and I didn't come down again until Glaucus came to fetch me."

"You don't think it necessary to check the place first thing in the morning? To see if the doors were secure?" Honoratus continued, and jerked his head toward the body when four mortuary attendants entered the amphorae room with a stretcher.

"I told you, we've a night watchman, Cato," Gaius said. "He's usually back here in the storage area -- the times we've had attempted thefts, they've come in the back. Nothing looked amiss up front, so I didn't think to check."

But the watchman was missing, as was his dog: the Watch captain (greatly affronted by Honoratus' decision to take the investigation in hand himself) had been sent back to headquarters to report the man's disappearance and give a description to the patrols.

"Your man -- Glaucus, is it? -- said you told him it was murder. How did you determine that before you were certain of the identity? Mightn't it have been a thief or a drunk?"

"Oh, bloody -- First, I said it might be murder. Second, I suppose it's conceivable that if he were a drunk he might have slipped and struck his head, but he was wedged into the bloody vat. And I don't see any jugs lying about, do you? How do you propose a thief was going to carry the wine away?"

"I wasn't. I was at a dinner-party at Ursus's home a few days ago, and I recognised the build. And that nasty scar on the back of his calf."

"The dinner-party? Fine," Gaius automatically replied, watching the bearers as they lifted the body onto the stretcher and then covered it with a blanket.

Gaius shoved the thought away: he couldn't say it. He ought, of course: this was a murder investigation -- but he couldn't see Ursus doing away with his business partner. Prosecute him, yes; force the man to sell his share of the business, and divorce Aemilia Ursa, certainly. But Gaius thought Ursus incapable of committing murder, or even paying to have it done.

"Any reason Bubo might be here late at night, or early morning, as the case may be?"

"None. He was a silent partner, only put his money and influence into the business, not his sweat. He and Ursus conduct their... conducted all their transactions elsewhere. I'd only seen him once before the dinner-party, and that briefly."

"Very well. Take down his place of residence, Vatia -- I'm sure I'll have questions for him later...."

"Vicus Caeseti, the Aventine," Gaius said, careful to give the home address but not that of his room. "The block with the herbalist Sosius."

"Yes -- I can't believe this, I saw him only last week -- are you certain, Gaius?"

Ursus padded over on shaky legs, and moaned when a mortuary bearer pulled the blanket away from Bubo's face.

"Yes, that's him," Ursus said. "But I don't understand.... Why should he be here?"

"That appears to be a mystery, Ursus, at least according to your clerk. I think we may dispense with you, Corvinus," Honoratus said to Gaius, and turned back to Ursus. "And you, sir, have some questions to answer. You office or mine?"

"Oh, I -- mine, upstairs, that's fine. Don't think I can manage to walk far, at the moment," Ursus said pathetically.

"Very well. Take that to the mortuary," Honoratus told the bearers. "And tell the attendant that if by some chance the family hears and makes it there before me, he is not to release the body to them."

"Oh, I d- don't think that's likely," Ursus stuttered as Gaius left the room. "He didn't have anyone, you know...."

No-one except Aemilia Ursa, Gaius thought wildly. Good gods, I wonder how she'll react, when Ursus tells her....

Gaius had no idea what to do or where to go, at the moment. Primus had been quizzed by Honoratus and sent packing -- apparently he'd spent most of the night at whatever House of Joy he'd caroused at, and his alibi appeared sound -- and had taken Gaius' work down to Portus to do himself, as it was obvious that Gaius was going to be badly delayed.

He couldn't go back up to the office -- or he assumed so, since Ursus was going to be interrogated there. He couldn't even set up in an empty corner downstairs and work on the accounts: Sergius Honoratus had demanded that no work be done in the warehouse until he'd had a chance to examine every inch of it.

There was nothing to do but take himself off, so he found the nearest wineshop and proceeded to get ever-so-slightly drunk.

He wanted to go home, if truth be told. The home, the domus, not Fountain Court: to collapse and try to sleep, or read until he couldn't keep his eyes open, perhaps allow Julia to chivvy him into eating. Perhaps to even tell her about the whole wretched matter -- he needed to talk to someone, to figure out whether he should tell Honoratus about Bubo's possible affair with Ursus' wife.

He couldn't, though. He wasn't ready to face Julia yet. And it wasn't fair to expect her to listen to him, not when he'd treated her so badly. It was his right, of course, if he wished to exercise it, but he was unaccountably unwilling to force her to put up with his presence, or to foist what amounted to a business problem on her shoulders. He'd determined to keep her strictly out of such things: his business was none of hers, after all, apart from the dinner-party -- but oddly enough, he kept coming back to She doesn't deserve to be burdened with such a sordid mess.

He ended up going back to his solitary room (fuck Honoratus, even if he was a bleeding city commissioner, he could always reach Gaius at the office the next day), and stared up at the ceiling, sleepless, until the wee hours.

Work was horrid for the next few days. Ursus seemed incapable of making any decisions, and when Gaius brought things to his office he often found the man staring at the far wall with a helpless look on his face, as if he'd lost a relative rather than a business partner. (The business itself wasn't in any immediate danger: Gaius had made certain that when Ursus took Bubo on as a partner that it was protected -- but there wouldn't be much extra investment for a while, not unless Ursus could find another partner.)

Primus seemed totally spooked by the whole matter, and practically begged to be given chores outside; and while he took longer at them than was reasonable, Gaius noted that he performed the tasks conscientiously, and so let it pass. Some of his own time was spent in recalling a few of the laid-off workers, to replace the more superstitious ones who'd given notice after finding the body.

All in all, things were remarkably quiet until the third day after Bubo's murder.

Wonderful. I suppose he's got in some trouble. Or I'm in for a tongue-lashing.

Hyperion seized Gaius' arm and dragged him over to a corner of the delivery-yard, away from the stairs and any possible interruptions.

"None of your business," Gaius said, "but there's been a problem here, and I'm needed on the premises."

"Bollocks," Hyperion said bluntly. "Look, Gaius, I know something went wrong the night you two went out, and you need to stop sulking like a child and get your arse home."

"I need? I need? How dare you tell me what to.... Let's get this straight, now, once and for all," Gaius said, nearly stuttering in rage. "I am the master here, and you're the slave. You don't tell me what to do. Not anymore -- I'm not a child any longer, I'm a citizen, a married man, and you need to bloody well treat me with the respect you owe me. I don't care how entitled you feel -- that all stopped the moment I reached my majority, and you'd better accept it or I'll send you back to Albingaunum. Got that?"

Hyperion paled and his eyes grew wide: he seemed almost to shrink physically, as diminished in body as Gaius' words had wounded him in spirit, and then he drew himself up to his full height, and stared Gaius straight in the eyes.

Gaius spun on his heel and headed back for the stairs -- and stopped dead when Hyperion called after him, "She's sick, Master. Been very sick since the Kalends, and she won't let me call a healer, and I don't know what to do."

"How sick?" Gaius demanded, turning back to him. "Hades, Hyperion, just fetch a bloody physician --"

"Can't. She's absolutely forbid it, and since she's the mistress I can't disobey, can I?" Hyperion shot back, his face red.

"You're not there to defy," Hyperion said, voice dripping malice, "and you're not there to overrule her, so what the fuck can a slave do?"

"You know what I mean," Gaius spit out at him. "You've got your orders now, don't you?"

"Yes -- after four days' delay," Hyperion retorted. "I'll do my best, but I can't make her see the bloody man, I hope you realise that."

Gaius struggled with that. It was true: he knew Julia was fully capable of turning the physician away, if he wasn't there to chivvy or command her into seeing him.

He wanted very badly to hit something, and Hyperion was a tempting target, despite Gaius' disgust at the kind of man who would beat a slave.

"Yes," Hyperion said. "Just one last thing, though, Master -- and you can whip me all you like, but by the gods, I need to say it. If you want to be treated like a responsible married man, you'd bloody well better start acting like one."

He gave Gaius one last, defiant glare, and then stomped off through the yard and down to the street.

Gaius stared after him, shocked: and then, as the yard was empty and there was a convenient pile of discarded amphorae ready to be hauled to the rubbish-pile, he took out his rage on four of them.

Gaius ignored the summons for ten minutes, trying desperately to concentrate on the accounts: but the thought that Julia had been ill for all this time and refused help finally sank in. He flung his pen down, stuffed the account-scrolls in the cabinet, and made it home in record time despite the crowds.

Hyperion was sitting on the doorstep, working grease into a pair of old sandals, when Gaius turned the corner of the building.

"Peristyle, Master," Hyperion said, refusing to look Gaius in the eyes. "I got her out of her room, for some fresh air."

Gaius slid past him and hurried in: he found Julia on the wretched lectus that usually graced her workroom, with Fenia Terrtulla hovering over her, blocking Gaius' view of her.

"I can't, Fenia," Julia said. "Please take it away, just the smell of it's enough to --"

Fenia started, slopping broth out of the bowl and onto the floor, and stepped aside -- and Gaius stopped dead, shocked.

Julia looked absolutely awful: bundled up in a coccoon of blankets, shivering, her face flushed and sweaty, the wisps of hair that had escaped their plait clinging to her cheeks and forehead.

"She's been like this for days, Master," Fenia interrupted. "Can't keep anything down, she's been running a fever, and her courses are --"

"Hyperion said you wouldn't allow him to bring a physician," Gaius said. "Would you care to explain why?"

"It's just a fever, Gaius -- Fenia, take the blasted stuff away --" Julia said, and shifted restlessly.

He did the only thing he could think of: he hurried over to the other side of the lectus and sat, and supported her head until the heaving stopped: and then he took the pot from her before she dropped it, set it on the floor, and helped her lie back down.

"That's it," he said, thoroughly frightened. "I don't bloody care what you want, I'm sending Hyperion now."

"No," she said, and coughed a bit to clear her throat. "I've eaten something off, that's all, and my body's still purging itself. It should settle down, soon."

"A non-magical? He'll bleed me, it won't do a bit of good, and I don't need that. I'm a healer's daughter, Gaius, I know what I'm talking about -- you'll just have to trust me."

"Bloody.... Julia, if you haven't eaten for four days.... You need water, at least --"

"And I can keep that down, at times. Please, Gaius, just... just leave well enough alone, unless you intend to hold me down so some butcher can open a vein," she said, voice steely, and wrapped the blankets closer about herself.

He stared at her, utterly bewildered. She'd never spoken to him that way, only to Rufia Docila: he was amazed that she had the strength to defy him, because she looked like death -- face ashen, skin clammy, unable to control the shivers that racked her body. (Despite her weakness, she looked very much like her father, if truth be told -- arrogant and cold, and absolutely determined to have her way: a total stranger, utterly unlike the quiet Julia that Gaius had grown accustomed to.)

He ought to send Hyperion anyway, but he thought it likely that if he did it high-handedly, he'd do more damage by angering her further.

"I have to do something," he finally said. "You're my.... I'm responsible for your well-being, you know. I can't let you sit here, suffering...."

"Then pull over a chair," she said faintly. "Distract me. Read to me. Help me drink, when I can. But there's not a single useful thing a physician can do, so there's no point in wasting the money."

Gaius glanced up, and saw Fenia Tertulla standing in the doorway of the cucina, helplessly twisting her stola-skirt in her hands.

"No, Master," Fenia admitted. "The fever comes and goes, but it's never been that bad."

"All right," he said, "for now. But if it gets the slightest bit worse I shall send for someone, even if I do have to hold you down. Understand?"

Julia nodded and sank back into the cushions, her eyelids drooping over the dark, half-moon bruises beneath her eyes.

Gaius rose to do as she'd asked, and found that Hyperion had entered the room silently and was already bringing a chair out from the tablinum.

He hurried into her room to retrieve one of them -- the first one that came to hand -- came back out, settled himself in the chair, and began to read, distractedly, with many glances over at Julia's pale, drawn face. The scroll picked up mid-story: but she didn't seem to care, so he plowed on ahead.

"When the morn had broken, faithful Alcyone left the house and made her way to the shore, seeking the place from which she had seen Ceyx depart. 'Here he loosened the ropes, and on these sands he kissed me before leaving,' she thought, and as she gazed seaward she saw on the waves a body, though she was uncertain at first what it was. As the tide brought it closer she recognised it as a man, and took it for an omen of shipwreck, and grieved for the poor, lost soul, crying, 'Alas for you, whoever you might have been, and for your poor wife!'

"But as the implacable tide brought it nearer and nearer, the greater her dread grew, and the smaller her courage; and when at last the lifeless thing was nigh to the shore, she recognised it as her husband. 'It is him!' she cried, and tore at her cheeks, and hair, and clothes, and stretched out her arms for it, saying, 'Oh, is it like this, my husband, poor wretched one, that you return to me?' She leapt into the sea, but did not sink: she flew, skimming the surface of the waves, the wind supporting her newly-fledged wings; and her piteous cries, full of sorrow, issued from a slender beak. When she reached the corpse she clasped it in her wings, and kissed the cold, mute lips with her beak.

" 'The gods took pity on her for her sorrow and faithfulness, and changed Ceyx into a sea-bird, like his beloved. Though changed in form, their love and faithfulness remain: to this day they mate and rear their broods, floating on the water's surface. Aeolus calms the winter waves for seven days, and forbids his grandsons to disturb Alcyone and Ceyx's efforts: and these we know as 'halcyon days.'"

"You see, now?" Hyperion whispered, hoarse, from the corner near the tablinum. "I got that willfulness every blasted time I tried to go for a physician, boy. She may be little, but she's mighty in her wrath."

"I see," Gaius said, defeated, and set the scroll aside, and simply watched Julia sleep.

"Isn't there anything -- a potion -- that would help?" he asked her. "What about that stuff you made for Hyperion?"

"Who do you propose should brew it?" she said. "I can't right now. My hands tremble so that I'll make a hash of the measurements."

"Well, what about me?" he said. "I can follow a receipt as well as anyone else, I suppose...."

"All right, you may try," she said. "But I want you to bring the receipt and the ingredients out here, and let me make certain you've got the right bits. There's nothing magical about it, but the wrong ingredient could be disastrous...."

"Top-right cubbyhole, the scroll with green knobs and thongs. It's the third or fourth receipt in. I can't guarantee I'll keep it down...."

Gaius shot across the peristyle, into Julia's workroom, and rummaged in the drawer for the scroll; lit the lamp and read the receipt; and then fumbled about with the jars and boxes at the end of the table, checking the labels against the ingredients. It wasn't hard -- she was very neat and methodical, although there were two or three unlabeled items that he carefully set aside. (He snooped a bit, wondering why she'd been careless with those: one of them smelled familiar, sharp and stinging -- whatever it was she'd used the night he'd left the house.)

He gathered them together and took them out to her, and she carefully checked them against the receipt.

"This," she said, handing him back a box, "has to be ground quite finely. You'll need less than you think. Go do that first, and then bring it back and show me."

He trotted back to the workroom, drew over the mortar and pestle, and ground away -- and had to to it again when, after showing her the result, she told him it wasn't fine enough.

Hades, why does it matter? he thought peevishly as he worked away. It all gets chucked into the same pot....

She was satisfied with his second try, though, and sent him into the cucina with her measuring-spoons and instructions to use a perfectly clean pot: and with Fenia's help he managed not to bollocks it up, and brought the nasty-smelling stuff out to her when she told him it had brewed long enough.

"Don't think I can do it," she said, face turning distinctly green. "I was afraid of that...."

"Yes, it can," she muttered as she sat upright. "You aren't the one whose stomach has been trying to part company with you for days...."

"I'll have the pot ready," Gaius promised, sat on the edge of the lectus, and slipped his free arm about her shoulders.

She took the cup from him, shuddered, pinched her nose, and slowly drank it down: she nearly dropped the cup before Gaius could fumble it out of her hand, and then she clamped her hand over her mouth.

All he could do was hold her tight and smooth the hair away from her face as she struggled, for a very long time, not to lose the potion.

Gaius didn't sleep well that night: he spent most of it at Julia's bedside after carrying her to her room. She'd managed to keep the potion down, and it hadn't killed her (yet), so he supposed he must have brewed it properly: but she still looked bloody awful, fever-flushed, her breaths shallow.

I wonder what it was that set her off? It couldn't have been Ursus' party -- too long before she became ill, and we all ate the same things.... Perhaps it was something peculiar to her, like Pater not being able to eat strawberries.

Shit, could I have harmed her that badly? What kind of damage might I have done?

He worried over that for a long time, exhausted and unable to calm his thoughts, but finally dozed.

When he woke after a bit -- limbs stiff from falling asleep in the chair -- Julia was awake, and watching him.

He pulled himself out of the chair and went to the cucina -- noting that Fenia hadn't gone home, and had curled up under Hyperion's blanket on the lectus in the peristyle -- and fetched a cup of water, returned to Julia's room, and helped her drink.

"Yes," she said -- she looked exhausted by the effort -- and tried to smile. "Thank you."

"My warning still stands, you know," he said quietly. "And I want you to promise me that if it happens again, you'll allow Hyperion to fetch a physician. Or a healer, I don't care which, as long as you see someone."

"You're certain," he said roughly, "that it wasn't anything I did? That you're not injured... inside?"

"No, I'd know that," she said, "and I'd be dead by now from the bad humours -- it happens sometimes with births, Pater told me of the symptoms. No, it wasn't you, Gaius. Just the stomach trouble, and a problem with my courses at the same time."

"However," she added quietly, "worrying about you didn't help. You've every right to stay away if you like, Gaius, but a note would have been appreciated. I didn't know what to think, given the way you left, and I was afraid to disturb you by asking at your office."

"I'm not speaking about being ill, I mean in general. I know you try to keep your work separate from home, and I've no idea how busy you are. And you must have been very upset, to leave with only your cloak."

"No, Hyperion did, and I didn't ask him to. Besides, you look awful -- your tunic's a mess. Wherever you were," she added in a mutter, "you haven't been taking care of yourself."

Good gods, there she lies, sick as a dog, and she's fussing over the state of my tunic and my well-being....

He was thoroughly ashamed of himself, for both the indignation and his carelessness, in not sending word.

"Unpleasantness at work," he mumbled. "Ursus hasn't been much use, so I've been there most of the time."

"No, he's -- Julia, lie down, blast it, it's not that. He's fine, physically, at least, and Primus is as well. On his best behavior, actually."

"Still don't know. He took the prospectus with him when he left town and said he'd write, either way. No, it's.... I don't want to bother you with it now, actually. Perhaps in a few days, when you're feeling better."

Julia carefully wriggled back down onto the lectus, and Gaius sat forward and tucked the blankets back in about her.

"I shouldn't have taken off like that," he muttered. "I'm sorry. I was as disgusted with myself as you must be, that's all."

"No, don't... it was fairly obvious, after all, with you staying in your workroom. And I simply couldn't.... It doesn't matter, now. It's done, I bolloxed it up, and then compounded the problem. I'll try to give you notice, next time I have to be away."

"And you should be, now. Don't worry," he said wryly, "I'll be here in the morning. I'll even send an excuse to the office, and stay the day."

"Yes, I need to," he said. "if only to make you another dose of that tummy tonic. Well, that's what Longinia calls it," he retorted when Julia snorted a bit at that.

"You've some letters waiting, Hyperion stopped by the owlery," Julia offered after a while. "Your pater and mine, I think. Nothing from Publius...."

She was breathing more easily, now, and though she was still pallid, her skin had lost that awful ashen cast.

He admitted to himself how frightened he was. It had never occurred to him that she might become ill, and it should have: Hyperion was fond of reminding him that she wasn't really as strong as she seemed.

He had a rather significant fence to mend there, too. Not that he was wrong to have reminded Hyperion of the boundaries: the bloody old man regularly overstepped them. But he might well have done it more carefully, especially as he now realised Hyperion had been frantic with worry over Julia, probably every bit as much as he was by Gaius' absence.

Well.... No time like the present. I'll just put it off like an idiot, otherwise....

He tip-toed out of Julia's room and made his way to Hyperion's cramped little cubicle: the door grated against the floor as he pulled it open, and he heard Hyperion shoot upright on his lectus.

"She hasn't taken another bad turn, has she?" Hyperion said, his normally-rough voice even huskier with worry.

"No, no, she's better. Sleeping again," Gaius said as he stepped into the room, his knees bumping the end of the lectus. "She wouldn't let you fetch me either, would she?"

"Yes, damn it. Finally. I couldn't take it any longer, no matter how much trouble it got me into."

"Good. Don't let her do that again, Hyperion. I may be an idiot, but I do care about her."

"Thought so. And you're not an idiot, Master, although you give a bloody good impression of it, sometimes --"

"Oh, fuck it, Hyperion, drop the 'Master' bit, would you?" Gaius retorted, voice strained. "I would never had said that if I'd known how bad the situation was -- I wasn't in my right mind...."

He swayed and nearly stumbled, and Hyperion reached over, pulled him down onto the edge of the lectus, and wrapped an arm about his shoulders.

"It's true, though," the old man said. "That's the way life is, boy, it was just a shock to hear it from you. We both needed remindin', that's all."

"No, no, it's not right, you've always done your duty to us -- the whole family, I mean, but especially me -- and it was cruel...."

"It's always that way for us, when you lot realise the difference," Hyperion said matter-of-factly. "The smart ones keep their distance, 'cause they know one day it will all change, and that young one you've always cared for will turn on you or go stand-offish. Problem is, I'm not smart, and you discovered it a lot later than most, bless you."

"I know, boy, I know you -- you can't even manage to give me a dressing-down without apologising eventually, can you? People hurt each other all the time, Gaius, no matter their position. It's just a damned sight easier to do the hurtin' when you've got all the power, and you're going to have to get used to that. I have."

"Of course. But I couldn't live like that -- saying "Yes, Master," and "No, Master," and not giving a damn about people. It's not natural for me. I need to belong and have someone who belongs to me, even if it's a snot-nosed, willful little prat, who grows into a man who can't manage to treat me like the slave I am."

Gaius finally gave up, twisted around, buried his face in Hyperion's shoulder, and tried desperately not to cry as the old slave comforted him.

Julia was still sleeping the next morning, so peacefully that Gaius did indeed have time to attack the pile or correspondence that waited for him. Pater's letter was short and to the point: how are you both, thanks for the tip about the Carthage clerk, and Quintus might be calling on you and you'd bloody well better think about any offer he makes.

What a disgusting attitude.... All of it, but especially to speculate on me enjoying Julia's body....

He managed a short note of acknowledgement to Nigellus, and a rather more friendly letter to the pater: and then, after checking on Julia, he left for the owlery.

The owlery owner was in a snit when Gaius got there, and was fussing over a very large eagle that lay panting on far counter: he was tending it as lovingly as a woman would nurse a baby, stroking its limp wings and trying to persuade it to drink.

"Some fool told it they had a high-priority message," the man said. "It flew its arse off to get here, all the way from Britannia. Record time. Blimey. Sheer waste," he fretted. "Imperial birds are used to that treatment, but this poor bugger isn't. If he pops off, I'm going to give someone a piece of my mind."

"Don't," the man said as he gently swaddled the exhausted bird in a bit of blanket. "Too bloody expensive -- the best ones can make the trip out there or back in four days, and this poor bugger bested even that. Don't matter. A good bird's a good bird, and it's a waste. I get to nurse him back, if I'm lucky, and then the blasted owlery in Britannia probably won't bother to pay my costs."

Gaius slipped his payment on the counter and turned to leave the owlery as the man trotted over to take his scrolls -- and then froze as the man let out an offended, "Oi!"

The man glared at him, stomped off to the other counter, and snatched up a thin little scroll -- the one the eagle had delivered, apparently. He shoved it at Gaius, muttering all the while, and pointedly turned his back to Gaius and resumed cuddling the bird.

Gaius left an extra denarius on the counter to pay for the bird's treatment, out of guilt, and -- as the letter was from Publius, and thinking it must concern the project, he hurried home. Really home. The least Gaius could do, considering Julia's worry, illness, and her interest in the project, was show up and share the news with her.

How dare he -- I thought he was.... All I wanted was a bit of sympathy, damn it, and he dresses me down from two thousand bloody miles away....

And then he checked himself, picked up the scroll, and re-read it -- really read it, hearing Publius' voice in his head, and that dry, subtly sarcastic tone that only Publius had.

By the time he reached the wanking bit he was snorting; by if you only practise, fool, his shoulders were shaking; and at I toddle off to Britannia for a few years... he was howling, and had to give his anger up as a lost cause.

Gods bless Publius -- sensible, irascible Publius, who never let him get away with anything: who told him he was an idiot, but never made him feel as though he was, as the pater did.

Damn the man, he was right. About everything, probably. Publius (being a man of great common-sense) always approached things head-on, not crabwise as Gaius did, and his life was infinitely simpler as a result. He didn't carry the weight of regret that Gaius did, and Gaius envied that.

Of course, I needn't either, he thought as he sobered. He's absolutely right. Here I've been ignoring my conscience, and doing precisely as he says. I'm still letting Pater run the show, but in mirror-image. Cutting off my nose to spite my face.

He set the scroll aside, propped his feet up on the desk, and, for once, looked to his conscience and his heart for the answer, rather than to his intellect or a book.

Just give it up, man. Admit it. You're enchanted. You're lusting after the wife you didn't even want, and you care for her, besides. And in true Gaius-fashion, you mucked it all up before it even had a chance.

Will she give me another? Probably, given how she ticked me off about not letting her know where I was. But it can't possibly be as simple as Publius thinks.

And I don't think I want it to be. True, it would be far simpler to apologise for the night and go on from there. No reason I can't. She'd probably take in in stride.

But can I ever look her full in the face again if I don't own up? Sleep in her bed, with her, and truly enjoy it, knowing I haven't been honest, and always be afraid it might come out someday?

No. The whole bloody thing's built on a foundation of lies, and if I don't fix it properly it will all come down, sooner or later.

He suddenly felt as though a weight had been lifted from his chest and he could breathe again. As if the guilt had been pushed aside, thrown off, by... by joy. By the same, ridiculous welling-up of joy that he'd experienced the first time he and Publius has Levitated a fallen log, up on the hills above Villa Corvinii; the same he'd felt when Longinia minor had first laboured her way through a line of text faultlessly, and turned to him, her face proud and wonder-filled as she not only read, but understood it.

No, he didn't want the marriage to end, to say good-bye to Julia and all that she represented -- and he was happy at the thought that it mightn't, and filled with anticipation for what it could become, and dread that he wouldn't be able to patch it together: dread for what he should have to do to make it right.

There was nothing for it, really. Lying had got him into this awful mess: he'd have to confess and hope Julia would forgive him the idiocy. He thought perhaps she might -- they'd got on well after that first truly awkward week, and he knew, though he'd tried to ignore it, that she'd been doing her best to keep it going.

He suppressed the urge to tell her immediately, though. She'd been ill: he didn't want to set her back with such a potential upset. No, he'd wait until he found just the right moment, sit her down, tell her the whole thing -- carefully and kindly, so she understood quite clearly that the problem had been with himself, not her -- and take his lumps, if necessary.

He locked Publius' letter away so she shouldn't happen onto it in the meantime -- not that he thought she pried, but she was likely anxious to hear any news from Publius, too -- and made his way to her room.

And he quite surprised her -- and himself -- by swiftly crossing to the bed, bending, and giving her a chaste kiss before leaving for his own room.

The Gift, Part VII