Gaius’ mother. She had screamed at him until he promised never to try it. The memory still made him pause whenever he picked up a blade to eat.
When Tubruk had brought the barely conscious Gaius back to the villa, Marcus was out of bed, having crept down to the vast kitchen complex. He’d been in the middle of dipping his fingers into the fat-smeared iron pans when he heard the voices and trotted past the rows of heavy brick ovens to Lucius’ sickroom.
As always when they hurt themselves, Lucius, a physician slave, tended to the wounds. He looked after the estate slaves as well as the family, binding swellings, applying maggot poultices to infections, pulling teeth with his pliers and sewing up cuts. He was a quiet, patient man who always breathed through his nose as he concentrated. The soft whistle of air from the elderly physician’s lungs had come to mean peace and safety to the boys. Gaius knew that Lucius would be freed when his father died, as a reward for his silent care of Aurelia.
Marcus sat and munched on bread and black fat as Lucius set the broken nose yet again.
‘Suetonius beat you again then?’ he asked.
Gaius nodded, unable to speak or to see through watering eyes.
‘You should have waited for me, we could have taken him together.’
Gaius couldn’t even nod. Lucius finished probing the nasal cartilage and made a sharp pull, to set the loose piece in line. Fresh blood poured over the day’s clotted mixture.
‘By the bloody temples, Lucius, careful! You almost had my nose right off then!’
Lucius smiled and began to cut fresh linen into strips to bind around the head.
In the respite, Gaius turned to his friend. ‘You have a broken, splinted hand and bruised or cracked ribs. You cannot fight.’
Marcus looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps. Will you try again? He’ll kill you if you do, you know.’
Gaius gazed at him calmly over the bandages as Lucius packed up his materials and rose to leave.
‘Thanks, Lucius. He won’t kill me because I’ll beat him. I simply need to adjust my strategy, that’s all.’
‘He’s going to kill you,’ repeated Marcus, biting into a dried apple, stolen from the winter stores.
A week later to the day, Marcus rose at dawn and began his exercises, which he believed would stimulate the reflexes needed to be a great swordsman. His room was a simple cell of white stone, containing only his bed and a trunk with his personal possessions. Gaius had the adjoining room and, on his way to the toilet, Marcus kicked the door to wake him up. He entered the small room and chose one of the four stone-rimmed holes that led to a sewer of constantly running water, a miracle of engineering that meant there was little or no smell, with the night soil washing out into the river that ran through the valley. He removed the capstone and pulled up his night shift.
Gaius had not stirred when he returned, and he opened the door to chide him for his laziness. The room was empty and Marcus felt a surge of disappointment.
‘You should have taken me with you, my friend. You didn’t have to make it so obvious that you didn’t need me.’
He dressed quickly and set out after Gaius as the sun cleared the valley rim, lighting the estates even as the field slaves bent to work in the first session.
What mist there was burned off rapidly, even in the cooler woods. Marcus found Gaius on the border of the two estates. He was unarmed.
As Marcus came up behind him, Gaius turned, a look of horror on his face. When he saw it was his friend he relaxed and smiled.
‘Glad you came, Marcus. I didn’t know what time he’d arrive, so I’ve been here a while. I thought you were him for a moment.’
‘I’d have waited with you, you know. I’m your friend, remember. Also, I owe him a beating as well.’
‘Your hand is broken, Marcus. Anyway, I owe him two beatings to your one.’
‘True, but I could have jumped on him from a tree, or tripped him as he ran in.’
‘Tricks don’t win battles. I will beat him with my strength.’
For a moment, Marcus was silenced. There was something cold and unforgiving in the usually sunny boy he faced.
The sun rose slowly, shadows changed. Marcus sat down, at first in a crouch and then with his legs sprawled out in front of him. He would not speak first. Gaius had made it a contest of seriousness. He could not stand for hours, as Gaius seemed willing to do. The shadows moved. Marcus marked their positions with sticks and estimated that they had waited three hours when Suetonius appeared silently, walking along the path. He smiled a slow smile when he saw them and paused.
‘I am beginning to like you, little wolf. I think I will kill you today, or perhaps break your leg. What do you think would be fair?’
Gaius smiled and stood as tall and as straight as he could. ‘I would kill me. If you don’t, I will keep fighting you until I am big and strong enough to kill you. And then I will have your woman, after I have given her to my friend.’
Marcus looked in horror as he heard what Gaius was saying. Maybe they should just run. Suetonius squinted at the boys and pulled a short, vicious little blade from his belt.
‘Little wolf, mudfish – you are too stupid to get angry at, but you yap like puppies. I will make you quiet again.’
He ran at them. Just before he reached the pair, the ground gave way with a crack and he disappeared from sight in a rush of air and an explosion of dust and leaves.
‘Built you a wolf trap, Suetonius,’ Gaius shouted cheerfully.
The fourteen-year-old jumped for the sides and Gaius and Marcus spent a hilarious few minutes stamping on his fingers as he tried to gain a purchase in the dry earth. He screamed abuse at them and they slapped each other on the back and jeered at him.
‘I thought of dropping a big rock in on you, like they do with wolves in the north,’ Gaius said quietly when Suetonius had been reduced to sullen anger. ‘But you didn’t kill me, so I won’t kill you. I might not even tell anyone how we dropped Suetonius into a wolf trap. Good luck in getting out.’
Suddenly, he let rip with a war whoop, quickly followed by Marcus, their cries and ecstatic yells disappearing into the woods as they pelted away, on top of the world.
As they pounded along the paths, Marcus called over his shoulder, ‘I thought you said you’d beat him with your strength!’
‘I did. I was up all night digging that hole.’
The sun shone through the trees and they felt as if they could run all day.
Left alone, Suetonius scrabbled up the sides, caught an edge and heaved himself over and out. For a while, he sat there and contemplated his muddy praetexta and breeches. He frowned for most of the way home, but, as he cleared the trees and came out into the sunshine, he began to laugh.
