The march itself was boring. The men marched around them, a great river of flashing silver and sharp pikes snaking over the land. Some made quiet conversation to their neighbours but most were silent, absorbed in their own thoughts, the steady clink of their armour providing a backdrop to chatter of their minds. Rome was like that for a while as well, before Aurelius's restless fidgeting prompted him to tell stories. They ate their midday meal in the saddle, taking brief stops only when necessary to relieve themselves before hurrying back to their place in the formation. It was monotonous and dull, and Aurelius dozed off a few times before they reached their destination.

Rome pulled the horse to a stop and gently roused his sleeping son. "We're at the next camp," he explained, as Aurelius blinked sleepily and stretched.

"What now?" he yawned.

Rome dismounted and plucked Aurelius off the saddle after him, setting him steadily on the ground. "You keep out of the way."

The exploratores had selected a relatively clear hilltop for the new site—good drainage, defensible, and you could see approaching armies, Aurelius noted in his new military awareness. He hung back and watched as the contubernii organized themselves to dig entrenchments and build squat, fortified guard towers. Regardless of how long they might be staying, the camp always dug in, the first row of tents placed 180 pedes back from the wall. This, Rome had told him, prevented enemy artillery fire from reaching the men, as well as gave them plenty of room to call up legions in formation. It still amazed him, how much sense the Roman camp made.

Slowly the camp appeared, disentangling itself from supply wagons and serving hands to unfold in neat ordered lines over the hilltop. Aurelius lost track of Rome somewhere between watching the horses corralled, their tack removed and their coats brushed back to gleaming, and lending a hand to a soldier pitching his tent. He wandered through the rows and helped ferry things from wagon to tent location, frequently staggering under the weight meant for a grown man and a trained soldier. He followed a guard up a completed lookout tower and managed a glimpse of the surrounding countryside before getting chased out. He started a fire for an injured soldier with deep gashes bandaged on his arm and dragged over plenty of large branches to ensure that the blaze continued. He tried not to be bored.

"Aurelius!"

He looked up from the healer's chest of strange implements to see Rome striding towards him and guilty scrambled to his feet.

"What are you doing?" Rome asked, glancing into the physician's tent. The man was nowhere in sight.

"Helping," Aurelius defended.

The republic sighed. "Why don't you come with me?" Without waiting for a response, he took the boy by the shoulder and steered him towards the completed entrenchments. The sun was melting into a bloody puddle in the west, shedding an eerie red glow over the trampled snow, staining Rome's armour a strange rosy colour. They stopped at the base of a guard tower and Rome sent him up the ladder.

"You again—stay on the ground, kid," the guard scowled as Aurelius poked his head up through the floor's entrance. He faltered, glancing down.

"He's with me, soldier!" Rome called up, nodding encouragingly to Aurelius before following after him. He straightened, returning the offered salute as he glanced out to the horizon reflexively. "What do think, son?"

The term sounded strange on Rome's lips. Aurelius pushed the thought aside and looked out over the leafless tree tops in the distance, their bare branches like gnarled hands stretching soundlessly up to the heavens from the sunset drenched snow. It looked as if the entire land heralded their coming by bathing the forest in blood, to warn away anyone that might stray too close to the Roman camp. He blinked, then squinted. "Is that smoke?"

"That's the village of Tricasses," Rome nodded. "Our target. The scouts are out now, to determine their response to our arrival." He paused, then asked curiously. "Which of your people live there?"

"Tricasses?" Aurelius had never been there himself, but he knew the people. "The Lingones, mostly. Probably Senones too, maybe some Parisii. I dunno—everyone's moving around now, on account of the—" invasion, he wanted to say, but that sounded, like what he shouldn't say to Rome. "The changes," he amended lamely.

"I see…" Rome braced his elbows on the low wall, leaning against it in complete trust of his engineers' skill. "And how do they get on?"

Aurelius shrugged. "They have their rivalries. The Senones and the Parisii don't really like the Lingones, since, um, they gave you their loyalty…" But Rome didn't seem the least bit affected, so he continued. "The Senones and the Parisii both fought with Vercingentorix, but they listened to their own leaders and not anybody else's. It's, probably a reason why we lost," he frowned, realizing the truth of it as he spoke. He looked back to the smoke, thin grey tendrils lazily curling up to the darkening sky. "Are you going to attack them?"

The question drew Rome out of his musings of how to convince the Lingones to inform about the other two. He gave himself a few seconds before he replied sincerely, "Only if I have to. I would much rather they surrender."

Aurelius nodded. "I don't want anyone to die."

Rome smile sympathetically. "Neither do I, Aurelius." Dead men don't pay taxes.

Movement on the bare hillside drew their gaze—the exploratores were returning, cutting a path through the snow.

"Excellent! Let's see what they have to say!" Rome vanished down the tower's hatch, leaping to the ground from half-way down the ladder.

"Wait, wait!" Aurelius called, taking the ladder two rungs at a time. Rome didn't hear him, or at least didn't respond, heading for Iulius's tent. Aurelius's feet hit the dirt and he took off after the republic at a run, darting between soldiers. The exploratores rode into camp and dismounted, also heading straight for Iulius's tent. Aurelius sprinted, and skidded to a halt at their heels just as they reached the entrance. He followed them in, slipping around their legs and over to Rome, who stood nonchalantly behind Iulius's chair.

"Sorry—" Aurelius started, but Rome quickly shushed him as the scouts saluted.

"Imperator, we bring news of the Gallic village Tricasses, of its people and of its design," the leading scout stated.

"Speak then."

"Tricasses is a village of small stature, surrounded by farmland and pasture for at least a milles in all directions. The village itself is enclosed by a stout wooden wall some ten pedes high, with two gates—one in the north side, the other in the south. Save for the wall, the village has no entrenchments and no fortifications; we also did not see any siege engines. We observed in the village a great commotion, seeing among the hustle men sharpening their blades, repairing their armour, and equipping women, children, and elders with food stuffs before expelling them from the village," the man recited, standing stiffly at attention.

"What are your estimates of their numbers?" Iulius asked.

"Likely under a thousand," the man replied. "It seems their village has been swollen with many refugees, straining their capacity to support themselves through the winter."

"Good to know. Anything else of note?"

"They appear to be desperately trying to dig in."

Iulius nodded. "Thank you for your report. Bring word to the guard to be on watch for possible preliminary attacks; nothing smaller than a contubernia leaves the camp, to deter ambush. Dismissed." The soldiers began to file out; Iulius added. "You as well, Aurelius."

Rome straightened. "What?"

"There is something I wish to discuss with you in private," Iulius responded calmly.

Aurelius saw Rome's fists clench, then open, before he nodded. "Our tent is at the end of this row, behind the Fretensis aquila. We'll only be a few minutes, okay?" Rome smiled, comfortingly, and Aurelius was struck by the similarity to Mama's smile, that one she gave when something was wrong only she didn't want him to know, so she smiled and sent him off on one task or another. He tried to see past it, staring up at Rome, but the sheen in his dark eyes shifted, whispered no, boy, this isn't yours to understand, obey me and go. Aurelius dropped his gaze and nodded quickly, fur-cuffed boots scuffing across the tent rug as he left.

Rome waited until the tent flap fell back into place before coming around the chair, commenting lightly, "Sounds like preparing for a battle to me." He stopped directly in front of Iulius.

"So it does. Though it might be avoidable," the commander replied.

Rome searched Iulius's face, the lines etched into his brow, the corners of his eyes, little valleys borne of stress and laughter and age. "I know what you're planning, Iulius. And a surrender with no risk to our men would be wonderful, a blessing—you know I hate fighting in the snow and slush. What I don't like is the cost," he emphasized the word, turned it hard and rough on his tongue. The opening statement to a debate.

"You think he cannot do it?" Iulius asked plainly.

"I think he is as old as I was when I was carried kicking and screaming out of a burning Troy and made to wander ten years without a home, and never once was I commanded to implore those men to lay down their arms and surrender!" Rome snapped.

"You know as well as I do that we are going to win regardless of their choice to fight or not—"

"Yes, Iulius, I realize this but you don't understand—" He stopped, took a breath. "Consider: what if he cannot persuade them? Why would that be?"

One salt and pepper brow arched. "Because he is a child and lacks the oratory skills to sway a crowd from bloodlust."

"Yes. And further?"

"Further?"

"Yes, further. Iulius, he is as I am. We're not like you, like the men outside. We feel our people, deeply. It's—" He gestured futilely, trying and failing to find some comparison. "We are both parent and child of our peoples. I seek to guide them, protect them, love them as my children; my chest swells with pride to think of all they have accomplished and yet—I crave their approval. Their loyalty, their trust, their love, it sustains me. To be denied by one's people, oh, imagine the dart through your chest, should one's children ever deny the father. It's crushing, impossible to ignore, for unlike a father, I am wholly dependent on my people for my own self. I am defined by them," Rome stressed, pacing, agitated, in the space before the commander's chair. "Do you see, what that would do to Aurelius? Place him before his people, dressed as we dress, when he has been living with us, and ask him to compel them to surrender? Why should they trust him? Why should they not despise us more, having moulded him to our own designs?"

"But," Iulius interrupted, a hand held up in peace. "Since he is as you say their guardian, does the bond that ties guardian to people not run also the opposite course? Of all people we might place before the villagers, surely he through his very nature will arouse their sympathy."

"His mother," Rome hissed, "still lives. Who can say if that tie has been knotted yet, or still hangs between them, loosely held by both sides, present but not binding?"

Iulius's eyes narrowed. "You should have executed her weeks ago—"

"I am saving her for our triumph," Rome spat. "And you will not deny me this."

"Your ego threatens to condemn to death the lives of my soldiers by forcing them into a battle that could have been otherwise avoided—"

"My ego—we have always paraded our enemies in the triumph, since triumphs have been held. Iberia was marched, with her leaders; so too will Gallia, with Vercigentorix as your attendant captive," Rome retorted.

"My men—"

"Wrong, Iulius!" Rome shouted, whirling on the seated commander, bracing himself on the armrests, caging the older man. "My men. My soldiers. They fight for me, just as you fight for me."

To his credit, the consul didn't flinch, meeting Rome's gaze with steely eyes. "So you would throw their lives away to maintain your pride," he said cooly.

Rome stiffened, hackles rising. "I would prevent a potential reenergizing of the rebels, when they see the young guardian under enemy influence," he growled.

Iulius was unmoved. "Why are you so convinced he will fail?"

Rome pushed back from the chair, gesturing broadly. "I see in him a tender spirit, which, when placed too near an impassioned blaze faced with immanent extinguishment, will respond in kind, flaring up in the same rebellious fervor that grips them in their folly. He will sympathize with them, empathize with them, and then we will crush them. And he will feel betrayed."

A sound of understanding hummed in Iulius's throat. "I see. You do not seek to protect him so much as you seek to maintain your influence over him," he clarified with a bemused smile.

Rome shot him a look. "I desire both. How fortunate that they are so closely intertwined." He smiled bitterly.

Iulius shook his head with a sigh. "You are a ruthless politician."

The republic allowed a grin. "I think that's the best back-handed compliment you've given me yet."

A smile ghosted over the commander's feature before they melded back to a somber visage. "So you will not consent to sending him to speak with the rebels?"

Rome huffed. "I don't know. I don't like the risk, but I'd rather not make my men fight in this cold…" His gaze flicked up to the tent's canvas ceiling. Gods, but did he miss the balmy weather from home. If only they could engineer a surrender. What a gift it would be. And the precedent it could set for the other organizing rebels… A patient silence stretched between them, broken by Rome's defeated sigh. "He can go. So long as he has two praetorians with him, and two from the equites."

"Done," Iulius consented instantly. "I will hand pick his guard myself."

"If this backfires," Rome warned, "it's going to cause me a lot of grief." And possibly cost me a son.

"I understand," the imperator said gravely. "I will do everything I can to ensure that it goes smoothly, and will accept your blame if it does not."

Accepting the blame would mean very little if the experience damaged Aurelius beyond repair. But the republic nodded, and sent for a guard to fetch him.

-o-

When the guard appeared, Aurelius dropped his carving, the rough shape of a boar beginning to show through the wood, and followed him without a word back to Rome. The winter stars gleamed cold and bright in the cloudless sky, an inky cloak thrown over the heavens. The camp was surprisingly quiet; most of the soldiers turned to their warm beds as soon as the sun went down, leaving only the silent guards awake. Aurelius mirrored that silence and ducked into the tent without a word. Both republic and commander turned to him immediately, fixing him with such grave stares that he stopped just inside, worried. Was something wrong?

"Come here, Aurelius," Rome waved him over, standing beside Iulius's seat.

He did so, leaving a respectable distance between himself and the imperator, as he had seen the exploratores do earlier. His small hands fidgeted with his tunic belt as he looked between the two, the ends slowly fraying under his fingers.

"Aurelius," Iulius began, drawing the boy's attention. "Yesterday I explained to you the situation with the rebellions. Tell me, do you see any way that they might win?"

Was this a trick? Did Iulius know something he didn't? Or did he think Aurelius knew something he didn't? He hesitated, then shook his head slightly. "No, Imperator."

Iulius continued. "As you heard from the exploratores, Tricasses is preparing for battle. This is unfortunate, given how many of their lives will be lost in the battle. Those surviving warriors who are captured will be sold into slavery to fund the funeral expenses for those of my men who will inevitably fall as well."

Aurelius's eyes widened slightly as the commander spoke. Sold into slavery—but of course he knew that, when he had been put in the pens, before Rome had found him, didn't he realize that he would be sold? And yet it had completely slipped his mind, he didn't stop to wonder where the prisoners had gone. They had been sold, carried far away to the south, passing from hand to hand throughout Rome's territories, maybe even to other nations. Now again his people would be ripped from their homes again and forced to bow to another's will. He swallowed thickly, mouth suddenly dry.

"However," Iulius paused, pale grey eyes watching Aurelius closely. "were they to surrender without a fight, they would retain their freedom. By swearing their allegiance to Rome, they would be Latin citizens, as I've told you, free to do business and continue their lives. To that end, we wish to send a group to parlay with their leader, in the hopes of gaining their cooperation."

Realization dawned. "You want me to ask them to surrender," Aurelius said plainly.

Iulius nodded. "Yes, if you are willing. I understand that this is a difficult thing to ask of you; if you would rather remain here, I can select another to—"

"No," Aurelius said firmly, drawing himself up. Butterflies unfurled in his stomach, but he forced the sensation down. "They're my people. It's my job to protect them."

Rome felt a flush of pride. Strong boy. "Thank you, Aurelius. You're going to save a lot of people," he said solemnly.

"I don't want anyone to get killed," he mumbled, nervously tucking a strand of blonde behind his ear.

Rome smiled and came over, crouching down to pull his son into a tight embrace. "Don't worry," he murmured soothingly, one hand stroking Aurelius's soft hair. "You'll save them."

Aurelius nodded, wishing he felt as confident as Rome sounded, clinging to Rome until the republic pulled back slightly.

"Now, listen closely, and I'll tell you exactly what you have to say," Rome began.

By the time they left Iulius's tent, the Great Warrior was sinking over the trees in the western sky. They laid down for sleep in silence, Aurelius tucked up next to Rome for warmth and comfort, head swimming with phrases and information and promises to bring to the rebels. Surrender, and we will spare your lives. Surrender, and your women will be untouched. Surrender, and you will remain free in your own homes. Surrender, or face certain destruction.

Please, he prayed as he drifted off to sleep. Please let them believe me.

-o-

I apologize for the terribly late update! The holiday coupled with life getting under foot gave me very little time to write. With any luck, I'll have a new job shortly, but my current work is picking up such that I need to reduce my updates to once a week on Monday. I hope you'll stick with me as we continue to witness Aurelius's childhood under Rome. Check back on Monday for the next update, or add this fic to your Alerts. As always, feel free to question, comment, or offer up critiques and praise if you'd like to share them. And please, if you've enjoyed this fic so far and think you know someone else who'd also like it, please feel free to post a link to this story on your site, Facebook, Tumblr, LJ, Twitter, etc.