Author's Note: Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. –Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Disclaimer: A slave owns nothing; I own no more.
In the frigid depths of night, Aquila woke. He was sweating, despite the cold. He had had the dream again, of his brother Flavius, and the loss of the Aquila, the bronze eagle standard of the Ninth Legion. What had happened to him? And to the eagle?
Aquila, a career soldier and ultimately camp commandant himself, had never really lived the notoriety down. None of the family had. An Aquila had lost the Aquila.
Marcus was very like his father. Had Flavius been wounded, as Marcus was? Had he suffered, as the boy did?
The old man breathed in the cold night air. How could he and Stephanos have failed to see that the wound was not healing? Well, the boy wasn't one to complain. Perhaps they'd been too close, too accustomed to the injury, to see its true condition.
But the Briton slave had seen it… Esca. The name make him smile. In Latin, it meant… meat… bait… tasty tidbit.
He had bought the boy for Marcus, because… he wasn't sure why. Perhaps he had been bait at that. The first thing his nephew had taken an interest in, since his injury.
He remembered the Briton's face in the arena, scorning death, unafraid.
Brave.
Young men are brave. Old men—
–are old.
Aquila decided that since he was awake, he might as well check on his nephew.
Marcus' body slave slept curled in a ball on the tiled floor just inside the chamber door. He was uncovered in the chill night.
Odd. The night before, when Aquila had laid the tunic next to the boy, he'd been covered by a sleeping cloak. What had happened to it?
The old Roman abandoned the mystery in favor of approaching the bed.
Marcus slept more or less peacefully, though perhaps a bit feverish. At least he seemed warm enough. Leaning over the bed, he saw that his nephew's usual bed coverings had been supplemented by his long woolen toga, folded into thirds, and by the sleeping cloak that had formerly covered his slave.
Stephanos regarded the decapitated body of his young fellow slave where it sprawled across the tiled floor in exasperation. Why was the boy always trying to change things?
"Are you saying it won't work?" If the boy's lilting accent sounded strange in Latin, it sounded even odder in Greek, and more bizarre still emerging from the metal bowels of the disused furnace.
"No, I'm not saying that," the irritated Hellene fumed.
"Then what are you saying?" Esca's missing head emerged from the furnace door, the short bronze-colored strands of hair dusted with gray ash many seasons old.
Two straight nights listening to Marcus' chattering teeth had convinced the Briton that steps needed to be taken, and if no one else would take those steps, he would have to do it himself.
Try convincing Stephanos though.
"I'm saying there're only two of us, in case you haven't noticed, and I have better things to do all day than tend to your fire."
"You won't have to."
"You won't have time to tend it either!"
"It won't take that much time—"
"I'm not so old that I've forgotten how many slaves it takes to keep one of these things running!"
"I have an idea how to get around that," Esca repeated. He thought a moment, then asked uncertainly, "Should we ask Aquila for permission?"
Stephanos snorted. "As if he cares what we do as long as he has his books, gets his food, and I let him win at latrunculi."
Well, then. "Are you going to give me the money or not?" Esca reminded the old man.
"Your Greek is terrible, you know that?"
"I know," Esca admitted, "that's why I want to practice." After a pause, "The money?"
"You'd better come back here with everything on that list."
"I will, Stephanos."
"You're a stubborn fool," the old Greek complained.
"Then you'd better give in," the younger man teased.
Stephanos shook his head, but handed over the coins, then watched worriedly as his fellow slave headed out the door.
That night, as Aquila sat up conning one of his prized scrolls, he smelled something funny.
…and he realized it was almost—
–warm.
He leaned down, and placed a cautious hand on the tessellated floor, then moved to check the wall as well. Impossible.
"Stephanos!" Aquila called.
His Greek body slave came running.
"Stephanos," the old Roman asked urbanely, "is the house by any chance on fire?"
"The surgeon instructed us to keep the patient warm," the Hellene pointed out.
"Arson seems a bit extreme." Aquila looked at his body slave expectantly. They both knew the little household could not afford the expense of running the hypocaust.
Stephanos wondered just what it might be best to say. "The only thing on fire is the blocks of dirt that boy you bought has stacked in the furnace."
For once warm enough, wrapped in the sleeping cloak, and with no clicking of tooth enamel across the room to keep him awake, the Briton slept.
Only very lightly, however.
"Esca?"
The slave rose immediately to attend to his charge, offering water in the red clay drinking vessel, his free hand supporting the patient's head to help him drink.
When he had assuaged his thirst, Marcus said, "Am I still fevered, or is it actually warm tonight?"
Esca laid a slender hand on the Roman's broad forehead, then moved it to curve gently along his rounded cheek. "You're not feverish now," he said. "It's warm. Go back to sleep, and soon you'll be well again."
Marcus smiled at his slave and drifted obediently back to sleep.