Author's Note: The positive energy and love we give to others, heals our own wounds. ― Angie Karan Krezos
Disclaimer: A slave owns nothing; I own no more.
"Ow!" For once it was Esca's hand, rather than his master's leg, that was of concern.
Marcus' leg was healing. All four of the men could see the difference, the wound still red, but safely closed, and no longer erupting angrily.
Finally, as both Stephanos and Marcus had phrased it to Esca, each in their different ways. Aquila did not confide his feelings to his nephew's body slave, but the Briton thought the old uncle was relieved. If in a sometimes rather inappropriately jovial way. His praise of the surgeon, at any rate, was not unfounded.
So far, in fact, had the young Roman's health improved, that he had agreed to appear in the dining room for the evening meal for the first time since the room had been used for his surgery, and Stephanos, in consequence, was planning a celebratory feast. Uncle Aquila, something of a gourmand, happily approved.
Esca himself had been caught up in the older men's excitement to the extent of offering to prepare a dish of beef cooked in nettle broth. Unfortunately, his skills in gathering the fuzzy leaves were not as well developed as those of the women of his tribe, and the wild plants were punishing him accordingly.
Ouch! How did the girls do it? He wondered, hissing as the stinging nettles bit into his fingers once again. This food bites back. And I don't have half enough… He persevered, however, as it was one of his favorite dishes: the very taste of springtime, once the leaves had been cooked into submission. He hoped to tempt Marcus' appetite; sore hands seemed a small price to pay. And he enjoyed the excuse to be out in the woods alone for a while.
Sometimes the all-male, repressed, almost depressed atmosphere of the town villa Aquilae got to him. Some mystery there, which he had not yet had sufficient time to plumb. He missed seeing women, and children. He winced as yet another stinger bit his palm. Did they have no friends? Probably it had just been because Marcus wasn't well. Now that he's getting better, they should start seeing more people. Until then, he'd just have to beg Stephanos to let him do the marketing.
To his own surprise, he laughed when the next plant shot half a dozen tiny needles into the back of his hand. Even if it hurt, it was good to be alive. He twirled the sprig of fighting leaves in his fingers. "I'm going to enjoy eating you," he told the plant.
His wounds were not invisible, he found. "What happened to your hands?" Marcus asked, as Esca helped his master wash and dress for dinner.
"Nothing," Esca mumbled. He would have liked to hide the evidence, but his hands were needed for his task.
Marcus captured his slave's right hand and brought it up between them where he could examine it. The slender bones fluttered gently in his grasp, like a captured bird. "Looks painful," the Roman opined, a certain lively amusement peeking from the green eyes.
He's definitely improving, Esca thought. He wanted badly to yank his hand away, but knew better than to give in to the impulse. His hand was Marcus' property. He swallowed. "It's nothing compared to your leg," he answered breathlessly.
Marcus released him. "Point taken," he conceded, but not angrily. "Very well, be a man of mystery, if you wish it."
Esca nodded and returned to arranging the Roman's apparel.
He had misjudged the family's social status, Esca saw, as he brought in a plate of olives, one of the gustus course dishes and set it on the low table. More equite than patrician: the family did not recline. Aquila sat upright on a bench at the head of the table, and Marcus was seated, upright also, on the long side of the table to his right. Esca still stood at gaze, taking this in, and rearranging his mental idea of the family, when Stephanos arrived from the culina with a plate of bread. The Greek set it on the table in front of old Aquila, then seated himself on the bench across from his master's nephew, on his master's left.
Esca blinked in surprise. Stephanos looked up at him impatiently. "What are you waiting for?" the older slave asked. "Sit down."
The younger slave shot a glance across the table at his master, but saw only polite waiting in the green eyes. What is this? What's going on? Esca wondered silently. He hardly dared look at Uncle Aquila.
No matter. The old man had everything under control. "Is it customary for Britons to eat standing?" he asked suavely.
Light from the nearby oil lamp glinted in the bronze hair as the narrow head shook silently.
"Then sit," Aquila commanded. "I'm starving."
Even before the cena course was over, he was used to it. This was what meals had been like at home. Everyone together. He watched Marcus, eating the dish he had prepared, and smiling with pleasure.
"Esca made that," Stephanos told him.
"It's delicious," Marcus said.
Esca blushed while old Aquila took another portion of it.
"Those greens are stinging nettles," Stephanos remarked. "Easy on the tongue, but hard on the hands. The boy's been wounded in your service."
Esca hid his hands under the table.
"You did that for me?" Marcus smiled at him across the table.
For a second, the smaller man didn't know what to say. Then he found himself blurting out the truth. "I like to eat it, too!"
And at that, all four men laughed.