Author's Note: "Though my work may be menial, though my contribution may be small, I can perform it with dignity and offer it with unselfishness. My talents may not be great, but I can use them to bless the lives of others... The goodness of the world in which we live is the accumulated goodness of many small and seemingly inconsequential acts." ― Gordon B. Hinckley
Disclaimer: A slave owns nothing; I own no more.
Warm water sluiced deliciously over his thigh and into the basin below. Marcus groaned, but it was a sound of pleasure rather than pain. The wet heat was what his body craved. Gentle hands laid a warm wet cloth over his now-healing flesh. Esca, squatting at his feet, sat back on his heels, and the blue-gray eyes flashed up at him inquiring, "Better?"
"Yes, that's good." Marcus smiled at his slave. "I wish—" then he shook his head. "Nevermind."
Esca would have liked to ask him what he wished, but knew better. "We could leave it open to the air," he suggested. "It won't start to bleed again now."
"No," the Roman insisted. "Cover it."
The Briton nodded, resigned, and wrapped a clean white bandage comfortingly around his master's leg. When he'd finished, he heard, as usual, "You can go."
Esca gathered the detritus of his work, the basin and dirty bandages, and departed without further words.
Marcus sighed. He was tired of being alone. And the warm water, even that little bit of warm water, truly had felt good. Maybe Uncle Aquila was right. Maybe he should accompany his father's brother to the bathhouse. But he couldn't.
He looked down at the clean, white bandage on his leg. Could he?
"What do you mean?" Aquila asked his nephew.
"I don't— I want— I don't want— " the young man broke off, frustrated.
The old man's brow wrinkled. "What don't you want?"
Marcus pursed his lips into a circle and blew out a forceful breath through the tiny opening he'd left between them. "I don't want anyone to see it."
"You'll be in the water."
"Not all the time."
Aquila shrugged.
"And what about the oiling, and the—"
"What about it? It will only be a slave helping y—"
"Only?"
"You let Esca help you."
"Esca is just… Esca."
"He's a slave, like any other slave."
"He's not—"
"He's not what?"
Marcus shook his head, unable to explain.
"What if I went with him?" Esca asked.
Aquila and the two body slaves had come together for a consultation on what was to be done with the young master.
"Do you know what that would cost?" Uncle Aquila asked testily.
"Through the front door?" Esca named the sum. It was accurate.
"How dare you?" Stephanos attempted to remonstrate with his fellow slave. "To suggest that the master should—"
"I don't," the Briton assured the old Greek. He turned to the old Roman. "It's a lot cheaper to come in through the back door. One bribe instead of three." He named a much lower price.
Uncle Aquila was interested. "That might be doable… but what would that entail on your end?"
The young man caught a corner of his mouth between his teeth. "Naturally, we'd have to pretend I was one of the slaves of the bathhouse. No favoritism. But I can make sure I'm there to attend to Marcus in each room."
"You'll have to attend to others as well, or it won't look right."
Esca shrugged. "So I scrape down a few extra Romans. It's nothing I haven't done before."
Aquila was on the point of laughter, until he saw his own body slave's outrage. "Stephanos," he reminded the old Greek, "we have to do what's best for Marcus." He cut his eyes across at the Brigante teasingly. "And if that means that Esca here has to lower himself to serving a few additional citizens in the process, who are we to stand in his way?"
"Are you sure you know what to do?"
"Yes, Gittopor," Esca reassured his friend for what seemed like the dozenth time.
"All right, go." He watched worriedly as the 'new' slave entered the apodyterium to help some customers undress.
"What if he isn't there?"
"He'll be there," Aquila promised. "He gave me his word."
"His word?" Marcus repeated. If Esca had given his word, then he would keep it, unless—"but what if—"
"'What if' is a game for scholars," Aquila reminded him. "If he isn't there, then I hope you'll let someone else help you, but he will be there."
He was there. "Bene lave," Esca greeted them in a muted tone.
Marcus and Aquila undressed with the Briton's assistance, then he accepted their clothes to be placed in one of the chests for safekeeping, what time the two Romans went through into the tepidarium.
"See?" Aquila smiled at his nephew. "Easy-peasy."
Marcus was still nervous, but he looked back into the changing room, and somehow the sight of Esca earnestly assisting another pair of men to undress relaxed him. "It'll be fine, uncle," he agreed.
Marcus couldn't do much by way of exercise just yet, but true to his word, Esca rejoined them, and it was he who rubbed Marcus down with olive oil, massaging his sore leg gently…. In fact, anywhere the Briton touched him, he was soothed. Aquila suggested a turn at least around the palaestra, so the two Romans went out to the exercise yard, leaving the Briton to work massage-magic on some other customers.
Marcus did some stretching with his uncle's help, then the two of them strolled in a leisurely fashion around the enclosure, greeting friends, and watching the games in progress, here a wrestling match, there a game of latrunculi, in one corner a conversation, in another a man with a pot-belly eating a sausage. To Marcus, the feeling of the oil soaking into his flesh was a good one.
They returned to find Esca with a strigil at the ready. The scraping made Marcus feel like a well-curried horse. A brief stop in the tepidarium got them ready for a good soak in the caldarium.
Yes, this was what he had needed.
"Good?" Aquila inquired jovially.
Marcus half-laughed. "Yes, I freely admit, you were right, uncle."
"I'm always right," Aquila said.
"Brigante pig!" Someone yelled from the other side of the pool. There was the sound of flesh striking flesh, then the clatter of a strigil skittering across the tiles.
There might be any number of Brigantes in the bathhouse, but Calleva Atrebatum was a long way from Isurium Brigantium. They couldn't not look.
It was Esca. The customer who was raging at him had given up Latin for Brythonic, so it was unclear just what his issue was, but it was clear the Aquila's slave was making no headway in soothing him. Marcus looked at his uncle. Should they interfere? Old Aquila slowly shook his head.
The Catuvellauni was beside himself. "First your b;tch of a queen betrays our king, and now I have to be handled by one of you Brigante filth by way of getting clean?"
"Sir," Esca began, "I assure you—" Pain stopped his voice. A slender hand had slid into his hair, closed into a fist around at least a third of it, and yanked! Tears filled his eyes. The slap in the face from the Catuvellauni was nothing in comparison.
"Has this little one offended you, Dominus?" Gittopor's voice almost purred. The fingers gripping his hair forced Esca's head down painfully. Only the fact that this was a friend he trusted implicitly kept the Brigante from fighting back. "I fear he isn't quite housebroken yet."
Out of the corner of his eye, Esca saw Marcus and Aquila looking at him, and much as he would have liked to be rescued, he prayed they'd do nothing. He also prayed he'd not be bald before this adventure was over. He saw the two Romans look away, and was simultaneously relieved and hurt.
"Rest assured, Dominus," Gittopor promised menacingly, "I will punish him severely punished for this offense. He won't forget his manners again any time soon." Esca glanced at his friend with unfeigned worry, before the punitive hand in his hair coerced his agonized departure from the room.
By the time uncle and nephew had finished in the frigidarium, Esca had rejoined them and was able to help them dress.
"Are you all right?" Marcus asked.
The slave swallowed. It took him a moment to answer, as if he needed to think about it before committing himself. "Fine."
"What… was that all about back there?"
"N-nothing. Just… tribal differences."
"Did he hurt you? Either of them?"
Did being snatched bald count? "No," Esca said. "Gittopor just said that to get me away from him."
They were dressed. "Will you be home soon?" Marcus asked.
Esca nodded, not meeting his eyes. "I just have to finish up here." He wasn't exactly happy about it himself. He sincerely hoped he wouldn't need to do this again. Ever. He'd forgotten what the bathhouse could be like. "Part of our deal."
"I'll see you at home then."
Esca nodded, then moved off to help some other customers dress, as he must.
"How did you enjoy it?" Aquila asked, as the two men walked home.
"The water felt good," Marcus admitted reluctantly. The vision of the angry bather and the menacing slavemaster man-handling Esca while he did nothing rose in his memory and soured the experience a bit. More than a bit, truth to tell. "I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would," he said.