VII – The Lost and The Found

Vibrant tunics litter the grasslands, their owners hacking away at the forest. Another group surrounds them, collecting newly cut trees and rolling them over a ribbed assembly of smaller logs. Workhorses form lines at the roping station, their twitchy legs eager to haul fresh timber to the carpenters near shore.

For Skipio Servius, nothing matches a tree’s hardness against one’s ass when a climax comes. This river valley’s narrow trees make him long for the thick oaks of home, ageless alpine giants whose massive ground roots nest his many self-pleasures.

Today, he and Planus join the lesser ranks in butchering the woodlands, coppicing what they must for firewood. Sweat saturates every hair, even the short and curly, and when the stoppage horn blows, the pair join their lessors in line at the water station. Neither man drinks before anyone else, and this sets them apart from the other commanders, who rest under tightly strung canopies, watching the labor from a comfortable distance.

“How many of those bastards learned to piss in the pot before we did?” Skipio wonders. “Yet there they sit, wary of a splinter,”

“Given our enemy’s habit of targeting the upper ranks,” Planus says, plucking someone’s tunic from the grass and drying the wetness under his arms, “I doubt any of them will be with us much longer.”

This makes Skipio and some of the others laugh.

“Why do they kill the decorated?” asks ink-haired Actus, still wearing his tunic. He wipes his face with the hem, bearing his chiseled stomach and protruding navel.

“Gauls haven’t advanced much since the Gods made man,” Planus explains sagely. “Back when we fought over caves, if an army’s leader fell, his men left the battlefield.”

Skipio takes his turn at the water barrel.

“Our enemies are cavemen now?”

“I speak of what I see,” says Planus, joining him. “The Celtii on this island think killing a superior will compel our legions to depart.”

“If any of them are watching,” Actus scowls at the hillside observers. “They got a sizable target today.”

“Oh, they’re here.” Skipio empties a bowl over his shorn head, relishing the cool sluice behind his ears. “They’re watching us right now. Counting every tree we cut, planning to add one of our heads for each,”

Planus fills his bowl again, gulps its contents, then belches. “If that’s the case, they’re watching from the clouds, for the birds linger undaunted, shitting on us and singing about it,”

Laughter erupts from the line.

“Speaking of shit and song,” Skipio says. “Where’s Titus?”

“He set sail yesterday,” a sullen Actus replies.

“Pity,” Planus says. “No one knows more about chopping trees than he does. His family supplies more lumber to Rome than the Mare Nostrum does salt,”

“He gets to return to the continent,” Actus grouses. “While we bust our asses in Vulcan’s backyard,”

“Given his love of sail,” Planus says. “I imagine Titus would swiftly sign his life over to Pluto for any chance at trading places with us at this moment.”

Skipio huffs a laugh. “Indeed,”

“He’s the only man I’ve ever met who cannot float.” Planus leads the pair uphill. “We all grew up in Comum, our fathers tossing us into the Lario at one point, least expected. How has Titus never acclimated?”

“He doesn’t like his wool getting wet,” Skipio reminds.

Though also a friend of Titus, the slightly younger Actus keeps silent. A mere second in command, he must maintain respect for his superiors.

“You think we’ll leave when he returns with more ships?” he asks instead.

“Oh no, we’re not going anywhere.” Planus then speaks as if performing on a stage. “Our leader will never leave until he defeats the most powerful man on this island.”

Skipio levels a silent warning, but Planus ignores it.

“This invasion,” he adds, “has never been about acquiring resources—”

“—for which this shitty island has none,” Actus chimes.

“Indeed,” concurs Planus, “no, we’re here recovering his lost face!”

Skipio passes by him.

“Not in front of the lesser ranks,” he whispers, and Planus nods his compliance.

A shirtless Drusus appears, his skin and hair dripping, his muscles taut from the day’s labor. Actus offers to fetch some water, but the young man claims that too much liquid sours his stomach; he will replenish his blood’s salt with the day’s fish.

“A ship landed with dispatches and some food,” Drusus shouts over the tree cutters’ rhythmic hacking. “Planus, your honeyed curds are here.”

“Edesia be praised,” Planus shouts, “We shall have libum tonight,”

Skipio grimaces at the notion of ricotta.

“Our cooks always made libum cake for the altars.” Drusus stands close enough now to speak at a reasonable volume. “If we got caught sneaking a piece, we got our hands whipped,”

Actus hotly interjects. “I’ll never understand any adult who strikes a child.”

An older soldier passes by them, axe in his hand.

“Spoken like a man that’s never had a child,” he says.

“Go get your water, grandad.” Planus mocks, “and don’t spank any boys along the way.”

Playful caws rise from the line, even the passing axe man chuckles.

“What’s that?” Actus asks, a hand over his narrow eyes.

A powdery horse appears on the horizon, its rider lying low.

“Castor,” whispers Drusus, running out to meet it.

A new horn blows when the watchmen see the mare, who falters into camp with burns covering her hindquarters. A crimson gash lines her shoulder where Castor bounces listlessly without his helmet and lance. Actus grabs the mare’s reins while Skipio takes her by the bit.

“We’re under attack,” Castor gasps, his jawline bruised and nose bloodied. “Foraging north, they came out of the woods.” He falls into Drusus’s arms but reaches for Skipio. “They surrounded your father. His cohort is all that remains.”

“They took out two legions?” says Planus.

Actus hands off the mare’s reins to an arriving stable hand. “Take her to water and tend her injury,” he orders.

“The farm you found,” Skipio kneels to face his ex-lover. “It was a trap?”

“Vitus sent me off as more emerged from the trees,” Castor struggles to stand, falling onto Drusus.

“Mars demands us,” Planus whispers.

“And he will have us,” says Skipio.

*

Smoke shrouds the valley where riderless horses seek any place that won’t get them killed. Roman corpses form a gruesome fence around Vitus and his men, keeping the tightly woven mass of painted fury at bay.

The natives chip away at their barrier, driving their carts over the Roman dead, lobbing fiery gourds that ignite flesh and fill the air with the stink of burning hair.

Masterminding this torment is a gangly druid with painted brown skin that bears white skeletal bones. His mask is a woodland owl, and the wicker sticks in his crown burn with flames that give no smoke. He hops from his chariot and sprints to his footmen, long finger pointing at something in the east.

Through the smoke comes Skipio on horseback, leading his red and silver infantry down the hill in V-formation. Before anyone among the natives can holler down the line, Skipio’s battalion pierces their offensive. His horse, a foul-tempered replacement for Luna, knocks aside a thick-bellied Briton and stomps him to death beneath the hoof. The beast makes space, aggressively paddling his front legs and kicking his hindquarters, twirling as Skipio’s blade cuts down those brave enough to enter their orbit.

Drusus brings lancers to the skirmish line, further diluting the enemy’s formation. The spearman’s leader, Castor, fights wounded alongside his lover as Roman horses ride in from the south, Planus leading them to trap what remains of the Britons’ footmen, most of them women. On the hill, mounted archers await the signal to dismount, their arrows ready to strike any Gaul running from the chaotic swarm.

The smoke thins, and before long, fatigue captures the first Roman horse. In battle, when one beast falls, others follow in short measure.

A spear strikes Skipio’s beast, and he quickly dismounts as it stumbles. When its convulsions cease, he hops onto its corpse and defends his position from the woad-covered swarm. Both spatha swinging, he severs arms from bodies, splits necks, and disembowels enough of them to paint himself with pungent guts.

Something brushes over the plume on his helmet.

Overhead, an owl-masked druid soars, tartan skirt whipping aside to expose his spindly legs. Head aflame, the acrobatic skeleton hops from one Roman shoulder to the next, slicing chin straps, yanking off helmets, and cutting throats. Skipio hones in on this deadly bee as it pollinates its ghastly field. He moves from man to man, catching up to the agile druid.

Then, the wiry bastard lands upon Terentius Drusus Valerian. Time slows to a crawl as the man’s helmet falls from his head. The lithe druid rises like a spear, his entire body flipping over mid-air before his bare, rangy feet reclaim Drusus’s shoulders. His long, bony arm dips as he drags a narrow blade across the young man’s neck. Skipio stands in awe of this elegant violence, watching with admiration as the druid moves on to his next Roman.

Blood gushes from the line along Drusus’s neck, and Castor’s wailing breaks the druid’s spell over Skipio.

The spearman falls onto his lover, his mud-slick hand unable to stop the blood. Rage takes hold when his efforts fail, and with fury made tears, he takes up his lance. Pushing through his comrades, Castor pursues the druid, and when sure, he plants his foot and hurls the weapon.

The deadly lance coasts through the melee with a fearful speed, cutting past the spry druid and forcing him to land upon the soil. Castor collects a fallen man’s spatha and confronts the monster painted as death. They circle one another without words, each calculating the best way to kill and move along.

Rage hastens Castor’s sword, but when he lunges, the weedy druid hops skyward, his toe bouncing off Castor’s blade. The druid’s arm snakes out, cutting Castor’s chin strap. His narrow body curls to backflip over Castor, his long fingers plucking free Castor’s helmet and exposing his dark head of hair.

Castor turns to confront the bastard, quickly attacking as the druid lands, but his lanky opponent is too quick, springing over low strikes and bowing to high swings. Soon, the walking bones tire of their dance. He drops to his hands and knees and whips out a painted leg, sweeping Castor behind the shins.

Without a second to spare, the druid crawls over a painted compatriot’s corpse and snatches an axe from her stiffened hand. He somersaults over a burning chariot, descending like an owl about to collect an unsuspecting rabbit. His slim arm pulls back, the axe he wields destined for Castor’s head.

Skipio reaches out and grabs the druid’s bony ankle. He tugs him clear and, with one mighty swing, slaps the gangly bastard into the mud. He stabs his sword down for the kill, but the druid quickly tucks into a ball. Skipio watches him spin on his tailbone, and he’s caught when the druid’s foot lashes out, striking his sword-bearing arm and sending his spatha across the battlefield.

The long-limbed druid rolls backward to stand and pauses to study his adversary’s silver-plated face. Skipio obliges, raising his metal mask to the druid’s widening eyes. The wooden owl mask covering the druid to the nose tilts with his head, its flames dancing without smoke.

“It’s you,” comes a steely voice.

“I don’t speak your shit language,” snarls Skipio.

Small nipples harden beneath their painted sheen, and an ornery smile forms beneath the owl mask. Long fingers pull aside the tartan skirt, but Skipio keeps his eyes on the man’s face until Venus whispers in his ear. His gaze drops in time to catch the druid’s painted toes colliding with his chin. Teeth come together with a crack, filling his jaw with a pleasant agony. The crafty druid appears shocked that his grinning opponent still stands.

“Take him,” Castor screams. “He killed Drusus!”

A centurion appears behind the druid, his spatha coming down for the kill. The alert druid launches skyward, back flipping his heels over his ass and landing atop the centurion’s shoulders. The chin strap is cut, and the helmet falls to the ground. The druid drops, trapping the centurion’s head between his skinny thighs. Before the poor Roman can stab upward, a quick twist of the druid’s lower body snaps his neck.

Another magnificent kill tickles Skipio’s soul, but Minerva awakens his resolve after the druid dismounts and sprints from the battlefield. Grinning like a child, Skipio snatches a fallen spear and pursues the fiery-headed bastard out of the melee.

Free of the fighting, he takes aim at the druid’s flapping tartan and then hurls the lance. It soars high and comes down precisely where he intended, nailing the druid’s tartan to the ground.

His skirt pinned to the earth jerks the narrow-ass bastard off his feet. He lands hard, his flaming headpiece bouncing across the grass. The druid recovers and tugs viciously at his caught skirt, all the while measuring the brawny Roman’s advance. He raises his mask and lets loose a sharp whistle.

Skipio shortens the distance between them as a familiar horse gallops past. “Luna,” he cries.

The white mare stops mid-trot. Mane unbraided and her back filthy, she dips her muzzle and advances slowly, as she often did when caught prowling the orchard for low-hanging fruit.

“Looir,” yells the naked druid, the skull painted on his face clear despite the sweat on his brow.

Skipio ignores the druid’s nakedness, and this is not an easy task given the man’s girthy cock. “Luna,” he shouts anew when she begins trotting toward the druid.

The mare turns her head, then stands with her head pivoting between them.

“Looir!” The druid then screams to her in Greek, “Time to drink!”

Luna charges, kicking up mud beneath her hooves. She speeds past the druid, whose long arm catches her around the neck. One fell swoop finds his belly on her back.

Skipio pursues, gaining ground with arms and legs pumping. He focuses on Luna’s stringy mane, its lower portion wedged within the crack of that painted cretin’s tight little ass. The druid goads him onward, his hand curled into a hollow hole and set to his open mouth. He thrusts his tongue out and shimmies his hand, and Skipio welcomes the opportunity to shove his cock down the druid’s throat.

The unmasked druid watches the Roman slow to a stop, a giddy smile on his face. It’s not his whorish antics that amuse the strapping Roman. It is the inevitable disaster that awaits as Luna approaches the tree line.

Abruptly, the mare stops, jarring the druid, who turns to find a low-hanging branch inches from his face. The druid lies flat and thankfully kisses her rump.

Alone across the meadow, Skipio watches them enter the trees.

“Luna,” he pouts.

---

Fish and mud taint the wind, yet no sign of a river appears.

His metal stylus in hand, Vitus Servius sketches on vellum sheets, the leather strap around his neck fixed to a flat board wedged in his belly. Cletus, his stallion, swats flies with his tail while ambling slowly enough to keep his master’s hand steady. Skipio, his son, snores upright upon a horse whose name eludes him, for he thinks only of his stolen mare, Luna.

“The wood ahead,” his father’s voice rouses him. “Thicker trunks mean deep water.”

Upon such flat terrain, narrow trees form a phalanx that gives a hint of the forest’s depth.

Since his arrival on this island, Skipio often thinks of the towering peaks surrounding their alpine plantation. He pines for the chilly waters of their villa lake, its placid skin covered by the pre-dawn mists that would descend from the mountains as spring became summer.

Vitus leads them to the tree line, where their horses need prodding to enter. Leafy branches provide a shady respite as the beasts navigate a path only they can see. Hazelnuts crack beneath their hooves, their aromatic end quelling the mossy stench. Vitus surveys the overhead leaves, seeking this island’s rendition of a walnut tree.

Pears and apples may be the main Servii crops, but all of Rome prizes its walnuts. Skipio cares little for agriculture or living the life of a patrician farmer.

Swimming distracted him first, and then horses, but eventually, his father sent him to the village on their plantation to work the orchards. After a week of cleaning dirt from under his fingernails, he prayed daily to Minerva for liberty. She obliged. The day Skipio traded his boyish clothes for a manly tunic, Remus Plinius Castor, a former military equestrian turned scholar, came to the villa seeking students for his new school.

Vitus wasn’t initially interested in such things for his son until Skipio chose to study drafting—a strategic move that appealed to his father’s vanity. After five years of honing his abilities, it came time for Skipio to return home. Lucky for him, Mars intervened. At the start of Skipio’s twentieth year, his father’s oldest friend, Julius Caesar, took control of the Lario region and declared his newly built colony, Comum, a part of the Republic. He mandated that every man of a certain age serve two years in the legions.

Skipio quickly enlisted—anything to avoid working the land. Lately, he looks back on those years, chastising himself for being such a fool.

“You hear that?” Vitus asks as the sound of rushing water filters through the trees. He smiles at his son, “Always trust a thirsty horse.”

Free of their burdens, the beasts approach a gully where massive boulders edge curling water. They leave deep prints in the muddy riverbank as they enter, up to their knees. A sweaty Vitus joins them, eagerly shedding his boots and tunic.

Skipio watches from the boulders, his father’s nakedness a frightening herald; once fitter than his son, the mapmaker’s gone thick in the most unfortunate places. He possesses his mother’s green eyes and bee-stung lips, but his father’s angular visage is evident. Neither man holds the kinky Servii wenge dear to their hearts, preferring bare heads to their ancestral curls.

While his father washes in the river, Skipio returns to their camp and pitches their small, two-man tent. He digs a shallow hole for their fire, and then a deeper one behind the widest tree for their toilet. His father returns to find him clearing the forest floor of sticks for kindling.

“Go wash up,” Vitus says. “Scrub those feet. There’s nothing these blasted mosquitoes love more—”

“-than a foul foot,” says Skipio.

“I don’t need an orator.” Vitus scolds him while dusting their camp with oregano and cumin, the only spices capable of repelling this island’s ravenous breed of insect.

At the waterline, Skipio finds the flow moving steadily, and this promises a waterfall somewhere upstream. Falls always have lagoons deep enough to lap. He traverses the riverbank, crossing a downed tree while his heart quickens with expectation. Faint whispers of rumbling water speed his gait. The high falls prove narrow, but the pond at its feet looks wide enough to lap.

Skipio drives his sword into the soil, hangs his helmet on the grip, and sheds his shin plates and tunic. Modesty born of being in an unfamiliar land finds him surveying the trees before removing his loincloth. Noisy birdsong makes it difficult to listen for lurkers, but he’s already naked.

These waters aren’t as clear as those back home, and their chill seizes his thighs and tightens his balls. Before his tenacity fails him, he marches under, where dark fluid turns tolerable as he strokes to the other side. Going under mutes the fall’s thunderous roar. His head treads every fifth stroke to gulp new air, and at the opposite shallows, he flips over and swims back the way he came. Five times across, then five more, until his heart begins drumming in his ears.

Skipio rolls over, his arms out, and his back straight. Legs together, he pushes his arms up and down steadily beneath the water. His backstroke rows propel him across the surface as air nips his cresting face. Tree-framed skies capture his attention, holding it as he swims eight laps across and back.

Tiring, he floats upright in a small patch of deep water. Sunlight warms his scalp, the first tangible rays in many weeks that create a colorful patch over the fall’s churning feet. He breathes steadily until the birds go silent.

Quickly, Skipio comes upright and glancing overhead, he finds an unpainted native watching from the falls’ knickpoint. Two dark nipples mark a boyish chest, where the darkest hair peeks from his underarms. Black curls overtake thick brows, but they cannot hide those large ears. This lean man displays no weapon other than an unpleasant face, but handsomeness isn’t vital to Skipio so long as his hole is tight.

Skipio drifts to the shallows, finding a stable stone to stand. He rises from the water to his waist, revealing his corded torso. Cold eyes regard him in curious measure. The watcher pushes his blue tartan pants down past his bony hips, revealing an inky thatch nesting upon smooth obliques. Snuggling within this nest is a thick cock root.

The watcher takes out his girthy shaft, and the sight of it wets Skipio’s mouth. He wonders then if all the lanky men on this island are as well-endowed as the Owl-masked druid that stole his Luna, or this prurient punk. As courtesy dictates, he falls back with a playful smile and displays his sizable manhood.

The watcher’s gaze remains cold, even as his hand begins twisting and pulling. Such a brazen performance shocks Skipio at first, but he goes along with the man, allowing these falls to be their brothel. He lets slip a soft laugh before opening his mouth and extending his tongue. A mischievous gleam clouds the watcher’s eyes as he works his erection faster. His gaunt body tenses, and his breath shallows. Bars of sunlight invade like heavenly censors, obscuring his cock from Skipio as it spits.

Lips turn down, and tartan britches return to their place. Long fingers draw forth a thin knife, and he dares with a wave of it, his body language eager for a fight. Overcome by the challenge, Skipio steps onto a shale, emerging to his thighs and showing off his erection.

The horse grunts, drawing the defiant watcher’s eyes to the bank, where a sword, helmet, and clothes reveal him as Roman.

Skipio turns to explain, but the watcher is gone.

Misfortune tastes bitter, and he slaps the water in anger. He’ll never know how the cock-heavy bastard takes a punch, or if his ass splits without oil.

Gnats crowd his face on the walk back.

Strange voices force Skipio into the ground cover, where he spots his father hiding in a ravine directly under their camp. Vitus stills him with a raised hand while above, a robed woman and her brutes tear apart their tent. The men scarf down their dried fish as the woman collects their barley pouch rations and wears them around her neck.

After looting the saddlebags and taking his father’s sword and armor, the woman unties Cletus and slaps his backside, scaring him into the trees. Without cause, Skipio’s idiot beast races after him. The native ruffians talk amongst themselves, and Skipio struggles to comprehend their Brittonic tongue.

“Where do you think they went?” asks one man.

“Down by the water, most like,” she says, then snaps, “Where you been?”

A flat voice responds. “Washing in the falls,”

Skipio raises his head for a peek and finds the raunchy watcher with the blue tartan pants.

“Washing?” she smirks. “Or rubbing at yourself?”

He glares at her with contempt, as any son might a mother so crass. He shares an obtuse jawline with the woman, but her long black hair is stringy and straight.

“Get your poisons out, boy,” she teases him then. “None of this lot’s going to smack you around to get that cock up,”

The men laugh, and Skipio processes her words as best he can. He imagines slapping around the slender native and sinking his teeth into his little ass cheeks. Such thoughts threaten to stir his flesh, so he quickly conjures images of Planus and Titus having at it—anything to keep his cock from rising.

The woman orders her gang to burn the tents.

Skipio looks to his father, who clutches his maps to his chest. He also sees that their fire-starting kit is tied to the older man’s tunic. He gives the campsite another look as the woman gently tugs on her son’s big ear.

“Did you see any Romans by the water?”

He answers her loudly in Greek.

“I saw no one by the water.”

Skipio swallows hard.

“Answer me proper,” she scolds. “You know I can’t speak that gibberish.”

Soon enough, the gang departs, leaving nothing behind but burning tents.

After several miles on foot, father and son hear their stomachs growl. Vitus continues with his mission, despite losing half of their weapons and all of their food. The river he seeks appears to them as they crest the hill, and it twists through the valley like a brown serpent’s corpse.

Vitus leads Skipio into the reeds, hunkering down at the river’s narrowest point to sketch their surroundings from sight.

“Further west, there’s a settlement,” he whispers. “An hour east is another.” He finishes a crudely sketched map. “The woodland locals know we’re here, which means the settlements along the river will dispatch hunters.”

“You think they’ll find us?” Skipio asks.

“Not if we leave now.” Vitus rolls up his illustration and ties it with a blade of long grass. “We’ll jog south to the coast and follow it back to the beachhead.”

“That keeps us out another two days.”

Vitus sours, “Yes, and we’ll live to see more—”

“By avoiding the way we came.”

“I don’t need an orator,” Vitus scolds.

Out of the reeds, their jog away from the hills lasts ten minutes before his winded father must march. He passes the time with words of his cousin, a Comum orator serving the Senate.

Each new session brings greater hostility for Caesar, with wealthy senators heaping resentment upon those representing the man’s provincial cities. “Fear not,” says his father. “I’d never ask you to serve in Rome.”

“Why would I?” Skipio tells him. “Planus is more suited—”

“He is of the Caesares.” Their pace quickens as gulls appear in the cirrus. “Long before they arrived in the Lario, it was we Servii that quarried the stone, and the Flavii who cleared the trees,”

Skipio measures his words. “There are far wealthier families among them than ours.”

“Despite our simple life, we are one of the wealthiest families.”

Vitus stops walking.

“Did you just refer to those in Comum as ‘them?’”

No further words came on the journey south.

Under the half-moon’s light, they traverse the coastal plain, an endless flat with the occasional cluster of boulders, some large enough for shelter. Father slumbers between two rocks while son dozes in the warm night wind.

By morning, they’re moving again with more gulls cavorting overhead in the pale white. Conversation returns, for being Servii means never staying angry at those you love. His father talks of possible uprisings back on the continent, and strangely makes no mention of going home to his wife and daughter.

At midday, they come upon a wooden trap that provides four rabbits; his father takes only two. They reach the coast at sunset and watch the sun melt into the distant surf.

“You recall those white cliffs we saw sailing in?” asks Vitus, tossing his fire-starter pouch onto the ground.

Skipio digs a hole for their fire with one of his shin plates, as their camp shovels fled with the horses. “My Gallic horsemen say they’re made of bone.”

Vitus takes two flint stones from the pouch and sits while his son drops a ball of patchy wool into the hole and surrounds it with tiny bits of kindling. Cracking the stones together produces a spark, and Skipio gently blows upon the first sign of smoke until a flame appears.

Skipio gathers what sticks he can to stoke their fire, but the results prove meager. He maintains the flames as his father cuts the first rabbit in three places, then removes its fur with one mighty tug.

“These cliffs aren’t made of bone, they’re made of chalk,” says Vitus. “See that merchant bireme out there?”

Skipio squints at the dark patch on the horizon.

“She’s filled with slaves who’ve been picking away at it since we got here,” Vitus tells him.

“These cliffs, they’re larger than those at the end of the world.” Skipio catches his father’s stare. “I know the Pillars of Heracles aren’t the world’s end, not anymore.”

“They never were,” Vitus grins, handing him the skinned carcass. “This sea here, it’s not like our Mare Nostrum. It’s larger than the sky. Mark my words, Skipio, there’s more land beyond this island.”

Skipio places his other shin plate over the flames and tests its heat with spit before laying the red, white-streaked flesh upon it. The sizzle fuels his hunger, which gives him the courage to ask after his sister.

“What happened to Vita when I left for Mediolanum?”

His father says nothing, and Skipio presses.

“She was to marry that—”

“—We’re not talking about your sister.”

“You won’t even say her name.”

His father stares at the fire, offering no words.

“Did Vita shame us in some way?”

“Your sister would never disgrace this family,” Vitus says coolly. “That’s the last words we’ll have on it.”

Skipio pulls the browned meat from the metal when he’s sure it won’t stick, and lays the raw side into the bubbling juices.

“Can you at least tell me if Mother has improved?”

His mother fell ill shortly after their departure, and both men actively avoid reflecting on the inevitable with typical Servii avoidance. He knows his father’s distance on the matter is a coping strategy, one he’s never been good at emulating.

“She’s taking care of herself,” Vitus tells him, sullen. “As she’s always done.”

They make short work of the rabbit, and he pretends the bland, gamey meat is a flavorful hare concocted in their villa kitchen by dear Nikonidas. The boy, raised alongside Skipio, took over as the Servii cook after his Greek father passed away.

“Is Niko still fat?” he asks, licking his fingers.

“Your sister tells Planus he’s grown quite tall,”

“Is he still a mute?”

Vitus offers a look of displeasure. “His voice came as his mother lay dying. He’s not mute, he merely doesn’t express himself like the rest of us.”

And with that, Skipio decides to confess. “That native with the others at our camp. He saw me swimming,”

Vitus goes wide-eyed.

“It was careless, washing on your own,” he scolds.

“We saw each other,” Skipio clarifies. “But he said he saw no one. He answered her first in Greek.”

“Then he knew we were hiding nearby.” Vitus offers a wily glance. “You saw each other, did you?”

Skipio grins, and his father sighs.

“Tell me you didn’t interfere with him?”

“If I had,” Skipio brags, “That bitch and her gang would’ve seen his bruises,”

Vitus regards him sternly. “It’s one thing to never grow out of your attraction to boys, but this roughness of yours, Skipio,”

“You have things you don’t discuss,” he tells his father, “and I have mine.”

“Planus never grew out of his attraction to men either.” Vitus turns thoughtful. “Have you thought of making a match?”

Skipio curls his lip. “With Planus?”

“He’s your sort, isn’t he?”

Skipio balks at his father.

“We’re the same sort, but not sorted for each other.”

Vitus sucks the rabbit from his teeth. “In that case, you’ll get a wife and ensure she knows nothing about whatever catamite you keep at our insula in Comum.”

“Is that fair to her?” Skipio mumbles. “Is that fair to me?”

“Life isn’t fair.” Vitus declares, standing to crack his back. “We all make the best of unfairness with private diversions.”

Skipio keeps his tongue, rising with him and kicking dirt over their fire. Vitus suddenly falters, stumbling back and hitting the ground with a thud.

“Father!” A sudden rush to Skipio’s head forces him to his knees. His face collides with the ground. Numbness finds his feet and fingers, then his arms and legs disappear. Eyelids drop as distant voices find his ears.

“I told you they would ride to the coast.”

“Yes, you did, my clever boy, yes you did.”