“Gently! She's not one of your soldiers, you know,” Clodia said, reaching up to take her.

Julius felt a pang as the child left his arms and he sighed with satisfaction as he looked at them all.

“There's so much to do, my darling,” he said to his wife.

Too impatient in the end to wait, Julius had called for Tubruk to report to him while he bathed the dust and filth of the journey from his body. The hot water turned a dark gray after moments of scrubbing, and the heat made his heart thump away some of the weariness.

Tubruk stood at the end of the narrow pool and recited the financial dealings of the estate over the previous three years, as once he had for Julius's father. When Julius was finally clean, he seemed younger than the dark warrior who had first come into sight at the head of a column. His eyes were a washed-out blue, and when the rush of energy from the hot water faded, Julius could barely stay awake to listen.

Before the young man could fall asleep in the pool, Tubruk handed him a soft robe and towels and left him. His step was light as he walked down the corridors of the estate, listening to the songs of the drunken soldiers outside. For the first time since the event, the guilt that had plagued him over his part in the death of Sulla lifted as if it had never existed. He thought he would tell him when all the business of his return to Rome was settled and things were quiet again. The murder had been done in his name after all, and if Julius knew, Tubruk would be able to send anonymous gifts to the families of Casaverius, Fercus, and the parents of the young soldier who had stood against him at the gate. Especially Fercus, whose family were almost destitute without him. Tubruk owed them everything for their father's courage, and he knew Julius would feel the same.

He passed Aurelia's door and heard a low keening from the room inside. Tubruk hesitated. Julius was too tired to rouse and he hadn't yet asked after his mother. Tubruk wanted nothing more than to go to his own bed after a long day, but then he sighed and went in.

CHAPTER 28

The messenger from the Senate arrived the following dawn. It took Tubruk some time to rouse Julius, and when he finally greeted the Senate runner, he was still less than fully alert. After so many months of tension, the one night in his own home had done little to remove the bone-deep exhaustion.

Yawning, Julius rubbed a hand through his hair and smiled blearily at the young man from the city. “I am Julius Caesar. Deliver your message.”

“The Senate requires you to attend a full council at noon today, master,” the messenger said quickly.

Julius blinked. “That's all?” he asked flatly.

The messenger shifted slightly. “That is the official message, master. I do know a little more, from the gossip amongst the runners.”

“Tubruk?” Julius said, and watched as the estate manager passed over a silver coin to the man.

“Well?” Julius asked when the coin had disappeared into a hidden pouch. The messenger smiled.

“They say you are to be given the rank of tribune for your work in Greece.”

“Tribune?” Julius looked at Tubruk, who shrugged as he spoke.

“It's a step on the ladder,” the estate manager replied calmly, indicating the messenger with his eyes. Julius understood and dismissed the runner back to the city.

When they were alone, Tubruk clapped him on the back.

“Congratulations. Now are you going to tell me how you earned it? Unlike the Senate, I don't have messengers to run all over the place for me. All I have heard is that you beat Mithridates and overran an army twenty times your size.”

Julius barked a surprised laugh. “Next week it will be thirty times the size, as the Roman gossips tell the story. Perhaps I shouldn't correct them,” he said wryly. “Come for a walk with me and I'll tell you all the details. I want to see where this new boundary is.”

He saw Tubruk's sudden frown and smiled to ease the man's worry.

“I was surprised when Cornelia told me. I never thought you of all people would sell land.”

“It was that or send the ransom short, lad, and there's only one son of the house.”

Julius gripped his shoulder in sudden affection. “I know, I'm only teasing you. It was the right thing to do and I have the funds to buy it back.”

“I sold it to Suetonius's father,” Tubruk said grimly.

Julius paused as he took this in. “He would have known it was for the ransom. He had to raise one for his son, after all. Did you get a good price?”

Tubruk replied with a pained expression. “Not really. He drove a very hard bargain and I had to let more of it go than I wanted. I'm sure he saw it as good business, but it was”-he screwed his face up as if something bitter had entered his mouth-“shameful.”

Julius took a deep breath. “Show me how much we've lost and then we'll work out how to get the old man to return it to me. If he's anything like his son, it won't be easy. I want to be back for when my mother wakes, Tubruk. I have a… great deal to tell her.”

Something stopped Julius telling Tubruk about the head wound and the fits that came after it. In part, it was shame at the lack of understanding he had shown his mother over the years, which he knew he had to put right. More than that, though, he didn't want to see pity in the old gladiator's eyes. He didn't think he could bear it.

Together, they walked out of the estate and up the hill to the woods that Julius had run through as a boy, Tubruk listening as Julius told him everything that had happened in the years he had been away from the city.

The new boundary was a solid wooden fence right across the path where Julius remembered digging a wolf trap for Suetonius years before. The sight of it on land that had been in his family for generations made him want to break it down, but instead he leaned on it, deep in thought.

“I have enough gold to offer him far more than the land is worth, but that sticks in my throat, Tubruk. I don't like to be cheated.”

“He'll be at the Senate meeting at noon. You could sound him out there. We may be misjudging the man. Perhaps he will offer to return the land for what he paid for it,” Tubruk said, his doubts showing clearly.

Julius knocked his knuckles on the solid fence and sighed. “Somehow I doubt that. Suetonius must be home by now and we fell out about a few things on the ships and in Greece. He won't be wanting to do me any favors, but I am getting my father's land back. I'll see what Marcus thinks.”

“Brutus now, you realize? Did you know he made centurion with the Bronze Fist? He'll be wanting your advice about Primigenia as well.”

Julius nodded and smiled at the thought of being able to talk again with his old friend. “He must be the youngest general Rome has ever had,” he said, chuckling.

Tubruk snorted. “A legate without a legion, then.” He sobered suddenly, his eyes becoming cold with memory. “Sulla had the name struck from the legion rolls after Marius's death. It was awful in Rome for a while. Nobody was safe, not even the Senate. Anyone Sulla named as enemy of the state was dragged out of their home and executed without trial. I thought of taking Cornelia and the baby away, but…” He caught himself, remembering what Cornelia had said to him as he returned to his own room from Aurelia's the night before, while Julius lay deeply asleep.

The old gladiator felt torn between his loyalties to Julius and to Cornelia. His relationship with both of them was far closer to fatherly love than the professional duty of an estate manager. He hated to keep secrets, but he knew that what had happened with Sulla should be hers to tell first.