Octavian and Brutus fell in behind the messenger as he wheeled his mount. After a while, they tired of the pace he set and galloped past him.
Cabera ran his fingers along a length of blue silk with childish delight. He seemed to be caught between amazement and laughter at the costly furnishings Servilia had shipped in for the Golden Hand, and her patience was wearing thin. He interrupted her again to dart past and handle a delicate piece of statuary.
‘So you see,’ she tried once more, ‘I would like to establish a reputation for a clean house and some soldiers use chalk dust to cover the rashes they have …’
‘All this for pleasure!’ Cabera interrupted, winking suggestively at her. ‘I want to die in a place like this.’ As she frowned at him, he approached the edge of a pit of silk cushions, set below the level of the floor. He looked at her for permission and Servilia shook her head firmly.
‘Julius said you have a fair knowledge of the diseases of the skin and I would pay well for you to be available to the house.’ She was forced to pause again as the old man jumped into the mass of cushions and scrambled around in them, chuckling.
‘It isn’t difficult work,’ Servilia continued doggedly. ‘My girls will recognise a problem when they see it, but if there’s an argument, I need someone to be able to examine the … man in question. Just until I can find a more permanent doctor from the town.’ She watched astonished as Cabera tumbled around.
‘I’ll pay five sesterces a month,’ she said.
‘Fifteen,’ Cabera replied, suddenly serious. As she blinked in surprise, he smoothed his old robe down with swift strokes from his fingers.
‘I will not go higher than ten, old man. For fifteen, I can have a local doctor living here.’
Cabera snorted. ‘They know nothing and you would lose a room. Twelve, but I won’t deal with pregnancy. You find someone else for that.’
‘I do not run a backstreet whorehouse,’ Servilia snapped. ‘My girls can watch the moon like any other woman. If they do fall pregnant, I pay them off. Most come back to me after the child is weaned. Ten is my final offer.’
‘Examining the rotting parts of soldiers is worth twelve sesterces to anyone,’ Cabera told her cheerfully. ‘I would also like some of these cushions.’
Servilia gritted her teeth.
‘They cost more than your services, old man. Twelve, then, but the cushions stay.’
Cabera clapped his hands in pleasure. ‘First month’s pay up front and a cup of wine to seal the agreement, I think?’ he said.
Servilia opened her mouth to reply and heard a throat delicately cleared behind her. It was Nadia, one of the new ones she had brought to the house, a woman with kohl-rimmed eyes as hard as her body was soft.
‘Mistress, there is a messenger from the legion at the door.’
‘Bring him to me, Nadia.’ Servilia said, forcing a smile. As the woman disappeared, she spun to Cabera.
‘Out of there, now. I will not be embarrassed by you.’
Cabera clambered out of the silken pit, his long fingers slipping one of the cushions under his robe as she turned back to greet the messenger.
The man was blushing furiously and Servilia could see from Nadia’s grin at his shoulder that she had been talking to him.
‘Madam, Caesar wants you at the barracks.’ His eyes swivelled to Cabera. ‘You too, healer. I’m to be your escort. The horses are outside.’
Servilia rubbed the corner of her mouth in thought, ignoring the way the messenger watched her.
‘Will my son be there?’ she asked.
The messenger nodded. ‘Everyone is being called in, madam. I have only Centurion Domitius to find.’
‘That’s easily done, then. He’s upstairs,’ she said, watching with interest as the man’s blush spread down his neck into his tunic. She could practically feel the heat coming off him.
‘I’d leave it a little while, if I were you,’ she said.
As they seated themselves in the long room overlooking the yard, every one of them felt hollow twinges of excitement as they caught each other’s eyes. Julius dominated the room as he stood by the window, waiting for the last to arrive. The breeze off the hills spun slowly through the room and cooled them, but the tension was almost painful. Octavian laughed nervously as Cabera pulled a silk cushion from under his robe and Renius held his wine cup in too tight a grip.
As the guard closed the door and went down the stairs, Brutus drained his wine and grinned. ‘So are you going to tell us why we’re here, Julius?’
They all watched the man who faced them. The familiar tiredness had vanished from his features and he stood straight, his armour shining with oil.
‘Gentlemen, Servilia. We are finished here. It’s time to go home,’ he said.
There was a moment of silence and then Servilia jumped in her seat as the others cheered and laughed together.
‘I’ll drink to that,’ Renius said, tilting his cup.
Julius unrolled a map on his desk and they crowded around him as he laid weights at the corners. Servilia felt excluded and then Julius caught her eye and smiled at her. It would be all right.
As Julius discussed the problems of moving five thousand men, she began to calculate. The Golden Hand was barely started and who would run it if she left? Angelina didn’t have the iron in her. She’d be running a free house within a year if Servilia left her in charge. Nadia, possibly. A heart of flint and experienced enough, but could she be trusted not to steal half the profits? Hearing her own name snapped her back from her thoughts.
‘… not by land then, in the time. Servilia gave me the idea when we met the merchant captain she uses. I’ll write orders to commandeer every ship on the passage. That is not to be discussed except between ourselves. If they hear we’re going to use their ships, they’ll put to sea and stay there.’
‘Why are you leaving before you’re finished here?’ Cabera said softly.
The conversation around the table died to nothing and Julius paused with his finger on the map.
‘I am finished here. This is not where I should be,’ he replied. ‘You told me that yourself. If I wait out my term, Pompey will send me somewhere else well away from my city and if I refuse, that will be my last posting anywhere. There are no second chances from that man.’ Julius tapped his finger on the map over the tiny mark of the city he loved.
‘There are elections at the end of the year for two seats as consul. I’m going back to try for one of them.’
Cabera shrugged, still testing. ‘And then? Will you fight a war for the city like Sulla?’
Julius became very still for a moment and his eyes pinned Cabera.
‘No, old friend,’ he said softly. ‘Then I will no longer be posted at Pompey’s whim. As consul, I will be untouchable. I will be at the heart of things again.’
Cabera wanted to let the moment pass, but his stubbornness forced him to speak.
‘But after that? Will you have Brutus drill the Tenth while you write new laws the people will not understand? Will you lose yourself in maps and bridges as you have done here?’
Renius reached out and gripped Cabera by the shoulder to make him stop, but the old man ignored the hand.
‘You can do more than that, if you have eyes to see it,’ he said, wincing as Renius closed his hand on his thin muscles, hurting him.
‘If I am consul,’