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.

Julius didn’t seem to notice his preoccupation, lost in thought himself.

“Thank the Furies that bastard’s dead, Tubruk. I don’t know what I’d have done if he’d lived. I suppose I could have written to you to take my family out of the country, but a life in exile would have been the end of me. I can’t describe what it felt like to touch my feet on Roman soil again after so long. I hadn’t really known the strength of it until I left, you understand?”