The senator shook his head slightly. “I’m afraid you will be disappointed. I have wanted to expand my holdings for some time, and I have plans to build another house there for my son once those woods have been cleared. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

He smiled tightly at Julius and would have turned back to his companions. Julius reached out and took his arm, only to have his grip shaken off with a quick jerk. Senator Prandus’s face flushed with anger at the touch.

“Have a care, young man. You are in the Senate house, not some distant village. If you touch me again, I will have you arrested. From what my son has told me, you are not the sort of person I want to do business with.”

“He may also have mentioned that I am not a good person to have as an enemy,” Julius murmured, keeping his voice low so that it would not be overheard.

The senator froze for a moment as he considered the threat, then turned away stiff-necked to catch up with Cato as he passed through the doors.

Thoughtfully, Julius watched him go. He had expected something similar from the man, though the news of a house to be built on his old land was a blow. At the peak of the hill, it would look down on his estate, a position of superiority that would no doubt give Suetonius enormous satisfaction. He looked around for Crassus and Cinna, wanting to speak to them before they left for their homes. In a way, what Suetonius’s father had said was true. Using force in Rome would lead quickly to disaster. He would have to be subtle.

“First is Antonidus, though,” he muttered under his breath. Force would do very well there.

Chapter 29

                  CHAPTER 29                  

Walking through the city at the head of his ten soldiers sparked painful memories as Julius made his way to the street of Marius’s old home. He remembered the excitement he’d felt as the storm of energy around the general had caught him up in its wake. Each street and turning reminded him of that first clattering journey to the Senate, surrounded by the hardest men of Primigenia. How old had he been then, fourteen? Old enough to understand the lesson that the law would bend for strength. Even Sulla had quailed before the soldiers in the forum, on stones made wet with the blood of the heaving crowds. Marius had been granted the Triumph he wanted and the consulship that followed, though Sulla had brought him down at the end. Grief sat heavily on Julius as he wished for just one more moment with the golden general.

None of Julius’s men had ever seen Rome before, and four of them were from small villages along the African coast. They struggled not to stare, but it was a losing battle as they saw the mythical city made real before their eyes.