“He was. I’ll have to go to the forum court to keep it, but it will give me a chance to clear Marius’s name in this city.”

Her smile disappeared at this reminder of harder times, and she busied her hands with removing an apron, cursing as the knot resisted her fingers. Julius wanted to step forward and help her, but resisted with an effort of will. He had been shocked to feel a surge of the old attraction to her as he came into the shop. It worried him enough to stand well clear until she had finished untying the strings herself.

You are a married man, he told himself firmly, yet he found himself blushing as she looked at him again.

“So why have you come to our humble little shop? I doubt it’s just to look me up, Julius.”

“It could be. I was pleased when Tubruk said you had survived. I heard about Metella taking her life.” As he always had with her, he found himself fumbling for words, annoyed by his own lack of fluency.

Alexandria turned to him, her eyes glittering. “I wouldn’t have left her if I’d known what she was going to do. Gods, I would have taken her with me to Tabbic’s place. She was a victim, as much as the men that bastard Sulla killed on the streets. I’m only sorry he died quickly, so they say. I would have wanted it slow, for him.”

“I haven’t forgotten, for all the Senate seems to want to,” Julius agreed, his voice bitter. A look of silent communication passed between them, a memory of those they had lost and an intimacy between them that was fresher than they could have guessed.

“You’ll make them pay, Julius? I hate the thought of the gutter filth I saw then still roaming free. Rome’s a dirtier place than you can see from the forum, I know.”

“I’ll do what I can. I’ll start by making them honor Marius, which should stick hard in a few throats,” he replied seriously.

She smiled again at him. “Gods, I am glad to see your face after so long. It brings the past back to me,” she said, and his blush returned, making her chuckle with memory. Her confidence as a freewoman had made her almost unrecognizable, but still he felt that she was someone he could trust simply because she had been part of the old times. The more cynical voice in him suspected he was being hopelessly naive. They had all changed and Brutus should have been enough of a reminder of that already.

“I never thanked you for the money you left with Metella for when I was free,” she said. “I bought a part share in this shop with it. It meant a lot to me.”