“I’d have ripped his stomach out if he insulted mine,” the legionary said, letting Tubruk’s chin fall.

“And lose my profit?” Fercus replied quickly.

The officer sneered and spat one word: “Merchants.”

He moved on to the next with Fercus, and Tubruk cleaned his bowl, gripping it hard to hide hands that shook with anger. Minutes later, the soldiers were gone and the guards entered to kick them to their feet, ready to be fastened into the cart that would carry them out of Rome and to their new homes and lives.

* * *

Julius pressed his head up to the bars of the little cell below the trireme deck, closing his left eye to see what was going on more clearly. With it open, the blur brought on his headaches and he wanted to delay that as long as possible each day. He pulled a deep breath into his lungs and turned back to the others.

“Definitely a port. Warm air, and I can smell fruit or spices. I’d say Africa.”

After a month in the cramped semidarkness, the words caused a stir of interest in the Romans, who sat or lay against the wooden sides of their prison. He looked at them and sighed before shuffling back to his place, levering himself down carefully to avoid putting weight on the splinted arm.

The month had been hard on all of them. Denied razors and water to wash with, the usually fastidious soldiers were a ragged crew, filthy and dark-bearded. The bucket they had been given as their toilet was filled to overflowing and buzzed with flies. It had a corner to itself, but excrement had slimed the floor around it and they had no cloths to wipe themselves. In the heat of the day, the air had the stench of disease and two of the men had developed fevers that Cabera could barely control.

The old healer did what he could for them, but he was searched thoroughly every time he brought their food or tended their sick. The pirates still kept him busy with their own ailments, and Cabera said it was clear they had not had a healer on board for years.

Julius felt a headache beginning and stifled a groan. Ever since recovering consciousness the pains had been with him, sapping at his will and strength and making him snap at the others. They were all irritable and what discipline they had once had was being eroded in the darkness day by day, with Gaditicus having to step in more than once to stop blows as tempers frayed.

With his eyes closed, the headache remained quiescent, but Cabera had told him he must not stop using the blurred eye and to spend hours of each day focusing on the near and far or it would be lost to him when they were finally back in the sun. He had to believe it would end. He would return to Rome and Cornelia, and the misery would become memories. It helped a little to imagine it had already happened, that he was sitting in the sun on the estate wall, with his arm around Cornelia’s slim waist and cool, clean air off the hills ruffling their hair. She would ask him how it had been in the filth and the stench of the cell, and he would make light of all of it. He wished he could remember her face more clearly.