“I’d go easy if I were you,” Brutus said. “You have no head for wine and I don’t want you picking a fight with me or weeping or something.”

Renius ignored him, finally gasping as he lowered the skin.

“It’s good to be home again,” he said.

Brutus filled their small cooking pot to the brim and lay down on the other side of the fire.

“It is. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it before the lookout sighted the coast. It brought everything back to me.”

Shaking his head in memory, he stirred the stew with his dagger. Renius raised his head and rested it on his hand.

“You’ve come a long way from the boy I trained. I don’t think I ever told you how proud I was when you made centurion for the Bronze Fist.”

“You told everyone else. It got back to me in the end,” Brutus replied, smiling.

“And now you’ll be Julius’s man?” Renius said, eyeing the bubbling stew.

“Why not? We walk the same path, remember? Cabera said that.”

“He said the same to me,” Renius muttered, testing the stew with a finger. Though it was clearly boiling, he didn’t seem to feel the heat.

“I thought that was why you came back with me. You could have stayed on with the Fist if you’d wanted.”

Renius shrugged. “I wanted to be at the heart of things again.”

Brutus grinned at the big man. “I know. Now Sulla’s dead, this is our time.”

CHAPTER 9

I have no idea what you are talking about,” Fercus said. He strained against the ropes that held him to the chair, but there was no give in them.

“I think you know exactly what I mean,” Antonidus said, leaning in very close so that their faces almost touched. “I have a gift for knowing a lie when I am told one.” He sniffed twice suddenly and Fercus remembered how they called him Sulla’s dog.

“You reek of lies,” Antonidus said, sneering. “I know you were involved, so simply tell me and I will not have to bring in the torturers. There is no escape from here, broker. No one saw you arrested and no one will know we have spoken. Just tell me who ordered the assassination and where the killer is and you will walk out unharmed.”

“Take me to a court of law. I will find representation to prove my innocence!” Fercus said, his voice shaking.

“Oh, you would like that, wouldn’t you? Days wasted in idle talk while the Senate tries to prove it has one law for all. There is no law down here, in this room. Down here, we still remember Sulla.”

“I know nothing!” Fercus shouted, making Antonidus move back a few inches, to his relief. The general shook his head in regret.

“We know the killer went by the name of Dalcius. We know he had been bought for kitchen work three weeks before. The record of the sale has vanished, of course, but there were witnesses. Did you think no one would notice Sulla’s own agent at the market? Your name, Fercus, came up over and over again.”