Gaditicus caught him as he fell, and held him down as his body jerked and twisted, his sandals cutting arcs in the undergrowth with the violence of their movement. The biting flies seemed to sense his weakness and swarmed around them. Gaditicus looked around for something to jam between Julius’s teeth, but the cloth they had used on Accipiter was long gone. He wrenched up a heavy leaf and managed to get the fibrous stalk across Julius’s mouth, letting it fall in as the mouth champed. It held and Gaditicus bore down with all his weight until the fit was over.

Finally, Julius was able to sit up and spit out the stalk he’d almost bitten through. He felt as if he had been beaten unconscious. He grimaced as he saw his bladder had released, and thumped his fists into the earth in fury, scattering the flies before they darted back in at his exposed skin.

“I thought it was over.”

“Perhaps that was the last one,” Gaditicus replied. “Head wounds are always complicated. Cabera said it might go on for a while.”

“Or for the rest of my life. I miss that old man,” Julius said, his voice bleak. “My mother used to have shaking fits. I never really understood what it was like before. It feels like dying.”

“Can you stand? I don’t want to lose the men, and after your speech they could well march all morning.”

Gaditicus helped the young officer to his feet and watched him take a few deep breaths to steady himself. He wanted to offer words of comfort, but the words didn’t come easily.

“You will beat this,” he said. “Cabera said you were strong and nothing I’ve seen makes me think differently.”

“Maybe. Let’s move on, then. I’d like to stay close to the sea, so I can wash.”

“I could say I told you a joke and you pissed yourself laughing,” Gaditicus said. Julius chuckled and Gaditicus smiled at him.

“There, you see? You are stronger than you realize. Alexander the Great had the shaking sickness, they say.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and Hannibal. It is not the end, just a burden.”

*                                                      *                                                      *

Brutus tried to hide his shock when he saw Aurelia the following morning. She was plaster-white and thin, with a web of wrinkles that had not been there when he’d left for Greece three years before.

Tubruk had seen his distress and filled the gaps in the conversation, telling Aurelia the answers to the questions she did not ask. The old gladiator was not sure she even recognized Brutus.