Brutus opened his eyes. With consciousness came pain and he groaned in agony. His cheek and mouth were swollen and deformed and blood trickled from his ear. His gaze seemed vacant as it swiveled toward Julius, then slowly a dim awareness returned. Brutus tried to lift himself, but the broken arm was useless. He fell back, crying out weakly. His lips moved over bloody teeth and Julius bent closer to hear him speak.

“Will you kill me now?” Brutus whispered.

“I won’t,” Julius said.

Brutus let out a long, shuddering breath. “Am I dying then?” he said.

Julius looked him over. “Perhaps. You deserve to.”

“Pompey?”

“He ran. I’ll find him,” Julius replied.

Brutus tried to smile, a cough racking him with agony. Julius watched, his dark eyes colder than death.

“So we lost then,” Brutus said weakly, trying to spit blood onto the ground. He didn’t have the strength. “I was worried when I couldn’t see you, before,” he said. “I thought I was finished.”

Julius shook his head in slow sadness. “What am I to do with you?” he murmured. “Did you think I didn’t value you? Did you think I wouldn’t miss having you in Rome? I didn’t believe your mother when she told me. I told her you wouldn’t betray me, not you. You hurt me then. You hurt me still.”

Tears came into Brutus’s eyes, screwed out by pain and misery. “Sometimes I just wanted to do something without the thought that the great Julius can do it better. Even when we were young, I wanted that.” He stopped to let a spasm run its course, clenching his jaw. “Everything I am, I’ve made. I’ve struggled through things that would have broken weak bastards. While I flogged myself, you made everything seem easy. It was easy for you. You are the only man ever to make me feel I’ve had a wasted life.”

Julius looked at the broken figure of the man he had known for too many years to remember. His voice broke as he spoke. “Why couldn’t you have been happy for me?” he said. “Why betray me?”

“I wanted to be an equal,” Brutus said, showing red teeth. Fresh pain made him gasp as he shifted. “I didn’t expect Pompey to be such a fool.” He looked up into Julius’s cold gaze and knew his life, his fate was being decided while he lay helpless. “Can you forgive me even this?” Brutus murmured, raising his head. “Can I ask you for this last thing?”

Julius did not reply for so long that Brutus fell back, his eyes closing.

“If you live,” Julius said at last, “I will let the past rest. Do you understand me? I will need you, Brutus.”