There were times when he thought he should just take a horse and leave Rome. Julius had showered him with enough wealth to buy a house and live in comfort. When he was sick of it all, he dreamed of taking ship somewhere too far for Julius to reach and finding his own kind of peace there. He did not know if such a place existed any longer. He returned to Julius like a child to a festering scab, plumbing new depths of misery with a horrified fascination.

“Are you going to the Senate house?” Brutus asked just to break the silence.

Julius blew air through his lips. “Back to the talking shop, where I can buy a thousand words for a bronze coin? No, I have letters to write to the kings of Parthia. I have not forgotten those who caused the death of Crassus and his son. It is an old debt, but I will answer it for those who can’t speak.”

“I thought you were still drunk on the pleasures of Rome,” Brutus said softly. “Are you sniffing the spring wind again?”

Julius smiled at the image. “Perhaps. I may be an old warhorse, my friend, but an empire does not build itself from a comfortable seat in the Senate. I must be seen.”

“The Tenth are old men now,” Brutus replied. “I would never have believed it, but they went to the farms and houses you gave them without looking back.”

Julius snorted. “There are new men to blood, Brutus. New legions that have never heard the battle horns or marched to exhaustion as we have. What would you have me do when my last Triumph has ended, sit and smile until my son is grown? I am not a man for the quiet times. I never have been.” He smiled. “But there is still the Egyptian Triumph to come. A host of scribes and architects arrive in a just a few hours to plan it.” Julius stared off into space as he contemplated bringing Rome to a standstill once more. “It will be the greatest in the city’s history, Brutus, I guarantee it.”

“How can it be, after the last one? They’re still talking about the sea battle in the Campus,” Brutus said, remembering to hide his distaste.

The vast stone bowl had been shallow enough to see the dead clustered like dark coral on the bottom. In tiny galleys, captured warriors had struggled against criminals and men condemned to death. The pale waters had become a broth and when it was drained back into the Tiber, the river itself had run red. The scent of rotting flesh crept through Rome for days afterwards.