Brutus had enjoyed seeming as indignant as any other loyal general would be. Labienus had been forced to apologize and claim a mistake had been made. The spies who watched Brutus had been replaced with new faces the following day.

Brutus smiled to himself as he lowered slowly into a lunge that ended with his outstretched gladius held straight for five heartbeats. To see Julia was an intoxicating challenge, and simply vanishing from sight would begin another hunt for him. It was far better to act as an innocent man. On the two other occasions that he had stolen time with Julia since their first meeting in the garden, Brutus had gleefully ordered Seneca’s men to arrest the watchers. It changed nothing. Brutus knew Labienus would never be truly sure of him until he fought Julius in the field and proved his loyalty beyond all doubt.

Brutus spun lightly in a move he had learned years before from a tribe that fought with bronze weapons. Renius would have disapproved of anything that broke contact with the ground, but the leap was spectacular and hid the movement of the sword for instants that had saved his life on two separate occasions. As Brutus landed, he gripped the wooden floor of the barracks with his bare feet, feeling his own strength. He had been first sword in Rome and a general in Gaul. To have Labienus sniffing around him for disloyalty was an affront he would one day repay in full. Not one of Pompey’s men would ever appreciate what it had cost him to betray Julius. He knew they weighed his contribution to tactical discussion with a jaundiced eye. Part of him understood the necessity for their doubts, but still it was infuriating.

As he came to rest at last and brought his sword up to the legionary’s first position, he considered the irony of his new role. He had only ever fought under Julius’s command and he found Pompey merely competent in comparison. The man was a solid general, but he lacked the fire of innovation that Julius could bring to the direst situation. Brutus had seen Julius standing with arrows thumping into the ground around him as he turned a battle lost into a triumph. Though it did not sit easily with his pride, there were times when Brutus could admit he had learned more from Julius than he ever would from Pompey.