“Now which was that…Dead, I believe—”

“Then I’ll have to inspect the body! If he’s buried, dig him up.”

Oh lady, let my servants fetch the silver wine set out for you!

The door creaked ajar on its one hinge in the unexpected dazzle of a flare.

“Oh yes! That’s him—our precious runaway.”

I was almost too hoarse to swear at her, but I managed it.

Cornix the foreman stood just behind her shoulder, pitifully subdued.

After one distasteful glance around my cell she quipped tartly, “What’s this he has? Bedrest and special nursing?”

I felt sorry for Cornix. Her attitude was intolerable. Besides, she had a military escort; there was nothing he could do.

He hauled me from my thin pallet of stinking ferns to stretch me at her feet in the mud outside. I closed my eyes against the glazed light of huge wan clouds. I carried with me a young woman’s sturdy shape in swathes of dark blue material, the crinkled woollen fringe on her dress, a frowning white face beneath twists of soft straight hair.

For a moment I nearly collapsed.

“Marcus!” rapped Helena Justina, in the patronizing tone she would naturally use to a disgraced slave.

My face lay in a puddle only inches from her feet.

Smart shoes. Slate-grey leather, punched with spirals of tiny holes. Much better ankles than she deserved.

“This is a fine scene! Uncle Gaius had such faith in you. Look at you now!” What did she expect? A runaway rarely packs clean tunics and his personal toilet sponge…I clung to reality in the chalky smudge of that familiar hostile face. “Oh really Marcus! What have you achieved? A broken leg, fractured ribs, chilblains, ringworm, and filth!” She considered the dirt uneasily. She had me put through the baths they provided for officials before I disgraced her aunt’s good pony trap. A soldier who must have known who I really was tied my leg to a new splint, too shamefaced to do it properly.

By the time Helena allowed me to ease into the cart, I had been thoroughly sluiced down and my rags exchanged for somebody’s third-best tunic, which had a smell I found uncomfortable, though it was several times better than how I had stunk before. Cornix had slunk away for one of his afternoon bouts of torture and fornication in the sheds. I was shuddering; her ladyship flung a travel rug over me with an angry hiss. I still felt damp. I had managed a rough and ready scrub, but bathing under the eyes of a soldier and Cornix was not a time for drying carefully between your toes.

My scalp itched madly with the shock of being clean. All my skin felt alive. The lightest breath of breeze bruised my face.