Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/2397014.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con,
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      due_South
  Relationship:
      Baruch_ben_Ravid/Lux_Axius_Priscillian_(earlier_incarnation_of_Benton
      Fraser/Ray_Kowalski), Benton_Fraser/Ray_Kowalski
  Character:
      Baruch_ben_Ravid_(Benton_Fraser_incarnation), Rishon_ben_Ravid_(Ray
      Vecchio_incarnation), Lux_Axius_Priscillian_(Ray_Kowalski_incarnation),
      Fortunata_(Stella_Kowalski_incarnation), Hyrcanus_(Diefenbaker
      incarnation), Benton_Fraser, Ray_Kowalski
  Additional Tags:
      Big_Bang_Challenge, historical_fiction_-_Freeform, Reincarnation
  Series:
      Part 2 of due_South_Reincarnation'verse
  Collections:
      dS_C6D_bigbang_2014
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-10-06 Words: 44136
****** And the Walls Kept Tumbling Down (in the City that We Love) ******
by ButterflyGhost, Ride_Forever
Summary
     Within the context of the historical destruction of the Second Temple
     in Jerusalem in 70 CE and the historical destruction of Pompeii in 79
     CE, two souls who will later be reborn as Benton Fraser and Ray
     Kowalski find each other.
Notes
     "Those characters are dead" is inevitable when writing historical
     fiction about the distant past, but in reincarnation'verse the fic
     always ends with characters alive in the present.
     TYK to our beta, the brilliant and beloved Tatau, for the time and
     genius she contributed to this work.
     TYK to the dynamic happy29 for the gorgeous feels-loaded
     complementary vid. Click_here_for_link_to_fanvid.
     Fic title is taken from the song "Pompeii," written by Daniel Smith
     and recorded by Bastille. Some lyrics of this song appear in the coda
     of this fic. Copyright of the song is held by WWKD Limited, and no
     infringement on that copyright is intended herein.
     ---------------------------------------------------------------------
     ------------------------------------
See the end of the work for more notes
In the year 66 CE the Jews of Judea rebelled against their Roman masters. In
response, the Emperor Nero dispatched an army under the generalship of
Vespasian to restore order. By the year 68, the Romans turned their full
attention to the subjugation of Jerusalem. That same year, the Emperor Nero
died by his own hand, creating a power vacuum in Rome. In the resultant chaos,
Vespasian was declared Emperor and returned to the Imperial City. It fell to
his son, Titus, to lead the remaining army in the assault on Jerusalem. The
Roman legions surrounded the city and began to slowly squeeze the life out of
the Jewish stronghold. By the year 70, the attackers had breached Jerusalem's
outer walls and began a systematic ransacking of the city. The assault
culminated in the burning and destruction of the Temple that served as the
center of Judaism. In victory, the Romans slaughtered thousands. Those spared
from death were spared to be enslaved.
Flavius Josephus, describing the Siege of Jerusalem wrote “…every trace of
beauty had been blotted out by war”. In his account of the assault on the
Temple he wrote: “Most of the slain were peaceful citizens, weak and unarmed,
and they were butchered where they were caught. The heap of corpses mounted
higher and higher about the altar; a stream of blood flowed down the Temple's
steps, and the bodies of those slain at the top slipped to the bottom .”
 
===================================================
When the assault on Jerusalem occurred, I was only a child. I was one of the
lucky few who survived. If you can call it lucky and call it surviving. Later,
in the years of my enslavement, I would think back on that time, despite my
best efforts not to. In the darkest watches of night, it would come back to me,
and I would remember. Remember how sure I had been, how secure in my childish
faith. Even despite the weeks of siege, the famine, the desperation – even
despite the soldiers gathered at the gates, in spite of everything – I had
never thought it could end. How could it end? How could those Walls ever fall?
There had been a city on this hill since the days of Melchizedek and Abraham.
 
When I was a child, Jerusalem was the world, and it would never ever end.
 
Rishon was furious. I remember our last argument so clearly. He had seen me at
the Wall, and dragged me back home, as though I were an errant toddler. At one
point as I struggled he literally flung me over his shoulder and carried me
through the narrow streets. There was nobody out there to witness my
humiliation – everyone was in hiding. Still, I railed, and thumped his back. He
paid as much attention as if I were a sack of flour.
 
No sooner had we arrived home, than he called to our mother that he had found
me. Mother peered out the doorway, with huge frightened eyes, and put her
fingers to her lips. I realized that I had made her cry, and turned my face in
shame. Rishon dropped me from his shoulder, and propelled me upstairs, one hand
fisting my tunic between my shoulder blades. We ascended via the stone steps
along the shaded outside of the house. I remember that once we were on the roof
we both took a deep breath and squared off against each other. He pushed me,
and I stumbled. I was angry, very angry, and so was he.
 
Even so, even then, furious as we were, we tried to mute our anger, walking
quietly, talking quietly so as not to further distress the womenfolk gathered
downstairs. It was one of those days when the heat turned the lower room into
an oven, but the women sheltered there anyway. It was safer for them not to be
seen. I still didn’t believe that the Romans would actually breach the Upper
City, but Rishon had seen first-hand the devastation on the Lower Side, and he
was less sure. More of a reason for me to be part of the City’s defense, but my
big brother was not being reasonable. Not to my mind.
 
“Listen to me,” he said, grasping my arm. “You don’t run off like that.” He
paused, and threw out as a sop, “the women need you.”
 
I shrugged him off and pouted my lip. “The City needs me.”
 
“Our mother needs you, little brother.” His eyes flared with anger, and he
waved his arm in a sharp gesture, taking in the view of devastation from the
roof, then pointing to the floor. Beneath our feet our littlest sister began to
wail. Mother made urgent, hushing noises, crooned, but Leah wept on. The other
children were quiet – unusual for our family. Little Leah knew no better. She
only knew that she was unhappy, and hungry, and the milk had run dry. It had
been nearly three weeks, and carefully though we had rationed it, all our bread
was gone. Rishon’s eyes went suddenly desperate at the sound of Leah’s wailing.
He was the kind of man – boy I realize now, though at the time he seemed so
much older than me – who hated to see his family in pain. Unlike other young
men of his standing, he would dandle the babies on his knees, play in the dust
with the children. Walk with them over his shoulder when they were colicky, or
teething – complaining the whole time that they were drooling on his clothes,
but loving every minute.
 
And on that last day Leah cried, and there was nothing he could do.
 
I remember the look of sharp pain in his eyes at the sound of her keening, as
though somebody had struck him from behind. He stared straight into my face,
and grasped my arm again, shaking it hard.
 
“The City does not need children to fight for it,” he bit out. At the time I
misunderstood, I thought he was angry, not afraid.
 
“I am not a child,” I replied, feeling my cheeks flood with shame and heat.
Even as I said it, my voice betrayed me, and cracked, somewhere on the edge
between soprano and tenor. I cleared my throat and repeated myself. “I am not a
child,” I pointed out, more firmly. “I am as much a man as you are, and you are
going to defend the Walls. So, why not I?”
 
Rishon spread out his arms and shrugged, seeking for words, then slumped his
shoulders and sighed.
 
“It is not that you are young,” he said, striving to be gentle, reasonable. “It
is that there is nobody else to look after Mother, the children. Not since
Father….”
 
His voice trailed off, and we stepped back from each other, looking in opposite
directions.
 
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice tight. I felt, deep in my bones that Rishon was
lying – that he really wanted to keep me away from the fighting because he
didn’t truly respect me, because he thought I was a baby. But….
 
He was right. We had a mother and three sisters to look after. The rest of the
family – grandparents, father, cousins, had died, of hunger, or of the diseases
that were spreading in the heat. And everyone knew what the Romans would do to
any female captives. Someone had to protect the women.
 
And who was there, but Rishon and I? We were the only men left standing. Rishon
with his young man’s beard, little more than fluff. Both of us, I see it now,
no more than boys.
 
“I’ll look after Mother and the girls,” I promised him.
 
“Thank you.” His whole body seemed to go slack, as though he had been the
string of a lyre, and somebody had turned the pin. He stepped back toward me,
and dropped a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll… I’ll man the Walls. If the… if they
get through….” His voice trailed off.
 
“They won’t get through,” I stated, with absolute certainty.
 
“But, if they do… take Mother and the girls up to the Temple. They’ll let you
in.”
 
I nodded. I had heard Father talking about that as an outside possibility,
should the worst come to the worst. That had been a little over two weeks ago.
 
“I know how to get to the tunnels,” I reassured him. “But we won’t have to use
them.”
 
He dropped his head in a weary nod. “Please, Lord.”
 
I put my hand on his, where it still rested on my shoulder, and squeezed it.
“It’ll be alright, Rishon. I know it. The Lord will not abandon us.”
 
He smiled then, and patted my cheek. “I have to go now,” he said. “I will see
you when this is all over.”
 
“I’ll be here,” I said, stolidly. “Or….” I nodded and jerked my head toward the
Temple, gleaming on the top of the hill.
 
He kissed me on the forehead then, and turned, descended the stone steps.
 
And, he was right. I did see him again. Once.
 
Once, when it was all over.
~*~
 
What could have been a pleasant voyage for Lux was marred by the presence of
the nobility – Patrician butterflies – who were heading south for the summer,
south for the spectacular sea views of Pompeii. Lux, though noble-born, didn’t
enjoy their company, so he kept himself to himself as best he could, allowing
his peers to think of him as a common soldier so that they would leave him to
his own devices. It worked for the most part. Although some of the women
fluttered their lashes at him when they thought their husbands weren’t looking
(and some of the men showed interest as well, when their wives were looking the
other way) he was able to avoid the machinations of Patrician politics for the
length of the journey – a fact for which he thanked the gods.
 
He was not thanking the gods now. Right now he wanted to kick the gods in the
most painful places – blasphemous but true. The ship had pulled into dock, and
he was lurching down the gangplank like a drunk. After all the time he had
spent on boats, you would think he’d be used to the transition by now, but his
leg injury threw him off balance, and the dazzling heat, striking up from the
water, was not helping clear his head. He shook it, hard, like a dog coming out
of a stream, and made his way to land.
 
He pulled his wide-brimmed straw hat onto his head, and squinted through the
sunlight. Somewhere, he knew, one of his new slaves would be waiting. He had
been told the man would recognize him, but now he wished he had arranged some
better signal than that he would be wearing a petasus. Every freeman getting
off the boat seemed to be wearing a head covering of some sort, against the
sun.
 
His eyes locked on those of a man in a light tunic, which was sensibly white in
this heat. Somehow his clothing was pristine, despite the mess of the docks on
all sides. The man was staring at him with something like surprise. Lux
blinked, surprised himself. For a moment he had almost greeted the man as an
old friend, but on second thought he was sure they had never met. The man
nodded though as if confirming something to himself, then walked through the
crowd, which parted obediently on either side of him, without seeming to notice
he was there. Lux watched, fascinated. The man was as tall as he was – five or
six inches above the army’s height requirement, possibly a little more. He was
broad in the shoulder, strong. He had a Judean cast to his skin and features,
but his black hair was close cut, his beard was shaved.
 
And he looked familiar. That was the shocking thing. He looked familiar....
 
And then the man was greeting him.
 
“Lux Axius Priscillian?”
 
Lux felt his mouth fall open. This? This is my new slave?
~*~
 
Two months of scorching sun, and the drinking water was as warm as blood. The
slave was used to it. The new master, evidently, was not. When the slave first
spotted him, the man had paled, as though seeing a ghost, and stumbled
slightly. He seemed to have regained his bearings though. He swiped his
forehead with the back of his arm, and laughed. “I thought it was hot in Rome.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was back in Africa.”
 
"There is wine, if you prefer, Master."
 
"No," the man grinned easily, and took another swig from the water skin. “This
is good. Thanks."
 
The slave kept his face still, only a swift blink betraying his surprise at his
master's courtesy. This new master – well, everything about the man so far had
been a surprise.
 
For a start, he was blond. The slave had known to expect that – he had been
told to expect a tall blond man – but the effect was still startling. Not that
blond was unheard of in Patrician families, and there were more and more blond
slaves arriving from Germany and Gaul, but it was still rare enough to be of
note. And he was much younger than the slave had been expecting. He had been
told that his new master was a retired soldier – he had expected a man in his
late forties at least. This man could not be much older than he himself. His
limp indicated how he had been granted his honestia missio. Obviously this
soldier had been wounded in battle. His blue eyes were framed with wrinkles
from squinting against the sun, but there were laughter lines in there too and
–
 
Frankly, he was attractive. The slave repressed a shudder. He could have done
without that. At least with the previous master he had known that his body’s
betrayals had nothing to do with his feelings for the man. If this master
asserted his rights, then the slave would find it more difficult to separate
the act from his own feelings. And he had worked hard to not feel anything at
all.
 
Maybe he would be lucky. Perhaps this master would prefer girls.
 
The master started walking again, limping slightly as he navigated the crowded
streets of Misenum. Despite the limp, he moved gracefully, somehow avoiding
being jostled by the fish vendors and merchants and slaves going about their
business. Of course the master would be used to sea ports. Misenum would be a
little backwater to him – nothing special. For a moment the slave felt
obscurely ashamed by that fact, as though it reflected badly on him. Then he
clucked his tongue, irritated at himself for the thought.
 
“First things first,” the master said, clapping his hands. “Food. Then we’ll
start out toward the property.”
 
“Yes, Master.”
 
“Two days on foot, I should think.” The man sounded cheerful at the prospect.
“Then we’ll inspect the property.”
 
“Yes, Master.”
 
The master smiled at him, his eyes seeming to go a deeper blue as he did so.
“What’s your name, Slave?”
 
The slave blinked, startled by the other man’s apparently genuine interest. He
licked his lip, and answered cautiously. “I’m Primus.”
 
The master raised his eyebrows, and his lips quirked.
 
“I worked for a ‘Primus,’ ” he smiled. “Big guy. Always cranky. Are you my
commanding officer?”
 
“I’m sorry, Master,” the slave blurted. “I didn’t mean offence. I simply meant
that my designation is –”
 
“I didn’t mean what status are you among the slaves. I mean, what’s your name?”
 
The slave paused, agitated, a bubble of panic rising in his chest. He pushed it
down. He didn’t know what to say. Why did the man even care anyway? “Whatever
you like, Master.”
 
A shadow crossed the master’s face. “Primus, then.”
 
The slave bobbed his head, relieved not to be pressed any further, anxious at
the knowledge that within moments of meeting him, he had disappointed his
master. He realized already that he wanted to please this man, not just as a
matter of survival but because… because what?
 
Whatever the reason, it remained hidden.
 
“Come then,” the master turned toward a dining establishment. “I need to sit
down. Let’s eat.”
 
“Yes, Master.”
~*~
 
Wonderful. Here he was, sitting in a thermopolium in Misenum, waiting for his
food, and nothing was as he’d expected. For nine years, from his first
deployment in Judea, through the African operations, and finally the bitter
cold of the British campaign, he had thought of this part of the Empire as his
personal Elysium. He had lain beneath foreign skies, shaking after victory or
defeat, and dreamed through long deliriums of returning here, to this place. He
had let the doctor lance his injuries, stitch the gaping wounds, and the whole
time that he was trying not to scream, he was thinking of purchasing his villa,
and preparing it for his bride. The one thing which had carried him through his
last injury had been the vision of Fortunata awaiting him in the Pompeiian
sunshine, smiling out at the coastline, beneath the mountain of Vesuvius. The
sunlight would dapple golden on her skin and….
 
She won’t even recognize me. He shut his eyes, trying to conjure up her image,
and squeezed the scarred muscle of his thigh. Here he was, and he couldn’t even
be certain what she looked like these days. Ten years, what – nearly eleven?
Gods. We were barely grown when we were last together….
 
Well. I can blame her father for that. He huffed a laugh. There was somebody he
hadn’t missed. The day that Lux had approached Fortunata’s father for her hand
still stung as one of his most humiliating memories. “Marry? You want to marry
my daughter?” The man had guffawed, rocking back on his heels with helpless
laughter. Oh, Calpurnius had made it quite clear that Lux was not good enough
for his girl. “Of course, your family is respectable,” he had conceded, wiping
his eyes with the back of his hand when the fit of derision had passed, “but I
am sure I can make a better match for her than you. Someone with better
connections.” He shook his head, still smiling. “I’m sorry, young man, but I
have ambitions for my daughter, and you’re simply not ambitious.”
 
That was the day that Lux signed his papers and joined the Legions.
 
If I’d just waited and calmed down, Lux thought, wryly, he might have changed
his mind. Or Fortunata would have changed it for him.
 
Too late to change the past. Lux had been young, and in love, and desperate to
prove himself worthy.
 
At least Fortunata had thought he was worthy. He pondered again the astonishing
fact that, over nearly a decade, she had kept writing to him. The letters would
often arrive six months late, letters for which he was the butt of everyone’s
jokes, but he cherished each and every one of them, and learned them by heart.
 
And now, finally, her father had conceded defeat. Now, finally, Lux was coming
home, and against all odds, Fortunata was waiting.
 
Would she be disappointed when she saw him? He wasn’t the same boy she had
fallen in love with, after all. Would she even recognize him?
 
Gods. Will I recognize her?
 
That was a terrifying notion. One that he had pushed out of his mind so often
that it had worn a groove in his thoughts.
 
What if they met after ten years apart, and she decided she had made a mistake?
What if she didn’t love him anymore?
 
What if he didn’t love her?
 
He shut his eyes. I’ll always love her.
 
There. There it was. A flash of bright memory. Lux smiled. This, this was one
of his favorites. Not the first time they made love, though that was treasured
too. This memory was from years before that. The day they met. Her hair had
been wound into golden ringlets and twisted into a cap around her skull, but as
soon as they got away from the adults she pulled it loose, and ran. He
remembered the way her hair had gleamed, how her long blonde locks bounced on
her back as she ran along the beach. Not far from here. He remembered her
laughing and chasing a ball with a stick. Gods, we were what, six or seven?
Nearly twenty years ago....
 
He tried to imagine her as a woman of his own age, and kept coming up blank.
How did she remember him? Her letters sounded fond. She seemed to cherish him.
But was it him she cherished, or a creature she had imagined on long lonely
nights while her father railed at her for refusing to obey his edicts? She
could never expect what Lux had grown into – a man who startled at shadows, and
cried in the night. After all the years she had waited, the longer years that
she had been prepared to wait, how could he inflict himself on her now, the way
he was? A limping injured mess. He hadn’t been good enough for her when he was
sixteen. What made him any better now? She could have married anyone. She could
have started a family – wasn’t that what every woman wanted? She could still do
it. She still had time. And yet she had waited for him.
 
Why? What did she think they were going to do?
 
He felt a lump in his throat, and tried to stop the thought, but it was too
late. The truth was, that now he was finally here, he couldn’t imagine actually
marrying her at all.
 
Merda he thought, and shoved himself back on his elbows, glaring at the table
top. This whole situation was too frustrating; he didn’t know what to do about
it, and the closer it got, the more terrifying it got. And – huh – now that he
thought of it, the new slave wasn’t helping. He glanced over his shoulder,
startled by the thought, and there was the slave, close behind him. Straight-
backed, eyes downcast, awaiting instruction.
 
Lux swallowed, and looked back down at his plate. He didn’t know what he wanted
to do with the man. Tell him to step back, stand down, stop hovering? It wasn’t
the slave’s fault that he was always there, he was simply doing his job,
keeping his place. But, for some reason, Lux was disturbed. Not by the man’s
obedience – he was used to obedience in the ranks. It was the man’s servility
that bothered him. Lux wasn’t used to that – and in this man it seemed,
somehow, profoundly wrong. As though it were not part of his true nature at
all, but an ill-fitting mask he had been forced to put on.
 
Lux sighed, and stared at his food, sullenly. He felt something was amiss –
something very much amiss, and just… broken apart inside. He had expected to
feel peace on his homecoming. Instead he felt heart-sore.…
 
It hit him then, what was wrong. He was still homesick.
 
He shut his eyes, and sought for equilibrium. I’m not really home yet, he told
himself. Wait till I get to Pompeii. Things will get better. They always do.
 
Tell that to the children of Jerusalem. He flinched at the thought. Perhaps
that was what was wrong. Perhaps this slave reminded him of his first, and
worst, experience of battle.
 
Merda. The bodies at the Temple flashed before his eyes. That wasn’t a battle.
It was a slaughter.
 
“Master?”
 
Lux opened his eyes, blinked hard against the memory, and stared over the
slave’s shoulder. He couldn’t meet the other man’s gaze. What was he supposed
to say to him?
 
“Is anything wrong?”
 
“Nothing,” he snapped. He took a breath to calm himself. “Could you get some
wine,” he added, for the sake of something to say.
 
Quietly, obediently, the slave moved off to the counter. Lux closed his eyes
again, and breathed. It was not the man’s fault that he reminded him of Judea.
 
“You, Primus.” A jeering voice startled Lux from his thoughts. Behind him
someone was talking, too loudly. “Or is it Pulcher?” another voice sneered.
“What are you doing out by yourself, Puer?” Lux turned, and saw a bluff red-
faced man, worse the wear for wine, jostling the slave. “Where’s your Master,
pretty boy?”
 
“He died,” a third voice joined in. “Maybe before the new one gets here we can
find a use for this slave. He shouldn’t be out alone.” A couple of skinny guys
edged in, leering. “I wonder why you came to the docks alone, Slave,” the first
man said. “You want some company?”
 
The slave’s face was wooden, only his bright red ears betraying any
embarrassment. Lux surged to his feet, kicking the wooden trestle-table he had
been dining at, and forced his way between the men surrounding his slave.
 
“Back off,” Lux snarled. “His master is standing right here, and I would thank
you to unhand my man.”
 
The heavy-faced ringleader looked confused, eyes darting between the well-
dressed slave, and the frankly disheveled diner in a straw hat claiming to be
his master. Something in Lux’s attitude carried authority though, even though
he was younger than any of them, and wasn’t wearing the purple; the man glanced
at his companions, and they backed down.
 
“Uhm… sorry, Sir. We didn’t know.”
 
“Well, you should think before you manhandle another’s property.” Lux made a
shooing gesture with his hand. “Go away now. I’m trying to eat here.”
 
The men scattered, and the slave hung his head. “Thank you, Master.”
 
Lux thinned his lips. There it was. That servility again. This was something he
hadn’t missed when he was in the army. Yes, growing up he had slaves, and as
career military he’d had a slave as an armor bearer, but the dynamics of
military life were different from those of domesticity. Army slaves were less
cowed in some ways than house slaves – a strange fact, since their lives were
often harder. But then, they shared those same hardships with their masters.
There was equality in suffering. Lux had grown to love his weapon’s-bearer,
Marcus, named by a previous master for the god of war. Yes, he’d loved Marcus –
but only as a brother would love his younger sibling. It was not the injury to
his leg that had hurt the most from the last battle, but the loss of his
friend.
 
Children shouldn’t die like that.
 
And men shouldn’t look like this slave – chastened and ashamed, like a child
waiting to be struck. How old was the man? He had risen through the ranks to
Primus, but he still looked young. What was he, twenty? Twenty-five?
 
Lux felt suddenly older than his years as he remembered Jerusalem. His heart
gave a bitter lurch – a stab of guilt, though the gods knew he had nothing to
feel guilty for, he had only been doing his duty. And yet… that a man like this
slave – strong, and handsome, obviously in the prime of his manhood, should be
ashamed to walk the street, should need the patronage of another just to stand
in a thermopolium –that was shameful.
 
“I’m sorry,” Lux said before he could stop himself.
 
The slave flinched.
 
What? What was that about? Lux narrowed his gaze, but couldn’t read the man’s
expression. Unsatisfied, he sat back down at the table, and dipped his bread in
the oil. The slave hovered again at his shoulder. Lux gritted his teeth. He
would have to put a stop to this.
 
“Sit,” he commanded, and the slave sat. Lux sighed. He hadn’t meant to snap.
“Eat,” he said, more gently.
 
The slave reached for the bread, darted his hand back, then reached again, and
tore off a piece, eating it dry. Lux watched him carefully.
 
There was something else about this man, something beside the appearance of
Judean background, judging from the color of his skin, that was nagging at him,
some familiarity that eluded him. Surely he hadn’t met him before? Of course
not. He’d remember that face. “How old are you?”
 
Startled, the slave dropped his bread, then retrieved it. “Twenty-two, Master.”
 
So, he would have been thirteen when Jerusalem fell. Lux had just turned
eighteen. He had never faced this man in battle. The sense of familiarity was
still disturbing. He had to place him. “Have you ever been to Rome?”
 
“No, Master.”
 
Lux tilted his head, pondering. “Where have you been then?”
 
The slave bit his lip and looked away. “Here. And before here…” He stuttered,
and his eyes went distant. “I was born in Jerusalem.”
 
Lux winced, and grunted an apology. He had made the man feel bad for the sake
of idle curiosity. No, not idle curiosity – there was nothing idle about this.
He felt a need to know everything about him – but that was no excuse to badger
him. “I’m sorry,” he said again, poured a cup of wine, and passed it to the
slave. The slave lowered his lashes, long lashes, like a woman’s, and Lux felt
some inexplicable pain rise up in him – half tenderness, half anger. For a
moment he thought the slave would refuse the cup – which was clearly insane,
because how could he refuse his master? After a pause, the man reached steadily
for the jug on the table, and cut his wine with water, taking a thankful
swallow. Sweat was beading his upper lip, highlighting the darkness of
incipient stubble. Lux watched the slave’s mouth, fascinated, as the tip of the
man’s tongue came out to catch a glistening drop of wine. “Thank you, Master,”
the slave murmured, then glanced up, seeming shy, and smiled.
 
Gods… that was a smile to kill for. Lux’s heart dropped like a stone as
realization hit. Attraction… he felt attraction.
 
But I’m here to get married....
 
Helplessly though, he smiled back.
~*~
 
His heart was still banging in his chest like a fist, even though they had long
since left Misenum, and the scene of his humiliation. For a while, he thought
he was still scared. Then the slave realized. He was angry.
 
A bolt of panic shot through him – he wasn’t allowed to be angry – but he was
angry nevertheless. He was angry with the men who had crowded him, who had
threatened him in front of his new master, but more than that, he was angry
with the master himself.
 
Which made no sense, because the master had not only protected him at the
thermopolium, but he had, so far, treated him with kindness and respect.
Perhaps, the slave thought, he was angry because – he hadn’t wanted to be
saved. He should have been able to protect himself. But more than that, perhaps
he was angry because – because he was starting to like this man. And the last
time he had a master who treated him well he had let his guard down. He had let
his guard down, and trusted him. He had thought the man his friend, and…
 
And it had ended badly.
 
With a force of will he turned his attention from the past, and back to the job
at hand – which mainly consisted of preventing his master from falling over.
The man had insisted on walking from Misenum to Pompeii, which was odd, to say
the least, in a man of wealth and status. Add to that his obvious injury, and
it struck the slave as inexplicable. Why take a two-day journey on foot, when
you could afford alternative means of transport? It was not, however, a slave’s
place to ask.
 
Even so, the slave’s concern for his master grew with each step. Eventually the
inevitable happened. The earth tilted, shifting beneath their feet, as was
increasingly common in these parts, and the master stumbled, his stick
clattering to the ground. The slave caught him.
 
“Perhaps, Master, we could hire a litter –”
 
The master glared. “I’m not a cripple, and I’m not a woman. I can walk.”
 
“Of course, Master –”
 
“Bad enough I have to let you carry the bags –”
 
“Don’t worry, Master. I’m –”
 
“Don’t say sorry,” he snarled as the slave passed him back his stick, “or I’ll
show you just how well this cripple can kick.”
 
The slave bit his tongue and looked at his feet. It was going to be like that,
was it? Well, he shouldn’t be surprised. His previous master had made up for
his frustrations and failures by taking them out on his “best boys”.
 
A light touch on his shoulder made him flinch. “Hey… Primus.” The master
stumbled over the name. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it – I was just talking a
stream of nonsense the way I do. I’m not a man to kick a slave.”
 
The slave gave a resigned nod. He had heard that sentiment before, usually
before or after a sound beating.
 
“So,” the master continued, obviously trying to lighten the tone. “Does the
ground still move as often here as it used to?”
 
“It would appear to, Master.”
 
“Makes life interesting, I suppose.”
 
“The natives say that the god of the mountain wants to remind us who is in
control.”
 
“Old Vesuvius?” Lux laughed. “He threw a tantrum back when I was a kid. I must
have been ten, and the whole world fell in. So, what do you say? Is it the god
trying to show us who is in charge?”
 
The slave paused for a moment, and licked his lower lip. He glanced at his
master. Nefesh HaBehamis ! he thought. He couldn’t stop looking. The man was
smiling sweetly, seemed genuinely interested in his opinion. The slave opened
his mouth, and before he could stop himself replied. “I say who knows why The
Creator moves mountains?”
 
The master laughed. “Good answer.” The slave felt something shifting in his
chest, like a weight was being lifted. The master’s moods seemed mercurial, but
not malicious, and, despite all his reservations, it was good to see the other
man smile.
 
A few hours later, however, the master’s mood had changed again. He was glaring
stubbornly at the ground, with his shoulders hunched up to his ears. The slave
was literally biting the tip of his tongue. He would have suggested carrying
the man, but that would be an insult. It was obvious, however, that the master
had overestimated his strength, and was struggling to walk.
 
Finally, he conceded defeat. He stopped in his tracks, flung off his hat, and
glared at the dusty road. The slave scooped the hat off the earth, dusting off
the brim, then stepped toward the master, reaching out to steady him. This time
the master did not shrug him off. Instead he leaned, wearily, against him.
Without noticing it, the slave put an arm around his waist. The master shut his
eyes, and rested his head on the slave’s shoulder. “We’ll have to stop early
for the night,” he admitted. “Seems you were right.” He shook his head,
frustrated. “I just wanted to walk this path again,” he said. “I’ve been
dreaming of it.” He lifted a shoulder, and sighed. “I feel like an old man.
Should have got you to bring a donkey.” He barked a laugh. “Time was I could
have marched twenty miles in full armor and barely felt it.”
 
“You were injured in the war?” The slave asked the question before he could
stop himself. The master didn’t seem to notice the breach of decorum, and gave
a wan smile.
 
“I was injured in a few of them. This one? Well, I’ve had worse. I’m sure it
will mend.”
 
“You shouldn’t overexert yourself,” the slave blurted out, then flushed. He
kept being tempted to talk to this man as if he had permission to state
opinions, as though they were equals, rather than master and slave. “I mean… I
am a talented masseur.” What was he saying? The slave cringed, and clenched his
fists behind his back. It must sound as though he were offering himself – as
though he were his own to offer.
“If the muscle is tense I’m sure I can….” He trailed off, mortified. There was
no way he was coming out of this sentence without sounding like a common whore.
 
The master, however, didn’t seem to take it that way. He merely heaved another
sigh. “That sounds good. Thank you.” He jerked his head toward a nearby
hostelry. “We’ll stop here. I’m sure they’ll find space for us.”
 
“Yes, Master.”
~*~
 
Lux had stopped at this taberna several times before, when he was a child,
travelling with his father to Pompeii. His father used to make an adventure of
it, travelling ‘incognito,’ so that his son would see how the Proletariat
lived, and not take his wealth for granted. In those long-ago days Lux had been
wildly excited – sleeping in the main hall with all the other weary travellers,
eating rough dark bread and lentil stew.
 
Of course, that was a lifetime ago, and his leg wasn’t killing him at the time.
He didn’t remember the sun being this relentless either. When he was a child
and got tired, his father would swing him up on his shoulder and carry him. I
can hardly get my slave to do that, he thought wryly, as he wiped the sweat
from his eyes. Though, to be honest, the man would have no choice but to try,
if Lux asked. For a moment Lux’s mind wandered, as he imagined his Primus
hefting him up over his shoulder… he’d probably be strong enough. He shook his
head. Stupid thought. Why didn’t I ask him to bring a donkey at least ?
 
He knew why. He had been nostalgic for a childhood he could never revisit, and
– he could admit it now that it was too late – he wanted to recreate those old
journeys. To walk along these dusty roads, unnoticed, and unburdened. Too late
for all that.
 
He missed his father.
 
He sighed as the familiar white walls of the taberna came closer. He really had
planned to arrive there without any privilege, and just be with other people.
Partly through nostalgia, but also because he didn’t want to advertise his
wealth. Now that he thought of it though, he was carrying nothing of great
value on him, except for Fortunata’s letters, which were precious only to him.
And he so wanted to lie down somewhere comfortable, for once. After years of
sleeping on the ground, he was suddenly craving a soft bed. And after over a
decade of sleeping in tents with other soldiers, he found himself longing for a
modicum of privacy.
 
Merda, he thought, who cares ? He already knew that this particular journey was
not going to recreate his childhood, and he was too tired, and in too much
pain, to sleep on the floor. When it came down to it, what he really wanted was
a room with a bed, rather than a corner of the floor with straw and a cloak
over it. Was that so wrong?
 
So, wearily, he requested Primus to get them a room. And, as he had expected,
when the landlord saw his money, it turned out to be the best room in the
house. Upstairs, which was a struggle, but once there, the room was airy and
bright. There was one bed, spacious, and blankets on the floor ready for his
slave. Lux frowned as Primus put down his baggage, and knelt at the bottom of
the bed.
 
“Primus?”
 
“Your leg, Master.”
 
“Ah, yes. My leg.” He had been trying not to think of that. It was on fire now,
after the day’s walk. He knew for a fact it would have seized up by morning. He
sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed, and hissed in pain. How could I let it
get so bad ? He knew how. As usual, he had been a stubborn fool, and hadn’t
listened to the surgeon.
 
He shut his eyes, and took a few deep, steadying breaths. Better, he thought.
That’s better. After a while the silence of the room weighed on him, and he
opened his eyes, blinked. Without thinking about it, he found his gaze settling
on the man by his feet. Primus was still kneeling, in a pool of light from the
window. The slave caught his glance, and gazed steadily back, expressionless.
“Master?” he repeated. “Your leg?” His voice was low, and his eyes dark. He
rested his fingers on the blanket, next to Lux’s leg, in clear invitation.
 
Invitation to what? The slave had offered a massage. So why…?
 
Lux felt arousal, and a twist of self-disgust. He could admit it to himself. He
could feel himself stirring. It wasn’t the first time since his injury, thank
the gods (at one stage he had worried that he would never stir again) but since
his return from the army he had been saving himself for Fortunata.
 
It wasn’t the fact that the slave was a man that disturbed him. It wasn’t the
first time a handsome man had caught his attention, after all. It was the fact
that he was a slave. Not that it was the man’s fault – but Lux had always
despised masters who used slaves sexually – it would not be Lux’s way to take
someone who couldn’t say no. Of course, like most Patricians he had been
introduced to the mysteries of love by a slave woman, but he had been so young
then – barely fourteen, that he didn’t think about it at the time. In fact,
like any young man, he had been proud. It was only later that he regretted the
encounter, and later still that he began to question the class he had been born
into.
 
He questioned it now, looking at the man he had acquired. Sunlight streamed
through the window, beating a path of gold through the room, and highlighting
the slave’s chiseled features, his high cheekbones and sculpted face.
 
The slave dropped his gaze, and bent his head, waiting for permission to touch
him. I should tell him to leave me alone, Lux thought… but the pain in his leg
was radiating up and down his thigh, and he knew that, by tomorrow, it would be
a solid mass of pain if he rejected the offer of massage. It doesn’t have to
turn into sex, after all. I know how to deny myself.
 
Even if, looking at that bent head, and those downturned eyes, every aching
fiber in him wanted to give in.
 
The slave was very beautiful.
 
Before he could think better of it, Lux lifted the hem of his toga, and exposed
the wounded thigh. “Here,” he said, more abruptly than he’d intended. “See what
you can do.”
~*~
 
The slave winced at the sight of his master’s leg – the wound, recently healed
over, was a red twist of scar tissue, high on the thigh. It had not yet had
time to whiten with age. It must be less than a year old. That was both good
and bad. Good, that there was still time to improve it, bad that it must still
be burning.
 
At least he knew now with what he was dealing. The slave took out his medical
kit, poured oil over his hands, and rubbed them to warm his palms. “I’m sorry,
Master,” he warned. “This may hurt at first.” He was sure it would, but he also
knew that, eventually, he would be able to release the pain from the wound. He
kept his eyes on the scar, rather than the partial erection, barely concealed
by his master’s clothing. His master was carefully looking at the wall.
 
The muscle spasmed as the slave touched it. “Peace,” murmured the slave, “all
will be well.” Then gently but firmly he set to work, kneading into the abused
muscle. He enjoyed this part, the moment where he could be of help to someone,
offer them simple physical comfort without being their – object – their
receptacle. This particular moment was precious, and he would stretch it out
for as long as he could. This was the moment when he could pretend that
massage, or an embrace, or a simple touch, was all the other wanted, was all
that he would be forced to offer.
 
He knew this moment couldn’t continue though. Soon, too soon, his master was
going to use him – not unkindly – he didn’t think this man would be unkind –
but still, it would be done. And there would never be another moment like this
one.
 
The slave shut his eyes, and tried to concentrate on his breathing. It was
strange. He found himself torn. He wanted this moment to last – yet at the same
time he couldn’t bear for it to continue. When it was over – when his master
had fucked his face or had ridden him or when he had taken him in whatever way
he was going to take him – he would be just another man who had fucked him.
Yet… he did feel that by this man he wanted to be taken.
 
He focused on the sensation of warmth beneath his slick hands, felt the ache
growing in his fingers and knuckles as he pressed in, over and over again.
Gradually he worked his way up the thigh, carefully, just in case his master
told him to stop. He didn’t expect it though. He had seen the way the man
looked at him.
 
It was inevitable.
 
The slave breathed more slowly, and felt himself grow calmer, even as his heart
pounded faster. He knew how to manage arousal. He listened to the hiss of blood
in his ears, and accepted the fact of his own erection rising, felt the tingle
and burn of it, the tightening and heat in his groin. He chose to ignore it. He
had learned not to touch himself without permission. He glanced up at the
master. The man’s eyes were closed. Despite his resolution he glanced at his
master’s groin. The erection was full now, tenting his tunic. A little damp
patch showed against the fabric. The slave closed his own eyes again, and
continued the massage. His eyes were stinging. He hated himself.
 
He wanted this man. He didn’t want to feel an attraction – but he did. The
truth of it hit him like a blow. Would it turn out that his last master was
right about him? That even those drunkards in Misenum were right? That he
really was a slut now? That here was a pretty face, and a kind word, and now he
would want to roll over? This man had been kind. This man was beautiful. And he
wanted this man so much that it scared him. He didn’t know what to do with the
feeling, with the pounding in his chest. He’d never felt like this before,
about any of his previous masters, although his body had learned to respond to
the men’s varying ministrations. Even so, he hadn’t thought he could ever
desire anyone, after the things his body had been forced to do. But he did
desire. He desired this man.
 
The light had changed since he had started the massage, and despite his best
efforts he was growing impatient. The master hadn’t made a move yet, panting
shallowly through slightly parted lips. The slave wanted to – didn’t want to –
what? What should he do? Stop? Should he stop? Should he just – do it? He
didn’t even know how to ask – he wasn’t even allowed to ask. He lowered his
head, instead, so that the master would feel his breath, ghosting on his thigh,
and understand the offer without words.
 
The master moaned.
 
The slave dipped his head further, and licked his lip. His breath was ragged
and he touched the tip of his tongue to his master’s scar. The master gave a
swallowed cry, and the slave felt a hand clutch his head, his hair.
 
Permission granted.
 
He slid his head up between his master’s legs, and slipped his mouth over the
cock.
~*~
 
“No!” Lux gasped, and tightened his grasp on the slave’s hair, yanking his head
away from his groin. The slave jerked back, eyes wide and frightened. Lux drew
his knees up, to hide his erection. Too late, and he had known that even at the
time, but he had been too lost in sensation to think clearly, and now the
evidence of his lack of restraint bobbed against his belly, slick with spit,
chilly and twitching. He flung the edge of his tunic over it, mortified at what
he had nearly allowed to happen.
 
When he looked again, the slave had schooled his features, and was now
expressionless.
 
“I’m sorry,” the man said, his face wooden. “I misunderstood.”
 
“Sorry?” Lux heard a squeak in his voice, and didn’t care. He laughed, giddily,
and took a breath. “Sorry? I’m the one who should be sorry.”
 
The slave said nothing, his head bowed, still kneeling by the bed. Gods, how
long had he been there? Lux felt his heart go out to him. No doubt the man was
waiting to be punished. Tenderly, he cupped the slave’s cheek and rubbed his
thumb along the shadowed grain of early evening’s stubble. “I’m telling you
that you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.”
 
“I….”
 
“What?”
 
The man’s voice dropped, and he looked ashamed. “I want to.”
 
Did he? Could he be telling the truth? Lux let his hand trail down the slave’s
face, to his throat, and paused there. The man’s pulse was hammering – fear or
arousal? Both?
 
“Come here,” Lux murmured, struck by the novelty of his having offered such
choice to one who’d had no experience of being given the option. “Sit by me.”
 
Obediently the slave perched himself on the bed. Lux let his gaze flutter down.
He had a better view now, and could see the man’s arousal. He felt his mouth go
dry.
 
“What’s your name?” he asked again, in his gentlest tone.
 
“Whatever you like, Master,” the slave repeated, as before.
 
Lux clicked his tongue and shook his head. “That won’t do,” he said. “I can’t
call you Primus, my old commander would kill me, and I won’t call you Pulcher.”
No matter how beautiful you are. The name, in the context of slavery, was too
demeaning. “You have a name,” he said. “I can tell you weren’t born a slave.”
 
“Servus non cognomen habet,” the slave said in perfect Latin, with no apparent
bitterness or sarcasm. “Servus non personam habet.”
 
“That’s –” ‘That’s shit,’ Lux wanted to say, but cut himself off. Legally, of
course, the slave was right. Slaves had no rights to personhood, or even a
family name under Roman law. “Even if that’s true,” he conceded, “you had a
name. At least tell me what your name was.”
 
The slave cleared his throat. A strange expression flitted across his face, a
sharp look of panic and pain. For a moment Lux thought the man would evade the
question again, but then he spoke. “Baruch ben Ravid,” the man whispered. “But
I am no longer Baruch, for I am no longer blessed. And I am no longer of Ravid,
for my father’s house has been destroyed.”
 
Oh gods… Lux blinked, his eyes hot. ‘My father’s house has been destroyed….’
Gods, that was him. I did that, he thought, stunned and silent. The thought had
been coming to him and returning to him all day, and he could no longer avoid
it. I served in Jerusalem.
 
He could hear the slave’s breathing, and the thud of his own heart. The silence
stretched long between them. The slave’s shoulders were hunched, as if still
waiting for a blow. It was too late, Lux realized. The blow had already come.
Lux put his arm around him, carefully, afraid that he might break.
 
I watched as the Temple burned, and the gold melted into the cracks. I listened
as the priests and their families died on the rooftop….
 
I don’t deserve to sit next to this man. I took his name from him. People like
me… we took his name.
 
“Let me call you Ben,” he whispered hoarsely, trying to give it back.
 
Ben looked at him, eyes wide and startled.
 
“Ben,” he repeated, in wonder, as though it were a word he had never heard
before.
 
“Ben,” Lux affirmed, and kissed him.
~*~
 
Ben. A name. With this man I have a name that is my own.
 
He was still ben Yerushalayim. A son of Jerusalem still, and a man with a name.
 
Lux was kissing him, and it was nothing like any of the other times he had been
kissed by a man as a prelude to sex. Not aggressive, not possessive, not
thrusting – sensual in a way unfamiliar to him. Tender touches, lips on his
eyelids, the tip of a tongue tasting his pulse point, his cheeks, as though Lux
was trying to map his face, learning to see it in the night’s increasing
darkness.
 
Other men who had kissed Ben just thrust in and took. He would be seized by the
hair and held in place, and had learned to obediently open his mouth, to just
take it, and whatever else they wanted. Lux’s touch was nothing like that. His
long fingers were cradling Ben’s head lightly, as though it were an eggshell,
as though Lux expected him to break. Ben carded his own fingers through Lux’s
hair, held on tight. He wanted it harder – he needed it harder. Lux didn’t
understand – he wasn’t going to break. Why is my face wet ? He wanted to say
something, to thank Lux for giving him this part of his name back, but he had
no words. He had to swallow speech. It said too much, not enough. It hurt in
his throat. Lux was murmuring against his face, in Patrician Latin now, not the
people’s Greek, and Ben didn’t understand anything anymore, couldn’t have
understood it if Lux had been speaking his own mother tongue. “Ben, Ben, te
amo, semper amabam, semper amabo,” Lux was whispering, and Ben didn’t need to
understand it, didn’t know what to say. He just needed to – needed –
 
Ben yanked at his own tunic, and pulled it off, then opened his mouth to Lux,
and sucked in his tongue, as much to stop them both from talking as to finally
taste him. Lux moaned into his throat, ran his hands up and down his heated,
naked back. Ben fisted the fabric of his master’s tunic, pulling them close,
and stroked his way past Lux’s teeth, tasting, daring to push. Lux wrapped his
arms around Ben, and tugged him back down on the bed. They fell together in a
tangle, Ben’s weight over his master’s body, chest to chest, thigh to thigh –
groins, finally, touching. He felt like he was burning everywhere they
connected. The fabric of his master’s tunic scratched his nipples, contrasting
exquisitely with the softness of the bare skin below.
 
No. Too much… Ben pulled back for a moment, dizzy and afraid. His master was
lying sprawled on the bed before him, his fair hair astonishingly bright on the
sheets, his foreign paleness flushed pink. Ben stared. Everything about the man
was beautiful. The strange gold of his pubic hair, the peach pink of one
nipple, peeping beneath the hem of his tunic. Ben laid a shaking hand against
the pale nipple, and stared as it darkened, rising to a peak beneath his
fingers. Beautiful. He steeled his heart against it. He could feel his own
heat, prickling all over his body. He was sweating with lust, panting. Even so,
he should not be the one on top here – later the master would resent it. Almost
impossible, but he managed to withdraw for a moment, to wrench his body back.
Lux shook his head, an urgent, unreadable flash in his eyes, then hooked his
hand around Ben’s head, and pulled him down into another kiss. “Stay,” he
insisted, wrapping his legs tight around Ben’s hips to anchor him in place. “I
want it.”
 
Ben’s resolve broke, and his whole body began to move without volition.
Somewhere his mind was floating free, stunned and silent, while the rest of him
– the hot, sweating pounding mess of him – writhed and thrust against the
sheets, rutting between his master’s thighs. His master spread his legs wide,
and clasped Ben by the buttocks – “please, please....” Ben slid into the cradle
of the other man’s hips and ground their bodies hard. The abrasive itch of
pubic hair rubbed against his exposed glans, followed by the sweet smooth slick
of skin to sweaty skin. Unbearable, unbelievable, this – the contrasts, the
heat, and the hunger – and everything in him was tightening up, getting hotter,
fiercer, harder to the point of pain, and –
 
Don’t let this end, don’t let this end –
 
Too close. He was too close, too soon, perilously near the edge. He wasn’t in
control, he knew it – how had this happened? He shouldn’t have surrendered
control. The Master was always the one to say when and where and if, to give
permission. This master didn’t understand. Ben couldn’t afford to just take. He
couldn’t afford to let go. He couldn’t afford to….
 
“Master,” he moaned, trying to slow down, to breathe through it, to make it
last.
 
His master smiled up at him with blinding trust. “Call me Lux.”
 
With a shock of horror, Ben came. “Lux,” he groaned as he spilled all over him.
“Rikhmith-akh.” No… he shut his eyes in dismay as the harsh pulses continued to
surge through him. Not love. Don’t say love.
 
Too late. He crashed to earth between his master’s legs, shuddering, as the
pleasure-pain abated. Too late. He hid his face against Lux’s shoulder, ashamed
to see and be seen, and forced his body to stop moving, to stop chasing the
last shreds of sensation. Beneath him, Lux jerked and cried out, adding his own
warmth and wetness to the mess between them. Then he too lay still.
 
Ben waited, afraid even to roll off. This wasn’t – this hadn’t gone according
to custom. He was not supposed to have taken any initiative at all. And now –
he didn’t know what to do next. He just didn’t know.
~*~
 
What was I thinking ?
 
Lux shut his eyes, and focused on the heavy ‘thud, thud’ of Ben’s heart,
pressed against his own. There was an ache in his own chest – he had broken the
promise he had made to himself, after his last battle, that he would wait for
Fortunata.
 
Of course, he had made the same promise to himself when he left Fortunata, over
ten years ago. And he had broken it as easily and painfully then too, after his
first battle. After Jerusalem.
 
This felt worse though. Not just a physical infidelity, but emotional. This
felt like a real connection.
 
His first man, after that first battle – that had somehow not felt real to him.
Physically real, of course – very, very much so. But he never knew the man’s
name. He was older than Lux, greying, strongly muscled and completely in
control. Lux knew that the man was deliberately getting him drunk, and didn’t
care. All he had wanted was to blot out the memory of what he had seen beyond
the City walls. And so, like most of the surviving soldiers, he had allowed
himself to be caught up in revelry, distraction. He remembered that he had been
fascinated by the man’s battle scars, and that the man had laughed, and
encouraged him to lick them. What a strange, disjointed memory.
 
And then, when Lux was just drunk enough, the man had flipped him over on his
front, opened him up swiftly and expertly, and thrust his way inside. Lux had
forgotten everything – forgot all about battle, all about home, all about
Fortunata. All he knew was blinding, searing pain – and he was glad of it. He
had deserved it. But then the man shifted his weight, and pushed again, and the
pain had changed to something else, something even sharper and more punishing.
It was excruciating, exhilarating, humiliating, and nothing like being with a
woman at all. He came so hard he thought he shot out blood. The next morning he
had woken smelling of spent semen and olive oil, with a thundering hangover,
and a delicious hollow ache that he carried inside himself for some time.
 
But even though he had broken his promise, he could persuade himself it didn’t
count. He could rationalize it. He was still faithful to Fortunata, where it
mattered. He hadn’t loved the man after all.
 
Nor any of the ones who followed.
 
Besides – it was not as though Patrician women expected their men to be
faithful. Lux was setting himself an impossible standard to live up to, and he
knew it. Fortunata would understand. She didn’t have to know the details of
what he had done – must never know that he had been the cinaedus – even once
was enough to ruin a man’s reputation, and there was a chance that, as a
Patrician offering himself up, he might be executed as a warning to the other
troops – but she would surely forgive him for having been with other people.
She knew, after all, that she hadn’t been his first woman, and was, in fact,
grateful for it. “At least one of us knows what they’re doing,” she had teased,
when she pulled him into her bedroom that first time. And he had. The woman who
taught him had been very, very thorough in her lessons. At least Lux had been
able to give Fortunata that much.
 
And, he thought desperately, he could give her that again. After all, there had
not been another woman since, so in some sense he had been faithful, hadn’t he?
Even if – even if this thing with Ben felt like a huge betrayal. It was still
just sex, wasn’t it? Not –
 
Who was he trying to lie to? He had already said it, words he had only ever
shared with Fortunata before. I will love you forever.
 
How could that have even happened? How could he have said that to his slave? It
made no sense at all. He had only just met the man. He had grown up with
Fortunata.
 
Even more strangely, he had said I have always loved you, and what could that
mean?
 
He tilted his head slightly, and looked at Ben, seemingly asleep across his
front, legs still tangled between his thighs. He stroked the man’s back,
softly. Ben’s skin shivered beneath his touch. Not asleep then. Pretending, for
reasons of his own. Lux kissed his hair, wondering what was happening in the
other man’s thoughts, and felt his own face twist in a grimace of pain.
 
I came to Pompeii to get married, he thought desperately. That hasn’t changed.
 
Something had changed though. He felt about Ben like….
 
Oh Gods. Like he felt about Fortunata, back when the world was young.
 
Merda. He pinched the bridge of his nose to stop himself from crying. I’ve made
a mess of everything.
 
After a while – a long while – Lux moved. He put one hand gently on Ben’s
shoulder, and pushed a little. The other man rolled off him, abruptly, and lay
on his back, still silent, going from full body contact to not touching him at
all. That wasn’t what Lux had intended. He had just wanted Ben to shift a
little because one arm had pins and needles, and his tunic, ruckled up between
them, was growing uncomfortably sticky. Lux sighed, and sat up, lifted the
tunic over his head. He wrinkled his nose with distaste, then turned to Ben,
and started swabbing the semen from his belly.
 
“We’re a mess, Ben,” he said, trying to smile. “Better get cleaned up.”
 
Ben blinked, and sat up sharply, as though he had suddenly woken up to find a
job half finished.
 
“I’m sorry, Master, I….”
 
Lux narrowed his eyes, mock-fiercely. “That’s not my name.”
 
“I’m… I’m sorry.” Ben bit his lower lip, then glanced up, managing to meet his
gaze. “Lux?” he said, inflecting the name as a question. In the weight of that
word, Lux heard all the other man’s doubts – ‘do you mean it? can I really? is
it safe ?’ – Lux reached out a hand, stroked Ben’s face.
 
“That’s right, Ben,” he said, answering the unspoken questions. “You call me
Lux.”
 
Ben dipped his head, and smiled.
~*~
 
They arrived in Pompeii two days later. The journey had taken a little longer
than they had originally planned, but going slow was better for Lux’s injury.
It was better for Ben too. It gave him time to think, to try to come to terms
with what had happened – what was happening still, when they lay down at night.
On the journey home, they could pretend to be equals. Once back at the villa
they would have to return to their more proper roles. What would happen then
was a mystery.
 
Even though they had taken their time, and Lux seemed stronger, he was limping
again. The pavements were increasingly high and narrow as they ascended the
city, and at one tricky intersection Ben put an arm out to support him. For a
moment he feared that Lux would brush it away, now that they were ‘home’ and
surrounded by jostling crowds, but instead he wrapped an arm around Ben’s waist
and smiled.
 
“Thank you,” he said. It sounded easy, and right, like one man talking to
another, rather than a man addressing his slave. Ever since that first night,
Ben had been waiting for Lux to change, to remember he was the master, and Ben
the slave. He had been waiting for harsh words, commands. They didn’t come. Not
even at night, not even when –
 
Ben felt his cheeks burn, thinking of the previous night. Lux had astonished
him, taking him in his mouth, which nobody ever had done before. Lux’s eyes had
been closed in bliss, and he had swallowed every drop. In that moment some
greedy part of Ben thought that perhaps he had wanted to give him more.
 
This couldn’t last.
 
But even so – Lux was walking beside him, not in front, one arm round his
waist. And when he smiled at Ben it was not condescension, but a bright gaze,
straight into his eyes. And he would talk happily about nothing, then turn and
touch his face –
 
He seems to love me, Ben thought with wonder. He’s not ashamed of me at all.
 
“Oh,” Lux said, ruefully, looking at the stepping stones across the sunken
road. “It’s been so long since I’ve been here, I’d forgotten about these.” He
laughed, and gestured with his thumb at the nearest bakery. “Let’s sit and eat
before we do anything else. Get my strength back.”
 
Ben smiled, and found them seats in the triclineum at the back of the shop.
“I’ll get the food. What do you want?”
 
“I’ll have the plakous.” Lux sprawled out on his couch, waggled his eyebrows,
and gave an exaggerated lick of his lips. “Lots of onions. Extra cheese on
top.” Ben stifled a grin, and Lux smirked. “You have no idea how quickly panis
militaris gets stale on you.” Ben laughed outright. That was possibly the worst
pun he had ever heard.
 
“When were you last in Pompeii?” Ben asked, as he returned with a tray, then
settled onto his own couch.
 
“I was a child,” Lux chewed his food gratefully, and scratched his cheek,
making an audible scritch. Golden stubble was showing. Ben would have to shave
him later. “My parents had a holiday place here, by the sea front. Actually,
you probably know it. It looks out on the ocean. It’s mainly a new building,
two stories, so there is more room for the garden. Dining room upstairs, where
it’s nice and cool. My father started building after the earthquake, back when
Marullus and Marcellus were consuls.” Lux’s eyes went wistful. “My mother sold
it, after my father died. I wanted to buy it back, but the owner isn’t
selling.”
 
They must have been very rich, Ben thought, surprised. He’d known his new
master must be moneyed, but he hadn’t realized he’d come from quite such a
privileged background. Perhaps they’d lost their fortune when Lux’s father
died. Before he could stop himself he asked, “Why did your mother sell?”
 
Lux smiled again, not seeming to understand how inappropriate it was for a
slave to be so forthright. “She wasn’t happy here. I only figured that out
later, of course. I was with my father in Rome at the time of the earthquake,
so I don’t know a lot about it, but I do know there were hard times afterward.
I don’t think my mother ever forgave people here for the pillage. She was here
at the time, never talked about it much. Apparently we lost some slaves in the
riots.” His gaze flickered away from Ben at the word ‘slaves,’ and his voice
dropped. “She never quite trusted her neighbors after that.”
 
Ben thought of the aftermath of disaster, and what happened to unprotected
slaves, and knew exactly how she felt. “That’s terrible,” he said quietly,
though words couldn’t do it justice.
 
Lux bit his lip, and continued. “My mother was an innocent,” he said. “What she
never realized was that people are the same all over the world. It was no
better in Rome. A lot worse, all things considered.” He shook himself from the
bad memory. “As for me? I loved it here.” Lux closed his eyes, and took in a
deep breath, letting it out gustily. “Smell that food? It’s still the same.
Good bread, sea air, and there is a beach you can run on for miles.” He paused,
and rubbed his leg. “Well, maybe not me. Maybe not run.”
 
“Not yet, perhaps.” Ben smiled, warmly approving. “But you are getting stronger
every day.”
 
“You think so?” Lux brightened. “I think so too. Something to do with coming
home.”
 
“Why did you make a career in the army?” Ben blurted out; it was obvious that
Lux had no financial obligation forcing him into the military; then he bit his
tongue, too late. He didn’t seem able to stop asking intrusive, ridiculous
questions today. “Not that it’s my business.” He covered his anxiety by biting
into his plakous too fast, and winced as the hot cheese burned the roof of his
mouth.
 
“Don’t worry.” Lux smiled and squeezed Ben’s hand across the table. “I
frequently asked myself that question.” He sighed, and looked off into the
distance. “I was young; I wanted to see the world. I wanted adventure. Real
adventure. Not politics in Rome.” His mouth twisted, as though he had bitten
into a lemon by accident, instead of cheese-enriched Greek bread. He leaned
forward and looked at Ben intently, as though steeling himself to say something
– then he looked away again, and the moment was gone.
 
Ben shifted on his seat, feeling guilty – it looked like he was dredging up all
Lux’s bad memories today. Lux was still speaking. “Growing up I saw enough to
put me off politics for life,” he continued, lowering his voice. “One day a man
might be riding at the top of the world, the Emperor’s best friend, the next
he’s being forced to commit suicide and his whole family is banished into
exile.” He sighed heavily. “That’s if his family is lucky of course. There are
worse outcomes than exile.”
 
Ben nodded, but said nothing. His master had just – well, he had just
expressed, however cautiously, dissatisfaction with the Imperial system. It
staggered him that the other man would risk that. How does he know he can trust
me ?
 
Lux picked at his food. Not surprisingly he seemed to have lost his appetite.
“My family had a political life planned out for me,” he concluded. “I didn’t
want that.”
 
“I understand,” Ben said, and reached across the table, tentatively, to pat
Lux’s shoulder. The other man’s dejected face transformed into a brilliant
smile. Ben felt a spike of happiness in his chest, and smiled back. Lux was
opening up to him, being honest with him, in a way that Ben had never thought
to expect from another human being. And yes, their lives were completely
different, but Ben did understand, at least a little. He cleared his throat.
Lux deserved to hear a little piece of his own life, in return for his honesty.
 
“My life was mapped out for me too,” he admitted, his voice hoarse. Lux looked
up at him, surprised, and Ben clenched his fists beneath the table. For some
reason his palms had started to sweat, and it wasn’t the heat. “I was a Levite,
trained as a Scribe, and espoused.” He coughed. “I’d only met her once. I can’t
say I was looking forward to marriage.” He laughed, surprised at the brittle
sound of it. “I spent long nights worrying about it, in fact. As it turns out,
my marriage night was the last thing I should have been concerned about. The
future is never as you expect.”
 
Lux tilted his head on one side, giving him his undivided attention. Ben felt
his stomach drop. Why did I tell him that ? His fists tightened beneath the
table till his knuckles ached. Now he thinks I’m trying to make him feel
guilty. Now he is thinking of all the men who had me first. Now he’s thinking –
 
“The future can be changed,” Lux interrupted Ben’s increasingly desperate
thoughts. “It can be changed for the better.”
 
“Can it?” Ben heard the cynicism in his voice, and was shocked – not by his
bitterness, but that he had allowed someone else to hear it.
 
“I think so,” Lux said, then looked away, a shadow crossing his face. “You were
espoused?”
 
“I was.”
 
“There was something I was going to tell you –” He shook his head. “Later. What
happened to her?”
 
Ben wiped his fingers on his napkin, and crumpled it up, threw it on the table.
He was suddenly, dangerously, furious. “I have no idea.”
 
Everything turned quiet. Ben went cold.
 
He was a fool. He was showing his anger, in public, to someone who could have
him thrashed for it. Killed, even. Fear swept over the anger, and he froze in
place. He hadn’t lost his temper in front of a master – in front of anyone –
for years. The consequences were always too severe. He was going to be taken
home, accused in front of the other slaves, stripped and whipped and....
 
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
 
“Don’t worry.” Lux’s voice was soft. Ben closed his eyes, then flinched – Lux
had reached across and stroked his cheek. “Don’t be sorry, Ben. I shouldn’t
have asked.”
 
Ben stared mutely at the remains of his plakous. Lux sat back, and started
talking again, as though nothing had happened.
 
“We cross over there, don’t we?”
 
“We do,” Ben seized the change of subject with relief. “And then it is just
around the next corner. Will you need help?”
 
“No, I’ll manage.” Lux braced his hands against the table, and heaved himself
to his feet, swaying slightly. “See? If I need you, I’ll shout.”
 
And he didn’t need him, as it happened. He traversed the stepping stones from
one side of the street to the other without stumbling or being jostled at all.
He turned around on the other side, grinning, arms spread out in a gesture of
triumph. Ben smiled instinctively back at him and followed.
 
He was glad that his flash of temper had been forgotten. And he was glad that
Lux seemed to be walking without incident.
 
But it dawned on him that, for the first time in days, he was walking a few
steps behind his master. They were no longer side by side.
~*~
 
The property that Lux’s agent had acquired for him was as grand as the man had
promised – a bargain at the price. From the outside it was unprepossessing,
with shops squeezed on either side. But inside it opened up into a space to
rival anything in Rome. Stepping through the portico into the atrium was like
stepping into another world. Lux caught his breath.
 
“This is good,” he said. He’d grown up in luxury, but it had been a long time
since he’d lived anywhere like this. He still didn’t know what had possessed
him to buy it, but Ben came as part of the package, so he wasn’t complaining.
He looked up at the domed sunroof, beating heat into the square. Beneath it a
fountain shone, and made the air smell sweet. He limped toward the impluvium,
and sat on the raised wall. Smooth marble cooled his skin, the blessed chill
radiating through his clothing. He sighed, and dropped his hand into the water.
The school of fish broke away in a dizzying scatter of amber and gold.
 
Peace. He needed peace.
 
He smiled.
 
The agent took this as a good sign, and smiled back. “If you are tired from
your journey, Sir, we could serve refreshments. There is a fully equipped
kitchen, and a highly talented cook –” He paused. “Or we could simply order
food and have it delivered.”
 
“We ate on our way here,” he said, distracted, and looked around,
automatically, for Ben. The man had slipped away. Which… well, it shouldn’t
surprise him, but they had been together constantly for the last three days,
and it felt strange not to have him nearby.
 
“Good.” The agent paused. “Do you want to see the property now, or after you’ve
rested?”
 
“After I rest. I want to get the dust of the road off me first.” He shifted on
his seat, craning over his shoulder, still looking to see where Ben had gone.
 
Oh. There he was, stepping out of a shadowy little archway in the far wall.
Lux’s heart lifted for a moment, then dropped when he saw what Ben was
carrying.
 
Ben was returning from what must be the kitchen area, bearing a tray, a jug, a
bowl, and a neatly folded towel. And he was walking like a slave again, not
making any eye contact at all. Lux looked back at the surface of the pool, and
said nothing as Ben knelt, unstrapped his sandals, and began to wash his feet.
 
There was nothing wrong with this. Really, there was nothing wrong. It was what
it was. So, for a few days he had lived in a fantasy that he and Ben were
lovers of equal standing. If Ben had only been the legal age for manumission –
thirty – Lux would have freed him then and there. But they had eight years to
wait before Lux could formally free him. Already Lux was looking forward to it,
planning out the ritual in his head. He could see Ben, in his imagination,
clear as day, wearing the sacred hat, the petasus, as only a freeman could.
 
Not yet though. Lux couldn’t do it yet. Curses to Augustus and his slave laws
anyway. He and Ben would have to wait.
 
He just hadn’t realized how quickly or how much it would hurt to see Ben meekly
acting like a slave.
 
“Anyway,” the agent was still talking. “When you’ve had a chance to get
settled, I can arrange for some local artisans to talk to you about what
furnishings you will require when your future wife gets here.”
 
Ben froze, and his hands went still on Lux’s feet. Lux stared down at him,
appalled. He had meant to tell Ben about Fortunata, he really had – he had even
been about to tell him just earlier, when they were eating plakous. But for
some reason he had kept putting it off. “Ben,” he said, then stopped. What
could he say, in front of the agent, anyway? He’d left it too late. One look at
Ben’s face told him that much. As still as a carved god, with the faintest
suggestion of a knowing, bitter smile.
 
As quickly as it came the moment was over. Ben was moving again. He shifted
back onto his haunches, and lifted Lux’s foot on his lap.
 
“I can do that,” Lux stuttered, grabbing the towel. This was too much. He
didn’t want Ben drying his feet now, he didn’t care what it looked like, what
was normal, or expected, or anything else. He just wanted to get the man
somewhere private, look him in the eyes and explain… ‘Look at me,’ he wanted to
say. ‘Please, just look.…’
 
Ben did look then, as though he had heard his thoughts. For a fleeting second
Lux hoped things weren’t ruined. Then....
 
“Please, let me.” Ben’s face remained smooth and polite, but his voice was flat
as flint. “I’ll do it, Master.”
~*~
 
And really, Ben thought, as he stepped into the heat of the kitchen, what was I
thinking anyway? That I was special ? He snorted in self-contempt. It should
have been obvious. Of course there was going to be a wife. He was only glad
that none of the household knew the delusions he had been harboring. It was
hard enough to despise yourself, without everyone else mocking you as well. And
he had endured enough mockery for a lifetime.
 
Well, I know better now. Resolutely he ignored the dull pain in his chest, and
forced a smile as he passed the littlest ancilla. “Hello, Caenis,” he said, and
ruffled her hair. She tilted her head up and gave a gap-toothed grin. “Missed
you, Primus,” she said, then wrinkled her nose, and turned her attention back
to chopping onions.
 
That’s a good example, he thought. I should do as Caenis does. She’s a child,
and she has her sorrows, but she knows better than I do. Pay attention to my
duties. If Caenis could do it, missing her mother as she was, then he could do
it too. He knew there would be a hundred errands waiting for him, little
difficulties that had built up over his absence, tasks that nobody else had
time or ability to fulfil. He was glad of it. He could bury himself in work,
stop dreaming.
 
And that’s all it was, he chided himself, as he stepped past the domed oven,
into the pantry. A dream. A stupid dream. Lux had been pleased to play with him
a while, that was all. And Ben had been – what? Seduced? Fooled? No. That
wasn’t fair. Lux hadn’t seduced him, and it was he, Ben, who had fooled
himself. He had mistaken simple affection for something more. That wasn’t his
master’s fault – Lux hadn’t lied to him, or been unkind. He had omitted a fact,
certainly, but then, why should a master tell his slave anything at all? It was
Ben’s fault, for being stupid enough not to see it was a game. He should never
have forgotten he was a slave. It wasn’t even as though his master had been
unfaithful to his wife, by Roman standards. Sex with a slave was not a moral
issue. The man had used his property, that was all.
 
If I’m lucky, he might use me again….
 
The thought shocked him to a standstill.
 
“What’s wrong?” Nicia’s gravelly voice broke him out of his trance. Ben
blinked, surprised to discover himself in the pantry, staring vacantly at the
sacks of beans and flour.
 
“I’m sorry, Nicia.” He rubbed his eyebrow. “Just tired.” He turned toward the
older slave, who gave a knowing sneer.
 
“The new master been keeping you awake all night?”
 
Ben glared. Nicia shuffled, and affected an air of innocence. He knew – as all
the adult slaves did – exactly what Ben had been purchased for originally – had
in fact sampled him once, at the previous master’s behest. An act of discipline
at the time, though Ben couldn’t remember what his infraction had been. His
memory of that night was unclear, since the master had prepared Ben for his
houseguests by making him drink poppy wine.
 
Actually, now that he thought of it, the crime for which he was being punished
was perhaps that he had spilled wine while serving a guest. At least, he
thought that was it. He couldn’t be sure. He had been too effectively impaired.
 
That was years ago, of course. Even so, since Ben’s promotion to Primus, Nicia
had been surly and resentful. He had been heard to complain to the other slaves
about the injustice of a puer delicatus being given authority over him – even
though it was a hypocritical complaint, since he himself had been brought into
the house as a boy and used for just that purpose. Once, the morning after a
party, when Ben was still drunk, he’d made the mistake of telling Nicia he
didn’t have to be jealous of him, the master loved him best even if he wasn’t
bedding him anymore.
 
Nicia had thrashed him for insolence, and insisted he was not jealous.
 
And he didn’t have to be, Ben knew. The master had retained his affection for
Nicia, even when he lost interest in him physically. And, despite their former
master’s violent sexuality, Nicia had certainly been emotionally attached to
the man. The rest of the household breathed a sigh of relief when the old man
died, but Nicia seemed to be genuinely grieving. He had, after all, known the
man most of his life.
 
To be honest, Ben didn’t know what to do about Nicia – he was impertinent, but
never quite crossed the line into outright rebellion. And Ben, although he had
the organizational skills to manage the household and grounds, was not good at
disciplining his elders. The exhortations of the Vayikra to honor the aged were
too engrained in his memory.
 
Not, of course, that Torah did him any good, these days.
 
“Tell me what’s been happening, Secundus,” he said, pointedly ignoring the
man’s insolent question, and reminding Nicia of his place in the hierarchy.
 
Nicia rolled his eyes. “What’s been happening? What hasn’t been happening is
the question. First of all, we need to do something about that delivery boy.
The meat order was a mess, completely wrong. I had to get some more from the
market –”
 
“I’ll need the receipts,” Ben interjected. He knew Nicia. The man would happily
fill his purse while he thought nobody was looking.
 
Nicia huffed a disapproving breath, then shrugged. “I thought you would.”
 
“Get them later. Go on. Did the fish arrive for the kitchen garden yet?”
 
“They did. Half of them floated up dead the next morning, of course. And the
idiot who sold them won’t admit it’s his fault. And then….”
 
Ben folded his arms across his chest and listened attentively as the other man
complained. He nodded, and grunted, commenting when necessary, sorting out
truth from exaggeration and deliberate distortion. He had been right, he did
have a hundred tasks to attend to.
 
And it was good. Being busy was good.
 
Because, as long as he was busy, he was not thinking about the new master.
 
Over the next few weeks he made himself very busy indeed.
~*~
 
Lux sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stifle a yawn. He
hadn’t been sleeping well. His leg ached – a dry ache now, not the squamous,
aqueous horror it had been when he rode through fever after the wound got
infected, but it was still insistent. The pain radiated from the scar on his
thigh, up to his groin, down to his knee.
 
Well, he’d been lucky of course. A field doctor had saved his life. But that
was an army doctor, not one of the city charlatans he could expect to see round
here. Everybody knew somebody who had been killed by a doctor. It would be just
his luck to survive war and injury, and end up poisoned by a quack. Not that
all doctors were quacks of course. In fact, there was someone close to a
trustworthy doctor in his very household. Ben had a good medical reputation,
and was approached for advice from people of several households, including the
fuller just over the road and a few houses down, where he was managing a
slave’s pregnancy. Perhaps Lux should go to Ben and –
 
Lux felt a lurch of shame as his hand had strayed down his belly, heading to
his pubic hair. He snatched it back and laid his arm across his chest, trying
to will his erection to abate. The ache of his leg was being transformed to
something else in the heaviness of his groin.
 
He didn’t want Ben touching him there again. Or rather – he did. Fool, he told
himself, bitterly. It was clear that Ben no longer wanted him. And if Lux had
been a different man, that wouldn’t have mattered. In fact, most men Lux knew
with a slave like Ben would simply assert their privilege and –
 
The thought aroused him further, and made him feel sick at the same time. He
clenched both hands into fists, and refused to touch himself.
 
No. It’s not my leg keeping me awake. He turned his thoughts from Ben with grim
resolution. It’s the heat. He lifted his fists, and rubbed the knuckles into
his eyes. Little lights flared and sparked behind his eyelids. Gods, but he was
tired. How long had it been since he’d had a good night’s sleep? Weeks, surely.
Not since he and Ben –
 
He rolled onto his side, eyes snapped open, and glared at the dark. He was not
going to think about Ben.
 
“It’s the heat,” he said aloud. His voice surprised him, stubborn and surly. It
sounded like the voice of a liar, protesting innocence before the judge. He
grimaced at the thought. He really was a liar. He’d slept through worse –
baking heat in Africa, freezing cold in Britain. It was not the heat.
 
Fortunata. The name came to him, and he gratefully seized it, clutching it to
him like a talisman. It was the thought of seeing Fortunata after all these
years that was keeping him up at night.
 
Lux rolled onto his back again, reassured by the thought, and dropped his
forearm across his face. His bare skin was unpleasantly hot, sweat prickling
against the sheets, making him itch. Fortunata. Fortunata, of the long blonde
hair, bleached to whiteness by the summer sun. Fortunata, carefree and
barefoot, running on the dunes. Fortunata, as different from Ben as one person
could be from another. Fortunata – who he hadn’t seen since he was sixteen. Who
he wouldn’t see till their wedding day – even though the family had removed
themselves for the summer, and were right now in Herculaneum.
 
Fortunata was at Herculaneum right now. The letters had arrived that morning,
confirming her arrival from Rome. A pompous and official diatribe from her
father. Something precious and secret from her. He reached out his hand, and
pulled her letter out from under the sheet, where he had tucked it earlier. Her
other letters were safely locked in the chest at the bottom of the bed.
 
Too dark to read them now, but he could recite the contents of most of them
like a child reciting the Mysteries, and he had already nearly memorized the
contents of the last.
 
He laid the piece of parchment next to his chest, and stroked it. Some of her
older letters were already wearing thin, he had read them so often. They had
been all he had of her for so many years. Letters, and a scar on the base of
his thumb, where they had cut the flesh to join their blood, and then been
surprised by how much they bled.
 
That was the summer of their tenth year. Somehow, all his memories of her
seemed full of summer light.
 
Of course, all his best memories would be here. This was where he and Fortunata
had spent their summers, their annual escape from Rome, the weight of politics
and familial expectation. Things had always seemed lighter here, easier
somehow. More innocent.
 
Perhaps it was a fantasy. Perhaps things had never been that golden, but….
 
He was here now. They could make it golden again.
 
He could go see her, in spite of protocol. It would be like when they were
children. He knew her father’s villa. He could disguise himself, come into the
property as a tradesman, hide in the garden till dusk, then climb the ivy, let
himself in at her window –
 
He grinned at the thought. Be mischievous again. Play games again. Surprise her
–
 
Oh, she’d be surprised. He laughed at the thought of her astonishment and
happiness to see him. “Lux,” she might say, as she’d said so long ago, “we
can’t do this,” even as she was stripping him of his clothes. “Really, truly,
we can’t,” as she planted one hand against his chest and pushed him back on the
bed. “We’re not doing this,” as she straddled him, and guided him into her snug
warmth.
 
“Oh Gods,” he muttered, and bit his lower lip. His hand was straying lower
again. “Fortunata.…”
 
She would have changed, he knew that – she wasn’t the girl he had left. She was
old for an unmarried woman, in her twenties. That wasn’t a bad thing, though.
He was older too. Her breasts would probably be larger, he realized, and his
breath caught in his throat. He remembered covering her breasts with his hands,
feeling the rough nipples rising against his palms. Her breasts had always been
so responsive, swelling beneath his touch.
 
He spread his legs, and grasped himself firmly, allowing himself to feel it.
Her breasts would be a little larger. Good, so good. Still smooth. Soft, and
warm and… He would mouth them, and nip and tease, nibbling first one nipple,
then the other, with one hand stroking her wetness, and then he would move down
her soft belly, past the tangle of her pubes, and then he would take her cock
in his mouth and –
 
Lux sat bolt upright, swiping at the darkness in panic. Her what ?
 
The image of Fortunata that he had so carefully reconstructed collapsed before
his eyes.
 
Ben.
 
The truth hit him. It wasn’t Fortunata that was keeping him awake. It was Ben.
 
Lux perched on the edge of his bed, and groaned, elbows on knees, grasping his
head with his fists. Be honest, he told himself. It’s always Ben.
 
It was a strange feeling, his arousal tamping down, fading. Normally he fed it,
but he couldn’t here. Not now. Not in this place, with Ben somewhere on the
property, but far too far away. Lux felt – he just felt guilty.
 
I did nothing wrong. He laughed, bitterly. Then why the guilt ?
 
Oh, he knew why. It was the moment of stricken pain on Ben’s face, for one
instant. And then it was the cool demeanor which had settled upon him, the
moment he heard the word ‘wife.’ In the space of a heartbeat, Ben had become as
inapproachable as a vestal virgin.
 
Which – Lux gave another sour laugh in the darkness – well, it was a ridiculous
comparison. Ben was ludicrously accomplished. Stupendously, unbelievably so –
obviously a natural talent, but also very experienced. He was no more a virgin
than Lux was.
 
I could call him, he thought, as he had done every night since they arrived in
Pompeii. I could call him, and ask him to rub oil onto my wound, and then I
could –
 
With an oath he flung himself off the bed, and marched out of his room,
wrapping a sheet around his waist to cover his nakedness. Too hot in here. He
would sit in the courtyard, by the fish pond, and hopefully get cool. Think of
Fortunata, calm down, and then be ready for sleep. He stumbled through the
dark, wishing he had brought a lamp. But the thought of even that little puddle
of heat adding to the general clamminess was more than he could bear.
 
And he wasn’t sure he wanted to see anyone. Or for them to see him.
 
“Master?” A girl’s voice startled him, and two children scrambled to their
feet.
 
“Gods take this place to Hades,” he snapped, tripping over the girl’s feet. She
froze, and stood, head bowed in the dimness. Probably waiting for a beating.
Probably they both were. “Where’s your mother,” he asked, trying to soften his
tone.
 
The boy spoke up. “She was sold to the fuller down the road.”
 
“Oh.” What was he supposed to say to a thing like that? He reached out a hand
and patted the little girl’s head, feeling foolish. She flinched a little bit,
and his heart ached. Poor child. He shouldn’t have taken it out on her. But he
couldn’t walk anywhere without literally falling over a slave. They didn’t have
their own quarters and slept higgledy-piggledy all over the place.
 
The cook and pastry chef slept in the kitchen with the cleaners, the gardeners
slept in the sheds, and, on hot nights, as he had just discovered, anyone could
be sleeping in the actual garden. He had forgotten about that aspect of
‘civilization’ when he had lived in barracks. The slaves there were no worse
off than the regular soldiers. However, certain civilian masters – the previous
one of this place obviously among them – gave no more thought to their slaves
than a slave would to a dog.
 
When Fortunata was here, they would work out decent accommodation for the
slaves. Maybe try to buy the children’s mother back. Lux felt a smile soften
his face. Fortunata might like that. She had a generous heart, and had always
been kind to the slaves.
 
Unlike me, he thought, chastened. The little girl was still shuffling, her big
brother standing mute, both waiting for the consequences. “Sorry I woke you,”
he said, as gently as he could, and cupped her cheek. He felt her smile against
his palm. Thank the gods. She didn’t seem as afraid of him anymore. “Go back to
sleep. Both of you.” The child nodded sleepily, and put her thumb in her mouth,
before lying back down beside the ferns. Her brother lay down behind her,
wrapping one protective arm around her shoulders. Move on. Let them sleep.
 
Lux took a more careful step forward. His leg was aching, and he had forgotten
his walking stick, but it would hold. By now his eyes had adjusted to the
ambient starlight, and he could make out the shape of the garden better. It was
good out here. It was cooler. That was what he needed. The slave children had
the right idea –
 
Not just the children. There was another shape lying in the cool grass. Lux
stepped up softly. The lumpy silhouette resolved into two figures lying next to
each other: a man and a huge dog. Trust Ben to sleep with the dogs, Lux
thought. He’s the first slave in the house, and he chooses to sleep on his
cloak next to the guard dog.
 
Lux sat next to them, and sighed. The great Molossus wuffled, lifted his head
to greet him, then dropped it back onto his paws. Lux smiled, and buried his
hand in the animal’s shaggy curls. The dog moaned happily, thumped his tail,
and settled back down.
 
With a sense of inevitability, Lux looked at the man.
 
I stumble out into the dark, and who do I find? Why couldn’t I have fallen over
Ben ?
 
Gods, but the man was beautiful. In the pale light of the gathering dawn he
looked like a hero from the stories. Adonis, perhaps.
 
What a stupid thought. He scrubbed his hair and sighed. Have I been up all
night ? It looked like it. Soon the slaves would be up. The little girl first,
to tend to her vegetable patch and chickens, before bringing the offerings to
the kitchen. And Ben to –
 
Well, Ben to manage everything. Ben to be efficient, obedient, and completely
unattainable.
 
Lux scrubbed his chin. Gods, I miss him. He winced. How could he be missing
Ben, when he saw him every day? When Ben shaved him every day? When Ben
reported to him morning and noon and night, about everything from the finances
to the menu?
 
But he did. He missed him. He missed this. Watching him sleep. We were together
hardly three days.
 
Weary, Lux lay down on the grass. The dew was sweet, and damp – a blessing
really. Surely though, it would awake Ben soon.
 
I’ll just lie here till he wakes up, Lux told himself.
 
He lay down, careful not to disturb the dog further, and gazed at Ben’s face,
until he fell asleep.
~*~
 
The cocks were crowing. Ben awoke with the usual moment of blind panic (what am
I doing here ?) and then he remembered who he was, what he was, and where.
 
He took a breath, steeling himself for the day ahead. Then, on a sigh, he
opened his eyes. The sky to the East was flushed, salmon pink streaked with
red, though the sun itself was not yet showing. Somewhere in that direction lay
Jerusalem. I wonder what she looks like now ? The thought was old, so scarred
over it was almost painless. He would never see Jerusalem again.
 
Get up. Stop wallowing –
 
He turned his head to the side, meaning to greet Hyrcanus –
 
And saw Lux.
 
Lux, sound asleep, wearing – well, wearing hardly anything. Face slack, lips
slightly parted. Looking so open and vulnerable it hurt to see him.
 
Ben held his breath. An unexpected flash of guilt shot through him. He
shouldn’t be staring at his master like this.
 
Hyrcanus was lying between the two men, still asleep. Ben tried to focus on him
instead. Gently, he dropped a hand onto the dog’s shaggy ruff, but didn’t wake
him. The dog was a bulwark against loneliness and heartache. He always had
been. As long as Hyrcanus was here, he was safe.
 
He could feel Lux’s breath on his face.
 
He couldn’t stop himself. He rolled onto his side, propped his head up on his
arm, and looked down at his sleeping master. He felt a surge of inexplicable
tenderness rise in his chest. I’m not angry anymore. He blinked, surprised. He
hadn’t even known that he had been angry, till the feeling passed. And really,
why am I not angry anymore? After all these weeks of wedding planning, and the
visitor from Lux’s future in-laws yesterday, I should be furious with –
 
It was not Lux’s fault. It was just the way the world was. Ben could accept
that. He was grateful for the few days of intimacy they had shared, for
whatever those moments were. He didn’t know what they’d meant to Lux, but he
knew what they’d meant to him.
 
That was enough. He watched the other man’s face, and felt peace settle on him.
That was enough.
 
He was going to have to move soon. Caenis was up, her morning obviously well
underway. He could hear her talking to her chickens, her singsong voice
scolding them for squabbling over the grain. “Don’t bully each other. It’s not
kind. You should be ashamed.” He smiled. She had her favorites. Freeborn girls
had their dolls. Caenis had her chickens, who she treated as babies. He prayed
she’d never see a cockfight.
 
He was still smiling when Lux opened his eyes. He was smiling straight down at
the man. Lux’s expression went from a blank slate to radiant recognition. They
were smiling straight into each other’s eyes. He’s beautiful. For a moment, Ben
felt a tug, like an iron filing drawn to a lodestone. He moved fractionally
toward Lux, opening his mouth – then realized he was about to instigate a kiss.
 
No. He flushed, and pulled back, confused. Lux’s face dropped, and shuttered.
Ben knew that his had too. He cleared his throat.
 
“Good morning.” He was about to say ‘Master,’ but somehow that seemed wrong,
now that he was no longer angry with the man. He coughed into his hand, and
dropped his voice. “Good morning, Lux.”
 
Lux’s face blossomed into a smile again. “Good morning, Ben.”
 
And there it was, for a moment. Happiness. Brief, and so vivid that it hurt.
Ben ignored it, and pushed himself up to a sitting position, then shoved
himself to his feet. He felt oddly graceless today, off balance. He ignored
that feeling too.
 
“Hyrcanus,” he said to the dog, “time to get up.” The dog opened one eye,
yawned, and covered his muzzle with a paw. Ben smacked his own leg, hoping the
sound would encourage the dog to come to him. Hyrcanus let out a wuff, but
other than that ignored him. Lux was still lying on the grass, watching them
with an amused expression on his face.
 
Ben shook his head, feigning disappointment. “Pretending to be deaf again, are
we? What sort of a guard dog are you?”
 
“A smug one, if you ask me.” Lux grinned. “He’s got you on a string.”
 
“Yes, well. Heaven forbid he actually wake up when he’s supposed to.” Ben
nudged the dog with his toes, gently prodding his belly. “He’d probably let
robbers walk right up and pet him.” That wasn’t actually true – Hyrcanus was an
excellent guard dog, as everyone in the household knew. As every thief in
Pompeii knew, after what had happened to the last fool to attempt to break into
the property. Ben wouldn’t have said it if there was the slightest chance the
master would believe him. Still, it was something to say that might raise a
smile on Lux’s face again. To be honest, Ben was aware that he wasn’t really
cross with the dog, and was performing a role for Lux’s entertainment. He
rather suspected the dog was too.
 
As if to confirm his suspicion, Hyrcanus rolled onto his back suddenly, legs
waving in the air, and started to wriggle on the grass, thrashing his head, and
yipping happily as his tail wafted from side to side.
 
“Oh, disgusting,” Lux groaned, and pinched his nose, lurching to his feet and
stepping out of the dog’s way. “Did that animal just fart?”
 
Ben looked regretful. “I rather fear he did.”
 
“Tell him if he doesn’t behave, I’ll eat him.”
 
For a moment Ben felt a flicker of concern – then he remembered, Lux wasn’t the
previous master, and he was just joking. Hyrcanus looked offended though,
rolled to his feet, shook himself, then took off to follow Caenis in her
morning rounds.
 
“There’s not a lot of meat on him,” Ben said, mildly, as though taking the
other man seriously.
 
“He’s as big as a horse,” Lux scoffed. “More meat on him than on dormice
anyway, and they’re supposed to be a delicacy.” Lux shuddered. “All those
little bones. Disgusting. You might as well eat rats.”
 
“I wouldn’t know.”
 
“That’s right. You’re a Jew. There’s probably loads you don’t eat.” Lux sounded
casual, but Ben tensed. References to his ancestry rarely turned out well. Lux
looked at him, and smiled. “Relax,” he said, and gently cuffed his arm. “I’m
not going to ask you to light incense to the Emperor or anything.”
 
“Oh. Uhm… thank you?”
 
“Listen, I was thinking…” Lux looked uncomfortable. “Look, I don’t know a lot
about – well, it might sound silly, but –”
 
Ben furrowed his brow, puzzled. “What?”
 
“I know it’s not normal for a slave to –” Lux sucked in a deep breath, then
spoke all in a rush. “Do you want to have Sabbaths off?”
 
Ben felt the world tilt a little bit.
 
“I mean, I know that slaves don’t usually get days off, but I know a few Jews,
and you take that kind of
thing seriously, so I thought….”
 
“Thank you,” Ben said, his voice rough with emotion. “And – no. I can’t – I
can’t keep Sabbath.”
 
Lux looked surprised. “Really? Why not? If someone had offered me a day off
once a week when I was in the army, I’d have jumped at it.”
 
“If I am privileged over the rest of the household, it will annoy the other
slaves.” And it is hard enough to manage people without them resenting you.
Nicia is bad enough. He didn’t explain it though. His master was not a stupid
man, after all. He would understand the politics, if he just thought them
through.
 
Lux scrubbed the back of his neck. “I suppose,” he speculated, “they could have
a day off as well.”
 
If Ben had been surprised by the first offer, this second one astonished him.
He cocked his head to one side, looking at his master, concerned. Perhaps he
wasn’t well. He did look tired. “The whole house would grind to a standstill,”
he pointed out. “Roman society isn’t geared up to it – and they wouldn’t
understand it. They would think you – odd.” To be honest, not just the slaves
would think him odd. His peers would as well. Rumors would probably start up
that he was anti-Empire, converting to Judaism, or its latest offshoot, The
Way. And for a Patrician, either of those options would be practically
suicidal. No, it would never do.
 
Lux flapped his hand, embarrassed. “Don’t keep on about it. I understand. It’s
a bad idea.”
 
“It’s a very good idea,” Ben said, warmly. “A kind idea. Just, that it wouldn’t
work.” He reached out and dropped a hand on Lux’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
 
Lux shrugged, embarrassed. Ben removed his hand, as though scalded. “So, I’m an
idiot,” Lux said, staring dejectedly at the ground. Never mind.” He wrapped his
arms around his chest and hunched up a bit. “So.”
 
“So.”
 
“Listen,” Lux turned, facing the mountain. “I got a letter yesterday.” He
glanced at Ben and twitched a nervous smile. “Well, I got a few letters
yesterday. But there’s one in particular I need to talk to you about.”
 
“Yes, Mas –”
 
“Lux.”
 
“Yes.” Ben squeezed his eyes at the lapse. It was such a habit, it was hard to
shake. “Lux. Of course.”
 
“I need to….” Lux shut his eyes, and grimaced. “This is hard. I’m sorry.”
 
“What’s wrong?”
 
“I just….” He ran a hand through his hair, bushing it up into surprising
spikes. “I’ll just say this. Don’t go doing that thing you do.”
 
“What thing I do?”
 
“I know I hurt you, I didn’t mean to. And I don’t. I never mean to. But.…”
 
Ah. Ben folded his hands behind his back, and stood a little straighter. He
thought he knew what his master was going to say.
 
“You see? You’re doing it already. That thing.”
 
“What thing?” If Ben sounded a little irritated, it was hardly surprising.
 
“You’re tensing up. You’re going a thousand miles away. Don’t do that.”
 
Ben raised a sardonic eyebrow. “I’ll try.”
 
“Huh.” Lux sounded doubtful. “So. The thing is….”
 
“The thing?”
 
Lux glared. “You’re making this really hard.”
 
Ben forced himself to relax his shoulders. It seemed Lux couldn’t bring himself
to say it, so he said it instead. “You received communication from your
fiancée’s father yesterday. They have arrived in Herculaneum, and your in-laws
want to meet with you to finalize preparations for the wedding, next month.”
 
Lux’s mouth dropped open.
 
“You knew all that? How did you know all that?”
 
Ben smiled, despite the bitter taste on the back of his tongue. “Your future
father-in-law has slaves too. We are, as you probably know, notorious gossips.”
 
“Oh.”
 
“Besides,” Ben relented. “I got a visit yesterday, from his ministrator.” He
tried to smile. “He came up to prepare accommodation for your father-in-law’s
visit.”
 
Lux groaned. “I suppose I should be glad, but I did tell him he could stay
here.”
 
“Calpurnius is a proud man,” Ben said, dryly. An arrogant man, he thought but
did not say. And he had his own reasons to be glad he wasn’t staying. “Anyway.”
He hurried on, so as to avoid sounding critical of his social superior. “We
have a lot to organize in a short space of time.”
 
Lux stared at him, then looked away. “We do.”
 
“May I...?” Ben paused. How could he phrase this without sounding impertinent?
Or even worse, clingy?
 
“May you what?”
 
“May I ask… why the haste?”
 
“Haste?”
 
“A month is a short time in which to arrange a wedding. I wondered if the bride
was… whether the household should prepare for a....”
 
“You wondered if she’s pregnant?”
 
Ben coughed. “Uhm. Yes.”
 
Lux gave a sad smile. “She’s not. I… uh. I haven’t seen her since I was
sixteen.”
 
That didn’t explain the haste. Ben was still puzzled.
 
“She’s my age,” Lux explained. “Her parents are probably worried she’s going to
die of old age and never give them a grandchild.”
 
“Oh.” That explained it. Most women would have had at least one baby by the
time they reached twenty, let alone twenty-seven. Ben cringed inwardly at an
unwelcome thought, and felt slightly sick. “She must love you,” he said,
carefully. “She waited.”
 
“She waited.” Lux’s smile was sad. “And – you know. She couldn’t even know for
sure I was coming back. She risked – well, she risked a lot, waiting for me.”
 
You didn’t wait for her. The thought was so sudden, so bitter in his head that
for a terrifying moment Ben feared he’d spoken it aloud. Lux was still looking
at the mountain. His lips twisted.
 
“I didn’t wait for her,” Lux said, repeating Ben’s thought. Ben shuddered. It
was as though he’d read his mind. “I meant to,” Lux continued, his voice bleak.
“I tried to, but….” He shrugged, giving up on the thought, and turned back to
Ben. “She’s a good woman. She waited over ten years for me. I can’t… you know.”
 
Ben nodded. He knew.
~*~
 
Well, that wasn’t as bad as I thought. Lux followed Ben toward the main villa,
yawning, and rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He had been so certain that when he
talked to Ben about Fortunata he would lose even the ghost of a smile. But the
other man seemed to have relaxed somehow. The wall that had arisen between them
had come down.
 
Thank the gods.
 
Now, if only there was somewhere cool in the house, he might be able to finally
get some sleep.
 
Maybe the wine cellar, he thought. I’ll ask Ben…. First though, he needed to
eat, before it got so hot that food felt like an indulgence rather than a
necessity. He stopped by a kitchen table, and helped himself to a slice of
cheese. One of the kitchen girls looked startled at his presence and dropped
the knife she was using to dice fruit. He picked the knife up off the floor,
handed it to her, and winked.
 
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t bite. I just came in here for some breakfast.”
 
“Master,” she said, dipping her head, then glanced up at him coyly, and licked
her lip.
 
Gods, he thought, suddenly embarrassed. So, he was being rude, but he turned
his back on her. He’d forgotten how easy it was to flirt with the slaves. And
how they automatically flirted back, as a survival mechanism. Maybe that’s all
Ben was doing, when they’d first met, offering sex for self-preservation.
 
Don’t torture yourself. Whatever it was, it was. Too late to fix it now. At
least….
 
He glanced over at Ben, who was standing by the pantry, giving the slave boy a
basket of pastries. Good – hopefully he had been too busy to see Lux make a
fool of himself just now.
 
At least, Lux reassured himself, when he’d woken up this morning, Ben was
smiling down at me.
 
Even if it never happened again, that was something.
 
Where was Ben now? The boy had moved on, to do whatever his appointed task was,
and Ben was no longer by the pantry. Lux cast his eyes up and down the kitchen,
looking for him, then paused. Ben was standing by the clay oven, talking to the
cook. What was his name, Nicia? He couldn’t tell. The man had his back to him.
Maybe it was the cook’s brother, the pastry chef. Whoever it was, Ben’s body
language looked off. His shoulders were tense, his arms wrapped around his
torso. Under normal circumstances Lux’s Primus radiated calm and control. Now
though he was practically frozen, in a very un-Ben like pose. Lux scowled.
What’s going on ?
 
He edged closer to the oven, and listened in on the conversation.
 
“…saw you and the master this morning when I went to get the fish.” This simple
observation sounded jeering, as though the speaker meant a lot more than what
he was saying.
 
“I’d thank you not to talk about the master unless it in some way pertains to
our work.”
 
“Oh, you’d ‘thank me,’ would you? How would you ‘thank me?’ Like you thanked
every man who ever came to dine when the last master was alive?”
 
Ben’s posture got even more rigid. He reminded Lux of a coiled bowstring about
to snap. “The expectations our last master had of me are in no way relevant at
this point.”
 
“Oh, come on,” the man scoffed. “You know the master will have heard all about
those parties by now. You were quite the little whore before you got too old
for it. You must have thought you’d got off lightly, and then along comes a new
Dominus who likes his boys a bit older.”
 
“Hold your tongue,” Ben snapped.
 
The other man laughed. “Bet your reputation preceded you,” he spat out. “Bet
the new master wants to sample the goods. See if you’re everything they say you
are.”
 
Lux’s mouth went dry with fury and he saw red – literally, a crimson swathe
across his field of vision, as had occasionally happened on the battlefield.
His hands curled into fists.
 
“Of course, if he asked me,” the cook was continuing, “I could tell him just
what a sweet little –”
 
With a roar of pure fury, Lux reached out and grabbed the other man from
behind, dragging him backwards, and slamming him up against the central table.
There was a crash as something fell to the floor, followed by dread silence
from the other slaves. Lux realized that he was hovering his fist right over
the cook’s face. Nicia. Definitely Nicia.
 
“Don’t you ever,” he snarled, “ever talk to my Primus like that again.” He
growled and the other man flinched. Lux peeled his lips back, revealing his
teeth in a snarl, then rolled his shoulder, released his fist. He’d promised
himself once that he would never hit a slave. He’d broken a lot of promises in
his life, but this wasn’t one he was prepared to give up on.
 
The slave didn’t have to know that though. Lux allowed every drop of fury to
bleed through his eyes, seized the man’s shoulders, and shook him, slamming him
against the table again, so the edge bit into the small of his back. The heavy
table shifted, scraping across the floor. Lux didn’t let go of his victim.
 
“I’m… I’m sorry, Master.” The cook’s voice was squeaky with fear.
 
“Sorry? Sorry you were so disrespectful about natural law, and appropriate
authority, or sorry you got caught?”
 
“That I was so disrespectful, Master.”
 
Lux barked out a harsh laugh. “Why don’t I believe you?”
 
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry….”
 
Suddenly disgusted – by himself, by the man he was menacing, he stepped back.
He grabbed a cloth and wiped his hands, as though cleaning himself of the
situation. Gods, I’m going to have to have this man punished. Always a
dangerous course of action, if the slave was a cook. Even if he’d wanted to, he
couldn’t just have him taken out and whipped at the post. Sometimes disaffected
kitchen slaves went so far as to poison their master. And the other man would
know it. He might plead and apologize now, but if Lux didn’t act fast this –
this bully – would know that Lux was afraid of him.
 
Everyone was afraid of their slaves.
 
Lux narrowed his eyes. “I could,” he drawled, “have you beaten. But my father-
in-law is coming today. I’d like a good meal prepared for him.”
 
“Yes, Master. Thank you, Master.”
 
The other man was relaxing too quickly.
 
“I’ll tell you what,” Lux grinned viciously. “I could sell you to the mines.”
 
The other man went grey with fear.
 
“I think I’ll have documents written up, that should anything happen to me you
are to be sold.” He shrugged. “I might do it anyway, but you’ve cooked me some
decent meals. If I get so much as stomach cramp though, and if I hear another
bitter word out of you, you’re being sold to the lead mines in Hispania.”
 
“Master,” the other man stuttered, his voice barely audible. Good. Not so smug
now, are you ? Lux jerked his chin at him dismissively, then turned his back.
 
“Ben,” he said, calmly. “I need you to draw up a legal document for me. I’ll
meet you in the library when you have finished your rounds.”
 
He didn’t look at Ben as he pushed his way out of the kitchen. All the slaves
were stunned to silence. The little girl Caenis, her brother Gaius, their
grandmother Sylviana – everyone. From the youngest child to the oldest adult.
Everyone, made afraid by the swift explosion of his anger, afraid of the
punishment he had threatened. They stood like statues. If Lux could do it to
the cook, they knew he could do it to anyone. No wonder they were scared.
 
Lux couldn’t risk seeing that expression on Ben’s face.
 
By the time Ben met him in the library, Lux had not calmed down. He was pacing
the room, stalking around and around the long reading table, and he still
wanted to thump someone.
 
“Master,” Ben said, then bit his lower lip. “I mean, Lux?”
 
Lux glared at him. “What was that about, what was that?”
 
“What was what?”
 
“That stuff he was saying about you, about you being a….” He couldn’t say it.
 
“A whore?” Ben’s voice was empty of expression. “That can’t have surprised
you.”
 
Lux stopped his pacing, removed a scroll from its storage box, unfurled it a
little, then dropped it back into its slot. Catullus. Typical. The previous
master’s taste in literature was predictable, if nothing else. Bet he didn’t
read it for the poetic language. Not that there was anything wrong with
pornography, but knowing what the previous reader had been like, what he had
done to Ben, Lux didn’t particularly want to touch this document.
 
He turned his back on the table, and stared at the far wall, where the Greek
poetry was stocked.
 
“What did the cook mean, when he said he could tell me what you were like?”
 
Silence. Lux let it drag on for so long he felt like screaming. Finally he
turned and looked over his shoulder. Ben was staring at the wall.
 
Merda, I shouldn’t be asking him this. It’s not my business after all. But just
the thought of Ben and that slack-bellied, red-faced buffoon made him sick.
 
Seemed like Ben was feeling sick as well. Or wooden. There was no trace of
animation on his face at all.
 
“Ben?” Lux dropped his voice. “I’m sorry.”
 
Ben’s face twitched, but he still didn’t look at Lux. Lux stepped toward him,
and touched his arm. Ben flinched.
 
“Really,” Lux reiterated. “I’m sorry.”
 
Ben hung his head, and made a noise. Lux strained to hear it. Ben spoke again,
barely a whisper.
 
“Why?”
 
“Why what?”
 
“Why are you sorry?”
 
“I – I don’t know. It’s none of my business if you had other lovers –”
 
Ben’s head snapped up, and his eyes flashed. “Nicia was never my lover.”
 
Oh. Lux’s heart seized for a moment as he realized what Ben was not saying. Oh.
 
“You mean he – he raped you?” I’ll have the man flayed alive, and his skins
sold for sandals.
 
Ben snorted, dismissively. “No,” he said. “You know the law. A man could no
more rape a slave than he could rape a chair or a chariot. We are property, not
people, remember.”
 
Lux heard a hollow thud as he thumped the wall. The pain jarred through his
knuckles, and up his arm to his elbow. Good. He rounded on Ben, glaring.
 
“Don’t tell me that,” Lux shook out his fist and cracked his knuckles. “Don’t
you dare tell me that. Don’t say something you don’t believe. You know as well
as I do. The law’s wrong.”
 
Ben’s mouth hung open, then shut with a snap. Lux looked down at his hand, and
realized the knuckles were bloody. He should have saved his fist to beat Ben’s
rapist. “I’ll have the bastard crucified,” he hissed.
 
Ben said nothing. Lux squeezed his eyes shut, and managed his breathing. He
could feel his heartbeat pounding through his skull. Calm down, he commanded
himself, grimly. This isn’t helping.
 
When he opened his eyes again, Ben was still staring at the wall. His face had
changed. He looked – what – frightened?
 
“Ben?”
 
“Don’t,” Ben said. He sounded suddenly very little, and far too young. “Don’t,
don’t do that.”
 
Lux thought back over what he’d said. Don’t do what ?
 
Oh. A surge of vomit rose in his throat when he realized what he’d said.
 
Don’t crucify.
 
“I wouldn’t,” he choked out, when he could speak again. “Gods, I couldn’t –”
His hand groped blindly, and squeezed Ben’s shoulder. It was hard as iron. If
the memory hurt him, what must it do to Ben? In the last days of the siege of
Jerusalem, a forest had sprung up around the ruined city. Hundreds upon
hundreds of men, nailed to wooden posts. In the end, they had run out of wood,
and nailed them two to a stake, one on either side of the pole. The air was
black with flies, and crows. The whole world stank of blood, and shit, and
piss. The captives were led past the crucified, to ensure that they remembered.
This is what happens to the enemies of Rome. Disobey again, and this will
happen to you.
 
“I didn’t mean it,” Lux gasped out. “I just – I say things sometimes. I… I
don’t always think what they mean.”
 
Ben’s shoulder relaxed, just a fraction, and then all of a sudden, he was
shaking.
 
“Hey, hey.” Lux stepped forward, and gathered Ben in his arms. Ben buried his
head in the join of his neck and shoulder, and Lux felt wetness against his
skin. The other man was crying. Big, deep silent sobs. Lux patted him, his hand
made clumsy by the weight of his guilt.
 
For years, nine years, he had reassured himself. All he had done was stand at
his post. He hadn’t dug the pits, he hadn’t hoisted the poles, he hadn’t nailed
anybody to a stake.
 
It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t….
 
But he had stood there while the slaves dug the pits, nailed the men to the
poles, hoisted them into position.
 
He had stood there, guarding the bodies, till his commander told him to stand
down.
 
“Ben,” he whispered, and clutched the fabric of the other man’s tunic. “Oh,
Ben, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so, so….”
 
What did ‘sorry’ even mean?
 
He was crying too.
~*~
 
The day passed in a confusion of bustle and noise. Ben was dazed – he knew
that. He recognized the symptoms, although he hadn’t felt this off balance
since the year he was taken into slavery.
 
His equilibrium had been rocked from the moment he’d opened his eyes and seen
Lux lying beside him. Then followed the humiliation of his argument with Nicia,
and the realization that Lux had heard everything the man had said.
 
And then, Lux’s outburst had terrified everybody else in the room. Poor Caenis
had hidden under the table crying, and needed to be coaxed out with apples
after the master left – but it didn’t scare Ben. If there was one thing Ben
understood, it was fury.
 
That wasn’t the problem.
 
When he was first taken into slavery, he had wanted to kill his captors. No,
more than wanted – yearned to kill them. Planned it. He had sat in the dark,
chained to the post or the bed, and worked out every meticulous detail of how
he was going to do it.
 
He had barely even known what a whore was, until they turned him into one.
 
But no. He wouldn’t accept it. He couldn’t. He never, ever would. He’d die
rather than let it happen again. He knew that.
 
Then it happened again.
 
And again, and again.
 
Finally he understood that he would never be able to defend himself, no matter
how hard he fought. At that point the revenge fantasy had changed. He knew he
couldn’t fight them off. He knew he couldn’t tear their throats out with his
teeth. He knew that he couldn’t even keep his legs shut, if there were enough
of them holding him down.
 
So, he stopped fighting. He unclenched his fists. He rolled over. He parted his
thighs for them. He did everything they told him to, and learned to come at
their command.
 
Good boy, they said, and it hurt less to let them say it. Good boy.
 
He began to fantasize about a goel. Someone dear to him, delivering him from
evil, destroying his enemies. Sometimes the goel was his father, sometimes his
brother Rishon – but the fantasy was always the same, and it was always
perfect. His redeemer never saw what was being done to him, yet was always
there just in time to stop it.
 
When Ben was thirteen summers old, a man like Lux threatening to crucify his
enemies would have been his savior.
 
If, of course, Ben had never seen a crucifixion….
 
Don’t think about it.
 
Such fantasies served no purpose. One morning, when Ben was fourteen, he awoke,
semen caking his buttocks and thighs. Bruised, and shaking with sweats and
nausea from whatever they had given him the night before, the only thing he
knew was that he could never be redeemed.
 
And in the nine years of his captivity, Ben had forgotten how many men had
taken him, or in how many different ways. He had stopped dreaming of rescue or
revenge. He was simply glad that his parents, that his brother and sisters, had
never seen what became of him.
 
If someone came to save him now, he would hide.
 
Maybe I really am a whore, he thought, as he began to prepare the itinerary for
the approaching wedding day. A real man would never have allowed any of this to
happen. I should have killed myself, when Jerusalem fell.
 
He suddenly smiled.
 
Don’t be so craven, he thought, with a burst of amusement at his own self-pity.
It could be worse. At least I was too old for them to castrate, and at least
I’m not a woman.
 
It would have been far, far worse, if he’d been a woman. He thought of Cassia,
sold away from her children to pay for a utility bill, before Caenis had even
all her adult teeth. Poor Caenis and Gaius, losing their mother like that.
 
How many of Cassia’s children had been sold by now? She never would say. Ben
knew of three, while he had lived here. And now, she was pregnant again by her
new master, and Ben was glad that she lived near enough for him to visit, to
make excuses for her children to visit her on little jobs that meant nothing.
Busy work. “Bring the fuller a gift of pastries,” meaning, “go see your mother,
while you can.”
 
And that was mercy, under Rome. Cassia was one of the lucky ones, that she
could even see any of her children at all.
 
Who would have thought that he would ever be glad his sisters had died?
 
Angry, he shook the thought off. What was wrong with him? Why was he thinking
about these things… these things that nobody should think about? These things
just were. No point circling round and around them, like flies on....
 
Stop it.
 
Today, he realized, was going to be a really bad day. And it hadn’t even
started yet. Already, he felt unmoored, adrift, as on those occasions when his
master had insisted he be drunk. Already he was craving the wormwood, or the
poppy wine that his captors introduced him to, although he hadn’t drunk either
of them in nearly three years. His heartbeat kept spiking, painful, banging
against the cage of his ribs. His hands were clammy, and his breathing tight.
He frowned, observing the phenomena, and pushed down the fright, and the
thirst. He was perfectly aware that he was panicking, and he had no idea why.
 
It didn’t matter. It never had. Look over the accounts. Check the inventory.
Keep moving.
 
So long as he was busy, he wouldn’t have to think.
~*~
 
Calpurnius hadn’t changed.
 
Oh, he’d gotten older and thinner, and probably balder, at least if the wig was
anything to go by, but other than that he was the same arrogant shit he always
had been. Right now, the retired senator was smiling across the table with
hooded eyes, and a look of mild contempt. Lux felt like a schoolboy again, and
tried not to squirm. Calpurnius had always made him feel inadequate, as though
he were the butt of some secret joke.
 
“So,” the old man commented. “You didn’t die.” Lux grunted into his wine
goblet, but didn’t say anything. “Really,” Calpurnius’s smile didn’t reach his
eyes, “it was terribly inconsiderate of you not to die, under the
circumstances. My daughter simply won’t countenance marrying anyone else.”
 
Lux tried not to glare his resentment at his dinner companion. What was he
supposed to say to that?
 
“I see that the army hasn’t improved your conversational abilities.”
 
“Sorry, Sir.”
 
Calpurnius nodded gravely, accepting the apology as his rightful due. Lux took
a swallow of his drink, and grimaced. His future father-in-law had ordered the
best and headiest Greek wine, barely cut by water, and sprinkled it with
euphrosynum, to mark the auspicious occasion. Lux never did like the stuff,
hadn’t touched it in years. He should drink it slowly, or it would go to his
head.
 
Maybe that was what Calpurnius wanted. To get him drunk enough that he could
pick his brains and interrogate him about his past.
 
As if to confirm Lux’s suspicion, Calpurnius spoke. “Empty your cup, boy.” The
man was definitely sounding amused now. He gestured at the goblet, and emptied
his own. “You’ve been swigging that army vappa too much. Let’s hope it hasn’t
ruined your palate.”
 
Hiding his nerves, Lux swallowed his drink to match Calpurnius’s intake. Then
he waved to the passing barmaid, and snatched a chunk of bread off her tray. If
this was how the man was going to play it, he’d need something to line his
stomach. Calpurnius had declined Lux's hospitality, and taken him out for a
meal instead. So far the man was plying him with drink, and the food hadn’t
even been ordered.
Now Lux remembered why he’d wanted to leave the country in the first place. To
get away from sanctimonious pricks like this.
 
“So,” Calpurnius started again. “I suppose I have no choice in the matter.
You’re finally going to marry my daughter?”
 
“With your permission, Sir.”
The old man’s lips twisted. “It could be worse.” He narrowed his eyes. “I
suppose,” he said, shrewdly, “I should just be glad you didn’t get her pregnant
before abandoning her for ten years.”
 
That was rich, coming from Calpurnius. As Lux remembered it, the man had been
delighted to see the back of him.
 
“I didn’t –”
 
“Tell me,” Calpurnius interrupted before Lux could scramble an explanation
together. “Now that you have received your discharge, what are you planning to
do for the rest of your life?”
 
“I can provide for your daughter,” Lux almost sounded calm. Don’t let the man
know what you think of him. “Money is not a problem.”
 
“I never suggested that it was. I simply feel that one should not be indolent.
Men of our class need to provide a good example to the Proletariat. One must do
something to occupy one’s days.”
 
“I do occupy my days.” Lux felt the heat of embarrassment climbing his neck.
This man had always known exactly how to scrape him raw. “I have plans. Just,
I’ve not been back long, and I’m recovering from an injury.”
 
“I’m sure you are.” Calpurnius steepled his hands, and peered at Lux,
speculation in his glance. “Well, we all know your attitudes to politics,” he
mused aloud, “so a senatorial career is probably not an option. Which is a
shame, because you’d certainly look good to the voters. War hero, respectable
family, pretty boy.” Lux’s jaw dropped. Did he just call me a puer… a pathicus
? Calpurnius was still talking, blissfully ignoring the look of shock on Lux’s
face. “Never mind. It would never work. You’d probably antagonize Titus within
a month and get us all executed.”
 
“Thanks.” Despite his best intentions, Lux couldn’t help but sound sarcastic.
 
This time, when Calpurnius laughed it felt like someone was scratching nails on
slate.
 
“You were, as I recall, a fairly mediocre student, which narrows your field
considerably. It’s a shame. I’d wanted my daughter to marry a man with some
ambition. What are we going to do with you?”
 
Lux smiled politely, and took a swallow of his drink. He had forgotten how much
he hated Fortunata’s father.
 
“I’ve been thinking of developing the wine side of the business,” he replied,
trying to make his voice as pleasant as possible. Calpurnius topped up his
drink, and added a generous sprinkle of euphrosynum. Lux grimaced at the sight,
and nodded ‘enough.’ “As you know,” he continued, and sipped again, “my family
have been producing wine for a long time, so I have a good network of people to
manage the sale side of things. And when I purchased this estate one of its
main attractions was the attached vineyard on the coastal slope of Vesuvius.”
 
Calpurnius was nodding, his lips pursed, but a reluctant approval in his face.
“That is good thinking,” he conceded. “If you can’t be a politician, at least
you should make a tolerable farmer.”
 
“Nothing wrong with farming,” Lux said, defensively. “Rome needs bread.”
 
“And wine, of course.”
 
“And wine.”
 
“To the success of your venture, then.” Calpurnius gave him a challenging look,
and drained his goblet. Lux sighed, and matched him.
 
“I had an eye on those vineyards myself, to be honest.” Calpurnius poured. “But
somebody outbid me.” He lifted his goblet in a mock salutation. “Of course, at
the time I had no idea the successful bidder was you.”
 
“Sorry to get in your way,” Lux grinned. A warm pleasant lassitude was
beginning to spread through him under the influence of the drink. Or maybe it
was the euphrosynum. Actually, he’d changed his mind about that stuff – he
quite liked it, really. Having a little more confidence than usual was no bad
thing around Calpurnius. Just so long as he was careful not to get too relaxed.
 
“I suppose I’ll have to forgive you for outbidding me,” the man said. “At least
if you’re my son-in-law our interests will be the same.”
 
“My only interest is to make your daughter happy,” Lux said. “Here’s to
Fortunata.”
 
“Oh gods.” Calpurnius was laughing aloud now, but returned the toast. “I
thought the army would have knocked some of those effeminate edges off you.
Marriage isn’t about making your wife happy. It’s about aligning your business
interests with the best family, and siring lots of sturdy young Romans.”
 
“That too.”
 
“Here’s to healthy young Romans.”
 
“Hear hear.”
 
After that proceedings got blurry. At some point, Lux realized that his father-
in-law was not such a bad man after all. They had things in common. They both
loved Fortunata, and Calpurnius was only trying to look after his daughter.
“You know I really love Fortunata, don’t you?” For some reason Lux’s tongue was
thick, and his words were slurred. He frowned. “I mean, I really, really love
her.”
 
“I know that, Boy. You can stop saying it now.”
 
“But, I really do.” He hung onto his friend’s shoulder. Calpurnius had his arm
round his waist, and was holding him up, steering him down narrow streets. He
was a good man.
 
“You’re a good man, you know.”
 
“I know. One foot in front of the other. That’s right. We’re nearly there.”
 
“Nearly where?”
 
“For a soldier, you are such a lightweight.” Calpurnius’s voice, which usually
annoyed him, was sounding amused and tolerant. “Ah. Here we are. I see your
Primus is already waiting for you.”
 
“Ben!”
 
“Master.”
 
“Ben. This is my good friend, Calpur… Calpor.…”
 
“We’ve met.” Ben’s voice was clipped.
 
“Oh good. Good.” Lux swayed, and stumbled a step toward Ben, smiling broadly as
Ben caught him. “Home again,” he chanted, “home again.” For some reason Ben was
not smiling back. That wasn’t right. “Awh, Ben. Cheer up.” He patted his cheek.
“What’s wrong, Ben, Ben?”
 
“Nothing, Master.”
 
“Lux. Call me Lux.”
 
“Oh,” Calpurnius crowed. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in years.”
 
“What is?” Lux was puzzled. “What’s funny?”
 
“Never mind, Boy. I’ll remind you in the morning.”
 
“Come on, Master.” Ben sounded gentle, but looked cross. “You need to lie
down.”
 
“That’s right,” Calpurnius addressed Ben. “You’ll have to put him to bed. You
know how to do that, don’t you, Pulcher?”
 
“Who’s Pulcher?” Lux was confused. “Where?”
 
“I’ll call tomorrow,” Calpurnius said. “I’ll visit late so you have some time
to sleep it off.”
 
“I’m fine. Nothing wrong with me. I could stay up all night.”
 
“Of course you could,” Calpurnius sounded indulgent. “Well, this has been an
interesting evening. Goodnight.”
 
And then the man was gone. Lux was leaning on Ben now, being led toward his
chamber. Going to his bedroom with Ben. That was good. Really good.
 
But, oh – not yet. He swerved suddenly, aiming toward the gardens, dragging Ben
with him.
 
“Where are you going, Master?”
 
“Drink. We need more wine. You want some wine? The good stuff is in the
cellars. Falerni… Falerno… what’s it called? You know what I mean. I’m sure
we’ve got some. Do we have some?”
 
“Yes, Master. We have Falernian.”
 
“Oh. Good. Good. I’ll get us some wine.”
 
“Don’t worry about it, Master. I’ll get the wine once you’re settled in your
room.”
 
“Oh, that’s right. Bed.” He leered at Ben, and squeezed an arm around his
waist. “You’ll come to bed with me, won’t you?”
 
“Here we go.” Ben’s voice sounded pinched. What was up with him? Why wasn’t he
happy? He should be happy.
 
He must need a drink.
 
“Don’t forget the wine, Ben.”
 
“I won’t forget the wine.”
 
Lux dropped back on his mattress with a resounding thump. “Oh, Fortunata,” he
sang, “mia bella.…” His head bounced; Ben was tucking a pillow under it. Then
he realized he had been speaking Latin all night, instead of Greek. Huh. Why
didn’t people all speak Latin? Greek was a silly language anyway. Don’t tell
the Greeks though.
 
“Don’t tell the Greeks,” he informed Ben, wagging his finger with great
solemnity. “You mustn’t tell the Greeks.”
 
“I won’t tell the Greeks, Lux.”
 
“Because I don’t want to upset them. It’s not their fault they don’t speak
Latin.”
 
“Of course not.”
 
“But if everybody spoke the same language, there would be no wars.” This seemed
a profound revelation. “That would be good. Let’s have no wars. Wars are
stupid.”
 
Ben said nothing.
 
“Don’t you think so? Ben? Aren’t wars stupid?”
 
“They are. Very stupid.”
 
“Good. We agree.” He stared up at the ceiling. It was rippling, almost like a
slow wave. That was interesting. That was very, very, very interesting. Like
the world wasn’t solid, or real at all, like… he didn’t know what he was
thinking. “Sit next to me, Ben.”
 
The bed swayed as Ben sat. Lux groped out with a hand, and found Ben’s wrist.
 
“Don’t go.”
 
There was a long silence, and Lux was almost asleep when he heard Ben’s voice,
as if from a far distant place.
 
“I won’t go.”
~*~
 
Not surprisingly, Lux slept like a dead man. One moment he was talking
nonsense, the next he was simply gone.
 
Ben rolled him onto his side, and fussed with the pillow to make sure his head
was comfortable. He should go get water for the morning, but he didn’t want to
leave his master like this. Once, when he was about sixteen, he had woken up
next to a corpse; one of the guests had choked to death on his own vomit.
 
Ben squeezed his eyes shut at the horrible memory. The discovery itself had
been the worst part – even worse than the inevitable beating which followed, as
though it were somehow his fault that the man had died. Even though he hadn’t
known or even liked the man, there was still the shock of death’s reality – one
minute a person is there, the next they are gone.
 
As Lux was gone now. Dropped away into darkness like a stone in a black lake.
Only the sound of his breathing offered Ben any reassurance at all.
 
Ben simply couldn’t bear it if anything were to happen to Lux. When he had seen
him staggering home with – with that man – everything had come flooding back.
Ben had thought he was prepared to see Calpurnius again, but the reality – it
had been so much worse than he imagined. For a terrible moment, he had thought
that he would die of sheer fright.
 
Lux must never know. Ben tried to steady his own breathing. A huge part of him
feared that he had no choice over the matter. He might want to keep it a
secret, but Calpurnius had been obviously amused to see him, and had made
sneering comments in Lux’s presence. And yes, Calpurnius had been slightly
tipsy, but even sober he had never been discreet. He had no need for
discretion, after all. He had been the fucker, not the fucked, so there was
nothing for him to be ashamed of. And given Ben’s recent run of bad luck, he
might feel the need to gloat about it at any time.
 
If that happened, there would be nothing Ben could do to stop it.
 
Please, Adoshem, no. Keep Lux safe. Keep my secrets safe.
 
Lux was snoring now. Ben stroked a hand over Lux’s fingers, still loosely
cradled around his wrist. He has such beautiful hands, he thought. Long,
elegant, slender. Not like a Patrician’s hands at all – calloused with years of
hard work. Scarred on the knuckles from what could only be fist fights, but
still – so beautiful.
 
Like the man himself. Inside and out.
 
Ben stroked Lux’s face, lightly tracing the cheekbones with the back of his own
blunt fingers. Gradually, he began to calm down.
 
Even unconscious, Lux’s mere presence was helping him, reminding him how to
breathe.
 
He had been so afraid when he saw Lux in the company of that man. To see him
stagger home, so helplessly, hopelessly drunk, so wide open and vulnerable, so
completely at Calpurnius’s mercy. And oh, horrible. To see that man’s arm
around his waist.
 
Not that Calpurnius would even dream of touching a Patrician, still less his
future son-in-law. Even Romans had their limits. But just the thought of him
with his arm around Lux’s waist was enough to make bile heave up in Ben’s
throat. He remembered what it was like, staggering drunk with Calpurnius
propping him up. And seeing Lux draped all over the man was more than he could
bear. “My good friend,” he had introduced him to Ben. The words twisted again
in Ben’s gut. “My good friend.”
 
That had hurt. It wasn’t Lux’s fault – but still, it had hurt to hear the word
‘friend’ applied to such a man.
 
Lux would never call him ‘friend’ if he knew what he had done. He would not
have hung all over him, he wouldn’t even have drunk with him. And in the
morning, no doubt, he would remember that the “good friend” had laughed at him.
Had jeered.
 
Calpurnius had probably got him drunk deliberately, to make a fool of him. Ben
knew the way those men operated. His previous master had been very fond of that
particular game – get the puer delicatus drunk, and laugh at him when he
stumbles, punish him for his mistakes. Calpurnius had always found that amusing
to watch, and was particularly creative when it came to creating punishments.
 
A hot bubble of anger rose in Ben, and for a moment it was directed at Lux. Why
did you drink so much? It’s not as though you were ordered to. It’s not as
though they would beat you if you resisted, or strap you down and force it on
you. It’s not as though the man has any power over you at all. You could have
said ‘no’.
 
Maybe. Maybe not. Of course Calpurnius had power over Lux – just of a different
sort. And Lux was unprepared for it – he seemed strangely innocent of the
machinations of his class. He had to know what went on in society – but it
didn’t seem to have corrupted him. Of course, he would have been sheltered from
the worst excesses of the men while he still wore his bulla, and he had left
Rome very young. Perhaps he had avoided the worst of it. Perhaps he really
didn’t know what these men were like?
 
Perhaps. Or perhaps Ben was idealizing him. Honestly, he didn’t know. He didn’t
know anything about Lux’s childhood, other than that he had loved Fortunata. A
life of such privilege was completely beyond the scope of Ben’s imagination. He
tried to picture Lux growing up in the Imperial City, learning to negotiate the
political intrigues, survive the regular scandals and bloodlettings, all while
wooing his childhood sweetheart and trying to be a good man.
 
You couldn’t be a good man in Rome. Maybe that was why Lux had left. And he was
right.
 
As quickly as it had arisen, the anger completely drained away. Ben was filled
with a terrible sorrow. Why did the world have to be like this? Earlier Lux had
rambled about the stupidity of war, and declared that the world should just
stop having them. As though simply saying ‘stop’ was enough to end the
nightmare of daily life across the Empire. It was nonsense, drunken nonsense,
childish rambling – but he was right. Wars were stupid. Cruelty was stupid. And
the whole world was at war with each other. People should just – just stop.
Stop being cruel, stop being hateful, hurtful. They should simply – love one
another.
 
I love you.
 
Blinking back tears, Ben stroked a scrap of hair from Lux’s forehead, and
imagined the headache he would wake to. He should boil up some willow bark, and
make sure there was plenty of water. Poor, innocent Lux. He was going to feel
so ashamed in the morning, when he remembered Calpurnius jeering at him. Ben
knew all about the shame of the morning after. Lux had a difficult day ahead of
him. He would wake, physically wretched and deeply unhappy, probably afraid
that he had made a fool of himself, but unable to remember how.
 
He asked me not to go, Ben thought. Just before he fell asleep, he said, ‘don’t
go’.
 
“I will never leave you,” he swore. No matter what happened. No matter if Lux
married his sweetheart and filled the house with little Patricians. No matter
even if he called Ben’s enemies his friends and came home drunk with Calpurnius
every night.
 
There was nothing Lux could do that would persuade Ben to leave him. He would
follow him in this life and the next.
 
Tenderly he bent over, and kissed his master’s forehead.
~*~
 
When he woke up he didn’t even know he was hung-over. He literally thought that
he was dying.
 
Eventually, however, he stopped vomiting, and was able to concentrate on the
particular joy that was his headache.
 
“What did I do?” he groaned, when Ben propped him up and offered him more
willow water. “All I can remember is… oh gods.” He’d spent the night extolling
Fortunata’s remembered virtues like a schoolboy describing their first crush.
“He must think I’m such a fool.”
 
“Don’t worry what Calpurnius thinks of you,” Ben said, sounding surprisingly
caustic. “His good esteem is scarcely worth having.”
 
Lux rubbed his temples, and squinted at Ben. “I need his good esteem,” he
pointed out. “The man’s going to be family.”
 
Ben’s face twitched in a distinctly bitter smile, then smoothed back out into
blandness. “Of course.”
 
Great. I just hurt his feelings – again. Lux shut his eyes and dropped his head
back against the cushions Ben had arranged behind him. I keep reminding him of
Fortunata. He’s probably jealous. He let out another groan. I can’t blame him.
If he was marrying someone else I’d probably want to kill them both.
 
“Gods, I’m such a bastard. I don’t know how you put up with me.”
 
Ben said nothing. Lux opened his mouth to start apologizing some more (he had
spent most of the morning apologizing for the mess he was making) when
something cold touched his forehead. He flinched, and opened one eye. Ben was
holding a wet cloth, wrapped around a fistful of ice.
 
Apparently the gods were benevolent after all. “Ice. I didn’t know there was
any left.”
 
“It was delivered yesterday, while you were out.”
 
Lux sighed and leaned his head into the touch, letting the coolness steal
through him. “That is so good.” There was a little bowl of ice melting on the
table by the bed. All the way from the Alps. Gods bless the slaves who hacked
it out of the mountain, and the ship it sailed in to get here. “How many
barrels did we get?”
 
“Eight.” Ben frowned. “It’s been melting faster than usual. I can’t understand
it. Last time I went down there, the icehouse was warmer than it should be.”
 
“That’s strange.”
 
“Yes. I’m wondering if it is related to the problem with the fish.”
 
“Problem with the fish?” Lux was not at his clearest this morning, and it took
a while to remember. “Oh, that’s right. They keep dying. What does that have to
do with the ice?”
 
“I thought perhaps the natural springs are hotter than they should be. One of
the shepherds sent word that several sheep had died – she said of fumes.”
 
“We should sacrifice to Mefitas.” Lux shook his head. “Not now though. I can’t
think about that at the moment. My head hurts too much.” He snuck a hand out
and plucked a jagged shard of ice, crunched it. “Gods, I needed that.”
 
“Are you feeling better now?”
 
“A bit. This is helping.” He took another portion of ice and let it melt in his
mouth. This was bliss. “I remember,” he mused, “digging the pits in the desert
so we could pack it with straw and make ice overnight. First time they put me
to that job, I thought I was being punished for something, that they were
making a fool of the new boy. I remember pouring the water in, and thinking,
‘They must think I am an idiot. How could you ever get ice in the desert?’ But
in the morning, when we took off the covering of shields, there it was. Ice.”
 
Ben smiled, and nodded wistfully. “It’s because the air is so dry,” he pointed
out, “and it gets so cold at night. It’s a shame it doesn’t work here. It would
make life much easier.”
 
“Who invented that, anyway? They should have a public holiday in their honor.”
 
“Actually, my father told me that we invented it.” Ben wrung out the cool
cloth, then settled it on Lux’s forehead. “He said it was a metaphor for the
gift of manna in the desert.”
 
“Huh. So, your man Moses invented it?”
 
“Moishe. Yes. Or that is what we were told.”
 
“Hmmm.” Ben was massaging Lux’s temples now. Lux relaxed beneath the touch. He
was still feeling woozy from the drink, but as long as he concentrated on the
sensation of Ben’s fingers he would die a happy man. “I could lie here all
day.” He sighed. “But I need to get up. I should send to Calpurnius and make
sure he hasn’t decided to call the whole thing off because I’m such a buffoon.”
 
“You don’t have to worry about that. Calpurnius showed no indication of
breaking the contract.” Ben’s thumbs were now tracing patterns through the
cloth on Lux’s forehead. “And he said he would come back today, to see you in
the afternoon.”
 
“Oh, gods. He did, didn’t he?” Lux frowned as a sudden memory surfaced. ‘Call
me Lux….’ ‘That’s the funniest thing I ever heard.’ “Merda. I didn’t make a
pass at you in front of him or anything?”
 
“You didn’t. But it wouldn’t have bothered him if you had.”
 
Another thought surfaced. “He said something – what did he say – something
about you putting me to bed.” Ben’s hands stopped moving. Lux opened his eyes,
and pushed back a little, to get a better look at Ben’s face. It was shut down
again, wooden, as it had been when Lux asked him about the cook. A horrible
suspicion rose in his chest. “Oh gods, Ben, he didn’t…?”
 
Ben stood up. “I will get more ice.”
 
Lux reached out and grabbed his hand. “Don’t go,” he said to Ben’s hunched
back. “I’m not angry. I just – I just – I need to know. Did he – ?” He couldn’t
say it.
 
“Why do you need to know?”
 
“I just –”
 
Ben spun on his heel, and was suddenly glaring down at him, utterly enraged. He
had gone from wooden to furious in the space of a heartbeat. “What am I
supposed to do? Write you a list of every man I had to lie with?” He threw out
an arm, as though indicating an invisible scroll. The sound he made was almost
entirely unlike a laugh. “Believe me. It would be a long list. My previous
master was a popular man, and his parties were very well attended. You might as
well assume that I’ve been had by half the social elite of Pompeii and
Herculaneum, while the other half watched.”
 
Lux stared at Ben. He couldn’t breathe. He had known what was expected of
slaves, but other than attending one such party thrown in his honor when he
came of age, he had never thought about what it would be like to be the slave.
 
Gods, he had hated that party. He hadn’t been able to do anything – he hadn’t
even wanted to. The guests – mainly other boys who until then he had considered
friends – had thought it was hilarious that he couldn’t get it up. The slave
girl was a Nubian, totally out of her skull on poppies, and the other men had
spread her out over the table and taken her in turns. She had been crying at
one point, and the man fucking her face pulled out, and poured wine into her
mouth to shut her up. Lux had to leave the room when three of his schoolmates
decided to take her at the same time. He had stood at the bottom of the garden
with his fingers in his ears, but even then he could hear her shuddering moans
– impossible to tell whether it was pleasure, or pain, or both.
 
The evening had ended when they carried her to Lux’s chamber, where they
assumed his performance would improve. He had sat at the bottom of the bed all
night, watching her sleep, and wondering whether all adult life would be like
this, why his father hadn’t warned him, and how long it would be before he too
was a rapist.
 
He hadn’t thought about that party in years – deliberately forced it out of his
mind, imagined it was a unique, unusual situation. And the slave on that
occasion had been a woman, after all. Somehow Lux hadn’t thought about that
kind of thing happening to men.
 
He had known Ben was a slave, and he had known he was originally a puer
delicatus, but he simply hadn’t realized it could be that bad.
 
He had been staring at Ben for too long. He pulled himself up into a sitting
position, cleared his throat, and blurted out the stupidest question he could
have asked. “Gods, Ben – how many?”
 
“I don’t know!” Ben was suddenly shouting. “I have no idea. I never had any
idea. I wasn’t even conscious the first time. It could have been three, it
could have been ten. I just don’t know.”
 
“Oh, Ben.” Lux’s voice broke. “I am so sorry.”
 
Ben opened his mouth as though to yell again, then looked away. When he spoke,
it was so quiet Lux could barely hear. “I’m sorry I shouted.”
 
“Ben? Don’t worry. I’m not about to beat you. You have a right to be angry.”
 
“But not to shout at you.”
 
“Hey, you can hit me if it makes you feel better.”
 
That caused a flicker of a smile. “I don’t want to hit you, but thank you for
the offer.”
 
Lux reached out, and touched Ben’s arm. “Sit down.” He patted the sheet. Ben
sat, and covered his eyes. “Ben, I don’t want a list of everyone. But I do need
to know. Was Calpurnius one of them?”
 
Ben’s skin darkened in shame. “Yes,” he whispered.
 
“And – did he hurt you?”
 
Ben shook his head. “Not the way you think,” he managed. “In fact, if you asked
him, he would tell you I enjoyed it.” Ben twisted his body a little from the
waist, as though about to stand up again. Lux took hold of his hand and
squeezed. Ben froze. “You might as well know everything,” he said. His voice
and face were raw. Lux put an arm around him.
 
“Hush. It wasn’t your fault. You don’t have to tell me anything.”
 
Ben turned fully around to face him, then dropped his head, resting his
forehead on Lux’s shoulder. “I do,” he muttered. “I do have to tell you. You
need to know.”
 
“No, I don’t. Not if it hurts you to say.”
 
“Let me say it.” Ben’s voice was muffled against Lux’s tunic. Lux stroked his
head, and listened. “The fact is – the fact is that as much as I hated it, I
came to crave it. The only time I was able to forget what I am was in the – the
moment of release. And I began to look forward to the parties, because I knew
someone would…” He sobbed, then laughed. “I knew that someone would make me
come. And I knew that they would feed me wormwood or poppy wine. I would dream
about that wine. I would yearn for it. Sometimes…” Ben’s voice trailed off in
shame. “Sometimes I still do.”
 
“Oh, Ben.…”
 
“Please. Let me finish.” Ben sucked in a deep breath. “The first time I tasted
it, it was bitter. Poppy and wormwood and wine. So vile it made me gag. I had
to drink it though. There was nothing else to drink. We’d been marched as far
as the coast, and I thought I would die of thirst.”
 
“I’m sorry.”
 
“I didn’t – I didn’t know what it was for. I remember, as it began to affect
me, that I was terrified. I had no idea what was happening to me. The slave-
merchant unchained me, and took me to the boat shed. I remember a group of men,
sailors I think, and I remember them taking my clothes off. Then I don’t
remember anything at all.”
 
“That – that’s maybe a good thing.”
 
“Maybe.” Ben didn’t sound convinced. “The next day I didn’t even know what they
had done to me. I was – I was in pain. I know now from experience that I had
been – entered. It wasn’t until we arrived in I Italy that I realized what was
happening.” He paused, and swallowed. “I must sound very foolish, but I had
never even heard of such a thing. I had read the prohibitions in the Torah, of
course, but I didn’t quite understand what they meant.”
 
“Ben.…”
 
Ben rubbed his eyebrow, automatically, and carried on speaking. “The… the
captain was fond of me. He kept me for himself until we got to the market. I
was actually grateful to him at the time. That I wasn’t crammed in with the
other slaves. I was sick, and everything hurt, but he seemed so kind. When I
was well enough, he let me above decks, and showed me to the crew, showed me
how the boat worked. The riggings, the sails.…” His voice trailed off. “He gave
me what I thought was medicine, and let me sleep on his bed. I thought, perhaps
I had found a friend. But then.…”
 
Oh, please, Ben, stop. Don’t make me hear this.
 
“And then, when we got to the auction, the goods were described to the
audience. I saw him coming up to stand next to me – thought that he might be
about to save me, to buy my freedom perhaps. He smiled at me, and I smiled
back.” Ben’s face twisted at the memory. “I was still smiling when he started
to tell the crowd about – about my charms. The whole time he was talking he was
stroking my head. That was when I heard that I was a puer delicatus, and
realized what had been done.”
 
Oh, my poor love. Lux pressed a kiss to Ben’s head, and held on a little
tighter, trying to squeeze reassurance through the hug.
 
“And I swore an oath to El Shaddai that no matter what they did to me, I would
never drink anything but water.” His voice choked. “I broke my vow.”
 
Lux flinched. He knew how serious it was for a man to break a holy vow. Ben
must think that his God was punishing him. “Not your fault,” he said, gruffly.
“Go on.”
 
“One I morning I woke up, and my mouth was bitter. And – it suddenly hit me. I
loved that bitter taste. I was still sick and dizzy from it, but I wanted more.
Despite the bitterness, I knew it would make me happy for a while. So, no.” His
voice stumbled, then he ploughed on. “To answer your question: Calpurnius did
not rape me. And Nicia is right. I am nothing but a whore.”
~*~
 
There. He had said it. He had told Lux the whole ugly truth of him, and now it
was done. Lux would never love him again.
 
And, that was a good thing. It was the best thing for Lux – because Lux was a
good man. A man who had loved one woman all his life, and should finally be
free to marry her without guilt, or confusion about another attachment. And if
it broke Ben’s heart that was a price he was prepared to pay, for Lux’s
happiness. Please please please, he thought to Heaven. He squeezed his eyes
shut in anguish, at the memory of Cassia, the day the old master sold her to
the fuller. The day she left her children, the day she lost her most beloved.
Please, Adoshem, don’t let Lux sell me. Please, don’t let him decide to put me
away entirely. Please, please – allow me to at least see him, and serve him
every day.
 
“Ben.” Lux’s voice was low. Ben kept his eyes shut, his head resting on Lux’s
shoulder, and pretended not to hear. This is the last time. He’ll never, ever
hold me like this again. “Ben,” Lux repeated, louder. Reluctantly Ben lifted
his head and opened his eyes, bracing himself for the inevitable rejection.
 
“Ben.” Lux spoke a third time. His eyes were bright, shining and wet. For a
moment, Ben didn’t understand, but then Lux blinked, and the wetness spilled
over, and flooded down his face.
 
Ben panicked. “Don’t cry, Master.”
 
“I don’t want to be your master. I’m your lover. I’m your friend.”
 
Ben was dizzy. Lux was supposed to reject him. This was not making sense.
 
“Did – did you hear what I was telling you? You understand, don’t you? I’m a –”
 
“Don’t say it.” Lux’s eyes flashed with anger. “I never want to hear you call
yourself a whore again. One thing I know about you, Ben, you’re not a liar.”
 
“Liar?”
 
“That’s the only thing I’ll ever ask you. You don’t say bad things about
yourself ever again. You don’t ever call yourself a whore. Those things that
happened, they weren’t your fault. They were done to you. It’s the people who
did it who should be ashamed. Not you. Never you.”
 
Ben raised a hand to his own face. It came back wet. He stared at it, confused.
 
“Ben,” Lux’s voice was gentle. “I don’t know much about your God, but He is not
punishing you for your sins. When I was serving in Jerusalem, I heard a –” he
stuttered and looked pale. “I heard a dying man.” He cleared his throat. A
crucified man, Ben thought, given the expression on Lux’s face. He cringed from
his own worst memory, but it was too late. Rishon, he thought, oh my brother.
The image of Rishon flashed before his eyes, a nightmare made flesh. Lux was
still lost in some sorrow of his own. “He was one of your Rabbis, I think.”
Lux’s voice jerked Ben out of his trance, and he blinked, trying to focus on
what the other man was saying. “A teacher of the law. An old man anyway. I
remember – I remember him talking to your God. You know the way people rave
when they’re –” He shook his head, harshly, clearly unable to describe it
further. “You know how they get. And, he was talking about a judgment. About
how your God will require an account on the Last Day.”
 
Ben stared at Lux, bewildered. He couldn’t understand why Lux was telling him
this story. How was the murder of an old man and talk about the Judgment
supposed to comfort him?
 
His bewilderment must have shown on his face. Lux swiped his eyes with the back
of his hand, and started again. “I’m not telling this right. He was a little
old grey-beard. He looked like he should have been sitting in a chair, watching
his grandchildren play, and we nailed him to a.…” Lux choked, and couldn’t say
the word. “He scared me,” he blurted out. “That’s what I’m trying to say. That
man terrified me. I still dream about him. Because – because I knew that he was
right. We will have to answer for the dead of Jerusalem. And.…” he leaned
forward and fixed his eyes on Ben’s. “And so will all the men who hurt you. Do
you understand? There will come a day when everything is paid. When that old
man is avenged. When you are avenged.” Lux blew out a puff of air. “That’s what
I was trying to say.”
 
For a long time Ben said nothing.
 
“Ben? Are you alright? Ben?”
 
“My brother’s name was Rishon.” Ben heard his voice. It sounded perfectly calm.
He hadn’t said his brother’s name in nine years. “He defended the City Walls.
The last time I saw him he –” He stopped. Why was he telling Lux this?
 
How could he not?
 
“The last time I saw him….” Ben's voice turned to dust in his throat. By the
time he started again his mouth was dry. “It was the day the Temple fell. He
was on a… he had been… he....” He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tell this story.
He just couldn’t.
 
No. He had to. He needed Lux to know. Desperately he tried again, but couldn’t
push the words past his lips. He stared at Lux, despairing, then hopelessly
shrugged. He had no words. He gestured instead, stretching out both his arms.
 
“Gods.” Lux’s face was white and agonized. “We crucified him, didn’t we?”
 
Mute, Ben nodded.
 
“Ben, can you ever forgive me?”
 
“I don’t know.” The admission tore Ben’s soul. “I never wanted to love a Roman.
I should have hated you on sight.” Lux winced. “I’m sorry.” Ben rested his hand
on Lux’s cheek, stroking little circles with his thumb. “I don’t hate you,” he
whispered. “I could never hate you. The first moment I saw you, I loved you.”
 
“I felt the same.” Lux’s voice was low. “It was like I’d known you forever,
across a thousand lifetimes. I’d loved you forever, and you wouldn’t even tell
me your name.”
 
Ben was suddenly smiling, even though tears were blinding him.
 
“You know my name,” he said. “You know me.”
 
“I know you.” Lux lifted a hand, and placed it on Ben’s hair, drawing their
mouths together. Ben’s heart broke with it. So beautiful. He opened his mouth
to the kiss, and let himself drown.
~*~
 
Ben was everything. The whole world was made up of Ben, and nothing else
mattered, but those arms, those lips, that thrusting tongue, and oh – that
sweet heat. Ben’s thigh was pressed up between his legs, grinding against his
cock, and his musk was all around him, flooding his senses, gathering him up
out of misery and grief.
 
“Ben,” he moaned, and spread his legs. Ben moved above him, and covered him,
sheltering him with his body and his strength. Lux suddenly knew what he
wanted. “Be in me,” Lux whispered. “Please.” Ben stiffened and froze. “Now,”
Lux begged. “I need it. Please, gods, Ben. Fuck me. Fuck me now.”
 
Ben’s face went desperate and wild. “Lux,” he cried out, and then he was
jerking – practically convulsing as he came.
 
“Sorry,” he whispered when he was done. “You took me by surprise.”
 
Lux grinned, even despite his physical frustration. “Never mind. You can fuck
me next time.” He sat up, tugged off his soiled tunic. Ben rolled off him and
flopped onto his side. He looked dazed, his eyes still practically black, the
pupils were so huge, but utterly happy. He gestured at Lux’s groin.
 
“I should.…”
 
“Don’t worry.” Lux lazily started pulling his cock. “I’ll take care of it. You
were up all night looking after me. Just fall asleep now.”
 
Ben smiled, and closed his eyes, resting his hand on Lux’s thigh. Lux propped
himself up on his elbow to get a better view.
 
“Oh my gods.”
 
Lux froze at the woman’s voice. With a sense of dread he lifted his gaze.
 
There, in the arch of the doorway, stood Fortunata.
 
He hadn’t even heard her come in.
~*~
 
“Oh my gods.”
 
Ben was sliding over the verge of sleep when the voice broke in.
 
“Oh gods.” Lux’s voice just above him, echoed the woman’s words.
 
He blinked awake, and tried to focus. Lux’s eyes were wide and staring. Ben
followed his gaze.
 
A lady in fine clothing was frozen in the doorway. Whoever she was, she had
dressed for a celebration. Her golden hair was carefully braided, and woven
round her head in a slightly antique style. Her gown was long and modest, but
beneath her feathered stole her shoulders were bare. She even, unusually for a
respectable Patrician lady, wore a touch of makeup: her lips were stained berry
red.
 
She would have been very beautiful, but her face was twisted in pain. Ben
scrambled off the bed, tugging his disarranged clothing back into place.
 
And then –
 
“Fortunata,” Lux said. Ben reeled back in shock.
 
No, please. Not her....
 
“Lux,” the woman – Fortunata said. Her voice was shaking. “I – oh gods. You’re
just like him.”
 
“Fortunata – I’m sorry,” Lux scrambled off the bed, nearly tripping over his
feet. He steadied himself with one hand on the wall. “I can explain.” He cast a
glance at Ben, then flinched. He looked back at Fortunata and flinched again.
 
“What? What is there to explain?” The woman’s voice was leaden, her face heavy
with grief. “I thought you were different. All this time. And you’re just like
all the rest of them.”
 
“I don’t… who are you talking about?”
 
“My father,” she said. “He was talking about you this morning. He was laughing.
I thought – I just wanted to make sure you were alright. I know – I know how he
used to upset you. And –” her mouth twisted up, and she bit her bright red lip.
“I wanted to surprise you.” There was a pause, then she smiled a terrible
smile. “Seems like I succeeded.”
 
Lux flushed suddenly, as though only just realizing he was naked, and pulled a
sheet off the bed, wrapping it toga style around his shoulder and hips. “I
didn’t mean –”
 
“What?” Her tone was sharp. “You didn’t mean what? You didn’t mean for me to
find out? You thought you could keep a puer delicatus on the side and I’d never
know?”
 
“He’s not a puer delicatus.” Lux flushed, then covered his mouth, as though
alarmed by his show of temper. “He’s my Primus.”
 
She shook her head. “Don’t lie to me.” She sounded, more than anything, very
tired and sad. “I’ve seen him before.”
 
“You’ve seen him?” Lux stared between both of them, then rubbed his face,
confused. “You two have met?”
 
Ben shook his head, fractionally. He had no memory of ever having met this
woman.
 
“I don’t suppose you’d remember,” Fortunata said, coolly. “My father was gifted
with your services for a week. He had done your master some favor, and you were
the reward.”
 
“I….” Ben stared at her. There were periods in time which were jumbled in his
memory. He knew he had been loaned to several people over the years, but the
incidents tended to blur into one. “No. I don’t remember.”
 
She looked at him condescendingly. For a moment her expression was
frighteningly like her father’s. Then there was a flash of something worse –
still contempt, but mixed in with it – pity. “Well,” she said. “At least this
time you seem to be sober.”
 
Ben turned his head away in shame. “Please,” he asked, in a low voice. “I’m
intruding on family matters. May I be excused?”
 
“You stay,” Fortunata spat out at him. “You stay right there.”
 
Ben froze in place, and bowed his head. She was blazing and furious, and he
couldn’t meet her eyes.
 
“Don’t talk to him like that!” Lux sounded outraged, and Ben felt his hand drop
on his shoulder.
 
“Why not? It’s alright for you to fuck him, but I can’t even raise my voice?”
 
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Lux said, his voice thick.
“Please.” His hand left Ben’s shoulder. Ben opened his eyes. Lux was stepping
towards Fortunata. She stepped back, holding her hands in front of her like a
shield. Lux reached out to her, and stopped, hands hovering just over her
shoulders, not quite touching. “Fortunata,” he whispered. “You know I love
you.”
 
Ben swallowed against the pain in his throat. All this time, all these
disasters, and he had thought nothing could hurt him anymore. But hearing
that….
 
“I thought you loved him,” she replied, tilting her chin in Ben’s direction.
“You certainly looked like you did just now.” Her eyes glistened with unshed
tears and challenge. “You were looking at him like you used to look at me.”
 
“I’m sorry, mia carissima.” The endearment cracked in Lux’s throat. “I do love
Ben. But –”
 
“You love him? You love your slave?” Her voice rose incredulously. “You
actually admit that to me?”
 
Lux nodded, and hugged his arms around his chest, dropped his gaze to his feet.
 
She looked at Lux, then looked at Ben, and then slumped. “I waited,” she said,
tonelessly.
 
“I know.”
 
“My whole youth,” she said, “eleven years, I waited. And this morning – this
morning, I thought, I can’t wait anymore. I’ll go to him, surprise him. I –”
she gestured in frustration at her finery, the gown, the stole, the bangles –
then grasped at the heavy necklace around her throat. With a grunt she tore it
loose, and flung it on the floor. The beads scattered, and bounced across the
room. “I got dressed up for you,” she choked out. “Like a fool. I had my hair
done for you. I was so – so –” She dashed the tears off her face with an angry
hand. Lux tried to reach out to her again, and she glared. “I was so happy,
thinking that we would be together again. Just the thought of seeing you. And
all the time you – and you –”
 
“I know, I’m sorry.”
 
“You pissed it all away.” She didn’t sound angry at all anymore, just terribly,
horribly sad.
 
“Fortunata, I just – I tried to wait. I really did. And, there’s never been
another woman. Not in all those years.” He shuffled, and looked down, as if
ashamed of his words. “Not,” he added, “that that’s an excuse. I mean – I don’t
have an excuse. I just – it was so long. I just – I couldn’t wait.”
 
She shook her head. “That’s not it,” she said. “I’m not a fool. I never
expected you to be faithful. You’re a man. I know what men do. I just –” She
pointed at Ben and grimaced with disgust. “I just never thought you’d resort to
fucking the slaves. I suppose I should just be glad he’s not a child.”
 
“What kind of pervert do you think I am?” Lux yelled, suddenly furious.
“Besides,” he hunched back in on himself, and dropped his voice. “Ben’s not a
slave.” Fortunata snorted her contempt at the nonsensical statement, and Lux
flushed even harder. “I mean, he is a slave. I know that. Technically. But –
it’s not – it’s not what it looks like.”
 
“How can you tell me it’s not what it looks like?” Fortunata stabbed a pointy
finger, first at Lux, then at Ben, incredulously, then threw her arms up in the
air. “It’s exactly what it looks like. He’s a puer delicatus, and you’re his
master. I heard you. You asked him to – I couldn’t believe it, I thought I was
imagining things. What else is there?”
 
“You heard us?”
 
She gestured at the door. “I have some advice for you. If you’re going to roll
over and be his cinaedus, at least make sure to throw the bolt down on the
door. You were lucky this time. Imagine if one of the slaves had walked in. Or
my father.”
 
Lux covered his face.
 
“Don’t worry,” Fortunata said. She gave an unexpected smile, thin, and pained.
“I won’t tell anyone.”
 
“Thank you,” Lux whispered. “And – you know I’ll do anything you want me to.
I’m not – well. I’m not a good man, I know that. I know I hurt you. But I’ll be
a good husband. I’ll not cheat on you with the slaves, you won’t have to worry
about me filling up the house with bastards, or anything like that.”
 
“But you’ll not give up on this one, will you?” She jerked her thumb at Ben.
“You’ll not cheat on me with other women, or other slaves, but you’ll cheat on
me with him.”
 
Lux opened his mouth, and floundered. Ben held his breath, waiting to hear the
answer.
 
“I can’t leave him,” Lux whispered. “I’m sorry. There was just – I came back
for you. I really did. I just – I never could have imagined Ben. It just… it
just happened.”
 
“It just happened?” Her voice was caustic. “That’s your explanation?”
 
“There – there’s something about Ben. I don’t know what it is. I’m sorry.”
 
“A slave. You cast me aside for a used-up puer delicatus.”
 
“Fortunata –”
 
“Sorry,” she flung up a hand to signal stop. “Of course, I shouldn’t insult
him. He’s the love of your life.”
 
“It’s my fault,” Ben offered. “I started it, I –”
 
“Nobody cares what you think,” she snapped, then bit her lips.
 
“I do,” Lux snapped back, and reached out as though to take Ben’s hand. Ben
folded his hands behind his back, out of his master’s reach. Such a gesture
would only cause the woman more distress. He threw Lux an urgent glance of
warning: don’t rub her face in it. Lux nodded, and turned back to Fortunata.
 
“Fortunata, can we – can we talk about this when you’re calm? I know this was a
shock. Let me get dressed, and maybe we could go for a walk. We could go to the
–”
 
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you.” Her chest heaved, and her lips
narrowed. She seemed to be fighting words, fighting anger. Ben knew what he was
seeing. He did the same thing himself, every day. As he watched, she forced the
emotions down. All the anger, all the scorn, all the misery and pain. By the
time she had mastered herself, her features were remote – as cool as the desert
in the hours before dawn.
 
She lifted one pale shoulder in a shrug. “My father will still want us to get
married,” she pointed out. “I’m becoming an embarrassment to him, I’m so old.
And I know that you would be a good husband.” Her teeth gnawed on her lower
lip. “But I won’t ask you to do it,” she declared. “I didn’t wait eleven years
to share you with somebody else. I won’t ever ask anything of you again. I
managed so far in my life without getting married. And I wasn’t particularly
looking forward to childbirth. It’s probably for the best.”
 
“Oh, Fortunata,” Lux groaned. “I’ve ruined your life.”
 
“Life is what it is.” She straightened her back, and smoothed out her robe. She
looked across at Ben, a sharp expression in her eye. “And Lux,” she said,
“remember you can love a slave, but they can never love you back.”
 
What does that mean? She thinks she knows slaves? She thinks she knows better
than we do ? Ben broke his long silence. “I do love him,” he protested. He
reached out and squeezed Lux’s hand. Fortunata raised an eyebrow.
 
“Really? I would have thought you were broken by now. At the very least, don’t
hurt him.”
 
“I won’t.”
 
She nodded, then stepped forward swiftly, and kissed Lux on the cheek. Then she
turned, with a rustle of fabric, and left the room.
 
Lux sank back down to sit on the bed and covered his face with his hands. His
shoulders were shaking.
 
Oh, Lux… Ben was so full of conflicting emotion that he couldn’t even process
what he was feeling. His heart was pounding, his palms were sweating, and on
the one hand he was relieved, selfishly, painfully relieved, that Lux would not
now be marrying Fortunata – on the other hand, Lux was sobbing like his soul
was being torn out of him, and Ben would have done anything to make that pain
stop.
 
There was nothing he could do though. Nothing at all, other than sit beside Lux
and hold him, while he wept.
~*~
 
Three days. Three days since he ruined Fortunata’s life.
 
“You have to eat something,” Ben said. His voice was perfectly balanced between
irritation and concern. “At the very least, drink something.”
 
“I’m fine,” Lux said, listlessly. Hyrcanus was lying across the bench with his
head on his lap, looking like he shared his misery. Lux stroked his head. “I’ll
just sit here for a little longer. The dog will keep me company. You will,
won’t you, Hyrcanus?”
 
Hyrcanus lifted his head, and actually nodded like a human being, then dropped
back into indolence.
 
Ben was still hovering. Lux waited for it – the motherly nagging that he should
eat something, drink something – do something. At least, today, Ben had got him
out of his room.
 
“You haven’t taken your walk today. You know the muscles will seize up if you
don’t exercise them.”
 
“I’ll do it later.”
 
“It will be dark later.”
 
“Maybe I don’t want anyone to see me,” Lux snapped. “Maybe that’s why I’m
sitting at the bottom of the garden under an ugly tree.”
 
Ben rubbed his eyebrow with his thumbnail, and looked innocent. “Well,
actually, I think it’s quite a lovely tree. And the birds obviously think so –
although they are probably attracted to the seed pods, rather than the tree
itself. However, if you look here.…” he reached out to a branch, and pulled it
into Lux’s line of sight “you’ll see that the leaves –”
 
“Ben?”
 
“What?”
 
Lux nearly laughed. He knew a distraction technique when he saw one. “I’m not
really interested in the tree.”
 
“Ah.”
 
“Just, do me a favor, and tell the household not to let Calpurnius in.”
 
Ben frowned. “It’s been three days. We probably got away with it the first time
– he may have thought you were still hungover – but we can’t keep putting him
off. You’ll have to deal with him at some point. He could get nasty.”
 
Lux closed his eyes. He’d read the letters – Ben was right. Calpurnius could
get very nasty. “Not today.”
 
Ben nodded, clearly not happy with the situation. Lux tapped his leg with his
foot, and tried his own distraction technique to make Ben smile. “You think we
can get Hyrcanus to eat him?”
 
“I think Hyrcanus has too much taste.” The corner of Ben’s mouth twitched a
little. “We wouldn’t want the household’s guard dog to get indigestion.”
 
Lux nodded at the weak joke.
 
“But you will eat,” Ben persisted.
 
Lux sighed. “Later on,” he said. “If you’ll eat with me. Just –” He thought
quickly. The meal had to be right for Ben too, but Ben wasn’t supposed to know
yet. What would be suitable? “Just fruit.”
 
“Bread?”
 
“No bread.” Lux tucked his tongue in his cheek. Ben was going to be surprised.
At least – he hoped he would be. And he hoped he liked it.
 
“Just fruit, and water. Ice.” He shuddered. “No wine.”
 
“Mint water, ice and honey,” Ben suggested.
 
That should work with his plans for the night, shouldn’t it? “That sounds
wonderful.”
 
“I’ll go to the kitchens now, and get it ready. And I’ll make sure nobody opens
the house to Calpurnius.”
 
“Thank you.”
 
And then Ben was walking silently across the soft grass, toward the kitchens. A
tall, steady presence, broad shouldered and solid – even the way he walked
seemed to exude calm. You would never think to look at him that he had been so
badly used.
 
Lux watched him go, trying to ignore the dull ache in his heart.
 
He should be happy. Or happy enough. He had come back to Pompeii to be with his
sweetheart, and here he was, with his sweetheart. So, Ben was not the beloved
he had been pining for all these years, and somehow, between them, they had
broken a good woman’s heart. But at least they were together. That was
something, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that the only thing that mattered?
 
He didn’t believe that. He couldn’t. Fortunata mattered as well. In one
devastating blow, all her plans and hopes had been crushed. An unmarried,
childless woman had no place in society at all. She would spend the rest of her
life in her father’s household, an embarrassment to Calpurnius, a source of
familial shame. She might even be forced to be a Vestal. And it was all
completely, utterly, Lux’s fault.
 
There was no way to fix it. Lux knew it was a poor solution, but he had left
his offer of marriage open, if she did change her mind. Even though he knew how
unhappy such a marriage would be – for her, for him – and for Ben. It was the
only honorable thing for him to do.
 
Lux sighed, and shifted his leg under the weight of Hyrcanus. Now that Ben was
gone, he could reread the latest letter from Fortunata.
 
Not the latest letter, the last letter. He knew in his gut that she would never
marry him – and secretly, shamefully, he was glad of it. So here it was, in his
hand. The last letter she would ever write him.
 
He pulled it out of the pouch around his neck, and prepared to unroll it, to
punish himself again. Then he stopped.
 
What was the point of rereading it? He knew everything it said, and he couldn’t
disagree with it. She released him from his promise. She swore to keep his
secret. She would always love him. She never wanted to see him again.
 
He tucked the letter back in the pouch. Calpurnius’s latest letter was lying on
the bench next to him, still unread.
 
It would be like the previous two. An amused dissertation as to Lux’s womanish
weaknesses (apparently a true man would never have allowed his betrothed to
renounce him) and a promise on his own part to get Fortunata to behave.
 
I hope she proves you wrong, Lux thought, bitterly. She always stood up to you
before. I’ll marry her if I have to, if she asks me to, to keep her safe, but I
hope she proves you wrong.
 
If anyone could stand up to Calpurnius, it would be Fortunata. She had, after
all, stood up to the man for years.
 
For me. She did that for me.
 
Well, if there was ever anything he could do for Fortunata, he would.
 
Lux leaned back against the tree trunk, feeling the bark through his hair, and
rolled his head to feel the roughness scrape against his scalp. They didn’t
have trees like this outside of Italy. He’d called it ugly, but Ben was right.
It was a good tree. It was his favorite quiet spot in the whole property, here
in the shade beneath its leaves. He listened to the house winding down for the
day. The high voice of the women, laughing as they worked, the lower grumble of
the men. The birds that Ben had mentioned were swooping now in the branches
above his head, calling to each other, and somewhere in the garden he could
hear the chickens gossiping to each other: cluck, cluck, cluck.
 
He should get a move on, if he was going to get his surprise ready for Ben in
time.
 
Even so, he was dozing when Hyrcanus lifted his head, a low growl rumbling
through his massive chest. Lux opened his eyes and watched as the huge dog
gathered his muscles, then sprang from the bench.
 
“What is it?” he asked, though he guessed. Hyrcanus had reacted like this when
Calpurnius first visited, the night Lux got so stupidly drunk, and every time
since. Should have trusted your judgment then, my friend. Seemed Hyrcanus had
known even then that Calpurnius was not to be trusted.
 
Hyrcanus looked over his shoulder, and yipped at Lux, shook his head, then ran
the length of the garden, barking. Lux pushed himself up from the bench,
gathering his letters, and limped towards the main body of the house.
 
“No, he’s not available.” Ben’s voice, smooth and calm. “I will be sure to let
him know you called.”
 
Calpurnius’s voice, its edge of humor completely eroded, snapped back. “This is
getting beyond a joke. If he doesn’t come to me now, I am going to feel
insulted.”
 
“I will be sure to let him know.”
 
“Can’t you keep that cursed dog under control?”
 
“Well, I would, but I’m afraid he doesn’t always hear me. I suspect sometimes
that he is deaf.”
 
“Listen, I don’t care about you, or your deaf dog. I want you to go now, and
roust your master out of bed, and get him to the door. I don’t care how drunk
he is, or who or what he’s fucking. We have a wedding to arrange, and I can’t
do it if both the bride and groom are sulking in their rooms.”
 
“My master will contact you tomorrow, I’m sure. Thank you.…” Ben was pushing
the door shut, and Calpurnius literally had one foot over the threshold. Behind
him, his own slaves were looking mutinous. Lux sighed, and stepped out of the
shadows. He had to put a stop to this. He had plans for tomorrow anyway.
 
“It’s alright, Ben. I’ll see him now.”
 
“Oh, finally.” Calpurnius stood taller, and raised one hand to adjust his wig.
“You deign to speak to your father-in-law.”
 
Lux slumped. “I think you know that’s not going to happen anymore.”
 
Calpurnius glared. “I’ve taken this in good humor so far, but I think it’s time
you sorted out your priorities, young man. You know the bitch has gone to
Rome?”
 
Lux felt a surge of relief. At least she was out of the way of her father’s
anger. For once Rome was the safest place to be. “Fortunata no longer wishes to
marry me. She can go where she likes.”
 
“She should go where I like. And why should you care what she wishes?”
Calpurnius was furious. “She’s a woman. She should do what she’s told.”
 
“She never did though, did she?” Lux felt a certain satisfaction in pointing
this out. “You tried to marry her off to half the Senate, and she wouldn’t let
you. Why is she going to change her mind now, and start obeying you?”
 
“Because the stupid little bitch has talked of nothing but marrying you for
half her stupid life!” Calpurnius’s eyes blazed. “Why would she change her mind
now?” He narrowed his gaze, speculatively. “What did you do? Did you fuck her?
I don’t mind if you did, but maybe that’s it. Maybe you fucked her, and she
didn’t like it as much as she thought she would. Never mind, I can still talk
sense into her and….”
 
“I did not fuck her.” Not in the last eleven years, anyway. “And I’ll abide by
whatever decision she makes.” Lux squared his shoulders. “That she makes. Not
you. Now, if you’ll excuse me.…”
 
“Excuse you? I should have you up on charges of corruption.” Calpurnius cocked
his head to one side. “Corruption of a Roman virgin.” He shook his head. “Maybe
not. It could backfire on me. But, I’ll think of something.”
 
“I’m sure you shall. Good evening.” Lux pushed the door shut, and slammed it in
the man’s face. On the other side, he could hear Calpurnius banging the wood.
He leaned his back against it, and covered his face. “Gods,” he muttered, as
the banging finally stopped. “That was fun.”
 
“I thought you handled it very well.”
 
“Would have been better if I’d done it eleven years ago. I should have told the
prick to his face what I thought of him and his opinions. Not run off and tried
to impress him.” He sighed. “But then I’d never have met you.”
 
“We’d have met,” Ben said, in a low voice. “We were always going to meet.”
 
“That’s true.” Lux tried to imagine a world in which he had stayed and somehow
persuaded Calpurnius to let him marry Fortunata. In that world, he could still
have met Ben, although it would have been during the worst of his abuse. In
such a world, Lux would have given up on Rome for good – assuming he’d survived
the year of four Emperors – and moved to Pompeii then as well, making his
summer house his permanent home. He had always planned on abandoning the
senatorial path his family had planned out for him. If he had done all that,
eleven years ago, decided to be no more than a Pompeiian business man, then he
would have certainly had dealings with Ben’s master. Chances were that their
paths would have crossed on the social scene. It wouldn’t have been pretty.
 
Thank the gods it didn’t happen that way. He couldn’t have borne it, if he’d
had to see Ben whored.
 
“It doesn’t matter how we met,” he said. “Just, things work out for a reason.
We’re here. We’re together. We survived.” He pushed himself off the door, and
stumbled slightly at the pain in his leg. Instantly, Ben’s arm was around him.
He leant into the embrace.
 
“I have a tray prepared for you, to eat in the garden, or wherever you prefer?”
 
“Have it sent to my room.” Lux paused, staring at the fountain. Now that the
moment had come for him to make his offer, he was getting nervous, and didn’t
want to move. “There’s enough for you, isn’t there? I mean, you can join me?”
 
“Yes, there is enough for two.”
 
“Good, good.” Suddenly Lux’s heart was pounding. The – the treat he had
arranged for Ben upstairs suddenly seemed like a huge thing. It was a huge
thing. A declaration of sorts. Not just of love but – it was a risk. If word
got out just what he was celebrating with his Judean slave, he could be seen as
a traitor –
 
Word wouldn’t get out. And he had to do it. He had to do something to right the
terrible wrong that had been done to Ben, the terrible inequality between them.
 
Just do it.
 
He closed his eyes. He had to hope he was doing the right thing. “Because, I’m
going to lock the door tonight. Make sure nobody comes in and out.” He blushed.
“Actually, I’ll tell them that. Be a bit embarrassing for you to have to.”
 
Ben looked suddenly nervous. There was that quick swipe of the thumbnail across
his brow. “I’m sure that Sylviana can inform the rest of the staff.…”
 
“Oh, good.” He breathed a sigh of relief, then gestured at the elderly slave
woman crossing the court. “Sylviana. Can you tell the household? Under no
circumstances at all is anyone to come into my bed chamber until sunset
tomorrow.”
 
“Yes, Master.”
 
“Who do you want in charge tomorrow, Ben? Who’s acting Primus?”
 
Ben looked flustered. “Well, I’m sure whatever we’re doing won’t take me away
from my duties for a whole day –”
 
“Believe me,” Lux said cheerfully. “It will.”
 
“Oh. Oh, well, in that case.…” Ben licked his lip, nervously. “Nicia in the
kitchen obviously, but I think Sylviana for the financial side of things.…”
 
“You don’t trust old Nicia with the purse strings.” Lux snorted a laugh. “And
I’ll make sure to check the wine cellar, so he’d better not get too carried
away with himself.” He grinned. “Sylviana, you’re Prima for a day. Enjoy.”
 
“Yes, Master.” She flicked Ben a look of sympathy, bowed her head and went
toward the kitchen to get the tray. For a moment Lux wondered why the sympathy,
then it dawned on him.
 
“Is this going to cause you trouble working?” he asked. “I mean, you and me,
being together like this? Are they going to resent taking orders from you, if
they think we’re – you know.”
 
“It will be no worse than it already is. The women have most of them been used,
one way or another, and as far as I can tell, they pity me, particularly the
older ones who remember how it was when I first came here. Some of the men
despise me, the ones who were fortunate enough to be ugly, and were never used
that way themselves. Nicia is the only problem. He resents his own loss of
status. However, since you – spoke to him – things have improved. He may resent
me, but he is keeping his opinions, for the most part, to himself. All in all,
they do follow their duties, so long as I am fair. And they know I work as hard
as they do.” He looked puzzled. “A whole day though, that does seem –
excessive.”
 
“I have a good reason. You’ll like it.” At least, he hoped Ben would.
 
Ben still looked unconvinced. Never mind. If it didn’t work, they wouldn’t do
it again, that’s all. Lux rubbed his neck with the back of his hand. “So, they
think that this – what we have together – they think it’s just me using you,
like your last master used you?”
 
“They think you are a more just master, but I’m sorry. Yes, they think it’s the
same kind of thing.” Ben looked rueful. “Which is a good thing, really. A safe
thing, for you. They can’t imagine it being anything else. Sex is a battle, and
someone always loses.”
 
Lux shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be like that. So – so dirty.”
 
“It is what it is.”
 
“I wish – I wish I could tell people, that’s all. I wish people could know
about us. I know it’s silly – I just – I just wish I could marry you.”
 
There was a pause, as both men realized what Lux had just said. Then Ben spoke.
“A man can’t marry his slave,” he reminded him, gently.
 
“I still wish people could know how I feel.”
 
“Don’t worry what the world thinks. Adoshem knows.” Ben squeezed his hand.
“What you told me earlier, about the Last Day. It’s true. One day the secrets
of all our hearts will be revealed. And on that day the world will know how
well you loved me.”
 
“Aww, Ben.” Lux felt a childish grin spreading across his face, and ducked his
head, embarrassed. “Speaking of which… I have something to show you.”
 
“And this – something – is in your room?”
 
“It is.” Lux squinted up at the sky, through the open ceiling. “We’d better
hurry up. Don’t want to be too late.”
~*~
 
“Close your eyes.” Obediently, Ben closed his eyes. He felt – not puzzled, that
was too weak a word for it, but – anxious was too strong a word. He felt –
 
He felt all his history knocking against his ribs, his heart rate accelerating,
his mouth turning dry. He felt fear (even though he knew he need never fear
Lux, still, there it was, fear) and he felt the automatic response of lust at
unnerving stimuli, and he felt – something else. Something indescribable.
Something caught on the cusp between fear and trust, arousal and panic.
 
Lux had his hand on his back, lightly pressing between his shoulder blades.
“Don’t trip, just step through. Stand there. Don’t worry, I got the tray.”
 
Around him, in the darkness, Lux was moving, lifting things, putting them down,
making humming noises of approval, disapproval. Behind him, the bolt was
dropped heavily into place, sealing them in. Then Lux was moving again – Ben
was hyperaware of his passage through space – and put his hands on Ben’s
shoulders. “You can open your eyes now,” Lux said, in a low tone. “I don’t know
if I did it right. I just – I arranged to have all this delivered for this day,
and I’ve done some reading. I hope this – I hope this is right.”
 
Ben blinked his eyes open, then blinked again, flooding tears.
 
“Oh… it’s perfect.”
 
There, on a carefully arranged table in the center of the room, was a lamp,
already lit, and a candelabrum, already loaded with olive oil, just waiting to
be kindled. The table was laden with food, and an amphora of red wine stood
next to two goblets. And there, of course, was the tray that he had prepared in
the kitchen – mint water, ice and honey, fruits and cheese.
 
And bread. Oh, heaven. The bread.
 
He had not seen such bread in years.
 
Lux glanced at the windows. “I got the stuff delivered today, while you were at
the regular market. So, I got one of your guys to buy it for us. The wine and
oil and stuff is from Jerusalem. I hope that’s okay. And the, uh, the bread was
baked this morning in the Jewish quarter, and the fish is okay too, and the
garum sauce. It’s uhm… not scaley or whatever it is you don’t eat. It’s, uhm…
what’s the word….”
 
“Kosher,” Ben murmured.
 
“That’s right. And, uh – you don’t have to drink the wine if you don’t want to,
but it’s kosher too. I ordered it all the way from Jerusalem, when we first –
uh – well, I just thought maybe for a special occasion. And then….”
 
“And then I didn’t talk to you for weeks.”
 
“It’s alright. I kept it. So, I thought it was special, you know, your Sabbath,
our first, uh – our first Sabbath together, so.…” He trailed off, then started
again. “And I don’t know who’s supposed to light the lamps, and I don’t know
any of the blessings, so I thought, you could do your thing, you know.” He
glanced out the window. “Before it gets dark.”
 
“Of course.” Ben turned, swiftly, and kissed Lux hard on the lips. Lux flushed.
 
“You allowed to do that?”
 
“What?”
 
“Kiss me? I thought your God wasn’t too happy about that kind of thing?”
 
“You’ve been talking to too many Nazarenes.” Ben felt a crazy bubble of joy
burst up in his chest, released as a puff of laughter. Lux had offered him –
hadn’t he offered him – more? Himself? They could do that. They could do that
now. “We are told to ‘enjoy the Sabbath day,’” he whispered.
 
“Enjoy?” Lux’s eyes widened.
 
“Enjoy.” Ben stroked Lux’s face. For the first time in his life, he would let
the prohibitions of the Torah pass, let go of that long shadow of shame. This
was not that. This was not one man taking another and the sin being on their
head – this was love. Not one man taking, but both men giving, both sharing in
the deepest intimacy they could. He couldn’t explain that though. Not in words.
But he could show it: he would show Lux later. He kissed him again, hurriedly.
“But we should start now, before dusk falls. I have to set the lights.” A
woman’s job, but that was alright. This was their Sabbath, their home.
 
When Ben had been a child, there had been so many round the Sabbath table. And
for all the noise the children made normally, on this day, for this meal, they
were peaceful. The whole day had been – peace. Shalom. As though Some Other One
sat at the table with them, a kindly elder, a best friend, a beloved. They
loved This One, for whom they were always on their best, and happiest,
behavior.
 
Strange, how Ben hadn’t thought of that – hadn’t been able to bear the thought
– for so many years. Back then he, Ben, had been the youngest son – yet now,
strangely – he was the head of the table. The head of the house. And Lux – the
man he must never call Master again – understood that, was happy with it. Lux
was more than happy. He shone with it. He was luminous. As the little wicks
caught and the flames from the candelabrum licked into life, the room became…
heavy, warm... imminent with the Presence of the Shabbat Kallah. Lux’s eyes
widened, like a little boy’s, as though he felt it too, while Ben spoke the
blessings, broke the bread, poured the wine.
 
And then – and then –
 
And oh, everything was perfect. For a day. A perfect day.
~*~
Lux couldn’t stop grinning. Neither could Ben. Ever since their shared Sabbath
they had been knocking shoulders and elbows, standing too close, then pulling
away, bashful and happy, and trying to hide their new comfort with each other.
 
Two days after the Sabbath, as the shadows were shortening to late morning, Lux
cornered Ben inside the ice house. Ben ducked his head and grinned. Lux glanced
around to make sure nobody was in hearing distance, then placed his arms on
either side of Ben’s shoulders, and trapped him against the wall. Ben raised
his eyebrows, trying to look innocent, and failing completely. Lux grinned, and
licked his lips. “Someone’s going to realize you fucked me,” he muttered in
Ben’s ear – then poked his chest, teasingly. “You’ve got to stop smirking like
that.”
 
“The way you’re smirking?” Ben poked him back, then used his superior weight to
flip him against the wall, and tickled. “As I recall, you liked it.”
 
“Not fair!” Lux wriggled, and pulled free, panting. “We have to stop messing
around like this.”
 
“You’re the master,” Ben pointed out, reasonably enough. “You can do what you
like.”
 
“I know, but what if –”
 
“What if I let something slip, you mean?”
 
“What if?”
 
Ben pondered. For a moment, Lux thought he would get a sensible answer, but
then Ben’s face quirked up again. “I suppose I’d have to be disciplined.”
 
Lux rolled his eyes, and gave in to the spirit of frivolity. “Disciplined?
Privately, I suppose?”
 
“In your room. Obviously.”
 
“It wouldn’t work.” Lux shook his head, and grinned. “You’d still come out
looking smug.”
 
“I’d try to look suitably chastened. Maybe –”
 
The earth shook again. Lux scowled at the dirt beneath his feet, the dust
puffing up around his ankles. Pompeii was prone to mini quakes, but today had
already had more than its usual quota, and it was distracting him from a
perfectly smutty conversation.
 
Ben was still looking at him with innocent eyes. Lux remembered what they had
been talking about, but he had lost the edge off his silliness, and sighed.
 
“We should try to be a bit more discreet,” he pointed out. “People might talk.”
 
“They wouldn’t dare say anything against you.”
 
“Not to my face. Nor yours. But you know the way gossip trickles out.” Lux
shook his head. “We’ll just have to stay professional in public. If we stick to
our Sabbaths, but don’t tell them that’s what it is, then they’ll just think
it’s a master taking his pleasure. We have to be more careful.”
 
“I have no intention of letting anyone know about our Sabbaths.” Ben sobered
quickly. “I would never risk your safety like that.”
 
Lux nodded. “I know. I’m a Citizen of Rome, and devoted to the Emperor. Nobody
needs to know anything else.” He reached out and stroked Ben’s eyebrow for him.
“But we’ll both be careful. Nicia’s already angry enough, if kitchen gossip is
to be believed.”
 
“Nicia’s always angry. And, you listen to kitchen gossip?” Ben sounded almost
convincing in his surprise.
 
“Of course I do. People only shut up when they actually see me. So, I just sit
in a corner, and nobody sees me. I’m good at being invisible. My whole family
is. How do you think we survived all this time? The year of Four Emperors.” He
shuddered. “From what I hear, I was safer on the battlefield. I’m surprised any
of the Old Families survived at all.”
 
Ben looked away. “That was the year –”
 
“I know, Ben. I know.” The year Jerusalem fell. He was a fool to bring it up.
He leaned forward, and kissed Ben’s cheek, softly. “Just – life’s fragile, you
know? You and me, we have to learn to be invisible. Just for a while. Just till
–” He held his hands up. Eight fingers. “Just till you’re thirty. Then I can
legally free you, and we’ll – well, we’ll run away together. Get you a big hat.
Have an adventure. Open a little farm in Spain.”
 
“Spain.” Ben smiled. “I’d like that.”
 
“And you know what? I know we’ve got to be invisible, and behave ourselves and
all that stuff, but I don’t care who hears you call me Lux. If I say you can,
what’s it to them? I don’t care.”
 
“Lux.” Ben lifted his eyes, and the bright whiteness of them glinted in the
gloom.
 
Finally, after too long kissing each other, they drew back, panting.
 
“We’ve got to work,” Ben admitted. “We are supposed to inspect the vineyards
this afternoon.”
 
“True.” Lux shuffled, slouching a little so his robe covered his obvious bulge.
They really had to stop doing this kind of thing. “So, my beloved,” he grinned
at Ben’s blush, then tried to change the subject. “What are you doing down here
anyway? Hiding from the heat?”
 
“I was checking to see what the problem is with the barrels….”
 
Lux frowned. “What, the barrels, again? Please don’t tell me all the ice
melted? We’ve had it less than a week this time.”
 
“Well, not all of it by any means, but more than I’d expect. The barrels should
retain the coolness for at least a couple of months at this depth. Packed
together as tightly as they are they should create their own bubble of
temperature, but it seems that –”
 
Before Ben could finish his scientific explanation, the earth lurched again
beneath them.
 
“Oh.…” Lux breathed out when it was over, trying to slow the racing of his
heart. “That was a bad one. You think it has anything to do with this?” He
pointed at the ice barrels, but the ground shook again. This time, the surge
went on. Lux reached out and grabbed Ben. Ben flung his arms around him. All
around them, dust and debris was showering from the ceiling of the icehouse.
 
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Ben shouted. “The roof’s going to cave in.”
They turned as one and started climbing the stone stairs, which rolled and
lurched beneath their feet. Behind them, with a crack, the ceiling gave out.
The concussion threw them forward to their knees. Lux heard a sharp cry, like a
fox caught in a trap – then keening. Oh gods. The white flash of new pain
slicing through old nerve damage, knee, to thigh, to the tendon of his groin
and oh, that’s me, screaming. He forced himself to stop.
 
“Lux?”
 
He rolled, gathering his injured leg to his chest, still shaking with the
shock, but owning it. Somehow, he was on grass. The ground was still rippling
beneath him.
 
“Lux?”
 
“I’m fine, Ben.” One thing the Legions taught you was to tell a brave lie.
 
“Can you stand?”
 
“Give me a moment –”
 
Another surge beneath them, even before the last one stilled, as though the
earth were slow rolling liquid, or they were on a boat in a storm, and then –
 
Not silence. Dogs in the distance, barking – Hyrcanus in the villa howling – a
scurry of chickens fleeting past him, screaming and kicking up earth – babies
crying, birds – birds wheeling in the air above him, and the whole world
groaning, pain, and noise – noise – noise….
 
“LUX!”
 
He came back to himself, lying on the ground, staring up at Ben’s face,
hovering over his.
 
“Ben,” he whispered.
 
Ben’s hand was resting on his face, his eyes were vivid with fear. But behind
him, behind him –
 
Lux shifted his head slightly, and looked over Ben’s shoulder.
 
“Oh, gods, Ben,” he said. “The mountain’s on fire.”
~*~
 
The mountain was not on fire. Ben had turned his head over his shoulder,
following Lux’s gaze, terrified for a moment, not sure what he would see – the
Temple in flames again, perhaps, the blood flowing down the streets – but
instead, all he saw was a plume of smoke. A dark cloud. A strange cloud,
certainly, rising fast from the mountain – shaped like a pillar, or a pine tree
growing from a crack at the apex of the peak, but nothing much. A strange
weather formation, that was all. Blowing toward them, expanding in the sky as
the heavens darkened – a thunder cloud, maybe, but not fire.
 
He turned back to Lux.
 
“The mountain is not on fire,” he informed him, as calmly as he could.
 
Lux blinked, his face so pale the veins shone green. He was sweating with the
shock of pain. “I don’t know why I said that,” he admitted. “I can’t see it
now. I thought I saw fire. But there’s smoke.”
 
A pillar of smoke and fire, Ben thought, remembering his Torah. Fear clutched
at his throat. He looked back over his shoulder, but still, all he could see
was smoke. Thick, black smoke. More and more of it, spreading out toward them
like a dark hand.
 
A cloud, that’s all. A strange cloud.
 
Not the wrath of Adoshem, no matter what his heart said.
 
“It’s an earthquake,” Ben stated. “Maybe as bad as the last big one. Perhaps
what you saw was a local fire, someone’s bakery catching light.” Or perhaps he
sees the same things I do, in the dark. Jerusalem, burning. “What happened to
your leg, Lux, can I see?”
 
Lux groaned, and twisted his head as Ben lifted his tunic. “This is not how I
imagined us next getting naked,” he complained.
 
“We’re not getting naked,” Ben snapped, nerves making him testy. “I’m checking
an injury.”
 
“How bad?”
 
Ben paused. “Hard to tell,” he admitted. “It’s already swollen.” He palpated
the area of the scar, hissing in sympathy as Lux winced, and twisted against
the pain. The area was hotter than it should be, but not lumpy. Bruised, but
not deep hemorrhage. He pushed harder with his fingers, where the leg connected
to the groin, trying to ignore the pain he knew he was causing. He had to do
it. He needed to know –
 
There. Thank you, Adoshem. The tendon had not snapped. “I’m going to need to
strap up the muscle,” he said, “to stop it from swelling more.”
 
“It’s fine,” Lux managed. “I just pulled something.”
 
Ben shook his head. “You’ve aggravated the old injury. As far as I can tell,
there is no internal bleeding, but you know as well as I do, it’s not fine.”
 
Lux groaned. “Just what I need: more doctoring.” Ben rested a reassuring hand
on his shoulder, and called out as Caenis fled by. The little girl had her
tunic tucked up around her belt to give her more leg room to run, and she
looked like – she looked like –
 
She looked like Rachel, running from the Romans, before one of the city’s last
defenders offered her the mercy of the sword.
 
Ben blinked, and the moment was gone. He never, ever thought about that moment.
He didn’t allow himself to remember how his middle sister had died. And
besides, Caenis was blonde. She didn’t look like Rachel at all.
 
But Caenis was running, and she looked terrified. For her sake, as much as
Lux’s, he called out to her.
 
“Caenis? We need your help.”
 
She turned, her pale face streaked and dirty.
 
“Primus,” she stuttered. Then her eyes widened when she saw Lux. “Master.”
 
“Sweetheart,” Lux said. With a grunt he sat up. “Ben’s going to ask you to get
some things, can you do that?”
 
“Yes, Master.” She turned to Ben, and visibly calmed, even when the earth shook
again. Ben’s hand tightened on Lux’s shoulder, but this time the man had hold
of himself, rode the pain. When the world settled, Ben delivered his orders,
and the little girl was running off to the kitchen again.
 
“How old is she?” Lux asked, suddenly, for no obvious reason at all.
 
“About six.”
 
“Huh.” Lux wiped his face. “She’s blonde. She looks like a Patrician.”
 
“Or a German.”
 
“Perhaps. I just wondered.”
 
“What?”
 
“A lot of our household slaves were blond when I was growing up. I wonder if
any of them were related to me.”
 
“Why?” Ben was puzzled. Why now? Why talk about this right now? Crossbreeding
was likely, of course, in any slave-owning household or estate, and Caenis
could well be the ex-master’s daughter – she certainly had his high forehead
and pointy chin, but – “Why would that strike you now?”
 
“Just, if I’m going to die, I want to know how much more I have on my
conscience, that’s all.”
 
“What?” Ben felt himself go cold. We’re not going to die.
 
“I wonder how many of our house-slaves were related to me.”
 
“You are not going to die,” Ben stated aloud, with all the authority he could
muster. It was only an earthquake, after all.
 
Even so, Lux’s fear shook him more than the quakes. And his own statement of
calm certainty seemed out of place. Ben remembered having made such a statement
of certainty long ago (the Temple will never fall) but he couldn’t think about
that now. All that mattered now was to get Lux back on his feet.
 
Well, not on his feet, perhaps. On a couch, with his leg properly compressed
and elevated. And perhaps if the earth would just stay still, he could venture
down into the ruins of the icehouse and get whatever there remained of cold and
chill. If the barrels had not been crushed. And maybe when things were a bit
more settled, he could persuade Lux to drink some poppy wine for the pain, and
when Lux was resting he could start to go through the inventory and see how
much had been lost, check the property for damage, and –
 
“Stop thinking, Ben. You’re making my head hurt.”
 
“Sorry.”
 
Caenis was running back, nearly tripping as Hyrcanus dodged in and out between
her feet. He saw Lux and Ben, then darted straight toward them, huffing, and
butting his head between them. Lux groaned at the intrusion, then hung on tight
to the ruff. Caenis dropped down into a squat, plopping Ben’s medical bag at
his knees.
 
“Lux,” Ben said carefully. “If you need to scream, do. Caenis. Look away.”
 
There wasn’t going to be any blood, but it was never good for a child to see
someone in pain – not if they didn’t have to.
 
“Get it over with,” Lux said, grimly.
~*~
 
When he opened his eyes, he could barely see. He stared foolishly at the
gathering dark. His throat was raw.
 
How long had he been screaming, if it was night time already?
 
Around him, silhouettes came into focus. Ben, Nicia, Caenis, her back turned to
him, from the crook of her elbow plainly sucking her thumb. And right alongside
him, the gleaming shadow of the dog.
 
“Did I lose the day?” he managed.
 
“No.” Ben’s shadowed face was grim. “It’s not night. It’s the cloud. From the
mountain.”
 
Lux tried to sit up, and winced. Ben put his hand on his shoulder. “Don’t
move,” he commanded. “We’re getting a litter, but for now, we’re probably safer
in the garden.”
 
“I’m not an idiot, Ben.” Lux glared, but the effect was probably lost in the
dark. “I do know we’re safer out here, at least till we’ve had a repair crew
through to check for damage.” He shifted, and groaned. “We don’t want anyone
being killed after the quake by something stupid like a piece of plaster
falling on their head.”
 
“I’m sorry.” Ben’s voice remained steady. “I did not mean to imply that you did
not know what you were doing.”
 
“Well, I didn’t mean to bite your head off, but – you know I’m a soldier,
right? I can manage a crisis.” He glanced around. Nicia was probably lapping
this up. Time to pull himself together.
 
“Right. Here’s what we do. Ben, you know the rota. Nicia. You’re the head of
the kitchen. Between the two of you, you should know what everybody was doing,
right? Where they’re supposed to be?”
 
“Yes, Lux.” Ben’s voice was soft.
 
“Yes, Master.” Nicia sounded surly, almost as though he was correcting his
Primus, but otherwise respectful enough that Lux let it pass.
 
“Alright then. You two, confer.” He made a circular gesture with his finger, to
indicate togetherness, although they probably wouldn’t see it. “When you’ve
worked out the list of names, Nicia, you go check on the staff. If anyone’s
missing, report back, and let me know. Ben,” he dropped his voice. “Be safe,
but check the rooms to see what’s structurally sound. If anyone’s stuck under
rubble, get Nicia and whoever else is strong enough to help you dig them out.”
 
“Yes, Lux.”
 
“But first, get some torches. We need light out here.” He took a breath. “And,
since it looks like we’re going to be outside all night, see about getting a
tent set up. And maybe a barrel of water, in case the pipes are fouled.” He
scowled at the sky. “Weird. It doesn’t feel like thunder.”
 
“It’s not thunder, Master.” Caenis’s little voice was thread-thin. “It’s
Vesuvius. The god is angry.”
 
As if to confirm her words, the mountain began to groan.
 
To Lux’s surprise, it was Nicia who comforted her. “Don’t worry, Pet,” he said,
in a gruff voice. “I’ll look after you.” The dim figure of the cook tousled the
little girl’s hair. “Stay and look after the Master. I’ll be right back.” Then
he was moving, disappearing in the thickening gloom.
 
Ben leant forward, and startlingly, kissed Lux on the forehead. “I won’t be
long,” he promised, then turned, and took off after Nicia at a run.
 
Lux lay back down, suddenly exhausted, and wrapped one arm around Hyrcanus.
“Caenis,” he said, into the darkness. “You still there?”
 
“Yes, Master.”
 
“Come sit by me,” he said, reaching out blindly. Then, as the little girl
grabbed his hand: “Sit by me. I’m scared of the dark.”
~*~
 
The inside of the villa was chaos. They went to the kitchens first, finding
their way by touch. Although, as they stepped through the rubble, there was
some light. At first, Ben thought someone had set a lamp or a torch there –
then he realized it was too bright, and set at too low an angle.
 
The dome-shaped oven was cracked open, the inner fire glowing bright.
 
Nicia cried out, running to a shape, sitting huddled on the floor.
 
His brother, the pastry chef. “Drusus!”
 
Drusus moved, dazed. His face glowed in the amber light. Nicia knelt beside
him.
 
“Drusus, are you alright?”
 
“I… think so. What happened?”
 
“The world’s ending,” Nicia stated, as fact.
 
“The world is not ending,” Ben replied, determinedly. He couldn’t allow panic
to spread, no matter how much he felt like joining in. Even so, he felt like he
was repeating a theme here, reiterating a very old lie. Of course the world was
ending. It had ended once already, nine years ago. “There’s been an
earthquake,” he continued, sounding calmer than he felt. “Which is quite bad
enough, without bringing the End of Days into it.” He bent down, and ran his
hands over Drusus’s skull, his neck, his shoulders. No obvious bumps. He knelt
and checked the man’s limbs and torso. Fortunately, the light was good enough
that he could see he was not bleeding. “Can you walk?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“Alright then.” He looked at the convex crush of the oven, the fire bleeding
out, then at the two brothers. “Secure the kitchen. Make sure the fire doesn’t
spread. Though you might as well use it to kindle torches. As soon as you can,
go into the courtyard, and bring light to the master.”
 
“Yes, Primus.” Nicia spoke for his brother. For once he sounded sincere.
 
“Good. And when you find other people free to help, get them to haul water, and
sort out a tent.” He straightened his shoulders, already thinking of the next
thing. Kindling. A torch.…
 
By the time he had searched through the house, he realized that most of the
staff had fled. The gardener and his son remained, and were sent to Lux. The
decorator and his team were nowhere to be found. Of course, they weren’t
slaves, and were free to go where they liked.
 
Good luck to those who had fled though. Ben would certainly never turn them in.
 
He took one last look through, on his way back to the garden. That was it –
that was everybody –
 
No. There was movement in the dining room.
 
“Who’s there?” he called.
 
No response. At first he thought he’d imagined it, then he noticed a flash of
shadow that did not match the flicker of the torch.
 
Whoever it was must be terrified.
 
“It’s me,” he called out, as reassuringly as he could. “Primus. You can come
out now. We’re gathering in the garden.”
 
A slow movement in the corner of the room, and Ben realized that one of the
closet doors was swinging open. Inside was one terrified child – Gaius,
Caenis’s big brother, huddled in the corner, and looking like a ghost.
 
“Come on,” Ben said, gently, holding out his hand. “Your sister is safe, in the
garden. Follow me.”
 
Gaius took his hand, and followed.
~*~
Lux was propped up on a litter, supported by pillows, and squinting as he
scratched notes on the wax tablet. He had to keep a record of who was safe and
who was gone. He was deep in conversation with Nicia and the head gardener when
Ben arrived with two children.
 
“Is that it?” He glanced around the small group. His Primus, three children, a
handful of gardeners, and two members of the kitchen staff. “What happened to
everyone else?”
 
“I… uhm. I imagine they have taken cover.” Ben seemed reluctant to say the
words ‘run away.’
 
“Maggots,” Nicia growled.
 
“So long as nobody’s injured.” Lux wrinkled his nose up at the smell. It was
disgusting, and had been getting steadily stronger for quite some time. Bad
eggs, or rot, or broken sewers – something – vapors from the mountain perhaps.
Still, at least everyone was breathing. At least – he hoped everyone was
breathing. “Did you find any bodies?”
 
“No. No injured either, well – none seriously. The children here have been a
bit knocked around.”
 
“But we’re brave,” the boy piped up.
 
“You’re brave,” Lux agreed. Thank the gods that the kid wasn’t wailing and in
hysterics at this point. Poor boy probably thought they were having an
adventure or something, now that the adults were in charge. “Where’s Sylviana?”
 
“She’s with Mother,” Caenis said. “She’s been with her all day.”
 
Ben nodded, and confirmed the little girl’s comments. “Apparently she’s been
called to her daughter’s bedside.” In the glimmer of the torches, Ben’s face
was streaked with ash. Lux rubbed his own face at a soft sensation on his skin.
It almost felt like it was beginning to snow, only warm. “She’s gone into
labor.”
 
Lux felt his face gathering into a frown. This wasn’t good. “You promised to
help her, didn’t you?”
 
“Yes….” Ben’s voice trailed off. Lux could hear the ‘but’ as clearly as if he
had spoken it aloud.
 
“Please?” Caenis pitched in, and tugged on Ben’s tunic. “You promised.”
 
Ben closed his eyes, obviously torn as to what was the right thing to do.
 
“I’m alright, Ben,” Lux said. “We have water, we have light, and soon enough
we’ll have the tent up. Even if the thunder breaks, the worst that will happen
is we’ll get wet.”
 
“It’s too light,” Ben’s voice drifted off, strangely, his eyes focusing on
something just beyond Lux’s shoulder.
 
“Maybe the cloud’s clearing.”
 
Ben raised his arm, slowly, and pointed. “Look behind you.” His voice was dull.
“You were right the first time. The mountain is on fire.”
 
Lux moved, awkwardly because of the pain, and looked behind him.
 
Gods of Hades. Ben was right. The pillar of smoke from the mountain was a thick
trunk of fire and flame and – filth. That was the only word for it. That was
where the smell was coming from, not the sewers, as Lux had been beginning to
suspect. Not the sewers at all. Vapors from the mountains – the vapors that
killed the sheep –
 
Merda. This could be killing smoke.
 
It was at that point, that the hail started to fall.
 
“Ow! The children ducked for cover, trying to hide under the canopy of Lux’s
litter. Apparently they had forgotten to be afraid of their master in the
enormity of what was going on. Lux winced as they crushed up on his leg. “Stop
squashing me,” he said, shooing them away, and trying to sound as normal as
possible. “Men, a change of plans. Pack everything we need to survive on the
beach till the rescue ships get here.”
 
“There are rescue ships?” Caenis said, hopefully.
 
”There will be, yes.” He patted her head. Eventually someone on the other shore
would see what was happening, send riders to Rome. And then at some point,
someone would send ships to rescue the wealthy of Pompeii. If this had happened
in the North, nobody important would care. Rescue could take months. Well, if
they were going to be struck with disaster, they were lucky to be in Pompeii.
“So, everybody move. Pack two wagons. Hang on, do we still have donkeys?”
 
“I would not consider them fit for purpose,” Ben said, carefully. “They’re –
somewhat distressed.”
 
“Fine.” Lux frowned. “You’re going to have to release them. Let them fend for
themselves. Drusus, can you do that?”
 
“Yes, Master.”
 
“So,” Lux continued as the man ran to his task. “We’re not taking wagons. Just
what everyone can carry. Water, bread, blankets, any dried pulses or meat –
nothing that will spoil, and covering for a tent.”
 
Ben straightened his back, in his regular ‘about to giver orders,’ stance. He
could have been in the army, Lux thought, for a moment – then blinked away the
thought (no time to think) and interrupted him. “Not you, Ben. You go deliver
the baby.”
 
“What –?” Ben looked at the sky, even though the hail was getting thicker. More
like stones than hail – and thick hot slush.
Lux hated having to do this – but he knew how badly Ben would be affected if he
failed to keep the promise he had made to this woman and her little family. And
there was new life coming in the middle of all this mayhem. That must be a good
sign, mustn’t it? Besides, it was the right thing to do, and Ben was all about
the right thing.
 
“Just run to it,” Lux said, urgently. “She’s just around the corner.”
 
“I might be some time. Where will I find you?” Ben said. “When I come back, if
you’re not here? Where on the beach should I meet you?”
 
The beach would be chaos. If they separated now, they might never find each
other again on the beach. Don’t panic, Lux told himself. The fuller lived just
down the road, on the other side of the street. It wasn’t as though he was
sending Ben away to the ends of the earth – why then did it feel that way? Lux
shook his head. It didn’t matter. They had to do the right thing.
 
“Why wouldn’t I be here?” Lux made the decision easily.
 
Ben’s face was a mask. “If you have to take shelter. From the –”
 
“The what? It’s just a storm.”
 
“Fire and brimstone,” Ben blurted out. He stared up at the sky.
 
What? What was Ben even saying? “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ben,
but believe me. I’ll be here. What room’s most secure, if I need to take
shelter?”
 
“The library is structurally sound. Although the glass in the ceiling may crack
at some point.”
 
“Never mind. The library’s good. Better natural lighting than anywhere else
inside, and we’ve got the long reading table to shelter under if the roof does
come in.” Lux nodded, pleased with the plan. “So, now we know. I’ll just set
way back from the middle. If you get here and the household has gone, I’ll be
waiting for you in the library.”
 
“You should go with them,” Ben was dogged. “You need to go to the –”
 
“Ben!” Lux’s voice was sharp. “If you say ‘beach’ again, I’ll scream. I shall
meet you in the library. Now, go. I’ve got a household to demobilize.”
 
“Yes.” For a moment Lux feared that Ben would say “Master,” his face was so
tight and strained – angry almost. Please don’t let him be angry with me. Not
now – this might be the last time we ever meet. But at the last moment Ben
ducked his head, and his stance softened. “Yes, Lux. I’ll come back for you.”
Then he was turning, through the filthy fall of ash and hail, and running,
disappearing – gone.
 
Lux slumped. He’d sent Ben away. It was the right thing to do, but now that he
was gone –
 
Please, he thought. What does Ben call his God? Please, Adoshem. Please let us
see each other again.
 
Then he got back to work.
~*~
 
Oh, he was too late. Ben knew as soon as he saw her that she didn’t have a
chance. Cassia was lying in the front of the fuller’s shop, abandoned by all
but her mother. The man who had bought her a year and a half ago, and
impregnated her, and worked her to the bone, was long gone, as was the rest of
his household.
 
She simply wasn’t convenient for him to care about anymore. Ben felt a surge of
hatred for the man, so hot it made him sick and dizzy – although, really, the
fuller was just like any other middle-class shopkeeper with a handful of
slaves. This kind of thing must be happening all over the city. Babies
abandoned in their cribs, the old, the injured, the sick, left to die alone.
 
Lux. I left Lux alone. He won’t go without me. I have to get back to him.
 
He hovered, sickened with indecision. There was nothing he could do for this
woman.
 
Even so. This is where I am, and this is what I promised. I have to tend to
Cassia.
 
Ben crunched over the debris, holding the torch high to get a clearer view of
the scene. Cassia had bitten her lips so badly they would need stitches if she
survived, but that must have been hours ago. The blood was dried and scabby.
She had gone past the screaming and keening stage, and although her body kept
convulsing and arching with each push, she barely seemed conscious of anything
anymore.
 
She knew about the contractions though. Each time they hit, Ben could see the
pain glitter in her eyes, lit up fire-red by the smoking torch.
 
He settled it into a steel brace against the wall, and went in to do what
little he could. And really, what was there he could offer her, but poppy wine?
 
Her mother helped him hold her jaw open, as he trickled the bitter medicine
through. Ben felt a horrid, unexpected clutch of want as he saw it wasted,
dribbling down the sides of her cheeks. He hadn’t felt such sharp want in
years. There was enough, he realized. He could make the world softer, less
urgent, less there. When he was done with this, he could have some, just a
little, just one more time –
 
No. He had to get back to Lux. And Lux would need it more than he did. Ben
ignored the almost physical ache that the bitter smell triggered in him, and
put the stopper back on the bottle.
 
“Thank you,” Sylviana whispered.
 
“I’m sorry I was late,” Ben replied. Nonsense small talk. They both knew there
was nothing to be said or done. Sylviana settled back behind her daughter, and
cradled her head on her lap, stroking her hair. The expression of bleak misery
on her face made her look even older than her years. After a moment, she was
singing something – something in German, Ben thought, though he didn’t know the
language. A lullaby, perhaps, or a tribal chant. Did Germans have hymns? Was
she singing a psalm of her people? He could barely make out the tune, over the
noise from the world outside: the mountain itself, groaning, the clatter of
things worse than hailstones, (brimstone, his mind muttered again) the
screaming in the streets.
 
“Cassia,” Ben said, gently, though he hoped she was beyond hearing him. Her
eyes were vacant with the poppies, and suddenly he envied her. “I’m going to
have to look at the baby. Don’t be afraid. I’m here to help.”
 
The woman didn’t even flinch when he knelt between her legs. Outside the storm
was pounding – a fist beating against the shop front. The shutters were blown
and cracked, and stones were bouncing through the gaps in the window and doors;
black snow – no – ash – was heaping through in drifts. The air stank, and the
whole world was full of rottenness.
 
Cassia died halfway through a contraction. Sylviana felt it, before Ben even
understood what he had seen. The mother keened, like a cat, and rocked forward
over her knees, her grey hair hanging over to cover her daughter’s face. Ben
closed his eyes, grimacing, and checked by feel. The cervix was barely halfway
dilated. There was no way that child could ever have been delivered.
 
And besides. From the shape of the head, it had been far too small. It could
never have survived.
 
He knelt back, and moved Cassia’s legs back together, crossed them at the
ankle. He didn’t want anyone, even for a second, passing by the door, to ever
see her in that position again, that position that she – he – had been forced
to take so often, legs wide open to the world.
 
“Baruch Dayan Ha'Emet,” he whispered the prayer, and wiped his face; he was
bloody. Too late. The whole world was a mess. He covered Cassia’s lower body
with her gown, then covered her up to the chin with a blanket. Her mother was
still holding her, wouldn’t let go. Ben blinked. He could hardly see for tears
and the soot in the air. Perhaps it was better not to see. He found the bottle
of water by touch. Rinsing his hands, he shook them out, and wiped them on his
filthy tunic. He did not think he would ever get clean now.
 
“Sylviana,” he said.
 
The old woman said nothing, just kept kissing her daughter’s face.
 
“Sylviana, we have to go.”
 
“I can’t leave her.”
 
“She’s with her baby now. She’s in –” He cast his mind around for the myths of
the Germans, and came up with a phrase. “She’s with the happy dead.”
 
Sylviana looked up and Ben flinched at the horror in her smile. “I know,” she
said. “I will be with them soon.”
 
“Your grandchildren need you,” Ben insisted. “Right now Lu… our master is
organizing the household to meet on the beach. By tomorrow, or the day after at
the latest depending on the seas, there will be boats here. Your grandchildren
will need you to look after them.”
 
“I’ll see them again,” the old woman said. “Soon. Soon.”
 
Ben shook his head, and walked around the body, tucked his hands underneath
Sylviana’s armpits, intending to haul her to her feet, bodily, if necessary.
 
The old woman arched back, strong as iron, as though she were contracting
through labor herself.
 
“No, no,” she cried out, struggling. Ben grunted, and hoisted her over his
shoulder. He felt her fists striking his back as he struggled out the door.
~*~
 
When the hail became intolerable, they were forced from the garden into the
villa. At this moment, Lux and the household survivors were in the remains of
the atrium. He had been planning on getting to the library, but this space was
still relatively clear, and it was easier to see who was there with no
furniture in the way. Even so, the walls were swaying from side to side, and
Lux wasn’t sure how much longer the ceiling would hold out. He could hear it
groaning underneath the weight of gathering debris. They couldn’t stay here
long.
 
He did one last head count, asked one last question as to supplies, then that
was it. That was as much as he could do – as anyone could do. Every man, woman
and child (one of the kitchen maids had arrived within the last hour) were
carrying as much as they could bear, wearing extra clothing, food strapped to
their backs to free their hands, so they could hang onto each other. Lux
debated the merits of it, then decided to pass a rope between the children’s
belts, so they wouldn’t get separated. Maybe he should do the same for the
adults too –
 
He couldn’t do that. It felt too much like tying them up as slaves, rather than
trying to save their lives.
 
He fixed young Gaius in his sights. “Follow the men, right?”
 
“Yes, Master.”
 
Lux nodded, and started fiddling with the makeshift hats he had prepared for
the children: cushions bound to their heads by ropes tied beneath their chins.
The adults had already organized their own head protection, along similar
lines, though Nicia was wearing a huge stock pot on top of his cushion, as an
additional helmet. It wasn’t much, but it was all they could do. Hopefully, it
would stop them getting their heads bashed in by this terrible hail. What had
Ben called it? Brimstone? Whatever it was, it was like no hail Lux had ever
seen before. Stones, grey, porous – from tiny little pebbles to chunks the size
of a grown man’s skull. So far, they were surprisingly light, like the ocean
sponge they resembled, but there were so many of them falling now, and they
could cause damage. Already, everybody was bleeding from cuts to their exposed
skin.
 
So, here they were, the household gathered, and everybody except Lux was
wearing cushions on their heads. It was almost funny.
 
“And look after each other,” Lux continued. “It’s just like being in the army.
The only rule is, look after each other.” He cuffed the boy’s chin. “And don’t
be scared.”
 
“No, Master.” Gaius’s lip was quivering, but he was hanging on tight to his
little sister’s hand.
 
“Nicia?”
 
“Yes, Master?”
 
“Keep an eye on them.” He didn’t know why, but Nicia seemed to care about these
children. And in the absence of Ben, that would have to be enough.
 
“Yes, Master.” Nicia gathered a deep breath. “But – we need to get you out of
here.”
 
“You can’t afford the manpower to carry the litter,” Lux pointed out, “and I
can’t walk that far.” Not in the dark, with the ground shaking, and the sky
falling down on them.
 
“We have to try.” Nicia gesticulated at his brother. “Drusus and I are strong.
Between us we can manage to –”
 
“I told you to look after the children,” Lux snapped. “That’s all I want from
you. If all goes well, I will meet you on the beach some time tomorrow. And
rest assured that you will be rewarded for looking after my family.” He paused
for a moment, feeling foolish when he heard what he had said. He should have
said property. Never mind. It hardly mattered now. “If I don’t make it, then
your gods go with you. But I cannot leave without Ben.”
 
Nicia stood there, with his jaw hanging open for a moment, as though he had
just seen the Alps for the first time, or one of the great whales. Then he
coughed, covered his mouth, and turned away. “I hope you find him,” he mumbled,
behind his hand.
 
Lux said nothing, just scrubbed the dirt and wetness from his eyes.
 
“We’re moving out,” Nicia shouted then, almost like a Chief of Ten ordering a
micro-unit. “Everyone. Single file. Make sure you’re touching whoever is in
front. Children behind me. If we get to the beach and anyone is missing, I will
personally kill whoever stood behind. Got that?”
 
With a chorus of agreement, and a lot of shuffling, the line was formed. Lux
sat on his litter, in the center of his ruined villa, and watched them go.
 
What if Ben doesn’t come ? he suddenly thought. What if he met with an
accident, or the labor goes on all night, or –
 
A panic of loneliness crowded in his chest. And then –
 
Then Hyrcanus pushed up against him. Lux wrapped his arms around his neck,
gratefully, glad not to be alone.
 
“You can go, you know,” he told the dog. “You don’t have to stay.”
 
The dog flicked his ears, disdainfully, and lifted his head, looking over his
shoulder. He trotted a couple of steps toward the library, then looked back at
Lux.
 
Lux felt the panic lifting slightly from his heart, as though Hyrcanus was
telling him something, reassuring him that everything would be alright. He
grunted then, and rolled onto his good side. Grabbing the stone bench by the
fountain, he hauled himself to his feet and stood. In the flurry of sending the
slaves away, he had forgotten to ask for help to the library. Never mind – he
could do it. He would do it, even if he had to crawl. One step – and he grabbed
out for contact. Hyrcanus was instantly by his side, propping him up. Hip-high
that dog. Lux would thank Ben’s God for him later.
 
Together they inched their way to the library.
 
“Good boy, good boy, Hyrcanus.” Lux sank onto the floor. He couldn’t even make
it to a bench. But he was here – here in the library. And Ben was right. The
walls might be swaying, but it still seemed quite sound.
 
At least Ben would know where to find him.
 
Hyrcanus swiped him with his tongue, then turned to leave the room. Lux
panicked again for a moment – then realized that the dog was sitting staring at
the front door, waiting for Ben to come.
 
He huddled on the floor, and tried to relax. There was nothing else that he
could do. There was nothing else to do – except to wait for Ben.
~*~
 
No sooner were they out the door, than Sylviana spotted Nicia, with a crockpot
on his head, followed by Gaius and Caenis, and the rest of the household. The
old woman gave Ben one last look – thanks, for trying to help? Anger for not
saving her daughter? He didn’t know. And then she nodded, and was moving
through the crowd, and gone.
 
Ben took a step, and staggered, and leaned his hand against a wall for balance.
The wall swayed, almost solid, but somehow not quite there. Like – like the
canvas of a ship’s sail hard against the hand. Something snapped tight in the
world, and it rolled with an unseen wind – Ben stumbled again as the earth
moved. The whole world was a ship at sea – sinking. The sky was black, and
raining fire and ash.
 
For a terrible moment, he couldn’t even remember in which direction the villa
lay. Uphill, he reminded himself, and turned against the flow. Uphill. A
torrent of people was being disgorged through the streets, all heading against
him, fighting their way downhill, pushing to the coast. They looked like a
nation defeated, slaves being marched off by the king of terrors.
 
“Baruch.” He heard a voice, bright against the din, unnaturally clear amidst
the chaos. He turned to see the source of the voice, and... it was a man. A
young man. A young man, in a white robe.
 
Shining.
 
Ben’s heart stuttered. “Rishon,” he whispered, the word soundless on his
tongue. His brother, spotless, incandescent in the dark. Not as he had seen him
last, naked, and dying on a cross with a crow pecking at his eyes.
 
He was perfect. He was clean. He was healed. He was….
 
Not there.
 
Ben took a shuddering breath. All at once, he understood. Everything. There was
no way he was getting out of this alive – no way any of them were.
 
There was only one thing left for him to do in his whole life.
 
Get back to Lux. There was nothing else to do.
~*~
 
It was getting darker in here, hotter, harder to breathe. Louder too – people
crying and screaming in the street outside, buildings groaning, and the
relentless thump, thump, thump of the pumice banging against the roof and the
walls. Lux twisted on the floor, tried to sit up again. The earth was still
moving. He fell back to the ground, rolled onto his side, and raised his leg to
his chest. He couldn’t hear himself groaning, but he could feel it resonate
through his body. For an unbearable moment the pain spiked; he hugged it to him
like an old friend. He was grateful. Pain was good. Pain meant that he was
still alive.
 
Ben is coming, he told himself, and the pain began to subside. It wasn’t even a
question now, whether Ben was coming or not. It was a fact. Lux knew it.
 
He was still alive, and Ben was still alive, and Ben was coming. Lux had one
thing left that he had to say. One thing left that he had to do. And when he
did… when he did….
 
Lux fumbled in the dark, feeling for the brim of his fallen petasus. There it
was. One thing, he thought. I’ve only got one thing left to do….
 
Ben would get here, Lux knew it. And somehow, all would be well.
~*~
 
It was full morning when Ben reached the villa at last, and ordinarily the
sunlight would have given him a clear view of the entrance. However, the air
was now so thick with falling ash that the surroundings were darker than night
itself would have been. His torch had long gone out; he found his way by the
light of Vesuvius. The mix of ash and pumice underfoot had piled up so deep it
more than halfway obscured the villa’s front door and tall windows.
 
With an effort, Ben leaned against the front door, and shoved, grunting at the
weight as the debris scraped clear on the other side. He squeezed through the
gap.
 
Hyrcanus? Did he stay with Lux? What if he went on guard in the courtyard ?
Even as Ben thought of the dog, he heard a bark, then scuffling. He dropped to
his knees, and wrapped his arms around Hyrcanus’s neck.
 
“Hyrcanus,” he choked out with tears. His friend had waited for him. “I’m safe.
You can go now.”
 
The dog rubbed his head up over Ben’s shoulder, his breath labored and panting.
Ben ruffled his fur, and took a deep breath of the acrid air.
 
“Hyrcanus,” he repeated. “You can go now.”
 
Hyrcanus sat, and whined.
 
Ben took hold of the dog’s dear, stubborn face between two hands, and rested
his head on Hyrcanus’s forehead. “Go, now,” he insisted. “You’re free. Please,
go. And we will meet again.”
 
He stood, and gestured to the open door, hoping that the dog would sense the
movement. Hyrcanus whined again, then started to run. Ben watched as the giant
dog scrambled over the pumice drift, his silhouette briefly lighted in the
doorway, and made his way into the world outside.
 
Maybe – just maybe he would escape.
 
“Lux,” he called then, kicking his way through the rubble toward the library.
When he got to the door, he could barely see that it was open. “Lux,” he called
again, panic clutching at his chest.
 
“Ben,” came the response. “Gods, Ben, you’re here.”
 
“Where are you?” Ben groped, and staggered into the room, falling in the
darkness. Lux cried out, and Ben realized he’d stumbled over him. He rolled
onto his side, and reached out with his hands, blindly feeling Lux’s face.
 
“I found you,” Ben said, dizzy with relief.
 
Lux rolled closer to him, and then their mouths were on each other. Ben broke
the kiss first. “We have to get under the table,” he said. “Roofs have been
falling in all over the city… we should be under cover.”
 
Lux groaned, and the two of them crawled to the relative safety of the long
table’s shelter.
 
They lay there silent but for their struggle to breathe. The air was getting
denser, the heated stench scalding the back of their throats.
 
“Gods, Ben,” Lux finally whispered. “It’s so hot.”
 
“I know,” Ben murmured. It was so hot that he had stopped sweating. Lux’s skin,
also, was unnaturally dry.
 
“We’re not getting out of here, are we?”
 
Ben stroked the back of Lux’s head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, and somehow
it was the truth. “We’re together. And that is as it should be.”
 
“I wish you could have got away.”
 
“I couldn’t have gone without you.”
 
“Ben,” Lux said, and threaded his fingers through his hair. “I’ve been wanting
to do something for you. We don’t have much more time.”
 
“You’ve already done so much.”
 
“There was something I so wanted to do that I wasn’t allowed to do.” Lux’s
voice was hoarse, perhaps with the fumes. “Ben,” he said, and fumbled in the
darkness. “I have a gift for you.”
 
Ben nearly laughed with the deep affection that overwhelmed him. What could he
possibly do with a gift now?
 
“What is it?” he asked, fondly stroking Lux’s stubbled jaw.
 
Lux groped in the dark and grasped one of Ben’s hands with his own.
 
“I wish you could see it,” he said. “I’ve got you a hat.”
 
“A hat?” Ben heard the confusion in his own voice. “What do I need a hat for?”
 
“It’s a petasus,” Lux explained. Then he started coughing. When the fit had
passed he squeezed Ben’s fingers around the brim of the unseen hat. “Put it on
your head, Ben,” he said. “You’re a free man.”
 
Ben could barely bring himself to speak. When he did, he said the most
ludicrous thing he could have said. “It’s not even legal yet. I’m not thirty.”
 
“What do you think they’re going to do to us?” Lux asked. “Arrest us?” Ben
heard the warmth and amusement in his beloved’s voice. “Put the hat on,” Lux
repeated.
 
Ben took in a breath, and put on the hat.
 
“Have you done it?”
 
“Yes,” Ben whispered. “Thank you.”
 
“Good,” Lux’s voice was pressed up against his lips. Ben sighed into the kiss.
 
After a moment, they lay forehead touching forehead, just breathing.
 
Finally, Lux spoke.
 
“This world makes slaves of us all, Ben, one way or another. I’m freeing you…
and freeing you frees us both.”
 
“Lux,” Ben smiled in the dark. “You are a poet on the inside.”
 
Lux laughed, and squeezed him tight.
 
“Semper amabo.”
 
“And I you.”
~*~
For them, the world went silent in the moment of their kiss. Outside, the
surging destruction continued to approach. The hail of pumice had ended, only
ashfall continuing in its wake. As the heat-flash overtook them, Ben and Lux
lay wrapped in each other’s arms.
In the instant of their death they shared one breath.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~
“And the walls kept tumbling down
In the city that we love,
Great clouds roll over the hills
Bringing darkness from above.
But if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like you’ve been here before?”
-- from Pompeii by Daniel Smith
October 2005
 Field Museum of Natural History
Chicago, Illinois
Many lifetimes later the soul who had been, amongst other things, a Judean
slave, was now a Canadian Mountie. Many lifetimes later the soul who had been,
amongst other things, a Roman soldier, was now a Chicago Police Detective. And
they were partners in every sense of the word.
(“But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all
?”)
“I imagine you know, Ray, being a Chicago native, that the Field Museum of
Natural History is one of the largest natural history museums in the world….”
“You can imagine all you want, Frase, but no, I did not know that.”
“…originating as the Columbian Museum of Chicago for the 1893 World’s Columbian
Exposition….”
“Uh huh….”
When they entered the museum, Fraser kept up a running commentary about the
permanent exhibits they passed on the way to the special exhibit they were
there to see, the Pompeii exhibit. Ray made occasional “I’m kinda listening”
sounds until he spotted the line for the special exhibit.
“Okay, buddy, here we are. You wanted to see this ancient art and history
stuff, and I wanted to spend the day together, so here we are… but if you look
like you’re gonna sniff or lick anything, I’m outta here.”
Fraser responded to Ray’s bantering tone with “Really, Ray, that would not be
proper museum decorum.”
Entering the exhibit, they passed the life-sized goddess sculpture that had
been excavated from Herculaneum near Pompeii.
And then….
Then they stood at the display of plaster casts made from the dead of Pompeii.
They stood stock-still, closely side by side, both of them riveted by the sight
of two male bodies entwined.
Ray shuddered with an almost-memory, murmured “Ben?” and reached blindly for
Fraser’s hand.
Fraser grasped Ray’s hand and whispered “te amo, semper amabam, semper amabo.”
(“And if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like you’ve been here before
?”)
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~
End Notes
     Photograph_Taken_at_Pompeii_Excavation_Site_:_Two_Bodies_Found
     Entwined
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