Freedom. It was a more complicated concept than it should have been. Having been born into slavery, Kallias spent his youth as a physician’s assistant before becoming a physician in his own right, working for Gaius’s family. He had been granted his freedom a few months ago, shortly after Gaius ascended the throne.
The years before that, under the previous emperor Tiberius, had been some of the darkest of Kallias’s life. The power struggles within the imperial family had seen Gaius’s mother and two older brothers exiled, later dead, leaving Gaius as sole heir. Tiberius, paranoid that Gaius would attempt to seize power on his own, had confined the young man and his household—including Kallias—to Tiberius’s villa at Capri.
Gaius had been both heir apparent and political hostage. One wrong move, one ill-considered word, and Kallias knew they all would have found themselves either exiled or simply executed.
But somehow, Gaius had managed to walk a careful, deadly line, and they had all survived. Things were, overall, better. Kallias no longer went to bed each night fearing he’d be wokenby a sword to his throat, or simply not wake at all. Gaius was on the throne, and Kallias was a freedman with a position many would envy.
The curse of freedom, however, was that it made himwantthings. Things which previously had been so far out of his reach that he hadn’t even dared imagine them. He wanted to help people who actually needed it—like an intriguing female gladiator with a stab wound.
But the emperor demanded Kallias’s presence on a near-constant basis. As a child, Gaius had suffered from the falling sickness, and he lived in fear that it would recur despite Kallias’s many reminders that the ailment had been absent for at least a decade and showed no signs of reappearing.
Gaius was equally obsessive about the health of his beloved sister, Drusilla; she could barely clear her throat without him worrying that she’d contracted a deadly malady.
Legally, Kallias might be free, but when the most powerful man in the world wanted him by his side nearly every waking moment, the legality of freedom was a peripheral matter.
A ruckus on the street ahead tore Kallias from his morose thoughts—a crash, shouts, a cry of pain. Kallias broke into a jog toward the noise.
A small crowd of people had assembled near a two-story building. A wooden balcony protruded from the upper story, and the railing in the center had splintered. Kallias instantly realized what had caused the commotion: someone must have fallen from the balcony.
Kallias pushed through the crowd. “Move,” he snapped. A few well-placed jabs of his elbow induced the most stubbornonlookers to shuffle aside. Finally, he saw what they were all gaping at—a man lay half on the ground, half atop a large sack of grain that must have been placed beneath the balcony.
The man groaned in pain. His arm protruded from his shoulder at an unnatural angle.
“Father!” A young man, perhaps in his late teens, raced out of the building, white-faced. “What happened? I heard a crash!”
The man struggled to rise, but fell back with a gasp of pain. Even so, he forced a smile. “That pesky railing decided to give way just as I leaned on it. Thank the gods your mother isn’t home. Though she’ll probably murder me even if I survive this for not fixing that railing.”
Kallias dropped to his knees next to the fallen man, assessing him quickly. The sack of grain had perhaps softened his fall, but the uneven impact seemed to have dislocated his shoulder.
“You’ll survive,” Kallias said. “Your wife will have every opportunity to murder you, if she so chooses. I’m a physician,” he explained. “It looks like you’ve dislocated your shoulder. Does anywhere else pain you? Did you hit your head?”
“I-I don’t think so.” The man closed his eyes for a moment. “No, it’s just my shoulder. Dis, it hurts, though.”
His son glanced anxiously at Kallias. “Will my father be all right?”
“I believe so.” A dislocated shoulder was a deceptively easy injury to fix. He nodded to the boy. “You. Go on your father’s other side and hold him steady.”
The boy obeyed immediately, placing hands on his father’s chest and good shoulder. Kallias took hold of the man’s wrist and drew his arm down toward his side. “Try to relax your arm.”Kallias moved the man’s wrist in small circles, slowly raising the arm to the level of the shoulder. The man hissed with pain, but remained still.
“Almost there,” Kallias murmured, rotating the arm. He lifted it higher, continuing the slow circular movement, until suddenly the arm popped back into place.
The boy drew in a sharp breath. “Is it fixed? Does it still hurt?”
The man blinked, turning his head to stare down at the affected shoulder. “I…how did you do that?” He gazed up at Kallias in wonder.
“I’m afraid fixing dislocated joints is not worthy of much praise. It’s no more difficult than sliding a key into the proper lock.” Kallias rummaged in his bag, withdrawing a bundle of bandages. “Let me put your arm in a sling. You’ll have some pain and stiffness, and you’ll need to rest that arm for a while.”
The man gingerly lifted himself into a sitting position using his good arm, his son supporting him. Kallias folded the man’s arm to his chest and tied the bandages into a sling to keep the arm still.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” the man said as Kallias carefully helped him to stand. “We have some money—”
Kallias held up a hand. “No payment is necessary. Though if you’ll permit it, I would like to pay you a visit tomorrow. I can bring a poultice to help with the swelling.” Since he had to check on Penthesilea anyway, he’d be able to couple the visits without making his absence from the palace conspicuous.
“Thank you very much,” the man said. “We’re in your debt. My name is Flaccus, and my son is Sextus.”
Kallias gave his name in return. Sextus looped his father’s good arm around his shoulders, and after another round of profuse thanks, they disappeared back into the house.
Kallias grinned to himself as he hefted his bag and continued on his way. He felt happier than he had in ages after dealing with not one, but two interesting and urgent injuries.Thiswas what his knowledge and years of experience were meant for.
