Page 9 of Brother at Arms

By the way Cassia slowed her pace as we neared our destination, I knew that her feet ached. When we reached the track that dipped to Marcella’s farm, Cassia rested on a fallen boulder, dislodging pebbles from one sandal.

“We should warn her.” Cassia nodded toward the farmhouse below. “Go on ahead, Leonidas. I will stay with Lucius until you signal.”

While I didn’t want to leave her with a man I’d just met and didn’t trust, I saw sense in her suggestion. To spring Lucius, who looked exactly like her deceased husband, upon Marcella, would be little short of cruel.

I agreed and tramped down the hill.

“What a peaceful place,” I heard Lucius say behind me. “No fear of barbarians popping over the ridge to invade the trading station while you wonder where the protecting legions are.”

It was only relatively peaceful. There was still worry about bandits, barbarian and Roman alike, who wouldn’t hesitate to rob us and take Cassia away with them. The sooner we were indoors, the better.

The sun touched the tops of the mountains west of us, casting long shadows into the valley as I trudged toward the farm.

The farmhouse was a low-walled square, its protected courtyard housing Marcella’s few animals and her larger number of children.

Goats tottered in the green outside the farm’s gate, attended by a spindly lad. He glanced up, saw me, and rose from the low wall on which he’d been sitting, his thin body taut with uncertainty.

Then he sprang straight into the air and let out a wild shout.

“It’s Leonidas!” he bellowed. “Leonidas has come!”

The lad, Sergius, who was about seven summers, had been shy and reticent when I’d first found him near the body of a murdered man in a Roman shop. Now he yelled with the same enthusiasm as Xerxes’s offspring.

Figures poured from the gate. Most were small, ranging in ages from three—the last child Xerxes had fathered—to nine.

The children were followed by Marcella herself. She was not much taller than her oldest boy, who was growing quickly toward Xerxes’s height. She shaded her eyes and peered at me, standing her ground as I approached.

The six children, who’d never been afraid of me, swarmed me before I reached Marcella. They cried greetings, flung questions at me, and one even tried to open the pouch at my belt, looking for gifts.

Marcella stood calmly in the middle of the chaos, her round body, mouse-colored hair, and plain face belying her fierce spirit.

“Who have you brought with you, Leonidas?” she asked without greeting. “Cassia, I see. Who is the man?”

Fabricia, the oldest girl, came to her mother’s side, leaning into her. “Another stray?” she asked brightly.

“He is Xerxes’s brother,” I said quietly. It never did to keep Marcella curious for long. “So he claims.”

Marcella’s eyes widened, her sunbaked cheeks paling. “His brother …”

“Did you know of him?”

Marcella nodded, her gaze now fixed on the man who waited near the boulder with Cassia. “He spoke of him a few times. Lucius.”

“Yes.” I drew a breath and gentled my voice. “He looks very much like him.”

“Does he, now?” Marcella continued to stare at Lucius, who in the distance was little more than a male figure shrouded by my large cloak.

“I can send him away, if you want. But he needs a place to stay for a time, to be safe. He’s in trouble.”

Marcella snapped her attention back to me. “In trouble? That sounds like someone who’d be related to Xerxes.”

As I stood mutely, waiting for her answer, Marcella made a noise of exasperation. “Very well. Bring him, Leonidas.”

She turned for the gate, Fabricia following, clasping her mother’s hand. Fabricia grinned at me over her shoulder, swinging their arms between them.

The other children surrounded me as I turned back, raising my hand to signal Cassia to come with Lucius down the hill.

“By Mercury,” Lucius said, taking in the multitude as he reached me. “My brother was certainly busy. I must meet this woman who could snare him.”