"No," Julius answered, regarding the chains, "I don't, particularly."
"I'm a Roman citizen."
"Fine. That entitles you to one appeal and a beheading. Venus cloacina, quoadmodum insaniam petisti? Nonne Antonitis te meltores instruxit?"
"Sure, he taught me a lot of things. Taught me everything an old sot could.
Tiberius too."
Julius stopped his hand, not before Caesarion flinched and shut his eyes.
Damn, - that's what he's after, that's what he wants, that's what he believes in. He turned it into a gentler gesture, patted Caesarion on the shoulder.
Caesarion jerked the shoulder aside, and glared through a fall of black hair.
Klea's mouth, set in fury.
"Look." Julius put a few paces between them, sat down on the desk edge. "You could have come here any time. Nothing ever stopped you."
"Sure."
"Quid petis?"
"Enough with the Latin. It's not my language."
"You're a spoiled brat. Damn, you're spoiled."
"Sure. Coddled half to death."
"You're damned lazy! You don't think! How far in Hell did you think you were going to get till you found a door?"
Shift feet and hit him with a specific off the flank. Caesarion's mouth, open to shout, shut while he regrouped.
"How far in Hell," Julius threw after that, "did you think you were going to get with the losers you were running around the hills with? Peace and justice?
Overthrow the Administration? I know. It's Satan's place you're after."
"I'm looking at him."
"I have looked at him, which is a damn sight more than my fool youngest son can Say. I've worked in the Pentagram, which is a damn sight more experience than you have, son, and if you think that was an army you were with, if you think that was the grand army going to liberate Hell and take on Paradise, you are a damned short-sighted fool! Look at yourself!"
"You killed them." The chin, firm till now, quivered. "Men, women, kids, you blew diem all away. No, they didn't have a chance. No more than me."
"Than I, dammit, you grew up illiterate to boot."
"Split grammars with me. Is that all it means?"
"Means. My gods, means. We're at that age, are we? The meaning of life. Look at Curtius, he died young, but he changes, for godssakes! Man looks eighteen and thinks like three thousand.
Put him in the field, you know he'll do his job, he'll think it through. Damn, you're a thundering disappointment."
"Then fuck you."
"What did you say?"
"Fuck-" This time Julius came off the desk and the hand did not stop. It cracked, ring and all, backhand across Caesarion's Cheekbone; and the chair rocked. Caesarion's head went over, his body did, and it was a moment before he lifted his head, with a welt started white and red, and the mark of the signet a split in the skin. His brain was rattled. It could not but be. And the front was gone. The bluff was called and the boy did not want to be here now, in this situation, facing more of the same with his wits addled.
"Boy," Julius said, pulling Caesarion's chin up. "You don't insult a man from that position. That's real stupid. That's what I'm talking about. You don't expect real consequences, you don't live in a real world, you go and do things you're bright enough to know won't work, but you're not living, you're writing little plays that don't come out that way in real life, son, and they get people killed, the same way Che Guevara got his people killed, the same way lousy tacticians all over Hell get their followers sent back to the Undertaker like cordwood, and the same way they'll always find sheep to bleat after their causes and pigs to swallow the swill they put out. You want to say that again, son?"
Caesarion's face was set in fury, red except for the white mark on his cheek; the eyes ran tears and his whole body quivered. But very judiciously he tipped his chin up in the old Med no.
"That's a hell of a lot better," Julius said. "Hell of a lot. I'm relieved. I thought I'd sired a fool."
"You'll find not. Sir."
Hate. Outright hate. But much better control. "That's fine," Julius said.
"Next time you break for a door, I hope to hell you counted 'em on the way in."
Caesarion's eyes flickered. It was genuine embarrassment.
"Damn," Julius said, "there's so much you could learn."
"I'm not your son! I never had a chance to be. I never knew you. And I'm not Roman."
"Doesn't matter. Sorry about getting assassinated. I didn't plan that, you know.
"Then you made a mistake, didn't you?"
"Son, I do occasionally make them. I'm generally good at fixing them."
"Except me."
"Your mother wrote you a note. I didn't want her down there." Julius picked up the wine-stained paper. Held it out as if he had forgotten about the cuffs, then fished the key out of his pocket.
"Here, well. Let's be rid of those."
Caesarion turned in his chair, offered his hands meekly enough, rubbed at his shoulders when he was free and then took the offered paper.
Your mother is here, Klea had written. I love you.
Caesarion's hand trembled. He wadded up the paper and clenched it in his fist.
"Touching. Where is she?"
"You'll see her when you manage that mouth of yours. That may take some time."
"I'm not staying here."
Julius shook his head wearily. "Son, if you're going to escape, don't announce it."
"Damn you!" Caesarion came out of the chair.
Julius blocked the blow left-handed. His right sent Caesarion back into the chair and the chair screeching back against the wall.
"You're no better with your hands free," Julius said.
Caesarion put his hand up to his jaw and looked toward nothing at all.
"Going to be a fool all your life?" Julius asked him. "My gods, boy, you've got a brain. Are we playing games, or are you here, in my study, with my guards out there, and the damned Dissident army funded and run by the
Pentagram-"
Dark eyes came up to his, wide and angry.
"Run by the Pentagram," Julius said. "Officers installed; Paid for. Guevara's betrayed. It's a damned front for a Pentagram split, son, your great revolutionary leader is either in their pay or he isn't, and if he isn't, he's been had. If he is, he's had you. Which will you bet?"
"It's a lie."
"It's a lie. Of course it's a lie. Guevara's brilliant. There aren't any mercs coming into the cause.
Just all purity of purpose. Di immortales, boy, Guevara's taken the Trip so often he just waits for the next. comes out like a puppet and staggers through the motions and damned lunatics follow him. You think the Pentagram couldn't crush that headless snake? It's damned useful having it thrash about, lets them maneuver where they want, crush their real enemies-"
Caesarion's eyes were still wide. But the anger began to lack conviction.
"Meaning you."
"Mithridates is running it, son. Your precious Dissidents didn't capture Hadrianus, the fool was set up by his own staff, was thrown into their hands. You're playing Mithridates' game. Never mind Rameses. He doesn't know what goes on. I pulled you in here because I didn't want you into Reassignments. Die out there and gods know where you'll end up. Or in whose hands. Mithridates', for one. With your mind laundered. Is your English up to that? Do you follow me?"
Long silence.
"Do you follow me?"
"Not that far." Caesarion rubbed his jaw and shook his head. "Wasn't it not to be a fool you were teaching me?"
"Hell, you still haven't got it."
"You've got a mouth your-" Caesarion started off hot; and with a nervous flicker of his eyes upward, swallowed it, frozen like a bird before a snake.
"Right." Julius folded his arms and contemplated his youngest.
"Tiberius failed," Caesarion sneered. "He tried to break me too."