Decius relaxed marginally.
"I'll work for you, Decius Martis, because I have no choice, but I hope you won't expect me to be cheerful about it."
Decius' rusty laugh surprised him. "No, I won't expect that. In your place, I think I would hate me very much."
"Huh. If I don't work out to your satisfaction, I suppose you could always sell me. Provided you can find someone stupid enough to give you gold for a cripple and his baby."
"I would not sell the man who saved my family, whatever you may think of me. I would free you first, myself."
Charlie stared. Trust came hard, but something in Decius' eyes told him he could believe that. "Very well. Master." It came out sounding a little less bitter than before. Then, because the question burned his insides and Decius Martis had not made his intentions clear, "What will you do with Lucania?"
Decius tightened his lips. "I don't know, exactly. Somehow I don't think I'd live long if I tried selling her. And after what I've seen, I wouldn't do that, in any case. We'll decide later what's to be done about the child. After we're safe." He nodded toward the volcano. "And we are not safe yet. The wind and current are carrying us toward the blackest part of that ash cloud."
"I know," Charlie agreed darkly. More than you, pal. He knew exactly what they'd find when they reached shore: more death. Maybe even their own. Somewhere in the blackness they were heading into, the whole Imperial Navy from Misenum was stranded. Its commander—according to Sibyl—would be dead already.
Decius merely nodded to himself and shoved the naked sword under his seat in the stern, out of reach. Charlie let his head drop to the bottom of the boat and shut his eyes. He ached everywhere. Even in his soul. At least Lucania was safe for now. He'd held his temper, held his tongue. He couldn't do much for his daughter as a slave, but he'd secured his child's safety. For now, anyway.
Decius leaned forward from the stern. "Slave. You have never told me what name you are called by."
Charlie considered. Nothing short of torture would force him to reveal the name the roaring crowds—or Xanthus—had given him. How to Latinize his real name?
"Carolus Flineus," he finally said, "is how you would say my name in Latin."
"Flineus," his new master repeated. "An odd name, but it suits you, somehow. Your old master treated you ill." He did not phrase it as a question.
Charlie started to answer, then paused. "Yes. He beat me, sometimes for the pleasure of it. Often. But," he added candidly, "I did not adapt well to slavery. I was born a free man, a citizen, in my own country."
He wondered how to explain the concept of police officers to someone who possessed no inkling of a similar organization. "I held a position of authority. Something like the Praetorian guard or the provincial garrisons. When I was captured and sold, I fought—as any proud and free man would—and tried to escape."
"So your master branded you and maimed you to keep you from running again?"
Charlie's bark of bitter laughter clearly startled the fisherman. "Branded me? Oh, yes. He enjoyed that, too. But my leg was already ruined. I was crippled after two years of fighting in the Circus Maximus. When I was struck down, the crowd spared me. Emperor Vespasian himself ordered me to be tended by a surgeon. Alas, he did not instruct that if I lived, I was to be freed. So I was sold."
"You fought in the great circus at Rome? When you said you'd fought, I thought— What does it look like? What champions did you fight? What weapons did they use? Which did you use?"
Charlie couldn't believe it. He'd found a sports fan. The last thing he wanted to do was remember the years in the arena. But talking about it would please his new master. And there was Lucania to consider... .
So he talked of Rome, which the poverty-stricken fisherman had never seen. He talked of the arena, of the Emperor and the great Flavian Amphitheater (which in Charlie's time was known as the Colosseum, or so said his textbook captions), which was still under construction. He answered a thousand other questions Decius Martis had for him as best he could. And wondered the whole while when Lucania would wake up—and if Decius Martis would let him hold her when she did.
At length the fisherman changed the subject. "We must be getting close to land. If I'm right, the current and winds are carrying us toward Stabiae. I would come ashore elsewhere, given a chance, but I don't think we can make the straits off Capri." The fisherman's glance fell on Charlie's battered armor. "And the first thing you must do, Flineus, is get rid of everything from that soldier. Dump it overboard."
"I don't have any other clothes," Charlie pointed out.
"Then wear a loincloth and go barefooted. If you're caught wearing a soldier's uniform, or with a soldier's personal possessions, nothing I say will save your life. Or very possibly mine."
Charlie stripped to the skin. The moment he unfastened the armor, the ache in his ribs thundered to life, leaving him pale and sweating. Very awkwardly, Charlie pulled off the armor. He had to pause when ribs grated.
He managed to pull the armor off, then dropped it overboard. When Charlie tried to pull off the tunic, he discovered he couldn't raise his arms above his head. A single attempt left him whimpering in the back of his throat. A sheen of cold sweat broke out over his entire body. Muscles trembled uncontrollably in his arms and chest, even his legs.
"Master?" he said, through clenched teeth. Almost worse than the pain, Charlie was embarrassed, humiliated, at having to ask...
Decius looked up in surprise. "Yes?"
"I cannot get the tunic off. I cannot lift my arms high enough."
The fisherman's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. "Hold still." Decius recovered the sword belt from beneath the tiller seat and retrieved the dagger.
"I cannot leave the tiller. Come here and turn around."
Charlie suspected leaving the tiller had less to do with it than distrust, but he did as he was told. Charlie scooted across the intervening space and presented his back. Decius cut the tunic from neck to hem and pulled.
Charlie yelled...
Dimly, he felt his face connect solidly with something hard. Gradually he returned to full awareness with his face pressed against wet wood. Phillipa had knelt over him. She was rinsing his back with fresh water—not salty seawater, but precious drinking water. Charlie tightened his fingers on the wet sail and ground his teeth and fought blackness that roared in his ears.
From somewhere above him, Decius' voice said, "Flineus... ?"
Then Phillipa's voice trickled into his awareness. "He can't hear you, husband. He's fainted. And it's little wonder. He's been shockingly abused."
She sounded angry.
Charlie wished to God he had fainted. Phillipa's ministrations brought another whimper to the back of his throat. When she prodded his ribcage with strong fingers, bone grated on bone, hideously. He closed his hands convulsively in the wet sail. Charlie finally got his wish. Blackness crashed down on the heels of a strangled cry.
He roused all too soon, to find Phillipa wrapping his ribs in her own stola. They'd propped him against the gunwale to give her room to wind the cloth around his torso. When Charlie's eyes fluttered open, Decius Martis met his gaze. The fisherman rested a calloused hand gently on his shoulder.