"I'm sure he is. But what about you?"
"What about me? I've spent many hours with Picus in the past week or so. You and he haven't seen each other in twenty years."
Hearing the words spoken suddenly made me feel how quickly time had passed.
"What's he like, Cay? Has he changed much?"
Cay grinned, his face glowing with pride. "He's my son, what should he be like?" He stopped himself and began again. "No, I'll answer you honestly, Publius. He is... magnificent. I would not have known him had I seen him in the street, nor would you. But I'll tell you no more. You deserve the same pleasant surprise I had. Mind you, I always used to jest with my wife Heraclita that one of her grandmothers had come overly close to a northern slave... My first sight of my son in twenty years convinced me that the jest might have been closer to the truth than I suspected!" He smiled again, and grasped my arm in farewell. "Give him my love, and enjoy your time with him. I'll be here when you get back, and I hope we'll be able to leave for home soon after that."
He nodded again, then left immediately with the waiting clerk to begin the preliminary work of drafting the details of what he and Stilicho had discussed. I went on to dine alone and retired early.
I rolled from my bed two hours before sunrise the next morning, into the wintry chill of a dank blackness filled with the hissing roar of pelting rain. Feeling very sorry for myself for all I had been through recently, I splashed my face with icy water and made my way to the commissary, where many others were beginning their day, few of them looking any happier than I felt. Seated close to the kitchens, however, I began to feel distinctly better. The bakers had been working all night, as usual, and the kitchens were warm from the heat of the stone ovens and filled with the aroma of new-baked bread.
I broke my fast on new, crusty bread and thick, hot oat porridge with fresh, creamy milk and then made my way to the bath house, where I found a press of bodies already in the sudarium. All of us were content to ignore each other as we steamed our way communally back towards humanity. The rain stopped just before daybreak, and as I left the bath house, sunbeams began breaking through the cloud masses in the east.
Less than an hour later, I presented myself to the garrison guards on duty at the forum basilica and asked to speak with the Officer of the Day. I was told that he had not yet arrived, and was directed to wait in an anteroom off the main entrance hall. Though I was on the point of drawing myself to my full height and telling them just who I was and who I was there to meet, I decided instead to do as advised. No Imperial Household Troops, these guards were ordinary infantry grunts trying to be pleasant while doing a boring and unsatisfying task. I nodded my thanks and made my way to the doorway the guard had indicated, where I paused on the threshold, looking around before I entered.
The room in front of me was long and narrow and dim — I guessed at twenty paces long by six wide — and the only source of light was a double-arched, unglazed window in the far wall, opposite the doorway. A recessed, double doorway in the wall directly to the left inside the entrance was closed and guarded by two erect, stiff-postured legionaries, and a bored-looking clerk sat to the right of them, at a large, plain table piled with written records. Beyond him, filling the entire room, was what seemed to me a multitude of people, all evidently waiting to see someone, and all, obviously, ahead of me.
The clerk glanced up indolently as I approached his table, asked my name but not my business, and told me to have a seat. I bit my tongue again and turned away to do as he said, but the two long benches against the side walls were filled, as were the two shorter, back-to-back benches in the middle of the floor, and I could see no place to sit. So I walked the length of the room, picking my way carefully between the rows of outstretched feet, and stood with my back to the wall in the small open space in front of the only window, from which point I counted heads and examined the room's occupants.
There was nothing unusual about them, except that it seemed to me as though they all wished they could be somewhere else. I did, too, but at least I knew I would, in fact, be going somewhere else as soon as Picus appeared. Had that not been the case, I reckoned idly that I would have been twenty-fourth in line. I revised that, however, by examining the crowd more closely. I identified several people who were evidently alone, wrapped in their own concerns, but the majority, I could see now, were in pairs, and there were two groups of three. I wondered what kinds of confrontations and disputes there were to be resolved here, and what kind of a judge Picus would seem to those who sought justice from him as the Regent's deputy.
They were silent, for the most part, and unaware of my scrutiny, avoiding each other's eyes and biding their time stoically. When any of them did speak among themselves, they did so in whispers, and I realized that most of them, if not all of them, were afraid and ill at ease — which was not surprising, when I considered where they were and the probable nature of their business with the military administration and civic authorities in Londinium. I classified most of them as ordinary townsfolk, their drab, muted dress ranging through various shades of plain browns and greys. Three men grouped together at the far end of the room were obviously farmers, and two others, huddled close together on the bench to my right and arguing in fierce whispers, appeared, from the slightly better quality of their robes, to be merchants of some description. None of them even glanced at me and I soon grew bored.
I had been aware for some time of a ragged nail, on the little finger of my left hand, snagging annoyingly on the wool of my cape. Now, to pass the time, I settled my back against the wall, unsheathed my skystone knife and began to pare the rough edge. As I was doing so, I became aware of someone coming towards me and glanced up. It was one of the men who had been seated alone, just inside the room, close to the two guards. He was a big, burly fellow with close-set eyes and a bad squint, and his nose had been flattened at some time in the distant past. His feet were encased in heavy, felt boots and he was wrapped entirely in a thick cloak, its end thrown up over his left shoulder so that his arms were completely covered. His eyes were fixed on my knife, probably because of the amazing brightness of the blade, but as he saw me look at him he looked away, towards the window behind me. His face was expressionless. He came to a stop about a pace from the window, just in front of me and to my right, and the stink of him made me catch my breath. I ignored him, but opened my lips to breathe through my mouth in an attempt to avoid having to smell him. I tested the now-smooth edge of my nail with a fingertip and slipped my knife back into its sheath before glancing at him again. He seemed to be leaning backwards, slightly, so as to keep the shadow of the window's arch across his face. Idly, not really interested, I pushed my back away from the wall, turned and followed his gaze out into the courtyard beyond the window to see what he was looking at, hoping that whatever it was would be boring, so that he would take himself and his smell back to the far end of the room.
Four prisoners sat in the middle of the yard in chains, bound at the wrists, their arms held tightly in place by thick staves thrust between their backs and their bent elbows. They were shackled together by a chain run through metal rings at their ankles and were guarded by a squad of six soldiers. The ten men were motionless. I sensed that the man beside me had known they were there and had approached the window to look at them.
"Who are they?" I asked him. His strange, misaligned eyes flicked to my face and then away again, back to the courtyard, as if I had not spoken. Apart from that, he ignored me and my question completely. Angered, I stepped around him to the other half of the window and leaned out, my hands on the sill, as much for the fresh air as to see what else was to be seen. As I did so, I sensed him stiffen, but he made no move of any kind.