Emperor: The Gates of Rome E#1 Read Free Page B

on the path about an hour later and woke him by pouring water onto his bruised and battered head. Once again, his face was a crusted mess. His barely scabbed eye had filled with blood, so that his vision was dark on that side. His nose had been rebroken and everything else was a bruise.
"Tubruk?" he murmured, dazed. "I fell out of a tree."
The big mans laugh echoed in the closeness of the dense woods.
"You know, lad, no one doubts your courage. It's your ability to fight I'm not too sure about. It's time you were properly trained before you get yourself killed. When your father is back from the city, I'll raise it with him."
"You won't tell him about... me falling from the tree? I hit a lot of branches on the way down." Gaius could taste blood in his mouth, leaking back from the broken nose.
"Did you manage to hit the tree at all? Even once?" Tubruk asked, looking at the scuffed leaves and reading the answers for himself.
"The tree has a nose like mine, I'd say." Gaius tried to smile, but vomited into the bushes instead.
"Hmmm. Is this the end of it, do you think? I can't let you carry on and see you crippled or dead. When your father is away in the city, he expects you to begin to learn your responsibilities as his heir and a patrician, not an urchin involved in pointless brawls." Tubruk paused to pick up a battered bow from the undergrowth. The string had snapped and he tutted.
"I should tan your backside for stealing this bow as well."
Gaius nodded miserably.
"No more fights, understand?" Tubruk pulled him to his feet and wiped away some of the mud from the track.
"No more fights. Thank you for coming to get me," Gaius replied.
The boy tottered and almost fell as he spoke, and the old gladiator sighed. With a quick heave, he lifted the boy up to his shoulders and carried him down to the main house, shouting "Duck!" when they came to low branches.

Except for the splinted hand, Marcus was back to his usual self by the following week. He was shorter than Gaius by about two inches, brown-haired and strong-limbed. His arms were a little out of proportion, which he claimed would make him a great swordsman when he was older because of the extra reach. He could juggle four apples and would have tried with knives if the kitchen slaves hadn't told Aurelia, Gaius's mother. She had screamed at him until he promised never to try it. The memory still made him pause whenever he picked up a blade to eat.
When Tubruk had brought the barely conscious Gaius back to the villa, Marcus was out of bed, having crept down to the vast kitchen complex. He'd been in the middle of dipping his fingers into the fat-smeared iron pans when he heard the voices and trotted past the rows of heavy brick ovens to Lucius's sickroom.
As always when they hurt themselves, Lucius, a physician slave, tended to the wounds. He looked after the estate slaves as well as the family, binding swellings, applying maggot poultices to infections, pulling teeth with his pliers, and sewing up cuts. He was a quiet, patient man who always breathed through his nose as he concentrated. The soft whistle of air from the elderly physician's lungs had come to mean peace and safety to the boys. Gaius knew that Lucius would be freed when his father died, as a reward for his silent care of Aurelia.
Marcus sat and munched on bread and black fat as Lucius set the broken nose yet again.
"Suetonius beat you again then?" he asked.
Gaius nodded, unable to speak or to see through watering eyes.
"You should have waited for me, we could have taken him together."
Gaius couldn't even nod. Lucius finished probing the nasal cartilage and made a sharp pull, to set the loose piece in line. Fresh blood poured over the day's clotted mixture.
"By the bloody temples, Lucius, careful! You almost had my nose right off then!"
Lucius smiled and began to cut fresh linen into strips to bind around the head.
In the respite, Gaius turned to his friend. "You have a broken, splinted hand and bruised or cracked ribs.