Inside the house, Gaius Julius leaned out of one of the windows on the second floor of the sleeping quarters. His old face creased with a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. Like the kitchen in the lower floor, the sleeping rooms were graced with big, tall windows and latticework shutters of thin-cut pine. He had found a chamber to his liking and opened them, letting the late afternoon sun stream through. Even the dust was not so bad. He leaned on the windowsill, watching the figure of the Prince disappear into a stand of olive trees.

"That seems a delightful pursuit."

Gaius turned a little and saw that Alexandros had entered the room. The youth had stripped off his shirt, and the sunlight played over supple muscle and smooth flesh. Even the welts of two deep scars, one along his side and the other just below his shoulder, did not mar his beauty. He had tied his hair partially back, which left it hanging in a thick mane of blond curls behind his head. Gaius Julius grinned wryly, reflecting on the true age of the «young» man. "Would you care to test your strength?"

The old Roman raised an eyebrow and turned around. The Macedonian's eyes met his, and Gaius Julius felt the shock of the man's power to attract and command. "Ah, lad, you know how old I feel:"

"Illusion," Alexandros said, grinning like a god, and took his hand. "Let me show you."

Maxian and Krista climbed through stands of cypress trees, sunlight and wind in their hair. The trail, twisted and strewn with rocks, turned and they stopped, looking back. Far below they could make out the red tile roofs of the villa and the outline of the wagons, still sitting in the foreyard. The clouds had blown away to the northwest, out over the Bay of Neapolis. From this height they could see out over the long curve of the shore and toward the headland that held Puteoli and the great military harbor at Misenum. Somewhere below the blueand-white haze, beyond the sparkling bay, was Cumae and the summer villas of the rich.

"This was my mother's own house," the Prince mused as they walked, clambering up over black rocks with rough pockets cut out of them. " She had it from her father- she was his onlyheir- and she kept it as she liked. Father built her a whole new house at Cumae when he was made governor and tribune, but this place was the dearest to her heart."

"What happened to your mother?" Krista scrambled along behind him, feeling the twinge of exertion in her thighs. It had been some time since she had had a chance to work up a real sweat. The cool mountain air was refreshing and clean, far better than the humid lowland vapors. She noticed that the Prince had gotten back a little color on his legs and thighs. He seemed fitter, too, though that might just have been the skimpy outfit. She grinned again. This was a thousand times better than spending the whole of the day and the night in some noisome cellar, watching him mutter and chant, bent over some ancient tome.

"Mater died in the first plague- the one that made you cough until blood came out of your mouth. She and Pater were in Narbo at the other house. I only found out by letter. I was away in Africa, visiting cousin Antonius in Leptis Magna. I came home as fast as I could, but she was already gone. Father kept the household on here for a time, but then the War of the Pretenders began, and they must have fled."

Krista skipped ahead and came alongside the Prince. His face was sad and touched by old pain. She caught his hand and squeezed it. He grinned, and his mood passed away when she smiled back.

"What is your best memory of this place?"

Maxian took her hand and turned it, bringing her wrist to his lips as they walked. Dark-needled trees were intermixed with the cypress now, and the air had a faint piney scent. The ground changed, too, becoming rockier, the lower slopes and their thick rich black soil left behind.

"You are good to try to distract me," he said, kissing her hand. " That is an old pain, my love. She had a long, full life, and saw her sons grow to manhood. Galen missed her most, I'm sure. I remember, when we had come to Rome in victory and the Senate had proclaimed him Emperor and God, that he looked over his shoulder, standing there in the Curia Julia on the speaker's platform, looking to see if she was there, in the wings, watching him."

Krista squeezed his hand and slipped her arm around his waist. They walked under the trees, talking, until the trail ended in a forest of great boulders and a thick tangle of brush. Stones towered up around them, rough and jagged, and she saw that they stood at the edge of a round bowl at the very top of the mountain. It was a mile or more across and jumbled with pillars and boulders and thickets of boscage. Hawks circled in the air above the summit, coasting on the wind.

"Ah: "The Prince scratched his chin. "This is a good memory. See this wilderness? It is veryfamous- long ago there was a great rebellion among the slaves. They fought hard against the Republic but were defeated in the end. This was their stronghold, here in the high air on the mountain. Three Legions besieged them for two years before the end. When I was little my brothers and I would come here to play, sneaking among the rocks, climbing down into all the hidden places, pretending to be soldiers:."

Krista looked around, feeling a chill. She knew this place from whispers in the slave quarters late at night. Even in the house of the Duchess there were some stories that were forbidden. This was one, a tale of gladiators and rebellion. The bravery of the Thracian and the greed of Crassus, the cruelty of the Legions and the dreadful cost in lives that brief freedom cost. It grew cold on the mountaintop. The bright sunlight seemed thin now, and she thought she could see the spirits of the dead slaves in the shadows under the boulders.

"Come on," Maxian said, his voice filled with rediscovered joy. " There is a hidden place at the center, a grotto of soft green grass and flowers. I am sure I can find it again!" Ignoring the bleak look on her face, the Prince dragged her into a passage between the boulders.

Anatol peered around the corner of the big house, his hands on the white plastered wall. Three of the other Walach boys crowded behind him, snickering and tugging at his shirt. The yard in front of the house was empty, save for the wagons that they had ridden up from Rome. The corpse-man was in the yard standing still and quiet as a gravestone. Anatol rubbed his nose furiously and nerved himself up. He looked all around, cautious and wary. He was pretty sure that the young master and his woman would not be back for a few hours- Anatol could smell the heady scent in the air as well as anyone. The late spring was blooming on the mountainside; flowers were opening, filling the air with delicious smells and the thick taste of their pollen. Foxes yowled in the hedgerows, and birds made a graceful dance in the air. Even the two dead men were upstairs, locked in sweaty contest. It was spring.

"Go on," whispered Vitaly. "It's just standing there."

Anatol smoothed back his unruly shock of thick black hair and squared his shoulders. His brothers gave him a good push, and he skipped out into the yard. Glaring back over his shoulder, he scuttled up to within ten or twelve feet of the thing standing in the yard. It remained quiescent, staring off into the sky.

"Khiron?"

The head of the thing turned, swiveling like a clockwork, and Anatol felt a chill from the top of his head to the bottoms of his bare, furry feet. The corpse-man's eyes were black and bottomless, filled with pain and a hint of the lash. The mottled yellow-gray skin of the creature barely flexed as it bent its head to look upon him. Anatol gulped and backed up a foot or two. All the Walach boys had seen the speed of the corpse-man; it was like one of the sura?pa, striking like the wind. It was strong, too, strong enough to bend iron in its fist, strong enough to crack stones to powder. The young master had ordered it to wear a long gray tunic with a hood, but in this bright afternoon it had thrown back the woolen head covering and stood, watching the birds circling in the sky.