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When he opened his eyes, Barca saw the stars and briefly forgot where he was.
He sat up and ran a hand through his hair ruefully. They had been at sea for almost a week, now, and every time he woke, he was shocked to see the sky overhead. The last time he had slept beneath open air was Gallia; he half-expected to turn and find Cyprian beside him, some nights. Barca looked down at the bedroll besides his and smiled. Pietros slept soundly as ever—neither the rolling of the ship, nor Barca’s restlessness bothered him.
Barca reached out to touch him, wanting to revel in the familiar comforts of skin, but his hand hovered over Pietros’s shoulder and retreated. Better to let him rest for now. Instead, Barca stood and walked to the edge of the deck with a soft tread. His eye was drawn east, where the first rim of golden light began to drift over the horizon. Idly, his gaze traveled, and then fixed on one far-away point. His heart began to pound.
The banks of Carthage lay in the distance. The sea beneath his feet rocked him gently, and Barca’s hands gripped the weathered wood so tightly that his fingernails gouged the rail.
------
Pietros stared at the great walls of a once-great city, and felt very young. The walls were enormous, and in some places still bore strips of white plaster that clung to them desperately. More frequently, though, the enormous stones—twice his armspan, at least, perhaps three times—were marked instead by mold, sea-salt, and decades-old scorch marks. Many were crumbling into the sea, and some were cracked clean in half. Rome had expended a great deal of coin and effort fighting Carthage in three separate wars, and when she finally got the chance to exact her revenge, she had not shown mercy.
And yet, even old, even broken, even fading, they were larger and grander than anything he had ever seen. The arena of Capua did not even compare, and with a sinking heart, Pietros wondered if he had even an inkling of what he was getting into. The world had sounded much smaller from the intimacy of their bed.
Barca’s hand touched his waist and Pietros looked over his shoulder with a smile. Barca kissed the corner of his mouth.
“There—five times greater than anything Rome creates, aren’t they?” he asked, his eyes raking over the walls. He had not seen them since childhood, Pietros knew, but his expression gave away nothing of his thoughts except smug pride. That was generally his response when comparing anything between Rome and Carthage.
“And what lies within them?”
“A city that one dwarfed Rome—I do not know how it has changed.”
They have few belongings, and step off the gangplank burdened with a pack each, cloaks on their back, and their remaining coin in a pouch on Barca’s belt. They will rely on the aura of intimidation that surrounds him to keep any would-be thieves at bay.
The docks were quieter than they had been at Neapolis, but still bustling with ships of different makes. Barca told him that Carthaginian trade routes were as widespread as Hispania, Egypt, and Syria, and clearly some merchants in those places thought that the risk of Roman displeasure for keeping those routes open was not too strong. They asked directions of a sailor who spoke passable Latin, and were soon directed to a modest inn situated on a wide, open road.
Pietros glanced around the main room, and guessed that most of its occupants were not staying at the inn; they partook of drink and food with a boisterousness that spoke of long familiarity. Their eyes fell immediately to Pietros when he entered the room, and his steps stuttered. Most gazes then flickered to Barca, whose scowls diverted further attention.
They approached the owner, and Barca asked if there were rooms available. The owner looked amused, as though it was a stupid question, and nodded. Coin changed hands, and they were led upstairs to a small, fairly dirty room with a stool, a rough-hewn table, and a bedframe with a thin mattress. What drew Pietros’s eye, however, was the window. Eagerly, he strode towards it and threw open the wooden shutters. It was not a fantastic view—the building directly across from them was only one story, but the one across from that was taller than the inn—but he did not care. He had never had a window before.
He turned to look at Barca, who was watching him with an inscrutable smile on his face. Suddenly Pietros felt shy, unsure if that smile was merely amusement at his naiveté. He spread his arms in a question.
Barca did not speak. Instead, he simply stepped forward, embraced Pietros tightly, and swung him in a circle. Pietros’s sandals scraped against the floor and he laughed, throwing his arms around Barca’s neck instinctively. When he settled again, Barca kissed his temple, and Pietros pulled him down for a kiss on the mouth. Kissing Barca was like drinking ambrosia—often, Pietros thought about the love potions said to be found in a gladiator’s blood, and smugly laughed at the women who wasted such effort, when the same effect could be had from a gladiator’s lips.
Without breaking the kiss, he let his hands wander over Barca’s muscled shoulders, down the trim line of his back, and resting teasingly on his ass. He pulled Barca’s body flush against his own, and heard the rumble of Barca’s laughter.
“Have you always been so bold?” Barca asked. His lips touched Pietros’s forehead lightly, and his fingers glided over Pietros’s hair. Sometimes Pietros marveled at how gentle his touch could be.
“Always, when driven by visions of you in my bed,” he mumbled, nipping at Barca’s skin to hide any awkwardness that had permeated his voice.
It was always easier to form enticing words when their bodies were already intertwined and his heart racing—he had never had a talent as a flirt. Barca chuckled and took a tighter grip on Pietros’s waist. As he spoke, and dropped kisses to Pietros’s lips, he pulled him back towards the bed.
“I had forgotten. You would remind me?”
“Yes.”
They laid down and Pietros draped himself over Barca’s body. For a time, the rest of the world shrunk again, to the confines of Barca’s arms.
--
The next morning, after a breakfast of stale oatmeal and fresh apples, they left the inn in favor of the greater city. Barca did not know what had survived the ravages of time and Rome, but he promised Pietros they would visit the temple of Tanith, first—if there was anything the citizens of Carthage would have wanted to preserve, he guessed that the temple would be it.
As they walked through the city streets, Barca couldn’t help but stare. Many of the buildings were emptied and fallen into disrepair, but he had expected that. Carthage had been in slow decline since Hannibal’s day, and the city had been half-empty for decades. Still, he had expected to find… life. Pockets of bustling activity interspersed within the stillness. The people of Carthage, as he had known them, had been fiercely proud of their heritage—every one of them could claim a king for an ancestor, even if it meant counting centuries back—and interested in their neighbors, fond of the sea, fonder of war, strict with their children and their animals alike but protective all the same.
The city had changed. From what they could tell, the occupied residences were not close together; there was at least one building’s space, or more, in between them, and people passed by their neighbors with hardly a glance at them. Meetings in the street seemed infrequent, reserved for family. Dogs wandered the alleyways and the ruins of old houses, looking forlornly at the passers-by who did not bless them with attention or scraps of meat. The whole place was quiet and haggard.
“I had not expected to find an entire city of men as taciturn as you,” Pietros teased.
Nor did I, Barca thought grimly, but he forced a smile.
“Perhaps the city was more lively in my grandfather’s time; in my father’s, and mine, people always acted as though any noise too loud—excluding war cries—would bring the wrath of Rome upon us. The country will be as quiet, but peacefully so,” he added on impulse, hoping it was true. “We need not stay long in the city.”
“We shall stay as long as you desire,” Pietros corrected softly. “I am not so eager for country air that I would tear you from your home. Again.”
“We were as frequently in the country as the city,” Barca shrugged, though his mind was elsewhere.
Before him the street seemed to widen, the buildings fall away, and all Barca could see, all he could care about, was the great temple of Tanith. He sucked in his breath when he saw it; it stood as strong and tall as ever. There was no crowd of worshippers clouding it, but he expected that. Even Before, the gods of Carthage had been losing ground. How much power could they have, if they had not intervened when Scipio came? Other temples, grander and more favored, were erected to the Roman gods, no matter how much Mago railed at any of his kinsmen who blasphemed and—worse—defected to the Romans in spirit if not in body.
His mother had never ceased to believe in the gods of her childhood, though. That was why she had come here, with Barca and Cyprian, when her husband went off to war. To pray, worship, and beg.
“Is that it?” Pietros asked, gesturing towards the great stone building. Very subtly, his hand brushed Barca’s, and their fingers intertwined. Barca felt a sudden rush of adoration for this boy who knew him so well; the opportunity to provide Pietros with support bolstered his trembling spine instantly.
“Yes. See.” He pointed at the carving above the door, which resembled a woman with arms extended, standing below a crescent moon. “That is the symbol of Tanith.”
“She is a goddess of the moon?”
“Of many things. War, healing, fertility. She is the mother of us all.”
Pietros nodded thoughtfully, and Barca wondered what he would do with such information. It seemed rude to ask; Pietros had always worshipped the Roman gods faithfully, which Barca had occasionally mocked him for. But here, away from Rome, would he still wish to worship the gods given to him by his masters? Would he adopt the Carthaginian faith, which was also not his, or simply allow his piety to lapse?
No, he thought with a quirk of his lips. Not the last. Pietros was a creature of faith—with his dying breath, he would cling to his ideals. His conviction in the higher good was something Barca had always loved. He lifted their joined hands and kissed Pietros’s smooth skin, just to see him smile.
“Come,” he said, tugging Barca forward easily. “I have never seen a non-Roman temple before.”
Barca followed him eagerly enough, but on the top step he halted.
It was the same. He had not expected it to be so familiar—surely the years would have darkened the bricks, dimmed the mosaics, painted everything with a thick coat of dust. Or at least eroded his memory. No... he glanced down at the floor beneath his feet, and was almost surprised to see that his mother’s blood had been washed away.
She had fallen right here, he remembered. He turned his head slightly and looked up, right at the closet where he had hidden with Cyprian. It was where the priestesses stored the oils and incense, and they had held their breath so that the strong smells would not make them cough. The same smells wafted towards him from the altar, fainter but no less familiar, and Barca remembered too the smell of blood and ashes. He had been paralyzed with fright in that closet—he had watched his mother struck down, and still he could not leave it until he was sure that her attacker had left.
Even now, his blood rushed through his veins and he resisted the urge to look over his shoulder for Roman soldiers, twice his height, painted crimson, bearing swords that surely belonged to the giants. He had knelt by his mother’s body for a full day and night, unable to do anything but sit and cry and wait for death. By sword or starvation, he had been ready to die. Barca closed his eyes and tried to calm his roiling stomach.
“Barca?” Pietros asked in a low voice.
He reached out to touch Barca’s arm, and he almost flinched away, expecting Mago, but for the look in Pietros’s eyes. Puzzled, certainly, but soft—he could sense Barca’s distress, though Barca had never shared details of his mother’s death. And he sure as fuck wouldn’t now. He did not want to profane the temple with words—bad enough that the act itself had occurred here, in the temple of the mother goddess.
The warrior goddess, too, he reminded himself, and managed a faint smile at the thought of how warmly his mother must have been received by Tanith. She had died with a sword in her hand.
“It’s changed,” he lied, glancing up at the ceiling. Yes, age had weathered it—he spotted a few holes, wood swollen with rot and stones slowly crumbling. “My mother used to take me here often for worship.”
Pietros nodded slowly. He took Barca’s hand again.
“She was dear to you,” he said with no hint of uncertainty.
“As my own heart,” Barca acknowledged, tenderness in his voice. “As you,” he added, and Pietros turned away to hide his smile.
“What was her name?”
“Elissa.”
Together, they began to walk towards the altar, upon which stood a black stone statue of the goddess, surrounded by incense, old coins, and tablets inscribed with the prayers of people seeking miracles. There was only one woman there; she turned at the sound of their footsteps. The air left Barca’s lungs.
For a moment, he wondered if he was recalling the past again, but no—he recognized her hair, formed into long locks and tied back with a scrap of cloth, but not the grey that touched her natural mahogany hair. He remembered the eyes, but not the lines that surrounded them, and her pale skin had turned dull from age. She looked at him as though he were a ghost.
“Barca,” she whispered. “You live.”
“Ayzebel…”
“Cyprian—” she asked, stepping forward and clutching his arms. Her eyes were lit by sheer desperation, and his throat went dry. “Cyprian—”
He could do nothing but shake his head, and for the first time Ayzebel looked from him to the man at his side, who was decidedly not her son.
“Apologies,” he said. Two pairs of eyes raised to his face, Pietros and Ayzebel searching his gaze for answers.
--
The conversation did not remain in the temple. Ayzebel invited Barca back to her home, and he accepted with only the barest glance at Pietros. Not that it mattered. He sat in the small sitting room, staring at the clay cups of wine that their hostess had provided (which neither of them touched) and, quite calmly, accepted the fact that Barca had not had a choice.
In clipped words, Barca told Ayzebel of his voyage to Hispania, along with Cyprian and every young man of fighting age not loyal to Mago. He told of battles won and lost against Roman auxiliaries in Hispania and Gaul. He talked of plans made to take Rome, and of Mago’s raids on Sicilia, which he they had not known about at the time. It was the capture of those soldiers, he said, that had prompted Rome to send more troops after his own. So that Carthage could, once and for all, be wiped from the earth.
Pietros had never heard any of this, and he kept his eyes fixed on the pale red wine sitting forlornly in the cup in front of him. He did not look at Ayzebel, but at the edge of his gaze he could see her hands clasped together so tightly that her knuckles were white.
“They are all dead, then,” she whispered. “My son—my nephews—”
“Roman treachery,” Barca said, and Pietros looked up. Barca was barely moving his lips, but there was uncharacteristic shame in his voice. For the first time, Pietros could imagine him as a boy—unsure, frightened, desperate for approval. He swallowed thickly. “We were surrounded in the night.”
Ayzebel bowed her head for a long time, and there was a faint creak as Barca shifted uncertainly in his seat. Pietros’s fingers itched, eager to reach out and rest on the back of Barca’s hand, but he dared not give in to the urge. His throat hurt. He reached abruptly for the cup of wine, and the movement caught Ayzebel’s eye. She looked up at him, her dark eyes radiating sorrow and—hatred. Startled, he almost let the cup slip from his grasp, but she quickly diverted her gaze to Barca and he managed to recover his grip, with nothing to show for the mishap but a few drops of wine splashed on his fingers.
“And my husband?” she asked in a rough voice. “You survived. If others were enslaved—”
Barca shook his head. In as few words as possible, he explained about the arena and the end of Carthage.
This, at least, Pietros had heard before.
“He fought bravely. They all did—Rome demanded blood, and we gave them honor. Bomilcar fell to Mago’s blade, as Mago fell to mine.”
Barca had always told Pietros that he had not gotten along with his father, but he had also never been adept at hiding the grief in his voice when he spoke of that battle in the arena. Hesitantly, Pietros tried to reach out, but Barca shook his head imperceptibly, and Pietros thought about Cyprian again.
“Carthage is dying,” Ayzebel said, in a far-off voice with all the sure solemnity of a prophet’s. “Since the siege. Our walls are broken, our ships sunk, our people buried in mass graves. Even our faith fades to embers. Tanith demands sacrifice, but there are so few children left….”
She shook her head, voice tight with tears, and Barca leaned forward automatically. He looked distressed and desperate, and Pietros remembered what he had said about his own mother—as dear to him as his own heart. Pietros wondered if he had held Cyprian as closely, and immediately felt ashamed.
“There was a child. I—” Barca hesitated, and though he did not look at Pietros, his weight shifted unconsciously away. “I was once ordered by my dominus to kill a man who bore him a grudge. There was a boy. I offered him to Tanith, with what prayers I could remember.”
They did not remain long after that. Ayzebel’s grief made her cold, and Barca could find no words that would offer comfort.
As they walked away from the building, Pietros said in a quiet voice, “Ovidius’s son.”
“His family was dead, and my orders… he felt no pain. Apologies.”
Pietros did not reply.
--
On their second night in Carthage, Pietros cried. He tried not to—then he tried to conceal it. Barca lay beside him, bitterly regretting every fucking word he had spoken to Ayzebel that day. He would forever carry the guilt of Cyprian’s death—the death of every man he had persuaded to join him in his mad quest to take on Rome. But as he lay in the darkness, staring at the cracks in the ceiling, he thought that he would rather bear the guilt silently for the rest of his days, and settle it with the gods, than have caused Pietros a second of pain.
Finally, unable to bear it, he turned over and kissed Pietros’s bare back. Instinctively, the boy caught his breath.
“Go to sleep.”
Without looking at him, Pietros rolled over and rested his cheek against the curve of Barca’s shoulder. His cheek was wet and his hair tickled Barca’s chin.
Barca extricated his arm from where it was pinned against the bed, and draped it lazily around Pietros’s neck, trying to contain his relief.
--
Their stay in the city was prolonged as Barca took to visiting the widows, parents, and—to his greatest regret—children of soldiers lost, either in his campaign or his father’s. On the second day he had gruffly suggested that Pietros might join him, if he wished, but Pietros firmly declined. Barca had told him that he remembered many of the lost soldiers, even those in Mago’s army, from gossip in the arena cages if not from personal memories, but many years had passed and he could not recall all the details.
The lies he told to offer closure are kind ones, but Pietros would still prefer not to sit through them himself. Besides, it had been made perfectly obvious that he was not of Carthage, and he did not want to see the accusations that lingered in each pair of unfamiliar eyes.
However, the idea of sitting in the inn room all day, wasting their limited funds, was not appealing to him either. Once it became apparent that Barca would not be finished with his business in a day, or even a week, Pietros went to the innkeep. A bargain was struck; Pietros began to work in the main room to pay off their room and board.
It was there that he discovered that inns in Carthage were very much like inns in Rome; it was impossible to spend much time in them without encountering prostitutes. There were only two regular whores who worked there, due to the low number of patrons, and Pietros soon became passing friends with both of them—Similce and Cornelia. They liked him, because when he was around they could do less serving and focus on the money-making aspects of their profession, and he liked them because they looked on him without judgment and distracted most of the men’s attention.
After a few days, however, Pietros discovered that “most” did not mean all. He was surprised, the first time he felt a surreptitious pinch on his ass, only because he was used to such attentions from gladiators in a ludus, not drunkards in a tavern. He paused in a flash of confusion, and then calmly returned to pouring the wine. Nothing truly unusual had happened, after all. He did not mention it to Barca.
On his seventh day in Carthage, one of the patrons grabbed him by the wrist and did not let go.
Reflexively, Pietros pulled back, true shock thumping in his veins, because no one had ever dared to question Barca’s claim so boldly—not for many, many years. The boorish man simply chuckled and tugged harder, his grip as strong as steel and his arms thick with muscle and pulsing arteries. A blacksmith, probably, or a butcher. Pietros stumbled and landed on the man’s knee. Calloused fingers curled around the soft skin of his lower thigh, and the man said something in Phoenician, slurred by drink and complete nonsense to Pietros’s unfamiliar ears. His words were met with laughter from his fellows.
Panic was just settling into Pietros’s stomach when the laughter was interrupted by a great bellowing roar. Blood bubbled up from three red welts that crossed the man’s face, and as Pietros watched, Similce smartly delivered a blow to the man’s wrist that broke his grip like shattering clay. His arm free, Pietros pushed himself away from the drunk and stepped back, still not entirely sure how it had happened.
“Foolish drunk slob,” Cornelia said reproachfully, shaking her head. “It’s your own damn fault—you know how Similce gets.”
The man responded in Phoenician again, sounding ashamed, and Similce looped her arm through Pietros’s and dutifully marched him out of the room.
“Are you injured?” she asked, and he stared at her mutely, trying to comprehend the last twenty seconds.
Similce was the younger of the two whores, though that did not say much—such a life did not tend to be long. He was surprised, though, to see that she was probably within a year or two of he himself. There were no lines around her eyes. She was very pretty, no one could deny that, with striking hazel eyes and dark hair cut short. That, he guessed, was mostly for practical purposes, to keep out the lice and fleas that often inhabited inn beds, but it suited her, and highlighted the strong, sharp lines of her face.
To look at her, he would not have guessed that she was the type of woman to voluntarily come to the aid of a stranger in need, but in the days that they had known each other, he had learned that Similce was not a woman to be trifled with, and her whims were hard to resist.
“No,” he said finally. His voice was dry and he cleared his throat. His wrist throbbed where the man’s fingers had gripped the strongest. “I am not,” he repeated. Similce stared at him with unyielding eyes.
“This is not the first time he has taken liberties not owed to him. The men here know well that any touch unpaid for is one unearned—do not allow them to think otherwise. Besides, you are no whore.”
Pietros shrugged. “A touch is of no concern to me. Not enough to bother.”
Her eyes were yet fixed upon his, and Pietros shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He wanted to duck his head, cast his eyes safely on the ground, but Barca had been commenting on that since before they were free. It was a slavish act, he said, fit before a dominus but no other. Pietros forced himself to look her in the face.
“My mother was a whore,” she said abruptly. “And a renowned fighter. She used to tell men that if any beat her with a sword, he might lie with her without cost.”
“And?” he asked, a smile tugging at his lips.
“Only one ever did. So she married him.”
He laughed, and Similce smiled.
“My parents taught me well. If you desire to learn swordplay, I could show you. They would not bother you then. You should know some already,” she said reproachfully, before he could answer. “The whole city has heard that you travel with the son of Mago.”
“Barca was a gladiator,” Pietros shrugged. “I, a slave. Both of us would have been whipped, had he attempted to teach me the sword.”
“Are you still a slave?” Similce asked, raising her eyebrows.
Pietros opened his mouth to politely refuse her offer, and paused. Her words had a glimmer of truth in them. He was not a violent person—not a fighter, perhaps not even a survivor like Barca was. In the past, he had allowed his lover to fight for him. But he was not a slave now, not a boy for much longer, and he had learned in the past week that sneers and contempt could be as painful as unwelcome hands. Besides, he thought with a private grin, the look of shock on Barca’s face might be worth the trouble alone.
--
Barca was tired. His whole body seemed to ache—his feet from walking every inch of the city, his throat from telling stories of death every day, his heart from believing, for once, that happiness would reign in his life, and again being proven wrong. He trudged wearily towards the inn, and reminded himself that he would find Pietros within. The gods had smiled on him, once, to have given him the boy. Even now, with Barca solemn and snappish, Pietros did not complain; he knew that there would be time for explanations and apologies once they were gone from the city.
Once they had a house of their own, and a little farm, and time. Barca thought of it longingly as he stepped into the inn’s courtyard, heading towards the back staircase that lead directly to their room.
To his surprise, he had barely stepped foot into the courtyard before Pietros’s laugh echoed over the stone walls. His lover was there, clutching something that Barca first thought a sword. He looked again and saw that he was wrong—it was not even wooden sword, like the kind used at the ludus, but a rough-hewn stick, the right length for combat. Pietros was grinning as he crossed blades with a woman dressed in the clothes favored by the inn’s whores. Her makeshift sword rammed into Pietros’s stomach, and Barca’s heart stopped.
“Pietros!” he barked, unable and unwilling to keep the fury from his voice. Both the duelers jumped and turned to face him. A dark red flush spread across Pietros’s cheeks. “Throw that aside, foolish boy.”
There was a moment of petrified silence. Pietros was staring at him, his eyes wide with emotions that Barca could identify, and then finally the stick fell from his loose grip. He turned abruptly and fled up the back stairs. The whore watched him go and then rounded on Barca, but she did not offer any words of reproach—perhaps he looked as ill as he felt. Coldly, she walked past him out of the courtyard.
He took a step forward and stumbled, and braced himself against the wall of the inn for support.
“Fuck,” he growled as bile stung his throat. His breath came in ragged gasps that he tried desperately to control, as images of death filled his mind.
The sharp point of a sword sticking through Cyprian’s back. Auctus’s dark eyes falling still. The smell of Mago’s blood, pungent in the heat, and Elissa’s fingers wrapping around the hilt of a blade. Warriors fought, and warriors died. Pietros would survive.
He waited for a few moments to get his temper and his thoughts under control, and went up to their room. Pietros was sitting on the bed, determinedly facing the window. His shoulders were slumped, and he did not look around when the door creaked open. Barca sighed.
He sat on the bed and rested his hands on Pietros’s shoulders. When that still provoked no response, he kissed the curve of the boy’s neck. His hair had grown long, and his body was leaner and stronger than it had been when they met—Barca did not remember when that had happened. At the ludus, or upon leaving it? A dreadful thought crept into his head—that it was Carthage that was shaping Pietros to be thin and hard and built for war—and Barca shivered.
“We have known too much bloodshed, have we not?” he murmured into Pietros’s skin.
It took Pietros a long time to answer, and when he did, it seemed he had not even listened to Barca’s words.
“Why did you bring me here?” he asked dully. “Was it so you could relive the glories of old position? The son of kings, with legions of men and slaves at his command?”
“You speak of a myth,” Barca said sharply. “There were no families at our beck and call—no slaves—only a few legions of soldiers who obeyed my father, and looked at me with more contempt than Batiatus ever did.”
“So now is your time to play dominus,” Pietros snapped, breaking away from his grip. “I understand.”
“Dominus?” he began hotly, but Pietros whirled around and jumped to his feet in one smooth moment, and even if he had not begun to speak, Barca was sure he himself would have been unable to. He had seen Pietros hurt, disappointed, and frustrated before, but he had never seen anything like the outrage written in every line of the boy’s face.
“What is my purpose here?” he demanded. “Why put yourself through the trouble of freeing me, if I am to play the same role? To sit—to wait—to work—to abide foul touches and words from other men while you relive past glories?”
“Past glories. Past glories. You think I glory in the tales I recount?” Barca snarled, his temper rising to match Pietros’s. “Murdered men and slaughtered families, that is what I must relive every damn day since we have arrived in this city.”
“That may be true,” Pietros ceded. He looked abashed, but still he stood his ground. “Yet since we have touched this shore, all I have heard are stories gone untold, and lies.”
“I have not—”
“The boy, Barca. You swore to me he lived.”
“What else was I to do?” Barca hissed, striding forward. He reached to grab Pietros’s arm, to force him to look Barca in the eye and see reason, but at the last second his hand fell. He would leave a bruise, and when of sober mind he would regret it. “To disobey Dominus’s order was to see both of us to the afterlife!”
“You lied to me about blood you shed, and shamed me for lifting a sword in my own defense. What am I to say, Barca?” He lifted his arms in desperation. “What am I to think?”
Barca had no answer. He looked at Pietros’s face, twisted in anger and sorrow, and all he could think was… he was tired. Tired of the stories that weighed on him, the memories of the things he had done in the ludus, the guilt of what he had kept secret. Silently, he shrugged and did the only thing he had energy for. He left.
--
Their bed was empty when Pietros woke the next morning, as he had expected. He had not asked Barca where he was going or when he would return, but in the cold light of day he had begun to worry. Guilt had eaten at him all night, for what he had said to Barca and what he had brushed aside. His heart still ached from what Barca had said in return, but… he stood and dressed hastily, and went downstairs.
Barca was not there; the only people present were the innkeep and Similce, who picked half-heartedly at her morning meal. She looked up when he entered, and smiled.
“You seem to be in a dour mood,” she commented.
“Barca…” He thought about telling her that they had fought, but immediately decided against it. “He has gone out—I must search for him,” he added, rolling his eyes to convey exasperation instead of worry. Similce chuckled. She was not fooled in the slightest.
“He drapes you in purple like a prince,” she said wistfully, her eyes resting on the cloak thrown carelessly over Pietros’s shoulder. “He ought to treat you like one.”
Pietros smiled sadly, kissed her cheek, and went out into the city.
Slowly, he made his way towards the temple of Tanith. He looked up at the ancient, crumbling stone, and imagined it as it might have stood—mighty and terrible as the arena of Capua, beautiful as the shrines he had visited as a boy as he trailed behind his mothers’ skirts. She had been a body slave, there to attend Domina, and the offerings had been gold, heavy incense, curtains of jewels.
Now, Tanith’s place of worship looked more like the shrines Pietros visited as an adult. Humble. Solemn. But well-loved, he thought, and he mounted the steps, hoping to find Barca inside.
His feet made a soft whispering sound as he walked through the center of the temple. A glance was enough to ascertain that Barca was not there. He was alone, but for the birds that nested in the exposed rafters and a few washerwomen gossiping in muted voices near the altar. They heard him coming and sent him a withering glance, but he had nowhere else to go, and he did not step back. As one, the women turned towards the statue of Tanith and ducked their heads in cursory bows, muttering a respectful cantrip as they swept out.
Pietros walked slowly up to the altar. He had not given much thought to how he would worship in Carthage. He was not sure whether the gods and goddesses of Carthage still existed, living like exiles in their own land, paying tribute to the distant Roman conquerors, or if they were as dead and gone as Barca’s family. If Tanith still inhabited Carthaginian soil, it would be rude to ignore her, would it not?
In any case, he had little to offer. Mutely, Pietros placed a small bag of incense on the altar, and sat cross-legged before it. Faintly-perfumed smoke drifted through the hall.
He sat there for a long time, simply breathing steadily. He wanted to pray, but had no idea what kind of praise Tanith would prefer; he decided to settle into a solemn, worshipful mood instead, and hoped that she would forgive his lack of knowledge. There was no sound in the room except for his own steady breathing and—after a while—the soft coos and fluttering of the birds.
Unbidden, images of home—of the ludus leapt to the forefront of his thoughts. Their room, small and comfortable, filled with the movements of feathers, the tired creak of the bed, the involuntarily noises Barca made in his sleep. The sun in the training yard, the clear mountain air, the occasional flash of a smile from one of the gladiators. They had been happy there, in a fashion. It was better to be free, of course it was, but to be happy… He needed Barca, he thought, and tears sprung to his eyes. Pietros breathed deeply, trying to force his trembling lungs to be strong and his tears to recede.
But it was true. He needed Barca. Without him, the world was large and strange; without him, Pietros would yet be a slave.
“Pietros?”
His heart began to pound as Barca crossed the temple floor and sat down beside him. Pietros bowed his head. A full minute of silence passed before Barca spoke.
“I owe you... an apology,” he said stiffly. He exhaled heavily and Pietros could see him, in his mind’s eye, with his lips barely parted as he turned thoughts over in his mind. “More than that. I owe you happiness.”
“That is not what I ask of you,” Pietros murmured before he could think not to. He thought of the ludus again, and the sword-edge he had walked between dazzling happiness and heart-gripping terror. He thought of freedom and the acute pain that had tainted its pleasures. Happiness was too much to ask or give. “All I desire is to be by your side. A position I can only hold as an equal.”
Slaves were disposable. Pietros swallowed nervously.
Behind him, he could hear Barca’s knees shifting over the ground. The gladiator moved closer, and his hand alighted, feather-light, on Pietros’s neck. His skin was dry, creased, and warmly familiar. Pietros closed his eyes as Barca’s thumb began to trace smooth circles into the skin of his back; unconsciously, his shoulders fell.
“My desire is the same. Yet I fear—you deserve a better man than I have been. I could not bear to see you turn from me when you learned of the blood that stains my hands.”
“Barca...” Pietros sighed. “From the beginning, I have been with you because—because I must, in order to survive. Because you protected me, because you loved me. And because the heart in my chest is more yours than mine. The reason I do not wish to know of blood on your hands because I know it causes you pain.”
Or because sometimes, in his heart of hearts, Pietros feared that Barca was crueler than he thought, and that the apathy he displayed towards violence might one day be carried home. But Tanith herself could turn her eye towards Pietros, and he would never, ever tell that to Barca.
“I was raised to kill,” Barca admitted, his voice like the distant rumble of thunder. “It was not the path I would have chosen. And to see you taking the first steps on such a path... I was afraid for you, Pietros, and ashamed of myself. Would you accept my apologies?”
Pietros nodded, his throat too tight to respond. He could bear it no longer—he turned around and threw his arms around Barca’s neck. Barca held him close, and Pietros kissed the side of his head.
“This city weakens you; any fool could see it. I would leave it.”
“It is time,” Barca agreed.
The sunlight filtered through the weakened ceiling, and Pietros sent up a silent prayer of gratitude to Tanith.
------
At first, Barca thought idly going back to his old home—to see if the house, the pigeon coop, the thatch of trees were still there. Pietros told him, in no uncertain terms, that it was a stupid decision, giving how much pain the temple had caused him. And in any case, he could not remember the direction. Finding his way in the city had been easier, but with the whole of Africa open to them, finding one specific farm would be difficult.
They were a few miles outside of Carthage when Barca stopped and knelt. He picked up a handful of dry dirt and let it slip through his fingers.
“It is a foolish thing to remember,” he murmured. “Yet I do...”
They had never had a real farm, but he had helped his mother with the small vegetable patch, and he remembered falling to the dirt a thousand times, in play or in training. The texture of it between his fingers, the smell of the baking earth in the sunlight.... He looked up at Pietros with a smile that, he hoped, was not too painful.
“However much the city may change, Carthage remains,” Pietros said softly. He pointed, and Barca looked up to see a small traveler’s altar to Tanith, the statue staring placidly at them.
Here, he thought. He turned and his eyes fell on what he knew he would find: a small length of farmland, scattered with unharvested crops; a covered well that looked as though it had not been used in a half-century; and a farmhouse fallen into disrepair, squatting in the shade of a small grove of peach trees. It was not the place he had lived as a child, but it did not need to be. It was a relic of the past that did not offer harsh memories.
One that offered only happiness, and a life with the man at his side.
He took Pietros’s hand, and gestured silently in question. Pietros looked at the land for a long time, and then at Barca with a smile. They kissed underneath the warm glare of the Carthaginian sun.