A knock came on the dining area entranceway, sounding hollow on the marble cladding. I looked up from gazing into nothing, and it was Vasvius, with Iovita. 

"Sir, this one wishes to thank you."

"Enter," I said.

Iovita stepped up onto the short lip which seperated the room from the atrium and then down again, and stood as he had seen Vasvius do, arms crossed behind himself. A twitch of the hand from Vasvius at Iovita's lower back straightened the spine and leveled the shoulders. Vasvius turned away, so that we might speak in mock privacy. 

I propped my head on my hand, reclining on one of the benches that earlier Vasvius had laid with double-thick white cushions for the banquet guests, who would arrive of the evening. There were six such benches, arranged in a U-shape around two round, marble-topped tables, upon which seven courses would make their procession. I could smell the dishes cooking as if the scent were coming from my own body, being sensitive to strong odors. Fish, plum, anise. I resisted drifting away to another place while the boy looked on me, could smell his nervous sweat, which had nothing to do with the heat.

"Speak, boy." 

"Thank you, master," he said, in a flood.

"For what?"

There was a stutter waiting around the edges of his tongue which he kept off by speaking very quickly. "For elevating me. For having faith in me. This one doesn't deserve your favor."

"Be still." 

He stood straighter then, stretching his neck up like a young loon, chin slightly upturned. He had the local look, with olive skin, and dark hair. I judged that he had been sold by parents deeply in debt.

I sat up on the bench and observed him. "Tip down your face, young man."

He did, eyes so narrowed that they were almost closed. 

"Look on me."

"I have been told not to look on your face, sir."

"Young Iovita, you surprise me with your manners. You seem a man in all but name."

"I have heard that you would offer a good steward the opportunity to buy his freedom with his good work, and sir, I will work very hard for you. I know that I am a little old to start this training, but there is no limit to what I would do."

"You are only fourteen. It is not so old. Open your eyes. I would see them."

"My father was a free man, sir, but he fell into terrible debt. He died before he could serve his time as fernae, and I would redeem my family. Yes. I was lucky to come into your house, and I know that, and I know that I haven't behaved perfectly until now, but I will improve. I will be perfect for you, sir."

"Be quiet. Open your eyes."

He did. 

"You have pretty eyes, slave. These are hazel, yes?" 

Looking on me, he could not speak.

"Do you see that I am not like you?" I asked, dropping the friendly tone from my voice.

There was slight movement in his face, which was a paralyzed nodding.

"Do not babble at me. I tire of chatter, easily."

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, master."

"Master?" I asked. He had used the wrong word, praeceptor, master tutor, which he called his senior stewards.

"Dominus." His cheeks flushed and he shut his eyes again, tightly, embarrassed.

"Look on me. You will be Vivacio's second. You belong to him now. You will be as his shadow. It will be in you to anticipate his whims and desires before he has them. It will be your duty to make a study of Man and his needs. That is the job of steward. That is what he is. You are as a river reed, stiff in body yet swaying at the slightest blow of the wind. Go in the wind's direction, and your duty will be done. Do you acknowledge this? Your nature is more resistent to a man's authority than is desirable in such a position as you are offered."

"I swear to every word, dominus," he said softly, stock still. 

"Understand that you serve my interests, and that any step out of line lowers me. I hear that you like to have a drink. If you embarrass me due to drink, I will whip you myself."

"Such would be my horror, sir. I will never drink again."

"'Yes, dominus' is sufficient. Speak less. You have a tendency to hyperbolize. Check it." Before the boy could get out Yes, dominus again, I said, "Vasvius, attend me. Where is Escha?"

"I don't know, sir. He went to market this morning with the others."

Iovita had turned his head when Vasvius spoke, and then he turned back to me, mouth open.

"Close your mouth."

"Pardon me, sir. Is he not back yet? Sometimes he runs off when we go into the city. Usually, he makes his way back on his own, ten steps behind us."

There was silence a moment, but the boy could not stop talking. 

"Please excuse me, I'll go get him. I know where he'll be. If Vivacio goes he'll hurt him. I have got to get him back here before Vivacio finds out. Please let me."

"You love him."

"He's a pest and he's got some kind of crush on me, but he's sweet, sir."

"Your duty is at table. Vasvius, assist me in dressing. Tunic. I will go out."

Back still turned, Vasvius nodded, "Yes, dominus."

***

As evening fell, and the light grew long and thick with many colors, the temple of Hercules loomed ahead of me. The city was quiet as night approached, men shuttered in their homes with their families, as the city proper was a colony of workingmen. The rich were in the hills, on the cliffs, overlooking the sea, my villa one of many warmly lit points of color, loud with the drunken revelry of Romans down for summer. But I was glad to be absent from the singing and feasting, unwilling to imbibe, or engage in flattery, chattering about price and market.

The houses were stacked three high, made of wood timber and crumbling cement stone. Scrapwood shutters covered the windows, pulled tight against the chill from the evening sea, but many voices came to my sharpened ears nonethless, many languages on the breeze. There were sometimes a scattering of sheep clustered in this or that courtyard, humming their baas to each other when I looked in, safe from the wolves which could occasionally be heard in the hills. A goat might look on me as I went by, its iron bell thudding an uncertain greeting. As I passed silently through the gridded streets of Herculaneum, I took off my sandals and held them by their cords in my left hand, wanting to touch the wide, uneven cobblestones with my feet. After the heavy odors of fish and many spices, the breeze from the sea was a pleasure to breathe, washing my insides of the permeating stench. 

In Herculaneum, the temple of Hercules was centrally placed, though, as is always the case, it being a place of cultural importance meant it was often empty. Iovita had intimated to me, standing against the wall near my cubiculum door, that Escha seemed to be drawn there, and had often been collected nearby. "He's sensitive. Be kind to him, master."

"Permission to strike him," Vasvius had huffed, as he heard the order from the boy, securing a golden belt around my waist.

In the beat it took me to answer, he went to the floor to look for stray threads at the hem of my tunic, fingering the linen fabric which fell just above my knees, edged in blue. "Denied," I said. "This one needs a little rope. Let him make bigger mistakes before the slap."

"Yes, sir. Will you return before the banquet?"

"I doubt it."

"I will work it for you."

And so it seemed all in good hands, and as I approached the temple, I saw there was a boy standing at the entrance, not much older than Iovita, dressed as an apprentice to the college of priests. He said, "Who goes there?" and seeing how I was dressed, and the signet on my finger which marked me of the patrician class, he stepped aside to allow me entrance.

The temple was not much, a hushed place without pediments or much statuary, used for religious rites and seasonal festivals. Sandals off, I moved through it without sound; the marble beneath my feet still warm from the earlier summer sun. Coming upon the statue of Hercules, standing larger than life on its pedestal, I didn't see Escha at first, but then there he was on the other side, curled around the hero's ankle, his left leg hanging off the pedestal in sleep. 

His hair in the dimness was almost a grey color, lighting blond again as the apprentice came bobbing behind me, holding an oil lamp. After a quiet moment, as we looked on him together, the apprentice said, "Is he yours, sir?"

When I said nothing, he went on.

"He comes here all the time, eating his oranges. There's really no problem with that, but we always wonder if he's missed somewhere." When I didn't speak that time, the apprentice left the lamp on the pedestal and went away.

I moved to untangle Escha from the statue's leg, pulling on his body, but as he woke his grip hardened. He mumbled, "No, praeceptor," voice muddied with sleep. 

"Come, little orange," I said. "It's not safe for sweet children here alone. Relax your grip."

He said my name in puzzlement, continuing to wake, but relaxed as asked, so that I could bundle him into my arms. As his hot cheek touched my cool skin, he sighed in understanding, and I felt my heart flutter, which would have choked my breath had I drawn one. Thus comforted, he fell asleep again.

"Oh little one," I said. "How lucky I've been."

With his head resting by my neck, I could hear the very slight gasp in his heartbeat, which sometimes left him breathless after playing too hard. He felt fragile in my arms, shivering in my grasp, and I walked him to the dockside, to sit by the water rushing in and out. Sometimes, I went there and thought of Egypt, and how the water travelled from place to place, these black waves the same water as the golden ones I had known in my own childhood, and youth, the same ones which had bathed my burning skin when I was young to this, and soothed me ever since. Because, the water is old, and I will never be older than it is, and the water is a keeper of all time, because every moment that we have touched it returns to us again when we are near it. So I sat there, and thought of dipping my toes into water in Akkad, in Egypt, in Assyria, in India, and all other warm places. I felt a pang for the recent past, and from deeper depths. There was someone singing softly, from the low buildings tucked beyond the warehouses behind us, where the brothels were, a clear voice, which soothed. I picked the voice out from the many, and listened awhile.

When I looked down at Escha, who had been sleeping with his head resting on my thigh, he was looking up at me in the moonlight, wondering where I had just been, while my body stayed with him. 

"Master, where do you go sometimes when you are looking confused? I'll stay near you, so no one can bother you. Alright? I'll protect you. Don't look so sad."

"Oh, little orange. You are too much for me. I'm only thinking of my son. Here, a gift for you."

He held out his little hand, and I put my gold ring in it, my signet ring with the crab engraved on its carnelian disk, red as the setting sun. "I'll keep it safe forever," he said, in his delicate voice, extra gentle, to comfort me. "If you want it back again, ask me for it and I'll have it."

"Alright, Escha. Thank you." 

Then, he wanted to go home, so I let him climb onto my back, because he was too tired to walk. 

There, a frightened Iovita met me on the road, forgetting himself in his terror, saying over and over that Vivacio had ruined us at the banquet. Escha slipped down from my back to comfort his friend, who ignored him. In the house, the dark look in Vasvius's eyes confirmed the news. "Dominus," he said, voice steady, "what he's done tonight to dishonor your house is beyond words."

"Pray tell me," I said.

He opened his lips to obey orders, but what came out was a wordless cry of despair for my honor, and seeing him so distressed, I took his face in my hands and kissed his dutiful forehead. "There is no shame in this for you, dear steward. Don't despair."

"I don't care about myself, Faya," he said, weeping, "I don't. Punish him. Punish him."