I do not have much sensibility for history. I'm not much for facts, figures. There are others, I'm sure, who have offered you perspective. I know quite a lot of things, but I'm not one to construct a grand historical narrative, or paint you a picture. I haven't read anything written for your folio, and only know some of what Leechtin said because he confessed it all to the little master in exchange for one kiss. 

All my life, my understanding of the times has come from my understanding of people. All of the politicians and wars blend together after some time. I have on occasion been caught in a situation unaware that another situation had ended. But if I think of the people I have known, it is easier to understand what has happened, and where, and when, and why. I like the times I live in now, and I enjoy inhabiting the little world that I see. It's easier to focus on a small section of the world for me, than to try to contemplate all the places I've been, and everything that has happened that I haven't seen. If I tried to hold it all, like some do just fine, I think I'd go nuts.

If I want to know more about the human spirit, I like to read poetry sometimes. I like poetry a lot. But I suppose that is personal and irrelevant. We are talking about Laurent. Perhaps later, I can talk about what he liked to read. I taught him how. Though he had such a difficult time learning his letters, he always did like to listen to stories.

After the banquet, Vivacio returned within two weeks, as or more vicious than before. He had two methods then, either monitoring us very closely or abandoning his duty completely. Both methods meant random thrashings for all of us, and occasional bizarre, cruel punishment that suited his whims alone and always outsized to the offense. However, variety and unpredictability in punishment certainly played a role in training then. One can anticipate and be mentally prepared for a thrashing. One can even decide that a thrashing is worth the offense at times, and decide to offend. If a particular punishment is not guaranteed, and not even guaranteed to match the degree of the error, there is no rebellion. It simply makes reasoning about one's position impossible. To be able to reason is a freedom that some do not realize. What will I do today? Stand up for eight hours doing nothing for holding my brother's hand. Receive a flat-handed slap for eating my lunch too fast. Have my face submerged under water for a minute for getting a sunburn. The children began to take on a hollow look, even Escha, especially after Vivacio began refusing to let Escha wash himself in an effort to cure the child of perceived vanity.

It was around this time that Cassius became quiet. He became preoccupied with not making a sound. I regret deeply, to this day, not having the time or awareness to talk to him. I thought, wrongly, that because he was older, he could sort himself out without a friend. That was wrong.

There was no mention of banquets. Of parties. We watched the season go in and go out, one so usually packed with such occasions, without a single guest or invitation. Every once in awhile, one or more of us would go to serve as staff at an acquaintance's house. Such times were always an exciting event, that we might see how other slaves lived and compare our fortunes, or have a glimpse at our possible fates. It never happened. More than that was the absence of the master, and the silence this absence produced. Vasvius, also, seemed to have vanished, except that we often heard him whispering to Vivacio in the night. When Aulus, bold, checked Vasvius's room during the daytime, no one was there. But he swore to us, through the window he had seen a shadow in the shape of a man, and not the shadow that I knew.

So one day in early fall found me standing beneath a tall, wide fig tree, hissing up at the branches. "Escha," I hissed. "You'll want to come out of the bleeding tree this instant."

"No," he shouted, as he had been shouting all day. Just "No!" to everything. Over the past few months he had been becoming more and more agitated and stubborn, and the more we tried to talk to him about it the worse he got. We couldn't get a single thing out of him about what his bloody problem was.

"Come out of the tree."

"No!"

"If you won't come out I'll have to take you out. Is that what you want?"

"No!"

The others had already gone into the house to prepare for the midday meal, which we would take in the kitchen. It would do no good to tempt Escha with food. He had developed a fear of eating since Vivacio had begun teasing him at meals. Soon, but not yet, Escha's refusal to eat would become Vivacio's refusal to let him eat. Truly, I could not conceive of Vivacio's mind, even after everything. I didn't see what possible benefit there could be in starving the boy. 

"I'm coming into the tree now," I said. "Your last chance."

To this, only the sound of shivering leaves, and the thumping of figs falling to the wet dirt, as Escha moved higher. It gave me no choice. If he fell out and hurt himself there was no telling what would happen.

"I can't believe you're making me do this again," I said to him, as I mounted up on the tree, swinging my body up by a thick, low branch. My stomach muscles flexed painfully as I righted myself and reached too quickly for a higher limb. I could see him up there now, a flash of white mixed in with the harsh sunlight blinding me through the branches. The setting sun was hard toward the west, and he had climbed in that direction. "Don't you go any higher. Do you hear me?"

"I hear," came his normal voice.

"Were you waiting for me to be a hero and get you? You want someone to get you, don't you? Are you a little boy from stories?"

He didn't answer, but he didn't come down any either, and when finally I reached him, he tried to bite me, and he began to cry. I couldn't get sense out of him any more than I could before. I chalked his behavior up to the random abuse and his master's absence, who had always seemed to lighten his spirits, and to that he must have been always hungry. But I was wrong, and wouldn't find out what was wrong with him for another day or so.

I licked the palm of my hand to wipe his hairline, which he endured without a fight. I checked him for scratches from the tree, trying to make him laugh, but he wouldn't laugh and he wouldn't talk to me, and when we reached the back door of the villa, I let him down. I knew he would be running off into the peristyle garden, where he thought we didn't know he was waiting for the master to come find him. 

But there wasn't any Master for us most days, and Escha often waited there until the moon was high before coming to bed with us, sniffling and crying, refusing to speak Latin. It was hard for us to see him miserable, but truthfully his depression alienated him from the other boys, who were doing their best to live good lives in the face of their own personal struggle. Nonus in particular felt annoyed with Escha, who showed Nonus no compassion or love, which Nonus took personally. If Aulus had been weaker in character, the younger boys would have shunned Escha entirely I'm sure, but Aulus was always more patient than his brother, and wiser, and though he didn't condescend to Nonus by trying to explain Escha, he was always the first to speak for brotherly love. "Would any of you lack compassion in times of need, it would be in service of only yourselves," he told us once, "and that would be a tragedy for us all." That is all he said, but I think of it often. Truly he was well named, and wiser than his age. At the age of eleven, it was Aulus who began leading us in our nightly prayer, and took over from me the duty of blessing the house. He spoke to the gods better than I could. It didn't mean he wasn't a child. We were all only children.

Cassius spent a lot of time with our horse, and the other horses we sometimes boarded in the fall for the summer people, those who used Herculaneum as a resort retreat and were gone at other times of the year. That fall, we had three horses, and Cassius cared for them, and came to meals smelling of them. We were all relieved that day to be left alone by Vivacio, who had gone into town for salt and dried mackerel, which was somewhat exciting. Since the end of our banquets, we had not been able to eat fish much, since it was so expensive, and had never been bought for us personally. We missed some of the better food we had previously enjoyed, even if it were only the items near to rotting. Truly, that is the best time to eat a food anyway. Cassius was talking to us about the horse "Aegyptus", an aging charger possibly left to us to die by its master, when we heard footsteps and movement. In the kitchen we were very close to the front entrance of the house. We went silent and invisible, even Escha, who began to chew his meat very slowly to avoid a single sound.

"Hail, does this house not have a slave?" we heard, an unfamiliar voice in the atrium. 

"Who is that?" Cassius whispered to me, since effectively I was in charge, though the name praeceptor had not stuck to me well without the master's presence to enforce it.

"I think that's Balbus," I whispered back, confused. Balbus was a go-between who sometimes officially worked for us at high volume trading times. We most often saw him when he was needed to unofficially escort guests or slaves from other houses, or us when we went off to assist elsewhere. He was something of a bodyguard, or personal strongarm. He was an enormous person, in general, for hire, though good humored. But we hadn't seen him since the spring.

"Is that Balbus of Salernum?" I called cautiously. 

"The same, hail, Iovita," he said, recognizing my voice. "Come relieve this man of his burden."

"We are at table, Balbus of Salernum," I said. "Would you join us in the kitchen?"

"I've business but I thank you," he called back. "Come and attend to it. Where are the stewards of the house?"

"Away, regrettably," I said, rising and heading for the atrium. Cassius stroked my hand appreciatively as I passed him at the table, in thanks for taking care of the matter. And I was only thinking of that when I entered our big main room, an open and echo-y space, and not looking around for something special. 

Balbus, taller than me by a foot and wider by at least two times, raised his hand in greeting. Only one hand, for the other held a thick length of rope, and as I raised my eyes to see the slave at the other end of it, the slave turned his back to me. At this time of day the room was dim, and I couldn't see much of him, only his hands, which were bound by the rope Balbus held. These hands looked old to me, but still soft. At the wrists the skin was red and rough, so I could see well that he had been struggling against Balbus, which troubled me. All we needed was more trouble.

"I'm delivering only. Your master's orders, who came to see me last night. Pleasant as always, your master, brought sweeties for my children. What does he want with this one? Real devil, he is. Bloody tiring."

"I haven't heard anything about it. Quanti constat?" How much is it? I asked impersonally, not acknowledging a slave who didn't acknowledge me.

"Paid for. I'll take a little for the work, however," Balbus said, with a meaningful look. 

I nodded and went, as gracefully as I could under the circumstances, to the house shrine to pull a silver denarius and some coppers, for it paid to be generous to those like Balbus who not only did good work but also never gossiped, but I found that there were only coppers. I looked at the drawer for a moment before going back to the atrium to consult. "Balbus, we are a little dry at the moment. Do excuse us, might we pay you in wine where we are a little wet?"

He scratched his eyebrow and looked at the slave at the end of the rope, who hadn't moved. "That will do fine. Look how quiet he is now, after raising hell in the street."

"We will be sure to rain silver upon you the next time. I assure you, sir."

"I'll take a little meat with the wine," Balbus said.

I called for Cassius to fetch those things, and Balbus gave me the rope before departing with his prize far heavier than silver, and I, embarrassed, turned to the stranger, "Salve, nomen mihi est Iovita. Quid est nomen tibi?" I asked gently.

"Nomen mihi est Nerva," he said, still not facing me.

"Salve, Nerva," I said. "Will you have some food with us?"

For a moment he said nothing, stiff in the shoulders and silent. At nearly seventeen, I had already grown to nearly my full height, and this stranger was as high as me, though I was wider than him a little, and he seemed very thin to me, but remarkably clean and manicured. 

"This is all very strange. I haven't been told what to do, Nerva," I told him. "So I can only offer you hospitality for now. Please do us the courtesy of accepting it. Do you know your duty? Can I untie you or are you meant to be tied until the master comes?"

He turned to me then, and I saw his face for the first time, our Nataniellus, who would not share that private name with me for another week, who was only nervous and scared, and pretending he was haughty. He could not be friendly with me because I was less than half his age, and this I saw immediately in his features. Large, honey-colored eyes, brown hair with enough red in it to resemble a deep orange, a masculine yet pointed jaw, balanced by feminine cheek bones and full lips, which had thinned a little with obvious age and use. I liked his nose, with its pointed nostrils, and the brows full of character, always reflecting his feelings. There was an old bruise in the shape of five fingertips on his neck, which seemed long to me, almost elegant with his hair up. But Nataniellus is not really an elegant kind of person, and he was scowling at me with his eyebrows. He was so lightly complected that his skin showed every feeling, blushing around the collarbones, at the hollow of his neck.

"Please be kind to me. I am only being courteous," I said quietly. "You've been sunburned. Do you want some balm? Are you tired? Please, do you know what I'm meant to do now? I can get you something clean to wear. Please don't go that way. The kitchen is over there," I said quickly, as he turned and headed toward the back of the house. I couldn't help but go behind him, pulled along by the rope. What if he was important? I had no idea. It was all so queer. "Please don't go in there," I said, when I realized he was heading for the room with silk covering its doorway, red silk.

At those words he turned to me again gravely, abruptly, and held out his hands to be untied.

"No, I don't know what I'm meant to do, Nerva. Will you run away? Balbus said," I started.

"I am not a slave," Nerva said to me, soothingly but with force, in a whisper heavy with the rasp of tears already shed. "I am free. I am free. I am not meant to be tied up by anyone. Unbind me, puer." Boy slave. 

To be called a slave by another obvious slave took me quite aback. "Me excusa, you are dressed like a slave and you are tied up like one, too."

"I am free," he repeated, and I heard a note of hysteria in his voice. "I am free. I am not a slave. I am free." I saw in his features, how they moved in the light and how his passion animated them, that he used to be very beautiful, and it touched my heart because I am a fool.

So I untied him, and as soon as he was free of the rope he turned and ripped the translucent red silk out of the master's bedroom doorway, stripped, and wrapped himself in it like a red virgin of the hearth. 

Understand that a bolt of silk that quality and size could buy twelve slaves at that time. I found myself utterly at a loss, blood run cold in my veins, while he ignored me and clothed himself, making me stutter and shake. "You can't do that, you're," I stuttered.

"I am free," he whispered, enunciating clearly, and strode away from me, defiant.

My mouth stuck open like a dead bird because he had stolen my breath away, and as I watched him go, he left me lightheaded.  

I touched all of my limbs to make sure I was still whole and went back to the kitchen as if nothing had happened to me, and when the others asked me what had gone on I just said, "He's older than us. It's a mystery. Wait for instructions from the master. We will find out in due time."

We waited, and my blood beat for Nerva, clothed in red silk, the military drums of youth. I wanted him so badly it felt like my heart were being crushed by his fist.