In the cool breeze of evening, I sat with half-lidded eyes on a stone bench. From my vantage, there was a view of the hills. At a short distance, Iovita taught the children to use a wooden sword. He touched and straightened Escha as if teaching him how to dance. Iovita took a few steps away and stretched his arms out, level with his shoulders. Escha imitated him.

"Balance your weight on your right hip," Iovita scolded. "You have to be able to roll your hips so that there's a fluid transfer of weight, Escha. If there's no weight behind your blow you may as well be unarmed." 

Escha nodded, determined. 

One of the other boys, Cassius, said something, mocking Escha. He made a motion as if tossing something, weakly. 

I rose and closed the distance, extended my hand for the sword, which Iovita gave me without a word. I cleared my throat and the little one stood at attention, my Escha, eyes pointed straight ahead. 

"Balance," I said, gently. "Your sword is already balanced. If something should happen, it is you who must be ready. The sword is ready always." I bent and tapped his lower back with the back of my hand, so that he would push out his chest. "There, now you are more flexible. It is not enough to be as good as the other man. You must move in ways he can't anticipate. Train your body."

"Yes, master," he said, quietly. "I will." 

The gentle breeze blew through his wild hair, and his chin was tipped up, eyes cast upwards, distracted by the sky.

"If your body is strong, then no man can hurt you. Discipline yourself," I said, tipping his chin back down.

"I will," he said, though his body leaned toward mine, wanting to be held.  

In the doorway there was Nataniellus, looking tired. He motioned for me to come, fingers stroking the air. 

Escha saw it, and met my eyes. 

"Feet together," I told him.

He moved. His feet were bare in the dirt.

"The practiced body is elegant. It hides its power in beauty. Arms over your head. Stretch up."

The other boys had taken to the ground, relaxing and talking. Iovita stood off, as if on watch, arms crossed behind his back. Escha focused, stretching, standing on the balls of his feet. 

"Point yourself at the sky. Turn out your palms."

He imitated me, concentrating, little features troubled.

"Feet at shoulder-width. Now bring your arms level. Your hands touch air. This is air that has traveled long. It has touched all other hands, and now yours," I said. "This wind returns to you from your birth, and all time. The same wind will be present at the hour of your death, as it is present at all deaths. However for this moment, there is only now. Control your breath." I touched his hands as he began to tip over. "Now you are balanced."

He stood still, frozen in the moment, seven years old, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. I took his head in my hands and kissed his hair. 

"Someday, you will be grateful for their mockery, little one. You will be the stronger for it."

Escha held onto my face with delicate fingers. 

"What do you say?" Iovita asked, back turned, though listening.

"Thank you," Escha said, still holding on. His hands smelled like flower petals, from ripping up the garden. I tapped his back and he let go.

But then I reconsidered, and knelt, and put my face close to his, and he smiled. He swept my black hair away from my forehead, and it fell back again. 

"Thank you, dominus."

"Hold back killing, little one, unless there is something to be gained. Safety. Duty. If it is worth more than his life, take it." I said that, because so near him, he was my entire world.

"Yes, dominus," he said, smiling, because it was far from him. "I will kill them."

"Good." I kissed his forehead and kissed it again until he giggled and pushed my face away with his hand. "Work hard."

"Yes."

"You are not afraid of their words."

"No."

When I turned, Nataniellus was still there, leaning in the doorway. As I looked on him, he raised his eyebrows wearily, and gestured again. "This time you come. At last," he said, as I approached. Then that gesturing hand had taken my hand, and entwined its long fingers with mine. 

"Iellus."

"Shut up," he said, grip tight.

He took me to his chamber, the stewards' room, which still smelled of their blood, and the blood of bound boys, and Iellus pressed me against the fresco just inside the doorway. 

"Iellus."

"You were told to be quiet," he said, taking my wrists and pressing them to the wall over my head, touching his lips to my lips, just barely.

"What are you doing, Dionysus?"

"Are you laughing at me? Are you laughing?" 

"Oh let me loose," I whispered, smiling.

"So you have a sense of humor."

He put me off my balance, pulling my weight-bearing hip towards himself, my shoulders resting against the wall, my head tipped back.

"Come closer, lips," he said.

"I am so captured. A faun has captured me in the woods. I cannot get loose. It tells me to be quiet. It pulls my hip. It wants my body," loose in his arms, staring at the ceiling.

"Don't say 'faun', young master," he said, adopting the language of the brothel, kissing my neck. "It's for a young man."

"You're a young man to me, Iellus, and me younger with you."

He liked that and pushed his knee between mine, sucking on my shoulder. His hair smelled of soap, held back with a thin cotton band to dry. The afternoon light lit him from behind, which made tiny broken strands glow gold.

"I won't let them take you, Iellus. Do not ever worry about it."

He didn't say anything, occupied with my neck.

"If they come and there's not enough money, there are other things to be done."

"Not the children. You wouldn't given them the children."

"No, indeed."

"How did you get lips so red?" he whispered. 

"By drinking the blood of the innocent," I said, feeling the beat of his heart through his lips.

"You're much heavier than you look."

"Yes."

"Tell me the ways I'm handsome."

I took his head in my hands then, him leaning into me. "I will look at you."  So I looked on him, and he breathed out. I saw that his eyes were tired, and brown, and that his lashes were darker than his hair. I saw that he had a fine straight nose, and lips seeming soft, a color like the faintest of corals. I drew my fingers along his broad but pointed jaw, masculine yet delicate at once, and the rims of his ears, where on one the cartilage had been broken once and healed badly. I touched it between my fingers and felt it, and it seemed an old injury. He closed his eyes and parted his lips, his fingertips resting at my waist.

I drew him closer, and pulled his hair back with my hand on the left side, and dipped my face near his neck so that I could smell him well. "I think that you are always smelling sweet," I said. "You should not wash your smell away so much. How will I find you, beautiful boy?" 

"No songs," he said, eyes closed, smiling, his breath warm against my temple.

There was the sound of boys playing swords far distant, of summer in Herculaneum.

I rested my head on his shoulder, found every dip and divot in his collarbones with my nose, then rested my cheek on the other shoulder. His hair was wet in my hand. 

"You said that you were married," he whispered. "What happened?"

"Killed," I said, going to one knee and then the other on the hard floor.

"Did you have children?" he asked.

"Yes. But it is all passed now."

"When did it happen?" 

I wet my lips and kissed his thigh and he rumbled, a gurgling sound in his throat which vibrated throughout his entire body. "Forget them. The sun has turned on those shadows. They are now warm sunlight, and we remain spirits dark upon the earth, you and I."

When I looked up, his hands were covering his face, and when I kissed his other thigh, he drew them down slowly, finger catching on his lower lip. 

"I like your thighs," I said. "I have made an investigation, and these are fine." 

He nodded. "Thank you."

"I like the way your heart beats fast," I said, sitting on my ankles, arms folded around his knees. When I rested my head on his thigh, he touched a hand to my hair. "I liked it when you would sleep on my chest in the brothel, and your heart would suddenly beat fast in your sleep. I wondered what you dreamed, and your lips would part, and sometimes whisper nonsense."

"Faya. Why do you sound so melancholy now?" he asked, stroking my hair, voice soft. I loved him for that.

"I love the way that you shout at me sometimes, and gesture. I love the way that you speak to me. I heard your voice by the water, while I looked on the moon, and for some time, you comforted me from afar."

"Come up here, now," he said, still soft, still caring of me.

"Your step, the swing of your hips, the way you quiver when I touch you. I love the tenor of your voice when you cry out at a kiss, and the laugh of pleasure when you taste the sweetness of a strawberry or the bitterness of an oyster. I love the way you sip seawater from the shells. I love that you are not a boy, and yet youthful. I love that you are hardened on the inside, yet gentle of me, who has not loved in a long time. You draw me. I crave you. I desire you. You please me endlessly," squeezing the supple skin of his thigh, "I die a hundred times every day at a look. I am dying now, at your touch. I am overcome. Iellus, if they asked for an arm I would give it to them. If they asked for my house, my tongue, my memory, I would give any of it to them. Do not worry about your position. I know that you are anxious. Give me your anxiety and I will keep it for you."

"Faya, if you cry more I will punish you," he said, sounding stern. 

"A faun tells me to stop crying. And it is handsome."

"Mockery," he hissed, continuing to stroke my hair.

"And it is so so handsome."

"Oh you never even looked at me before."

It wasn't true. I had never looked at anyone so closely in my remembered life. When I went up, he abruptly pulled in my hip again, and because my body was loose, it knocked my head against the painted wall. He laughed. "Sorry," he said, "sorry, poor lovely head."

"I don't love you."

"I don't know what you think that word means, Faya."

So I loved him. But they are never perfect, our loves in the world, and I was frightened by his weakness, and my own.