I. EXILE
AD 41…

Saif stretched his aching back, the seat below him as hard as rock, his latest vigil into the sixth hour.

His tired eyes remained stubbornly shut, though he felt guilty for it, the warmth of another’s hand in his as he listened to the ragged gasps of the man who had saved him. He was dying a slow death unbefitting of a warrior, but there was nothing Saif or anyone else could do to prevent it. All he could do was to be sure he was there should his eyes open, or he be in need of water to quench his dry tongue. Maybe from the deep of his sleep he could feel his hand in his, maybe not. If there was a chance at the peace of it, Saif was content to sit. For as long as it took.

There were others here too, stirring in the poorly lit hall where the sick came, the incense working hard to disguise the odour of incontinence and decay. All were alone. Some cried out in bouts of pain or in sudden spasms of madness, their words meaningless, their cries amplified by the low-vaulted ceiling above them. Others slept the deep sleep, dreamless and black, the opiates numbing their senses to all about them. Saif knew too well what that was like. The man in the cot next door was a shell, the skin so taut over his bones that when he murmured incoherently, his eyes shuttered, it was as if a skeleton were speaking, a daemon from the underworld taking the body.

His thoughts were interrupted by a young boy moving between the cots, stopping occasionally to listen or to prod at the still forms. Saif opened his eyes as the boy neared, the gentle chiming of the cups on his tray a welcome reprieve. He had not moved, eaten, or taken a drink in a while, his stomach in the tight knots of anguish though his mind told him he was hungry.

Besides Justus, whom he now considered a brother, the man at his side was the only good friend that he had. Saif used the sign language he had learnt to answer the boy, who dutifully poured him the dark black liquid into a small cup, and then passed it to him. Again Saif signed, this time touching his head and his heart in customary thanks as he placed a copper coin in the boy’s hand. Nodding with a smile, the waif moved away to find his next customer. War took many victims. Not all died. Not all were on the field of battle. The boy was mute, but he had not been born that way.

Sipping his tea, Saif scratched idly at his unshaven face, and then ran his fingers across the scar at his forehead. Aemilia’s face came to him then, frowning and ill-tempered yet so pretty. She had eyes only for Justus, though he had been late to realise it.

At the thought of the shortness of life, Saif returned his hand to the man in the cot, his other arm causing him to grimace. It was a welcome pain, a reminder of his brother’s sacrifice for which he would be eternally indebted. He no longer felt the boiling rage of those early days. It had been supplanted by the cold embrace of calculated revenge. He did not know when that day would come, but he knew the opportunity would present itself at some point, the gods parting the reeds just so. Until then, he was happy to bide his time in the city and to repay his own healer in kind.