fic: My kindly and most gracious master

[subterrain]

Wow, I threatened to clean out my WIP folder and then I actually ... did. Or at least finished something. Unbetaed, though delighter prodded me onwards using her usual weapon, shameless flattery, at a crucial point. She is always good for a forceful prodding. Happy early birthday, darling!

fandom: The Eagle
pairing: Esca/Placidus ; offscreen Esca/Marcus
words: 5452
warning: Hard R. Noncon/dubcon (inc. slave use)

summary: Fill for a kink-meme prompt requesting Esca/Placidus hatesex. Post-movie, Marcus heads up the reformed Ninth, which is rife with problems. The Senate appoints Placidus as the legion's new Tribune, and Esca must escort him north. Predictably, all Esca wants is to return to Marcus.



Five days north of Ravenna, Placidus eyes the dark forest around the evening's camp and declares that he does not like the look of it and that he will require a man to guard his tent.

Esca, in the midst of wolfing down a meal of burnt chickpeas and rabbit, does not acknowledge that he heard Placidus flap out of his tent, much less speak. All of the men squatting around the cookfire ignore him, in fact, leaving the problem to Mascius Tyro, who is centurion and thus the only one of them worthy of obeying the new Tribune's orders. Or at least, the only one paid enough to listen to them.

"As you say, sir," says Tyro, in his careful, calm way. "We'll post a guard."

"I don't want your guard," says Placidus. "I want someone who knows how to slit a throat properly. Him. I want him."

Esca does not need to turn around to know that he has been selected by Placidus' waving hand, and that he will be the one spending the night standing alone with a spear, guarding against pine trees and shadows.

It only makes sense after the last hundred leagues.

He would expect nothing less from Placidus, who needs two saddles for each of his two horses and three wagons for his personal store of foodstuffs and weaponry and poetry and dyed cloth for spare cloaks and gods know what else. Fancy helmets. He has a vast array of fancy helmets. The man is richer than Caesar and his slaves eat better than the legionaries. So of course that means Esca won't sleep tonight because it is required that he guard the embroidered tapestries and gold-chased braziers that warm Placidus' tent against the mountain air.

Esca finishes his meal and counts the day's miles and tells himself six hundred leagues more, and they'll reach Noviomagus, where they'll rejoin the Ninth. And Marcus.

If he was keeping track he might say that if the moon is full tonight, which it will be, three full months have passed since he last saw Marcus. But he is not keeping track. And he does not watch the moon.

Esca washes his dish and neck and hands and takes up his post outside Placidus' tent flap before Tyro can order him to. Sometimes, it is better to pretend to choose.

He stands, spear planted straight beside him, and watches the sun fall behind the forest, and listens to the men of the century douse their fires and crawl under their cloaks. Ten others are on watch at the corners and crosses of the camp. Why Placidus thinks the ditches and spikes and palisades are inadequate protection is not a question Esca can answer. This camp, moved and rebuilt every night, has better fortifications than the village he grew up in. So what is one more spear between a soft city throat and the black night?

Esca stands as the darkness settles around him.

"Slave," a voice calls from within.

For a second, Esca's body responds and tries to turn into the tent. But then he remembers himself, and hardens his muscles. Let Placidus call however he likes, he no longer answers to that word.

"--well, go on. Fetch him then," the voice says.

This time, a slave comes out of the tent. He is smooth and small and does not say anything, but just cocks an eyebrow at Esca that plainly says, don't get me beaten.

So Esca goes in. Not for the first time since they left Rome. Placidus, for inscrutable reasons, summons him regularly. To listen to him play the lyre. To give an opinion on whether his mare favors her right foreleg. To tell him when they might next reach a town with a decent bath. None of these things Esca has any knowledge or care for, and yet Placidus still summons him and talks airily at him as if they are well acquainted.

"Ah, the Briton," says Placidus, now. He is lounging in his camp chair. And to the three slaves in attendance: "Leave."

Esca waits, spear in hand.

"Will you take wine? Or-olives? Something to supplement that rank mash they feed you?"

"No," says Esca.

"You should eat. I didn't mean to rob you of rest and replenishment, you know. In fact it was my intention that despite this extra duty you should still sleep. Here, on the floor, I think. In my doorway. You do know how much I need the reassurance. Have we crossed the border, yet? They may make the best wine in the Empire, but these Raetians frighten me. Nothing compared to the Britons, I'm sure, but you see that's why I need you. To scare off the wild men with your own-" Placidus pauses, and his hand flutters in three circles, and he smiles, "-wildness."

Placidus, dull as lead or cleverer than three foxes, it's impossible to tell. Esca would smile, if he didn't suddenly suspect that word had somehow got round that he had used to-or rather, that this is about Marcus.

"I'm satisfied outside," Esca says, and turns to illustrate.

"Alas, I insist," says Placidus. "I would like the comfort of a loyal dog at my feet. I have heard others speak so highly of the experience."

Esca can't help but give a sharp glance back. Yes, then. Word had got round.

Placidus waves a tamping hand at him. Down, down. "Keep your spear, if you must. But I want you inside where I can see you. You'll be more of a surprise to any barbarians this way, I'm sure."

Esca watches Placidus rise from his chair and come toward him. He is wearing the soft linen underlayers of his uniform. A fine weave, but there are stains where the armor has chafed and sweat has soaked through. He looks almost military, ignoring his languid air and smooth hands.

One such hand is on him, now. Placidus places it on his shoulder.

"He's dressed you up like a Roman, hasn't he? A free man, but too good for the navy, too good for the auxiliary. But I understand why he tried to keep you so close. You've got something fine and noble about you. Why let you go at all?"

Placidus pauses to consider. His eyes travel over Esca's face, like he might set a price on it. He says, quietly, "I certainly wouldn't have."

Then he steps away, and he gestures at the mat by the foot of the entryway and says, "Guard me well, Briton."

Esca stands guard until the braziers have burnt low. Then he stands through the dark and the night's cold. He stands inside the flap of the tent until the air turns grey with morning and the slaves arise around him.

He does not sleep at all.

--

Outside, there is snow. He has never seen so much of it. It weighs on the tents and saddles the horses in white. It melts on his skin when he walks out into it, and soaks through his boots as if he's stepped into a streambed.

Tyro stands at the edge of camp, eyeing the road as it slants up through the trees. The mountain peaks are invisible in a white drape of cloud. Esca stands beside him.

"It's early for this kind of weather. It'll be colder the higher we get," Tyro says. "And deeper."

"We should go quickly, then," says Esca.

Tyro flicks him a glance-mild, quick-that reminds Esca that though he wears Roman mail and boots and colors, he is no citizen of Rome and therefore no legionary. "It is the Tribune's decision."

The Tribune stamps his feet in the snow and folds his arms against the curling breeze: "I told Demetrius that he was holding us up too long. Winter in the mountains. Gods fuck us all."

So it is decided - deduced, perhaps, from Placidus' cursing - that they will march on, but breaking camp takes longer than most mornings, and breaking a path in the snow is harder work, and the snow in the air thickens and darkness comes early and too soon they are making camp again.

Esca is glad the clouds hide the moon, because they have barely made half a day's distance in this slog. The horses steam in the cold as they're rubbed down and fed. The legionaries, unfazed, have all wrapped their legs and feet in cloth and produced heavy crimson cloaks from their packs. All day they were twitching snow from their shoulders as they marched. Stoic as donkeys.

As always, Esca eats his dinner in silence with them. They talk quietly amongst themselves, and do not much bother to address him. He is not one of them. Both below them and above. A stranger.

He understands their intolerance. He does not fit. He has no right place in their rows and columns. But he does his best to never let his face show how much he shares their disgust.

He is here for Marcus.

Marcus had ordered him gone. A leather satchel, three curled missives heavy with the red wax and stamp of the Legate's seal. "There is no one else," Marcus had said, and his tired eyes were pleading. "Name another I can trust with this."

So, six hundred leagues south with these eighty weathered men.

And then a month in the stinking hot summer of Rome, waiting on the Senate's pleasure, ignored and forgotten. Esca spent the time crouched in his hostel, sweating. The men spent it drinking and whoring.

Until finally, Esca was summoned - or rather Tyro was, with Esca unacknowledged three paces behind - to stand before a committee of red-striped robes, and saddled with Placidus for the return trip. Whatever urgent letters Marcus had written had evidently been enough to get Placidus an assignment as the Ninth's newest Tribune.

So another month passed, while Placidus made his own arrangements.

Such posts were usual for rising senatorial aspirants, Tyro told him. Or he implied it, rather, without saying much of anything. From the men's natter, as they made ready to leave, Esca gathered that such politicians were always rich, and usually good for a silver denari or two all around if your century performed some acts of showy loyalty. Like shouting his name as a war cry, if the occasion arose. Or toasting his name around the campfire within his hearing. Or ferrying the bastard across the Empire without letting him run out of wine.

So far, they have managed the latter, at least.

After he's eaten, Esca resumes his post at Placidus' tent. Planted square as any Roman, eyes ahead as if he'd been trained from boyhood to the task.

He thinks: only Romans would think a good lookout is someone who does not look about himself.

And again, as the night settles in, Placidus summons him inside and dismisses the slaves.

"I hope you are not feeling taxed by this duty," he sighs as he again gestures permissively towards a picked-over platter - dates and apricots and honey, mostly. Soft cheeses. Wine. "I would rather you think of it as rewarding. If not a reward itself, then at least bringing rewards with it."

Esca does not know how best to answer, so he does not. He looks at Placidus and wonders whether he will sleep on his feet tonight, or spend another grey eternity awake listening to the snores of the slaves. He hopes for the former. It would be preferable, as long as he doesn't topple to the ground.

Placidus is regarding him, like he might wait out an answer. He sips from his wine and cocks his head. Then, bored maybe, he cedes the battle with a flick of his hand. "I do hope you sleep, at least," he echoes Esca's thought. Then he drains his cup and retreats to his bed. "Until tomorrow, then."

Of course, Esca does not sleep.

--

So it goes. The snow gets deeper and the road steeper. The day's marches get shorter, from eight hours to six, then four, and by the numbers Esca calculates late at night, leaning on his spear in Placidus' doorway, they march slower each day.

He longs for access to the map he has seen sprawled amongst other papers and accountings deeper within the tent. He wonders if they'll escape the hills before equinox, or if by the time they descend from the heights the rest of these godforsaken Roman lands will be covered in snow as well and bog them down for the rest of the season.

If the century stops marching, Esca promises himself, he will slip away. He will go on without them. On foot, if necessary. And he will make amends to Marcus when he reaches Noviomagus, and he'll tell him that Placidus is making his dawdling way north, and that they should both leave this legion nonsense immediately. Gods fuck the Ninth, and let them fuck Rome as well.

But the century doesn't stop. Not quite. Rather, they move with heavy feet and slow limbs, and so Esca endures the nights of sleepless limbo and days of nodding exhaustion, flicking off waking dreams like a horse in pasture.

Dreams about Marcus waiting, and Marcus angry, and Marcus receiving him back just to send him away again. Always Marcus, though. All he ever dreams of is Marcus.

--

The moon is new again when the snow gets so deep the horses balk and will go no further.

They stop at noon, when the gray clouds wreath the tops of the gray trees that flank the narrow road. Esca's mare, a piebald old thing with a mouth hard as leather, stops when the snow touches her belly. Esca, nudging her flanks with his heels, finds his feet brushing the top of it. It's not that she won't move forward. She can't. The snow is too heavy.

Ahead, Placidus on his tall stallion forges on for a few measures before his animal balks as well, nervously mouthing his bit at leaving the column behind. Tyro and the standard-bearer, Noster, have already slowed to a halt.

Behind them, the column shuffles to an uncertain stop. They'd been stretched into a long, trailing snake, two by twenty, so as to break as little new trail as possible, the men at the front shuffled to the back at intervals.

"Make camp," Placidus calls, letting his horse slowly wade back around. "And build me a fire before my cock falls off in this cold."

"Surely we can keep going" Esca says, and then, belatedly, hears himself saying it loud enough the whole century can hear. Tyro and Noster are looking as bemused as if it were his horse contradicting the Tribune, and not him. But now he's started. "Let us lead the horses," he calls to them all. "Let us make haste to rejoin the Ninth, who need our strength and word from Rome and the Tribune's guidance. Let us force winter to yield to us instead of hiding like babes in our bedding."

Already, the words taste spoiled in his mouth.

Placidus is staring at him, unspeaking. Tyro issues a sharp reminder to follow the Tribune's orders and make camp.

Not one set of eyes meets his as the men break formation and tramp across the road to the clearing where they'll build their temporary fortress for the thousandth time.

--

A night and another day pass. The company does not break camp or move so much as an inch northwards. Esca doesn't know if Placidus truly intends to winter and starve in this mountain pass or if he's just exercising his incontestable power to make unwise decisions.

It doesn't matter. The time has come to move on without them.

Esca's blood thrills to the thought of solitude. He'll have to make his way through the trees, at first. They'll track his trail easily in the snow, so only the most unpleasant and difficult route will dissuade them from following him all the way to the Ninth.

They'll follow him anyway, but he'd rather they do it at their inching Roman pace along wide straight roads than his way: cross-country, unencumbered by mail or shovel or horse or tent poles. He'll have a month with Marcus before they arrive. He'll explain everything. He'll persuade him to abandon this foolish servitude to an implacable empire. They'll leave. Together.

But first, before any of that, Esca must sleep.

Standing guard in Placidus' empty tent - still unrelieved of that singular duty, though no word has been spoken to him - he knows he won't get anywhere without a night's rest. And a belly full of something other than oat mash and squirrel.

Placidus returns to his pavilion far into the evening. He wears his full dress, like he spent the day on the parade ground, not in the depths of a snowy forest in Germania.

"Esca," he says and his voice is deep with drink, "You poor soulless barbarian. You spurn me, but must you always spurn the kinship of your fellows as well?"

Esca keeps his eyes forward, steady. His spear straight in hand. He hopes Placidus will fall into a stupor quickly. Very quickly. Immediately would be best.

"Those men out there are good, you know. Happy soldiers, proud Romans. They share their drink and toast the names of their betters and are happy with the lot the gods have granted them."

Esca has no doubt the legionaries are toasting Placidus' name. He has no doubt as to why, either. Silver is a great motivator.

"But you," Placidus says. And he sidles into Esca's space. Eyes dark and fixed, narrow lips twisted in pity. "You think yourself better. You reject the gifts I try to give you. You insult the place that Rome has offered you." He squawks a laugh. "I rack my mind trying to comprehend what more you are hoping for. But all I can imagine is a patch of mossy dirt at the edge of the world where you can drape yourself in fur and shit and rut with beasts and be no better than one yourself."

His eyes gleam merry. He tosses his head, arches an eyebrow. "Is that it? Have I guessed your secret heart, my wildling?"

Esca does not let his gaze waver. He barely lets his breath past his lips, he must rein himself so tight. The man's throat is so bare and close and white, and Esca's spear could so easily dip and bob up into the soft patch under his chin. Thrust straight up into his smirking skull.

Placidus holds, unsteady, for a moment. Then sighs and looks past Esca to the platter of food left out by the slaves. The tangle of sleek furs and fine cloth on the wide stretched cot.

"Join me, won't you?" he says. He walks away, towards the food. "Eat something," he suggests, as always.

And Esca knows he must.

Under his pride and his rage lies his yearning to get back to Marcus. And he must eat. And then - even worse - sleep, if he is to force his body to travel that distance in these conditions.

So he turns, and looks at the platter of food: bread, meat, honey, oils, herbs, figs.

And he sets his spear down across the doorway, and he walks over to Placidus, whose mouth is parted in astonishment, and sits down on the curule opposite. It's the first piece of furniture he's used in - gods, months - and the backless chair feels strange and princely. His spine is stiff as he reaches and tears off a piece of the bread. Scoops up a thick dollop of honey with it, and puts it in his mouth.

Placidus gives a low laugh of delight.

Esca's ears burn. But he has faced worse humiliations. He need not remember this at all tomorrow, when he sets out. To find Marcus.

"Have I conquered you, then?" says Placidus. He lifts a hand and demands more wine from the invisible slaves. Two cups are brought. Esca ignores his.

"I think so. You eat from my table, you take what I give you." Placidus rolls the words around in his mouth, alight with pleasure. "You see I will provide for you. You trust that I will not send you away on a whimsical servant's errand."

Esca's teeth are grinding the bread to mash in his mouth.

"You are mine," Placidus says, soft.

"I am not yours," Esca flashes. His throat closes on the bread, breath sticking in the thick honey. He is forced to take a swallow of the wine - sweet and rich - to breathe again.

Placidus' smile remains. He obviously thinks his point is proven.

Esca shakes his head. Lowers his gaze so as not to reveal his blood red thoughts. He eats a fig. He rips meat from the bone. He dips his bread in oil.

Placidus sips his wine and watches. He seems less like he might fall asleep, and more like he is waking up. Esca chooses not to care. He will eat, and then sleep. Let Placidus say what he will.

"I will have you, tonight."

In that moment a solid icy wall of fear rises up around him, and is just as instantly incinerated in anger.

"You will not," Esca growls.

Placidus passes a languorous hand across his beardless face. He smiles at the contradiction. "You have already given yourself up to me."

"No," Esca says.

"You have taken, and so you must take. It is honourable."

Esca bristles at the implication. "I have given you my eyes and my spear each night. My honour owes you nothing."

Placidus rises. "I shan't argue with you. Get up."

Esca does, but only because to not do so would leave him glaring upwards like a thwarted child. Yet Placidus, smirking, takes even this as further evidence of his victory.

He puts a hand to Esca's face. When Esca flinches away, the other hand comes up to his head to hold him still. Placidus' fingers lock in his hair. Placidus' thumb rubs over his lip, brushing the traces of honey left there.

Esca twists away. He will leave now. Gods damn his body's mortal needs, he will leave now and die in these woods if he must.

As he turns, he catches a glimpse of Placidus' writing table, past a drape of curtains in another corner of the pavilion. Red-stamped scrolls: the Senate's missives to Legate Marcus Flavius Aquila. The great map of the Empire. And he knows that if he leaves now - even putting his fatigue and hunger aside - he will die out there. For he will be lost in hostile country. Neither winter, nor the local folk will have any pity for him.

But if he were a messenger, as he was on the journey south. With the scrolls to prove it. He'd been treated with caution, if not welcome. He could commandeer a horse when he wanted one. He could demand food when he needed it. With those scrolls in his satchel, he could live to see Marcus.

The thought halts him entirely. He stands frozen with indecision.

"You shy like an unbroken horse," Placidus murmurs. "Did your last master misuse you so?"

Esca submits. Even as he spits with rage at the insult. He submits, because he must.

Placidus' hands reach for him, weaving under the layers of his cloak, his tunic. He keeps up his calming murmur all the while. "You have nothing to fear from me, you see. You know me to be generous. You know I have a loving soul. I am perhaps different from the other Romans you have known in that way. You can trust me to treat you with gentleness, for you know I value you."

His hot breath on Esca's throat, his fingers finding bare skin where they can.

"Undress yourself," Placidus commands. And he steps away to watch.

Esca complies. He folds his cloak neatly beside the rug he is meant to sleep upon. He unbuckles what armour they've given him, drops the mail to the ground in a ringing heap. His knife falls beside his spear. He pulls his tunic over his head. Steps out of his boots. Unstrings his arm wrappings, unwraps his legs. Only his linen undergarments cover his chest and loins.

Placidus steps forward and removes what remains himself. His hands linger on Esca's flank, brush up his stomach as he lifts the cloth.

When Esca stands naked before him, Placidus smiles. "Come," he says, and gestures at the ground - intricate foreign designs on a lush carpet - before him.

Esca understands. As he kneels, Placidus searches through layers of dyed cloth to expose his hardened cock. It is purple and thick in his hand, a round blunt head. Placidus makes an encouraging noise. "Don't be afraid," he says, and Esca thinks that perhaps this will be easier than he'd hoped. He can bite the man's ugly cock off and escape while the screams fluster and confuse the sleeping soldiers.

But Placidus clucks when Esca cranes to take the thing in his mouth. And something in his other hand taps Esca's shoulder, close to the pulse point at the base of his neck. Esca looks: a short and brutal knife. "I have promised you I'll be gentle, and you must do the same," says Placidus, with an air of patient tolerance.

The knife's heavy point is placed into the dip of his right collarbone. Its cautionary bite does not ease. So Esca swallows Placidus' cock with his teeth safely tucked away.

He tries to imagine Marcus. He fails. The shape is different, too thick, and Placidus thrusts deep into him so that he gags and convulses and the knife pushes into his skin. He concentrates on breathing around the obstruction. He obeys when Placidus gives orders: take it deeper, suck it, deeper now, faster, faster.

Placidus' breath changes, his voice cracks higher. But the knife doesn't falter. Esca can't master himself, he feels like he's choking. Whenever he tries to breathe he takes in the musky, terrible smell of Placidus' arousal. It is more nauseating than his constant gagging.

Then Placidus pulls away. Esca keeps his eyes closed against the sight of the sopping mess he's made, and whatever disgusting expression is on the man's face.

"Oh, but aren't you enjoying yourself?" Placidus asks, all sweet concern.

Esca opens his eyes to see him gesturing at Esca's own flaccid cock. He looks down. He can't do anything about that. Impossible.

"How unfair. Not at all what I'd promised you. You are no slave, to be used. You must enjoy yourself as well. Well. Come here then."

And Esca lets himself be led to the wide cot stretched out between warm braziers, and Placidus lays him down there and sits beside him. The knife has disappeared somewhere. "Lie still," Placidus instructs. Esca closes his eyes, prepared to endure.

The weight on the cot shifts and there is a mouth on his cock. Licking, delicate and urgent.

Esca opens his eyes in surprise and sees the little slave, there, the hairless one with the wry face. He is working hard to banish Esca's disinterest, and his practiced efforts put Esca's to shame. In moments, Esca must muffle a moan.

"Yes, there, that's right," Placidus murmurs beside him. He puts a hand through Esca's hair, like he's a fevered child. "You see how generous I am."

The little slave's eyes are closed tight, and Esca does his best not to push up into him. The gods are cruel. He has not felt any release in so long. The faintest memory of Marcus' touch seems ancient. The slave's mouth on him is divine, the warmth and the softness against his cockhead more than he can process. He knows he is moaning wantonly. He can't stop himself. He will spill right here. He feels it rising, rising.

"Enough." Placidus says, and the slave withdraws instantly.

Esca's eyes flash open in a moment of genuine desperation. He looks to the slave - why doesn't he know the little man's name? - but downcast eyes avoid his.

"On your belly," says Placidus.

Esca complies, helplessly arching his spine so that his wet cock, flushed red and aching and hard, brushes the furs. If he grinds into them, he'll come. He yearns to spare himself that shame almost as much as he yearns for it.

"Prepare him for me," says Placidus. And his hand is in Esca's hair again, thumb brushing the edges of his ears and sending shivers down Esca's spine.

The slave is on the cot again, and his tongue traces a circle around Esca's hole. Traces, and then increases in pressure and intent, warm spit sliding down to his balls, hand working in concert to keep him hard and wanting. There are pauses where the slave applies something warm and slippery to Esca's hole, and then the slave's tongue goes in, then a finger, and another one. Each additional pressure, sliding back and forth within him, is heavenly and terrifying.

Esca pulls in breath after breath, squirming for more, moaning as his cock jumps untended in the air.

Placidus has been quiet, but when his fingers find Esca's mouth, Esca takes them in. Licking and sucking and biting. Placidus makes a breathless, pleased sound, and part of Esca wonders at his unfaithfulness.

"Please," Esca whispers. "Please." He does not know what he is begging for. He hears in his own voice that he is close to tears.

The slave is dismissed. Placidus' fingers pull out of his mouth. Esca waits, hating and desperate.

Placidus' thick and ugly cock pushes in too fast, and too hard despite the slave's diligent work. And Esca tenses, which makes the pain worse, and bites his cry into the furs.

But there is a mouth on his cock again, and a gentle, slippery hand massaging the parts of him that feel split open right now, applying grease to Placidus' cock, rubbing Esca's balls, squeezing his thighs.

Hovering on his elbows, Esca looks down at the little slave, who has slipped in on his back under them, sucking Esca's cock down even as Placidus pounds into Esca's ass. He could cry, the washes of feeling are so intense, and so opposed.

Placidus huffs above them, a constant monologue of groans and affirmations. Esca is in a haze, listening and holding himself pliant but firm so as not to quash the slave underneath, or tighten himself against Placidus. Though when he does squeeze, Placidus' response is a choked cry and a clawing grip onto Esca's hips.

Esca squeezes again, and again, wanting it to be over, loving the feeling himself as the slave below slides along his entire wet length. Placidus responds by pushing harder and deeper and Esca can feel tears leaking out of his closed eyes, his whole body burning with effort.

He comes into the slave's mouth when he hears Placidus' cry of completion. He bucks, involuntary, knowing that he is choking the poor man even as Placidus is ripping deep into him. His own cry is choked and shamed.

Placidus pulls away, and Esca rolls off the slave, who retreats immediately.

Esca waits. Gathering his breath back into himself. Feeling his whole body undone in burning and wetness. He hurts, he is replete, he is disgusted.

Placidus does not move to touch him. But neither does he banish him from the bed. He murmurs, even after Esca has suspected sleep has already stolen him, "I would never send you away from me. I would always keep you close."

Esca does not reply.

Soon, they both sleep.

And in the morning, before the dark has brightened to even the faintest gray, Esca is up and gone into the woods. A spear, some rations, his red Roman cloak. The scrolls sealed in Senatorial red wax in his satchel. And the vast map of the Empire.

If any of the slaves witnessed his exit, none sounded the alarm. Esca turns that endlessly over in his mind as he pushes through the forest's deep drifts: even after being used by him, they still see him as one of them? Even as he rushes to the side of yet another Roman? He does not know that he is worthy of their silence. Freed, he does not know which side of the line he falls on, anymore.

He knows he will see Marcus soon. As fast as his feet will carry him. What he doesn't know is how he will meet his eyes. Or what he will say to the Roman that sent him so far away.