Work Text:
Londinium, Britannia, Roman Empire
4th Century, C.E.
It was raining when he arrived in Londinium. Of course it was. It was always raining in these gods—God—forsaken parts. The very edge of the earth, or so they said. Julius stalked up towards the villa as though he himself were a storm cloud descending to punish the landscape, ignoring how the mud splattered onto his calves and the hem of his tunic. He'd travelled all the way from Hispania as soon as he'd received word from the praetorian prefect, and the long journey through the tidal waves of spring had done nothing for his mood.
We found him. That was all the message had said. Him. That detail was news. No surprise, really, there had always been more males than females, when all the lands of the world were accounted for. Julius had already met one of her brats, after all: a son, already making his turns into manhood. But then, he'd seen her pregnant. Now, decades later, there was only left to see what kind of bastard she had produced.
He did not have to knock at the front door, for which he was grateful. As soon as he was over the threshold he threw off his hood, showering cold rain down onto the tiles.
"Where?" He asked, and the servant sent to receive him kept a demure look on the ground.
"In the cubiculum," he reported, carefully extricating Julius from his cloak and offering him a linen towel for his hair. Julius ignored it, brushing off his hair with a hand and slinging the water to the ground. Without a further word, the Roman marched out of the fauces and through the atrium, where on both levels, there were not a few servants, soldiers, and other assembled house members waiting like buzzards to dissect whatever scraps they'd be able to hear from their perches. Julius ignored them, and hardly waited for the guardsmen to raise their spears before he entered the cubiculum.
"Master Romulus," greeted the prefect, sounding at once relieved and terrified to see the empire, "I'm glad to see you've made it through the storm unscathed." Julius ignored him.
Jesus Christ and all his disciples, it was a boy. Not a child, hardly more than a woodland wisp like the ones the barbarians spoke of, it was an infant. Decades of searching, Julius fumed to himself, decades. For this. The child was facing away from him, staring out the window into the rain, flanked on either side by guards and a tired-looking Breton nanny. The torchlight caught on his tangled mop of hair, which was far lighter in color than his mother's, and made it seem as though the strands themselves had caught flame. So light of hair. There is no way he is mine.
"Boy," he called, but the child did not move. "You ought to address your elders with more respect." At this, one of the guards reached out with the butt of his spear and nudged the child in the rear, and finally he seemed to stir, glaring first at the guard and then, turning, at Julius himself.
His eyes. Julius could not see their true color in the lamplight, but they were bright like his mother's and ten times as sharp, just as angry with a fraction of the age. It only made Julius' anger burn hotter for having hunted him so long.
"What is your name, boy?" Julius asked, meeting the boy's gaze tit for tat. He refused to be the first to blink, but the boy seemed undaunted by such attention. In fact, it only seemed to stoke the fire behind his glare.
"He—" ventured the nanny, who shot a lightning-fast glance at the prefect before returning her eyes to the ground in front of Julius' sandals. "He does not speak, my lord."
"He's mute?" He glanced at the prefect.
"No, sir," the man answered wearily, "he refuses to speak."
"Refuses to?" He glared at the nanny, and watched as she squirmed under the attention. "Then how do you know he's not mute?"
"He shouted quite fiercely when they took him, sir," the prefect spoke from behind him. "The men tell me he spoke then, but I have been unable to get a word out of him since."
"Hmm." Julius crossed the room, never breaking eye contact with the boy. He crouched, setting himself just above eye level with the brat. The boy looked back at him with equal mettle. If he was daunted, it did not show. Julius had never seen anyone so ignorant in several centuries. Even plebeians saw the power inherent in him and shook before it. Either he does not know who I am, he thought, or he is colossally stupid.
"How do you know it's him?" He asked.
"He was shot in the head, twice," the prefect reported dryly. "As you can see, he's returned hale and hearty. Seeing as the Prima is the only one not accounted for…"
"How long did it take for him to come back?"
"Half a day."
Julius sucked on his teeth with a his, pulling his upper lip into a sneer. "Ah, youth," He disdained, eyes watching the boy, who was impressively maintaining the same expression as before.
Up close, Julius could see that the boy's eyes were not merely light, but a lively green color, not like his mother's grey. His hair was another matter entirely, so light blond it was mere steps away from grey. It would have lent him a wizened, aged look if not for the horrifically dark eyebrows that crowned his scowling expression. The boy was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, not Julius' spawn, and it infuriated him as much as it intrigued him.
"What," He repeated, "is your name, boy?"
The boy stared at him, and screwed up his mouth as if to keep from talking. Almost too late, Julius realized he was gathering saliva. Before the child could spit on him, Julius grabbed his baby-fat face in one strong hand, pinching his lips closed. The child jerked away, hitting at Julius' wrist until he was loose. The Roman immediately reached back towards his face, but the boy saw it and snarled. As soon as Julius' hand was within striking range, he bit, baring his teeth and snapping like a crocodile, chomping down on the Roman's index finger hard enough to draw blood. Julius yelled in surprise.
In one fluid motion, he pulled his hand free of the hellion's teeth, drew back, and slapped him clean across the face—or, accounting for his size, his entire head.
"You bitch," he snapped, but by the time the child had rebounded from the blow, he was glaring once again. The only indication that he'd felt a thing were the tears gathering at the edge of his furious green eyes.
"What," demanded Julius again, growling now through gritted teeth, "Is your name, boy?"
"He's refused to say a thing, my lord," said the prefect, somewhat shy. "He's already spat on five of my men. They are not as quick as you." Julius made as though to glare back at the man, but was afraid to let the boy out of his sight. He reached out again and seized the child's wrist in a crushing grip, and was gratified when the boy winced, nose and upper lip twitching involuntarily in pain.
"You will tell me your name," Julius said, and was pleased when the boy's eyes visibly widened upon hearing his mother's tongue out of the mouth of a Roman. Julius was long out of practice, but to a Breton, even his rusty skill would have made his point. "Or I will find your mother and make her tell me."
"My mother does not know my name," declared the boy, and everyone in the room seemed quite shocked to hear the boy speak at all, even if they could not understand what he said.
"Then perhaps I will ask your father, then, hmm?"
"I have no father." Julius resisted the urge to laugh.
"Who told you that? Your mother? A maiden's defense, and your mother is no such thing." He gripped harder. "Tell me."
"Why don't you tell me what you're doing in my forests," demanded the boy, voice more furious than any child of his age had a right to be, "among my stones, atop my villages, then, I may tell you."
Julius slapped him again, and then pointed a finger in his face, daring the child to bite him again.
"Those things are not yours, nor have they ever been yours. I saw your mother turned out of her home before you were the smallest swell in her belly. You have no forests, you have no stones, you have no villages, they are mine." He drew back his hand and stared into the boy's eyes, mustering every iota of authority vested in his sinew. "Do you know who I am?"
"I have heard enough of my people speak of you," the boy lifted his chin, looking for all the world like an infant trying to be king. "You are an invader, a marauder." Julius raised his hand, again, and felt a thrill of triumph when the child flinched.
"I am master of this land," he corrected, "and you are under my charge. Do not make the mistake of thinking I am afraid of you. You think because you cannot die I should fear you? I died a hundred thousand times before you saw your first sky, and yet here I am. I am like you, but more powerful than you could ever hope to be."
At last, in those green eyes, a hint of fear.
"Do you understand now?"
A blink. Two. Nothing more, but Julius would've been ready to settle for less.
"You do," he said, and reached out to grip the boy's other arm, tighter, tighter like a vice. "Now. What is your name?"
Finally, the boy seemed to grasp the gravity of his situation, and his dark eyebrows were lifted now to show the whites around his eyes, surprise and real fear settling in. Still, when Julius looked into his face, he could not predict what he might do next.
"I have none," the boy said quietly, blinking and trying desperately not to break eye contact. "My mother does not know my name because she never gave one to me."
At this, Julius actually sat back on his haunches, loosening his grip on the boy.
"Is that so?"
The boy nodded his head in a quick, tense flutter.
"Well," Julius slipped back into Latin for the benefit of the prefect. "Nameless, then, we shall have to give you one, Britannia Prima." What a prize he was, feral and blond. Unknown pedigree aside, he'd already died at least once and was still so furious he would have bitten off Julius' entire hand if he'd had the opportunity. Julius' determination to hold on to him—and his mother, and his brother—grew fiercer with every passing second.
"You will be called Flavius, for your golden hair, if not your golden personality," Julius decided roughly. "You will yet have to earn such a noble name. You will call me Lord Julius around the lowly peoples of this earth, or else, when alone, you may call me Lord Romulus." Flavius' eyes widened again, and Julius quirked an eyebrow. "Ah, so your mother did mention me." Flavius remained silent. "Smart boy."
After fixing his new charge with the strongest glare he could muster, Julius stood to his full height and glanced up at the Breton nurse.
"You will confine him to his room until I say." She bowed lowly, and gestured for Flavius to join her, which the boy did only very reluctantly. To the prefect, Julius said, "He will stay here for the time being. I understand his brother is here as well?"
"Yes, my lord. His house staff is some of the few on the island who understand how to cater to such… particular needs. We thought it best."
"Very well," Julius watched the light dance across Flavius' golden hair, his ruddy fair skin, the freckles and creases in his young brow that reminded him intensely of his mother. "The brat may yet have some good influence. You may allow them to quarter together, if it is their wish, but you may not allow Flavius outside of his quarters. Am I understood?"
"Yes, my lord."
And so it was. Julius had too many concerns within Londinium to remain long at the villa, and still further concerns beyond the town's outer borders to spend every day tending to the demands of his newfound charge. He remained appraised of Flavius' progress towards civilization, however, and constantly sent instructions by messenger on how best to encourage their young Breton charge to assimilate into some semblance of a responsible Roman citizen.
Britannia herself may have disappeared into the barbarian wilds of her island, but her darling Secunda and now, Prima, were a prize worth the loss. While the prefect may not have sufficiently appreciated this fact when he was pulling hair and screaming foul to keep Flavius in line, the significance of the discovery was not lost on Julius. He made a point to stop by the villa before he made the channel crossing to address new concerns in Gallia.
He watched from a seat as Flavius played with his elder brother, called Ambrosius, in the gardens in the rear of the villa. It was a privilege Flavius had only recently earned from good behavior, which the nannies seemed to believe largely stemmed from the mellowing influence of Ambrosius.
"He seems at home," Julius observed, fully relaxed beside the uptight form of the prefect, who he was fairly sure had grown three new patches of grey hair since Julius had seen him five months ago.
"Yes," reported the man warily, "I daresay we're finally making progress, my lord."
As the details of such progress was reported to him, Julius watched the child, who was going about his make-believe game as a general setting about war, observing before acting, planning each move before lifting a finger. The thought occurred to Julius that he could train the boy to be a formidable strategist—perhaps even mold him into the strong arm of the north that his empire had lacked for so long.
"There is… one thing," the prefect was saying, and it drew Julius out of abstraction.
"Oh?"
"Yes, his… his nursemaids, they say…" the prefect looked uncomfortable, which made Julius listen more intently than ever.
"Yes?"
"They say that Ambrosius and Flavius call each other by different names, when they are alone."
"Different names," Julius repeated, glancing up at the boys. "Nicknames?"
"No, my lord. Breton names."
Ah. Well, it was only to be expected. Local languages would always persist, even in the most Roman of provinces, to say nothing of these fringes.
"What names?"
"Ambrosius is called Emrys, in his own tongue. Apparently, it is how his local villagers have shortened his name."
"Emrys," Julius tested the sounds out on his tongue. "Ambrosius, Emrys," he shrugged. "I do not pretend to know the patterns of the language. It is harmless, however."
"Yes my lord, of course," The prefect seemed relieved to hear him say so.
"And Flavius?" At this, the man seemed somewhat less comfortable.
"Flavius, they say, is called Artur."
"Artur?" Julius frowned, testing out the name. "Artur. Is it Breton?"
"I could not say, my lord, and neither can any of the nursemaids. It is not a dialect they recognize. Some say it could be pieced together from the language of Secundus, but they cannot agree on what it means." The prefect dared a look over at his lord, surprised and alarmed by the confusion in the empire's face. "Do you know the name, my lord?" Julius stared at the boy from across the garden.
"No," Julius was not happy to admit. His visions for a northern arm of the Roman Empire seemed to dim in his mind, and from the fog emerged shapes of something he could not make out, something defined not by Roman shields or swords, but by a language he did not know.
"Perhaps his brother gave the name to him," the prefect said, "since his mother did not."
Artur. The meaningless syllables rattled around in Julius' skull like a bell; whether it was a cowbell or a distant war cymbal, he could not tell. As the grown men watched, Flavius looked up and directly into Julius' eyes. For a second, the boy seemed surprised to see the empire there, watching him, but quickly the look solidified into something else. Enigmatic, maybe, dauntless, certainly.
"Or," Julius said, "he gave it to himself."
"And what does it mean, my lord? Or is it gibberish?"
Julius remembered the feeling of the boy's teeth grinding against the bone of his finger. Half a day, they'd said, half a day to return from the Underworld. He continued to stare, and Flavius—Artur—stared back, eyes greener than the furious summer.
"The world may yet find out." Julius stood abruptly, shattering the look between the boy and the empire. "But none before I. Confine him to his rooms over winter."
"My lord—" The prefect burst, surprised by such a demand, but even as he turned to follow Julius, the empire was gone.
Artur watched the exchange from afar. Though Romulus frightened him, he could see how he frightened Romulus. Spirits and fae clustered around the house in parliaments that the marauder could not see, but as Artur passed them on his way back to his rooms, they whispered truths that could be prophecy, or fury, or both:
Your stones. Your forests. Your people. Your island. Yours alone, they said.
He believed them.