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It takes several months before Esca begins to trust in his ideas of the sort of man his new master is. Marcus is not a talkative sort even on those rare days when the pain is not so bad and he can move more easily. It is as well, for Esca is not a talkative sort either - not that it matters much what sort he is, when he can be commanded to act like anything at all.
Esca supposes that it begins three weeks after his purchase. He walks away from the cook, Sassticca, and accidentally drops a fig off the plate he carries. Sassticca berates him loudly about how he should be more careful when carrying the young master's food; the young master is a brave man and a good one but what would you know about it; he was horribly wounded and do you ever hear him complain about it, no; he threw himself under a chariot's wheels to save his men, can you even imagine?
In fact, Esca can well imagine all those things. That sort of brave heroism is unusual but not quite rare, especially in British villages where two out of every three babes starve before the end of their first year. It only vaguely interests or impresses Esca, whose own father died at the forefront of a futile, heroic charge.
What interests Esca more is what happens when he walks out of the kitchen and hands the plate to Marcus. Sassticca's voice is as loud and screeching as a fishwife's, and it is clear from the soft, proud faces of the elder Aquila and Stephanos that they heard everything.
But rather than blushing and hiding a smile, or darting his eyes at Esca to see his new slave's reaction, Marcus grabs the plate away and bends his head over it, hunching his shoulders like he wishes to hide. He looks almost shamed by Sassticca's glorifying words. Bewildered, Esca watches Marcus for so long that Stephanos arches an eyebrow when he finally lifts his head.
Later that night, Esca blurts out, "If it were one of the warriors of my tribe, they would throw their head back and hope for a song to be composed."
Marcus blinks at him from his seat at the table where he whittles. Up until now Esca has been all but silent, answering questions dutifully but with little good grace. This is unexpected to both of them.
"And their pride would be earned," Esca adds, not sure if his meaning is clear.
A shadow crosses Marcus's face, and he seems to hesitate. It is a throw of the dice. Esca has wagered that the novelty of his conversation will interest Marcus enough to entertain him. But at that moment Esca realizes that he has not crossed his new master yet, and this could be considered a far worse transgression than spilled food or half-finished chores. He holds his breath, and waits for the dice to fall.
Marcus lets out a slow breath and shifts slightly in his seat so that he can look at Esca without craning his neck. Esca lets out a silent breath of his own, one he did not realize he was holding.
"You have been in battle, yes?" Marcus asks roughly.
Esca gives a jerky nod. He had not expected the questions to be turned back on him so quickly. "I have."
"Did you lead men?"
"No." A stab of something hotly painful - regret, desire, jealousy - pierces his chest. One day, he would have. But his father, and the rest of his tribe, died too soon. Now he never would.
Marcus rubs his temple with the heel of his palm and gives Esca a considering look. "But you would have. We know each other, you and I."
Esca only stares at him. This is - almost subtle, for a Roman. There are many ways he could respond, and not enough time to choose the right one.
"You have known war." Too late; Marcus is looking away. "So you know that in battle, everything goes wrong. Mistakes are made. People you meant to save, die. And you kill men you might wish to live." He broke off and looked down at his hands, clasped around the outline of a wooden horse. "Do not mistake my meaning. I am no gentle flower. But the men from the village who fought us - I knew them. Drove their horses. Tested their spears. Both of us had higher callings to answer to, and there is no betrayal in that, but still I remember them."
He looks back at Esca, face betraying no condescension. "I made many mistakes, did many things I would rather not have, and made one choice I can look back on with pride. It is not such a great thing when you really understand it."
Marcus bites his lip and stares out the window for a second, then goes back to whittling.
Esca tries to catch his breath, and tells himself vainly that these are merely pretty words, and not echoes of things he has felt in his own heart.
Mostly, Esca tries not to remember the words, "We know each other, you and I."
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"It was a good throw - for a slave."
The words should not hit Esca so hard, but oh, they do. After months of an increasingly easy familiarity with Marcus, passing a wineskin back and forth like brothers in arms, to be reminded of his true status is like a physical blow.
And then there is another: "It is his property you risk, after all."
I am nobody's property! Esca screams in his mind, but he cannot voice it here. All he can do is murmur some form of agreement and pretend that the words don't scar him like a brand.
He repeats the words to Marcus, later, when his master laughingly entreats him to be more careful.
"I should have thought. It is your property I risk, after all."
"Esca, what?" The confusion in Marcus's voice is like balm to his invisible wounds, and Esca can only stare up, hoping for more. "Who has been dripping poison in your ear? You know that is not what I meant! You are not my - I don't think of you that way."
Marcus is so sincere with his comfort that Esca almost feels bad. He is quite sure of Marcus, but right now he needs to hear words of friendship and bond spoken aloud, so he takes what he needs. Marcus thinks he is declaring himself. Esca knows that he is simply drawing out what was there all the time.
Still, when Marcus settles next to Esca and slings a heavy arm around his shoulders, Esca cannot help feeling sparks strike inside his stomach.
Esca tamps them down as best he can. He ducks out from underneath his master's arm, shares one last laugh before bed, and falls asleep as quickly as possible on his cold pallet.
It cannot happen like this; likely it cannot happen ever. If Esca were to allow the embers glowing inside him to flare into life, they would consume him whole and destroy everything they touched. There is too much spare wick to catch alight - the imbalance of servitude contrasted with the easy harmony of their friendship; their aimless passage of days that must soon take the form of something more purposeful; enough guilt and regret to fill much longer lifespans than their own.
No; Esca will not wander down a path that he knows to end in the dampened smog of razed fields. So he shuts away the tinder inside his heart as best he can, and if his eyes follow Marcus, it is only the reflex of a slave.
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There are many things that Esca has planned for. He has planned for the Roman he now serves to take a job as a secretary and stay in the quiet town of Calleva forever. He has planned for his master to decide to go back to Rome and forge a living there. He has even planned what to do if Marcus is so foolish as to attempt to find a place again in his one-time mistress, the army.
Esca has not planned what he will do if Marcus decides to travel to the land where Esca was born, to territory where the name of Rome is a curse and not an excuse.
"I'll take Esca," Marcus says, almost carelessly, like there is no inherent danger in this plan.
Esca stands in shadows, all but unseen, and tries to look inside himself. Is he proud of the strength of the bond he has formed, will he or no, with this arrogant Roman? Or is he angry at the presumption, at how Marcus believes what he wants will always be given if he only asks?
Then the old man cries out, "He's a slave! He says what he says and does what he does because he has to!"
Esca's blood boils in his veins and he realizes immediately that he would rather arrogant presumption on his debt a thousand times, than careful presumption on his desperation. He has given his word, and there is no force on earth that could make him desperate enough to break it. Did he not prove his honor in the gladiator's ring? The old man was there, but clearly he did not see. Esca had thought they understood what kind of man he was, under this yoke and collar, but it seems that after all his status as slave outweighs all else.
Perhaps Marcus did not - does not - truly see him either. Perhaps he is only a fool, blindly assuming kind treatment of his slaves ensures their loyalty. Esca's throat closes over at the thought that Marcus may believe his servitude could be bought by occasional hunting trips and an empty whip-hand. If the Roman believes this, then he is not the only one who has been mistaken in his understanding.
Marcus shouts, "He gave me his word!", clearly frustrated. Esca gave his word and therefore Marcus will not, cannot, be harmed by him.
And something searing; white-hot and certain, pushes up through Esca's blood and bone so that he feels it tingling on his skin. It is not forgiveness, or joy, or any happy thing. When he searches his feelings, the scars of the slaver's whips and the humiliation of Cunoval's son fetching wine are still close to the surface, thick and dark.
He pushes them away, a familiar action, and thinks on his gods. Yes, it is something close to the dangerous, lightening connection the druids describe, that binds them to their gods' will even as it saps their life away. And yet it is not the same, for there is a kind of gentleness in this feeling that Esca cannot ascribe to his gods of song and battle.
For the first time since the day he watched his mother's blood spill onto the mud in front of him, Esca thinks that perhaps he feels love; strange and imperfect but fire-bright and true.
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If Esca was unsure in Rome, he is sure in the village of the Seal People, as Marcus watches his captors with uncertain eyes and refuses to lower his head. This is the other side of the coin, like that god Janus that the Romans worship. Marcus is the same sort of slave that Esca was, only without the debt. He is wild and proud and untamable, and Esca shows him no kindness, knowing it will only make Marcus hate him further.
Had Esca ever thought of himself as a good man, he learns now how wrong he was. For he spends his little unwatched time looking into Marcus's eyes, cherishing the doubt and anguish he sees there. Pain not solely for lost freedom, but for a lost friend.
When Marcus spits, "I will kill you," Esca does not feel a trace of fear or wariness, only an almost overwhelming desire to reassure. Even with all that Esca has done - all that Marcus thinks Esca has done - still, he sees that Marcus desperately wants to believe in him. And that sets a fire in Esca's belly that he cannot ignore or deny.
When Marcus gasps, "I thought I lost you," it is almost Esca's undoing. But they have a journey they must see through, and there is no time for Esca to consider the pleading of his heart. He is glad of it, for he is fairly sure there is no way to recover from the wrong turns they have taken. He cannot declare himself after weeks of treating Marcus as a slave.
He is glad until Marcus lies shaking in a cold riverbed, trying to press a lump of gilded metal into Esca's hands. Then Esca is terrified, for he knows Marcus is the sort of man to whom death will not bring peace. If he cannot run fast enough, if his words do not persuade... Esca fairly flies over the ground, and as breath sobs through his throat he prays to every silent god he can think of.
It does not matter if he knows my heart, only do not let him die thinking himself alone.
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After, Esca gets Marcus to the wall, and home to Calleva, though he is not entirely sure how. Every day he waits for fever to take hold and rampage Marcus's body. But every morning Marcus gives him a tired smile, and manages to rise. It is another miracle in a string of miracles, and though he might wish for one more, Esca knows better than to tempt the gods.
He keeps his silence.
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But Esca finds that silence cannot be kept forever. Not when the two of them stay together, and spend half a year haggling over a farm, and then another half year plowing their land into submission. He keeps expecting the brightness around Marcus to fade, for his eyes to finally adjust and see his friend as only another discharged soldier with bad luck and a comely enough face.
His eyes do not change.
Though his love has little enough to do with marriage or child-bearing, any love is still a gift from the gods, a sacred thing that they will punish you for mishandling. When Esca’s heart does not change, he understands that the time has come for him to declare himself. There is nothing standing in his way now but fear.
And fear is not an excuse.
According to his people it should be a woman that he loves, but Esca has been breaking their rules for so long that he barely notices this one. His father would have slit his throat were he still alive - for loving a man, and a Roman, and the son of the man who dared march into their lands - but Esca left that path long ago. He cannot find his way back to it, and if he could, he would not. Love has him in her harness, and he can do nothing but lean into the reins.
So one night, when the workers they’ve hired have all gone home, Esca takes Marcus out to see the stars. He thinks vaguely that perhaps the wild British winds will give him courage, and maybe they do, for when Marcus sits and tilts his head back to stare at the sky, Esca kisses him.
It is a fleeting kiss, a brush of chapped lips and a hint of pressure. It is almost sweet; it in no way conveys years of guilt and confusion and longing.
But it is enough, for it makes Marcus’s breath catch in his throat. When he starts to choke Esca pulls away and sits on his haunches, and Marcus stares at him wide-eyed through his coughs.
“Do you… Are you then… Is this…”
“Yes,” Esca answers promptly, before he realizes that he has no idea what the questions are. He bites his lip and tilts his head, trying to measure the bewilderment on Marcus’s face.
“I see,” Marcus says slowly, and it is apparent that he does not.
“We have been wandering together for such a long time,” Esca says. The words come out of his throat thickly. He wonders if the British tongue would surrender his meaning more easily. “We have been each other’s home, and now we have a home, and I just thought…”
Finally Marcus is able to master his coughing. He fiddles nervously with the hem of his sleeves, but does not turn away.
"There has been little enough happiness," Marcus says, his smile gentle and kind and every sort of wrong. "If you wish it, I see nothing wrong with two friends taking some comfort where they may."
"I do not wish to be your friend. And I do not want your comfort," Esca snaps.
Marcus's face goes momentarily blank, and then his brows pinch together in confusion. Another time it would be endearing; now it is infuriating.
"Oh," he says, "but then - what do you want? If you do not want to be my friend, or wish to lay together, and you cannot be my..." Esca sees the outline of the word "wife" on his mouth, but thankfully it drops unspoken from his lips, for Esca does not want this to end in a brawl.
"I do not know what I want!" Esca cries, hearing the keen edge of desperation in his own voice. "You Romans" - this is unfair, but he says it anyway - "have taken everything from me, even my own desires. I do not know what I want; what I can have, here. If we were in my village, I would have been your shieldbearer, and we would have stood side by side."
But this is mostly a lie; although such things are not unheard of, particularly between boys on a war trail, they are certainly not accepted by the Brigantes. And as the eldest son of the MacCunovals, it would have been unthinkable for Esca. It is altogether possible that he is closer to his desires in Rome, where these flirtations are permitted and scandal is a way of life.
In truth, Esca suspects that what he wants is not possible in either his world or Marcus's. But he wants it anyway.
"Esca, please." Marcus lifts a hand, drops it, and then raises it again to settle over Esca's shoulder. His face is concerned and a little worried, but not disgusted. And he is still standing here. That is in some ways both a shock and more than Esca deserves. "You have to tell me what you want, so I may understand. I am lost in the forest with no trail."
This is all going so wrong, and it hurts even more because Marcus clearly wants it to be right. Esca always thought that, if they somehow made it to this point, they would understand each other perfectly. But they don’t. Esca doesn’t know how to explain what he wants, and he doesn’t want to have to explain it. He just wants Marcus to know him.
With a sigh that comes out more like a groan he wrenches his shoulders out of Marcus’s grip and stands. He stalks back toward the house, ignoring the tug on his heart as he hears Marcus scramble to follow, fumbling with his bad leg.
“Esca… Esca, wait!” Uneven footfalls sound behind him. “Have I offended you in some way? Esca, I don’t understand!”
The confused desperation in Marcus’s voice stops Esca in his tracks. Marcus reaches him and lays his hands on Esca’s arms, turning him around. Esca is struck by an odd desire to laugh. He is the one who is propositioning something indecent, shameful even. And Marcus is the one to give chase and apologize for Esca’s fears. It is at once not at all and exactly what he wants.
“Esca.” Marcus cranes his neck, trying to stare into Esca’s face. “Did I… did I misunderstand your kiss? Is it some Brigante custom I do not know?”
At that, Esca does laugh. It is almost tempting to play ignorant, but he has been doing that for too long now. He is tired of pretending to be all sorts of things he isn’t: A slave. A civilized Briton. A man who is not in love with his master/slave/master/employer/friend.
“No, Marcus,” he says, voice thin and hollow. He cannot bring himself to fully meet Marcus’s eyes, and instead stares at his throat. “There can be no misunderstanding my actions, and well you know it."
“It is just…” Marcus hesitates, and the pause is out of place on him. He is a man of action, not of calculations. “I thought of this too, once. More than once. Were we both free men when we met, I have little doubt what path we might have followed. But we did not meet as free men, and there are scars on our past that goodwill cannot erase. No matter how much I might wish it.”
“You wish it?” Esca whispers. He is both awed and humbled by his friend’s words. Marcus has thought of not himself, but of Esca. There are some who think the former Centurion is simple. Esca knows better. Marcus is not simple, but simply good. It is a fearsome and awful thing, and Esca does not envy him it.
Marcus makes an abrupt motion that passes for a nod.
“It was within me to love you then,” Esca says clumsily, “but I would not have given myself to you. I kept my heart safe, so that I might give it to you later, if another day should come.”
He watches carefully as Marcus opens his mouth, closes it, and purses his lips. His eyes are narrowed and he appears to be thinking hard. One might be tempted again to think of him as slow, but Esca knows that really Marcus is weighing his guilt; wondering if he can let himself believe that Esca is being truthful. He shifts his weight onto his bad leg, winces, and shifts it back again.
“And... has it come?” There is something very like hope in his voice. Marcus goes to take a step forward, only to find that he is already close to Esca, and the movement brings them flush together. A man of action indeed. There is starlight reflected in Marcus’s eyes.
“It has come for me,” Esca says, and smiles.