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/"This man is an idiot,"/ Esca told the friendly farmer who would probably cheerfully slit both their throats if he knew what Marcus was. /"Pay him no heed."/ And pray don't mind if he eyes your chickens like he wants to eat them. Even though he probably did.
The friendly farmer bobbed his head some more. Well, no reason why he shouldn't: it cost him nothing to act agreeably to a pair of strangers. While not actually giving us any useful information.
"Does he know anything?" Marcus asked, the moment they might reasonably be expected to be out of earshot. Provided the ears in question were three-quarters deaf.
"No," Esca said curtly. He knows that we're acting very suspiciously.
"He was lying," Marcus said, in his best 'I am an Alpha werewolf and hence always right' voice. It was a very annoying voice. Esca hadn't liked it from the first time he'd heard it, which had been when Marcus had saved his life, more or less.
Well, rather more than less. "Probably."
"We should go back there."
"No," Esca said. It was rapidly becoming his favorite word to use around Marcus - and, to be fair, Marcus did seem to accept it. Most of the time. "We've got nothing that he wants."
Marcus grimaced. Not used to not getting his way, but smart enough to realize when someone was telling him an unwelcome truth. Except when it's about letting a slave die because he refuses to entertain a group of Romans by fighting a gladiator.
"Are you hungry?" Esca asked, which was usually a good question to ask when one wanted to change the subject. (The answer was generally yes, werewolves being what they were.)
"No," Marcus said.
"I saw you looking at those chickens."
Marcus glowered at him. "I'm fine."
"All right," Esca said. "Just checking."
Dinner consisted of wild pig, roasted, which was a luxury and a stroke of luck.
"I guess I just don't like it," Marcus said, staring into the fire. Not looking at Esca, which was probably not a good sign.
Esca mentally went down the list of things 'it' might refer to. "The pig?" he guessed, even though he was pretty sure it wasn't the pig.
"Not being able to talk to people myself."
Not being able to order them around, you mean. Although Marcus hadn't been able to do that at his uncle's villa, either, as far as Esca had seen.
He'd done it to the crowd, though. Thumbs up. The blood-thirsty, Roman crowd. Life. Let him live. No arguments or speeches, just a command, backed up by the clear expectation that it would be obeyed. Do it.
"I guess you just have to trust me, huh?" Esca said, and Marcus raised his head to look at him.
"I do." Marcus almost sounded hurt. "Of course I trust you."
Of course. You think that, just because you saved my life, that means you own me. He wasn't entirely wrong about that, sadly. There was a debt, and Esca would honor it. To a point.
"It's only - you know." Marcus shrugged. "A pain. I don't like just sitting there."
Esca remembered the surgeon with his 'very sharp knives', reopening the wound on Marcus's leg to get the remaining bits of metal out. Remembered the feel of Marcus's body under him, hot and tense but human - always human, until it was over.
"So what do you propose?" he asked. "In case you forgot, Latin's not a popular language around here."
"I uh," Marcus said, and it might be the first time Esca had ever seen him uncertain of anything. "I thought you might teach me."
From Marcus's point of view, it was not a bad idea.
/"Sky,"/ Esca said. "Sky."
/"Sky,"/ Marcus repeated obediently.
Esca didn't like it - until now, he might not have had the freedom to go where he wanted, or do what he wanted, but he'd at least had the freedom to say what he wanted, provided he didn't offer up an accurate translation in Latin, after.
Romans. Never satisfied. Always lusting for more.
/"Horse."/ Always taking without giving anything back. "Horse."
/"Horse."/
He might fake it, naturally - teach Marcus poorly, or falsely.
/"Arrogant fools."/ It would go against his pride, though. "Romans."
"Long word," Marcus said. "Can I hear that one again?"
A wolf with a bad leg was still capable of hunting - more capable than a human with a bow and arrow, it appeared, which was lucky. Esca tried to imagine a Marcus who had not regained the nearly full use of his leg, who had been crippled for life by a single act of foolish, youthful bravery.
He'd have turned bitter, in the end. That, or he'd have killed himself. As Esca had tried to do, rather than serve those who had killed his people.
And look where that got me.
"They're never going to let me serve again," Marcus said, once Esca'd accepted the (rather skinny) rabbit that was to be their dinner. "Never."
"Sorry?"
Marcus pulled his tunic over his head. "The army. Even if I bring back the Eagle, my career's still over."
"So why bother?" Esca asked. As if I don't know already.
"It's my duty," Marcus said.
Right. That's why nobody wanted you to go - not even your uncle. Because it's your duty.
"Like it's yours to help me," Marcus added.
My only duty was to die honorably so that I could join my family in the afterlife. Given where they were, he might still get the chance, of course. Cheerful thought.
He didn't, Esca realized, particularly minded if he were to die himself, but the idea of Marcus dying before he did, or shortly after, was rather ... itchy. Unpleasant.
"You should get some sleep," he told Marcus.
/"Yes,"/ Marcus said. /"Good dinner."/
/"We are coming north."/
/"Going,"/ Esca corrected. /"We are going north."/ To the forest, beyond the snowy mountains. The place of heroes, where the gods had rallied and granted the Britons a victory over the Romans who would enslave their women and children, and take their land for their emperor.
He had been there once, many years ago. When his father had still been alive. When his mother had still smiled. When his brothers had still teased him.
/"We are going north,"/ Marcus said. /"I am up a horse. You are up a horse. We are up horses."/
/"On,"/ Esca said. /"I am on a horse."/
Hopeless. Unfair, maybe; given that he'd started learning less than a week, Marcus was picking up the language amazingly fast. Perhaps it was a werewolf thing, although Esca'd never heard of werewolves being any better at learning foreign languages than humans.
Perhaps it's just him. Marcus turned and grinned at him, as if they were two best friends - brothers in spirit, if not in blood, instead of a master and a slave, a Roman and a Briton.
I hope I will be far away when he dies.
The forest was not as Esca remembered it. Bigger, which could be explained, perhaps - it had been years, and the trees had not stopped growing during that time.
Darker, too, which was harder to explain, unless it was the shadows of the dead, looking at him with disfavor, for bringing a Roman here.
"You can sense them, too, can't you?" Marcus said, his voice as close to a whisper as it had ever come.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Esca said. His mouth was dry.
"Now who's being a - what was it again?" Marcus cocked his head. /"An arrogant fool."/ It was the word Esca had taught him for Romans, which meant that Marcus had just called Esca a Roman, which made no sense at all, unless -
"Ha!" Marcus said, and he wasn't whispering at all anymore; he was smiling and looking very pleased with himself, as if they weren't at all in some forest full of ghosts. "I knew it."
/"You have the brains of a chicken,"/ Esca said. /"You will get us both killed."/
/"I am sword,"/ Marcus said, which Esca's mind couldn't even begin to make sense of. /"No shoes."/
"Latin," Esca said. "Please. You're not making any sense whatsoever, and on top of that, your accent is making my ears bleed."
"You lied to me." Marcus wasn't smiling anymore. "I trusted you, and you lied to me."
Esca tried to work out how to get from I am sword to You lied to me - I am angry, maybe? I am upset? but at that point, Marcus jumped him, sending them both crashing to the floor in a fabulous display of foolishness, which he followed up by trying to strangle Esca.
Well. At least this is something I can cope with. He wouldn't actually kill Marcus, obviously - but it was clear that Marcus had lost what little sense he had ever had, and so clearly, the best thing Esca could do for him was knocking him out and getting him away from here - not all the way back to the Wall, maybe, but a solid few miles in that direction wouldn't hurt.
The Eagle would not be found here - not after twenty years.
Only the dead seem to have stuck around, unable to move on. Marcus hissed something at him in heavily accented, barely recognizable Latin.
The dead. Roman dead, naturally; they'd been the losers. The Seal warriors cut off their feet to prevent them from walking to the afterlife. Clearly, it had worked. A little too well, maybe.
Small wonder not everyone they'd met had pointed them in this direction. Esca wondered how many lonely travellers had met their death here, falling victim to the Roman ghosts.
"Marcus." On the other hand, he wasn't fighting a ghost. The hands around his throat had been physical, touchable. Pry-loose-able. Possession. "Marcus! You must resist it. This isn't you."
Did I shame myself? Marcus had asked, the morning after the operation, and Esca had told him no. All the gouges in the table had been from after, when the surgeon had already gone, when it had only been Marcus and Esca, and Esca had undone the straps warily, cautiously, because he knew - as everybody knew - that a werewolf, once shifted, was no longer in control of his actions as a man would.
He had thought he might die there, in that room that still smelled of blood and pain.
"The hell it isn't me!" Marcus snapped. "Liar!"
So why aren't you shifting, then? Not that Marcus wasn't also dangerous in his human shape, but still - as a human, Esca was at the very least his equal. Better than his equal. Esca had two perfectly sound legs, and a cool head.
"This will hurt you a lot more than it will me," he told Marcus. "I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm really not, so."
Did I shame myself?
You screamed like a baby pig, but you were possessed by a ghost at the time, so it probably doesn't count. You crazy Roman.
"I'm sorry," was the first thing Marcus said, when he regained consciousness. /"I am cabbage."/
"How's the leg?" Esca asked, reaching for the bandage before Marcus could reply.
Marcus grabbed his arm. "Hey. I said that I'm sorry."
Actually, you said you were cabbage. "And I asked you how your leg was."
"I mean, you did lie to me," Marcus said, not releasing him. "And I'm pissed about that, but I didn't want to kill you or anything."
"You didn't."
Marcus growled. "You are just so - "
I am just so? I am just so? "I'm your slave," Esca said. I dislike you. Intensely. Almost as much as I don't dislike you.
/"I love you,"/ Marcus said, and Esca felt himself freeze, because that was really not - "You're my friend," and yes, fine, that was probably what Marcus had meant the first time, too.
"I can't be your friend," Esca said. "Slaves aren't friends with their master." Britons aren't friends with Romans. "If you truly are my friend, you will set me free."
Marcus glared at him. Very friendly. I love you, indeed. "I will. But not now. After we've found the Eagle."
"I'll hold you to that." Assuming we both live that long.
"And we'll still be friends," Marcus said, finally releasing him. "So you're still not going to go anywhere without me. So don't even try, because I'm going to find you anyway. Anywhere. No matter what."
Esca considered the many things he might say to that. It was a ridiculous claim, of course; there were plenty of ways to make sure even a werewolf wouldn't be able to track you down.
Even a Roman werewolf with a colossal ego and some not inconsiderable family connections.
"I know where the Eagle is," he said, finally. "The Seal people have it."