The watch believed Marcus before they believed Arthur.

That was reasonable. Marcus looked like a man who belonged in a crisis. Arthur looked like someone who had caused one by accident and was now hoping history would forgive him.

The rescued prisoners stood near the warehouse wall wrapped in rough blankets, guarded more by confusion than by anyone’s authority. The woman Arthur had freed first kept one arm around the young girl and the other around an older man who shook so badly his teeth clicked together. Two dockworkers had given them water. Another had crossed himself in a way that was not Christian yet, more habit than doctrine, as if fear needed a gesture even when the gods were not listening.

Arthur kept counting them.

Seven.

Then he counted the empty space where the first cart had vanished.

Seven was not enough.

Marcus spoke to the watchmen with the flat patience of a soldier explaining something to men he did not respect. He showed the tablet. He pointed to the ropes, the marked axle, the broken amphorae, the warehouse door, the witnesses, the bruises, the freed people. The watchmen listened because there was too much evidence not to listen and too many eyes for them to pretend nothing had happened.

That, Arthur understood, was the real victory of the night.

Not the fight.

The audience.

A crime hidden in darkness belonged to the powerful. A crime seen by dockworkers, mule drivers, guards, oil merchants, and half a street of curious Romans became more difficult to bury.

Difficult did not mean impossible.

One of the watchmen asked Arthur something. Arthur stared at him.

Marcus answered for him.

The watchman asked again, sharper this time, pointing at Arthur’s face.

Arthur caught one word.

Gaius.

Of course.

The dead man who refused to stay dead had interrupted an illegal transfer at the river, produced a suspicious seal, shouted about thieves, freed prisoners, and somehow survived. It was the kind of event Rome enjoyed turning into rumor before breakfast.

Marcus stepped slightly in front of Arthur.

Not enough to be obvious.

Enough.

Arthur felt a strange warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with gratitude and everything to do with shame. Marcus kept placing himself between Arthur and consequences. One day, that might get the man killed.

The thought stayed with him on the walk back to Lucius’s house.

They did not bring all seven rescued people there. That would have been impossible and dangerous. Marcus arranged for two to be taken to a small shrine nearby, where an old priestess seemed more interested in helping the frightened than asking official questions. Three were held by the watch as witnesses, which made Arthur uneasy until Marcus made it very clear that any man who mistreated them would answer to him. The woman and the girl came with them because the girl refused to let go of Arthur’s sleeve until the woman gently pried her fingers away and took his place.

Arthur did not know what to do with that.

Being trusted by a terrified child felt less like honor and more like a debt.

Lucius opened the rear door before they knocked.

Arthur had the brief and unreasonable thought that the physician had been waiting there the entire time just to look disapproving.

If so, he succeeded.

Lucius took in Marcus’s bloodied arm, Arthur’s muddy tunic, the woman, the girl, and the general smell of disaster. Then he stepped aside without asking questions. The questions came after the door closed, and they came loudly.

Livia was awake.

Naturally.

She sat upright again, despite every medical instruction ever given to her, with Gaius’s map beside her and a blanket pulled around her shoulders. Her eyes went first to Arthur, then to Marcus, then to the girl. Something in her expression softened. Only for a moment. Then she looked at Arthur again and saw the answer before anyone translated it.

They had not saved everyone.

The woman told the story in a voice that kept breaking. Marcus translated only pieces for Arthur, but he did not need every word. She had been taken with her brother from a work crew near the river. The old man had been a debt slave. The girl had been taken from a household after her owner died and the records became convenient for someone else. Others had been in the first cart. More had been kept elsewhere. The route changed often. The marked seal opened doors.

The girl had a name.

Tullia.

Arthur repeated it quietly.

The girl looked at him when he said it. Her eyes were too large in her thin face.

"Tullia," he said again, because names mattered. If the system counted survivors, then Arthur would count names.

Lucius treated Marcus’s arm next. The cut was not deep, but it bled dramatically enough to make Arthur feel guilty. Marcus accepted the cleaning without complaint, though his jaw tightened when Lucius poured vinegar over the wound.

Arthur expected a speech.

He got one.

Lucius delivered it while bandaging Marcus, and though Arthur understood almost none of the words, he understood the rhythm perfectly. Fool. Idiot. Soldier with more muscle than sense. Clerk with even less sense. House full of bleeding strangers. Rome had hospitals of a sort, surely, but apparently Lucius’s dining room had been declared an emergency ward by conspiracy.

Livia translated one sentence for Arthur with obvious satisfaction.

"He says you collect wounded people like bad habits."

Arthur looked at Lucius. "That is unfair."

Livia raised an eyebrow.

Arthur considered the boy on the table, Marcus’s arm, Livia’s wound, the girl in the corner, and his own scraped elbow.

"It is mostly fair," he admitted.

For the first time since the river, Marcus laughed.

It was brief, rough, and gone quickly, but it changed the room. Tullia looked less afraid. The woman wiped her face. Even Lucius’s glare weakened by a fraction.

Arthur held onto that small sound longer than he expected.

Later, when the house had finally settled into exhausted quiet, Marcus found him in the courtyard.

The moon was high above the walls. Rome beyond the house still murmured with life, but here the air was cooler, scented faintly with crushed herbs and damp stone. Arthur sat on a low bench with his elbows on his knees and the bronze seal in his hands. The purple cloth looked darker at night, almost black.

Marcus stood over him.

Arthur looked up. "If you are here to tell me that was stupid, I agree."

Marcus said nothing.

"That does not usually stop you."

Marcus held out a wooden practice sword.

Arthur looked at it.

Then at Marcus.

"No."

Marcus nodded.

"No," Arthur said again, more firmly.

Marcus tossed the wooden sword into his lap.

Arthur caught it badly. It struck his thigh first, bounced, and nearly fell to the floor. Marcus watched this with the expression of a man whose worst suspicions had been confirmed.

"I am not a soldier," Arthur said.

Marcus pointed toward the room where Tullia slept, then toward the street, then toward Arthur’s chest.

Arthur understood.

That no longer mattered.

Arthur stood slowly, wooden sword in hand. It felt absurd. Too heavy in the wrong places. Too light to trust. He had read about Roman training weapons, about wooden swords heavier than real ones, about discipline and drills and the brutal simplicity of military education. Reading about such things had been pleasant. Experiencing them at midnight after being chased through a river warehouse was less pleasant.

Marcus adjusted Arthur’s grip with an impatient hand.

Then he stepped back and raised his own wooden sword.

Arthur blinked. "Now?"

Marcus nodded.

"Of course now. Why sleep when I can be humiliated in Latin?"

Marcus moved.

Arthur barely saw the strike.

The wooden blade tapped his ribs hard enough to steal his breath.

He folded around the pain and made an undignified sound.

Marcus waited.

Arthur straightened, wheezing. "Excellent. Educational."

Marcus struck again.

This time Arthur tried to block. He failed. The blade hit his shoulder.

The third strike caught his wrist and sent his wooden sword clattering across the courtyard.

From the doorway, Livia said something.

Arthur turned.

She was leaning against the doorframe wrapped in her blanket, red curls loose again, looking pale, tired, and far too amused.

"She says," Marcus translated, "you fight like a frightened accountant."

Arthur picked up the sword. "That is offensively accurate."

Livia smiled.

Only a little.

It was still worth the bruises.

Marcus did not smile. He stepped closer and placed Arthur’s hands properly on the grip again. Then he tapped Arthur’s feet with his own, forcing his stance wider. He struck slowly this time, showing the line of attack, then repeated it until Arthur managed a clumsy block.

Again.

Again.

Again.

The courtyard filled with the dull sound of wood on wood. Arthur’s arms began to ache. Sweat returned to his back. His scraped elbow burned beneath Lucius’s bandage. He failed more often than he succeeded, but after a while he began to see the movement before it landed. Not always. Not enough. But once, when Marcus aimed for his ribs, Arthur shifted and managed to turn the strike aside.

Marcus paused.

It was not praise.

It was almost praise.

Arthur would take it.

The blue light came without warning.

Very faint.

Training Response Detected.

Physical Competence: Insufficient.

Recommended Continuation: Daily.

Arthur stared at the words.

Marcus hit him in the ribs.

The message vanished as Arthur bent forward with a strangled cough.

"That," he wheezed, "was poor timing."

Marcus looked at him suspiciously.

Arthur waved him off.

Livia was still watching from the doorway. This time, she was not smiling. Her gaze had moved from Arthur to Marcus, then to the wooden swords, then to the room behind her where the rescued slept. She understood what the lesson meant.

They had crossed a line.

Yesterday, Arthur had been a confused man trying to survive another man’s death. Tonight, people had lived because he had acted. Others had disappeared because he had not acted fast enough. Tomorrow, the men behind the seal would answer.

Or strike first.

Marcus lowered his wooden sword.

He said something, slower than usual.

Arthur caught only part of it.

Again tomorrow.

Arthur looked at the practice sword in his hand, then at the bronze seal on the bench, then toward the dark rooms of Lucius’s house.

He thought of Gaius.

Of the witness with his throat cut.

Of the boy beneath the baths.

Of Tullia’s fingers locked around his sleeve.

He had come to Rome as a historian.

Rome was making something else out of him.

Arthur tightened his grip on the wooden sword.

"Tomorrow," he said.

From inside the house, the rescued boy began to scream.

Marcus moved first.