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as his jailors changed and the road continued to flow beneath his feet, heavy steps with hardly enough time even to take a piss.
    Frontino’s legionaries, following the ambush on the village which marked the final conquest of Britannia—and the consequent delivery of the longed-for province into the hands of Vespasian—stayed for a few months in the growing town of Eboracum, future capital of the north, but were soon sent home along with their noble commander. The latter barely had time to unpack before he was sent word that a trireme bound for Asia awaited him, with his wife and servants already aboard. He accepted the position of proconsul with a smile full of gratitude, realizing very quickly that the time for hobbies and architectural contemplation had been pushed depressingly far off into the future.
The Eagle demands total dedication, Sextus—no room for distractions.
    The booty from the last night of Ordovician blood—namely the boy and five other battered survivors, three of whom, due to their wounds, did not survive the sunset that followed the massacre—was quickly abandoned to its commercial destiny. At the fortress of Deva Victrix the men were bought by slave merchants headed south, who knew how to look after their investment. At no point during the long journey did the prisoners want for grain or clean water. But in terms of discipline, his new masters were even worse than the bloodthirsty centurions. The boy took a beating that very nearly cost him his right eye for failing to respond when called by one of the merchants, a small, thin man like a shaved monkey. In any case, even the beatings did not convince him to utter a word. On the road that led from there to the sea, the boy spoke to nobody. Nor did he listen to that other voice, the one inside his head. A mix of guilt, anger, misery, and blind rage pressed down on him day and night. He could not face the world, afraid of finding it so changed as to be terrifying.
    More than anything though, the memory of the flames stayed with him. The fire, which had magically left the boy unharmed while everything just a few steps from him had burned, had worked its way so deeply into him that it drowned out his soul. During the dark nights of the journey from the provinces to the heart of the Empire, it was not rare for him to wake up screaming, as though a serpent had bitten his heel before wriggling into his innards through his mouth and devoured him from the inside out.
    Those were the only occasions when his fellow prisoners heard his voice, which stayed locked away the rest of the time, at the bottom of a heart with no past.
    The dream was always the same. He was running and running, but the flames—liquid fire, hot wind, red straw, and smoke—reached him with white-hot fingers, clasping and tearing his flesh at will, consuming it one palm after another: roasted skin, hairs singed like worms squirming away from certain death. His life was burned away but his consciousness was still alive, until the pain became so great that it tore him out of his dreams, catapulting him back into the traveling nightmare that his life had become a few months earlier.
    Silence, at that point, had become a blessing, a screen to protect him from the insult of his existence, from the abuse, from the daily violence. The boy hardened, mile after mile, like iron tempered in a furnace and freezing water.
    Fortune smiled on him soon after arriving in Gaul: he was separated from the group of slaves and loaded onto a wagon filled with Thracian women. They told him in no uncertain terms, albeit in a language he would not understand until much later on, not to get any ideas. The flesh merchant’s two-handed sword, drawn without hesitation, explained better than any interpreter could have. In any case the boy had nothing going through his head, least of all love. The journey became simpler, the scent of women reassured him and kept his senses sharp.