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up if you have them. We have wounded.
    “Andiss.” He turned to his weary houseman. “Go find Doctore Nessius, I sent for him some time ago. The lady Ellasand will not wake.”
    Andiss – steadfast and true – had not even paused to catch his breath. “Sir,” was all he said before he turned and ran down the stairs, then out of the house and into the night.
    A good man, Andiss , thought Conlan as the sight of the houseman – standing talking to a young maid by the kitchen – pulled him from his memories. But then Martius seemed to have surrounded himself with good men. Most, like Andiss, were ex-legion, whilst others were freedmen. All were loyal to their master, who, Conlan now knew, kept no slaves. Or rather, Conlan corrected himself, freed every slave that he employed within two years of purchase. If the slaves proved themselves, they stayed in Martius’s household as freedmen, and some even rose to high station. The others – those that did not meet Martius’s standards – were not sold on, but freed and released to go their own way.
    Conlan had learnt a lot about General Felix Martius in the last few weeks. What he saw had surprised him and forced him to reassess his views of the upper classes that for so long had – for the most part – ruled the Empire.  
    The general, born to a high-ranking family with so much wealth that he would never have needed to work , never mind enter military service, lived a life that appeared to be simple and unadorned by opulence. It was true that he had much that others did not. Conlan, having been raised in a pair of rooms in a six-story block near the docks, had experienced a very different upbringing. But, somehow, Martius did not seem to care about possessions. They were secondary, Conlan had begun to suspect, to the driving passions of his life, which appeared to be his family, the Empire and his military career.  
    It seemed odd to Conlan that in stark contrast to Martius, the great old General Turbis – who by his own admission came from a measly background – clothed himself in enough gold to fund a military expedition, whilst surrounding himself with expensive slaves and pleasures. It was as if the very fact of having something made it unimportant to Martius. But then he has never known hardship, perhaps he would care more if he had.
    Conlan viewed the tents of his men in the courtyard, weapons and kit arranged in perfect order outside each one, and breathed a sigh of satisfaction. For the first time since the battle at Sothlind, he had found some semblance of peace.  
    Conlan had hated Martius, mistakenly as it turned out, and now that hatred had morphed into respect. The man treated him as an equal; respected his opinion.  
    Hell, he treats everyone as an equal, even new recruits. ..  
    In return, Conlan had determined to join his fate to the man – for now at least – and resolved to protect and defend his unlikely sponsor.  
    He glanced up at the balcony. Martius’s twin boys, Ursus and Accipiter, sat with satisfied grins fixed on their faces, no doubt sharing a joke between themselves as usual. They were almost identical but for the bandaging around Ursus’s arm. The boy had received a grievous wound when seeking to defend his mother and sister and, according to Doctore Nessius, it was still possible that he would not regain full use of his hand. Ursus seemed unaffected by the thought though, often showing off his wounds to the legionaries, proud, perhaps, to have proven his mettle in battle. If anything it was the other twin, Accipiter, that appeared more troubled by the ordeal, sometimes rubbing his left forearm as if he had received the wound in place of his brother.  
    The boys and their sister, the young beauty Elissa – who seemed to thrive on the attentiveness of all the new men around her – appeared to have all but recovered.  
    Conlan had found himself, not much their elder, becoming quite protective of Martius’s children. He had even