(This post follows on from here)

Rufio couldn’t give a damn for the disapproving glances that followed them as he slung an arm around Spurius’s shoulders and began to steer him in the direction of the Tavern of the Lovely Mermaid. In the eighteen years since Spurius had left his uncle’s Etrurian estate to follow his father to Britannia, Rufio had often thought about the half-cousin who had been his closest boyhood friend despite the difference in their status. He’d never seriously expected their paths to cross again since their lives had taken such different directions, and yet against all the odds, he had spotted his cousin, now grown into a handsome man but unmistakeable for all that, across a crowded Pompeiian street. If he hugged Spurius tightly, it was only because he feared he might be dreaming, or that the gods would snatch him away again.

“I can’t believe this!” he sighed happily as they found an empty table and he beckoned for a servant to bring them wine. “It’s too incredible. Spurius, you look —” he waved a hand in the air, at a momentary loss for words as he gazed appreciatively at the Roman, “— Wonderful,” he concluded with a grin. “And yes, to answer one of your questions, I am a freedman now, since a couple of years ago.”

“I’m so glad, I often prayed Uncle Cincinnatus would free you eventually,” Spurius clasped his hand and smiled in genuine pleasure. Rufio laughed and shook his head wryly.

“Oh, Cincinnatus didn’t free me. I haven’t seen him for years – he sold me along with Montanus and Fortuno a couple of months after you left; he said we were ‘surplus to the estate’s requirements’,” he pulled a face that indicated quite clearly what he thought of that. “If you ask me, either the old bull was just running future competition out of the herd, or that sour bitch Albina finally put her foot down about his bastards,” he said with a broad wink.

Remembering his rakish uncle Cincinnatus and his long-suffering wife’s disapproval of his various progeny, of whom Rufio was only one of many he’d sired on the estate’s slave-women, Spurius started laughing so hard he almost choked on his wine and Rufio had to slap him vigorously on the back. When he’d got his breath back and wiped his watering eyes, Spurius leaned over the table and whispered impishly, “Poor Albina. Do you remember that time the steward caught us in the stables together, and told her?” he said

“How could I forget it? I carried the scars from the beating for weeks!” Rufio rolled his eyes, then grinned irrepressibly at Spurius and winked, “It was worth it, though.”

Spurius had always been the ringleader in mischief, but Rufio had never minded taking the blame, and the subsequent punishment, for their antics, since even as a child he’d had a strong protective streak about those he cared for. He’d always known he had a far better life in Cincinnatus’s household than many slaves on rural estates could hope for, and a large part of what made it better wasn’t that he was Cincinnatus’s offspring, but the companionship of his nephew.

“How she used to hate it when you called me your ‘cousin’ – even if technically you were,” he mused reminiscently, swirling the wine in his cup and smiling into the other man’s brown eyes thoughtfully. Spurius had always been beautiful, but there had never been anything soft about him, whatever his pompous father had believed. Now he had matured into a lean and athletic-looking man, and Rufio wondered fleetingly if his tastes were still more for his own sex as they had seemed to be when he’d reached the age of physical curiosity.

“We have so many years of news to catch up on, but enough about the past for now,” he said decisively, “Let’s talk about the present instead! Now we’ve thoroughly shocked any decent and upright citizens there might be in Pompeii with our unseemly public display, tell me what’s going on in your life, Spurius?”

“Well, I was just on my way to visit a new family of kittens at a friend’s house when you caught me,” Spurius grinned.

Rufio blinked, then because it seemed to be a day for outrageous coincidences and he didn’t think there was anything left that could surprise him any more that he had already been, he enquired wryly, “Your friend with the kittens wouldn’t happen to be a pretty Greek chatterbox named Hylas, would it?”

“Yes it would, actually!” Spurius laughed in astonishment, “How did you know?”

“Firstly, because I’ve just visited them myself, and secondly because there can’t be a single good-looking man in Pompeii that Hylas hasn’t managed to meet,” Rufio chuckled and quirked an eyebrow at Spurius. “If you don’t mind me saying though,” he added bluntly, “The intention to look at kittens doesn’t sound like a very likely reason for going pale and looking like you’re going to bolt for cover when someone calls your name. So what’s really going on?”