Tiberius didn't ask about his mother when I got back to the Villa. He didn't need to - the fact that I was still alive meant that Juventas wasn't.
I thought that he might want to know what had happened, but he didn't bring it up and he was subdued and withdrawn; he knew that she had to die for the rest of us to survive, but she was his mother and they had lived together for longer than I could possibly comprehend.
Caius was still not awake, but he had a dressing over the wound now and he didn't look so sickly.
I didn't want to leave him alone in the room, but I prepared a simple meal to share with Tiberius as we watched over Caius and waited for a sign that the treatment was working.
It took days for him to reach a point where he was stable enough for anybody else to see him, but I kep
