Aventicum, Civitas Helvetiorum, in the year of the consul suffectus Lucius Naevius Surdinus [autumn of 30 CE], the funeral grounds by the western gate

Low clouds obscured the sky, and the grass glistened with the tiny droplets left by a fine drizzle. A raven cawed on the black branch of a leaf-less tree next to the common funeral grounds. The bird wasn't disturbed by the dark smoke billowing above the pyre and just hopped to another branch when the wind drove a thick waft in its direction.

Lucius watched the raven, wondering if it might be a messenger of the gods. Of Apollo, perhaps? Wasn't he the god with the raven? And hadn't Cinna insisted she needed to pray to Apollo the night she was murdered? He shrugged and pulled his coat closer around his shoulders. It was just a bird, probably hoping to snatch some food brought by the mourners for the last meal at the funeral.

A cold gust bent the limbs of the trees and stabbed like sharp needles through Lucius' damp clothes. The blaze of the pyre intensified, and the smoke drove tears into his eyes. Embarrassed, he blinked them away to greet Centurion Gaius Vitellius, who crossed the crowd of mourners to join him, his coat covered by shiny drops of moisture.

"Ave, Centurion."

"Ave, Lucio, may the gods watch over your steps with favour." This greeting was far gentler than anything Lucius had heard from his superior before. Did the centurion suspect how hard Marius' death had hit him?

The Gaius Vitellius stopped by his side and studied the pyre. "He was a good friend, right?" The older man's voice was level, not giving away how the centurion felt about the miles' death. He might well see him as a deserter, Lucius thought, but he was too bruised and exhausted to play games.

"Yes, he was. My oldest friend and a loyal brother in arms." Sour guilt churned in Lucius' stomach. "I wish—I wish I hadn't told him about Cinna's murder the day we met in the Vindonissa camp. I thought it was my duty, but if I had kept my knowledge to myself, he might have forgotten his love in time and still be alive."

"I doubt it. And who knows, perhaps life would have been more miserable for him than death was, in the end." The centurion rubbed his clean-shaven chin. "I heard a rumour Mario was still alive when you found them?"

Lucius nodded, blinking. "Aye, he was."

It hurt to remember the bloody scene, but he opened his mind and let the images flood his brain. This place was called the field of mourning, and wasn't it the perfect moment to share memories of the deceased, be they good or bad? "They had fought to the death, him and Flavius Otacilius Parvus. I wonder how he convinced the nobleman to accept his challenge. No reasonable person agrees to a duel with a legionary. All they do is train to fight, to wound, to kill. Anyway, Otacilius was beyond help when we arrived, and one of his slaves was dead, too, Mario's sword embedded deep in his gut."

The gory scene flashed before Lucius' eyes and he swallowed the bile rising in his throat before he continued. "The other one had his intestines spilled all over the place. He tried to hold them in, already glassy-eyed. It was obvious we couldn't save him. Mario himself had a deep gash from a dagger in the back of his thigh and was bleeding out fast. They must have attacked him together, one striking from behind. Pio and I tried to stop the gush. To no avail."

"You talked to him?"

"Yes—he had a few minutes left, but I understood little of what he said over the other man's last moans." Lucius frowned. "He was delirious, babbled about a curse that had run full circle. And in the end, he just muttered paria paribus over and over."

"Like for like?" Vitellius raised his brows.

"Yes, that's what I understood. It's cryptic, but as Otacilius had been Cinna's husband, I believe Mario talked about revenge." The raven on the bare-limbed tree cawed and beat its wings. Did the bird try to confirm his theory? Lucius rubbed his watering eyes. Damn smoke.

"Mario died moments later. He held my hand, pressing it as if he wanted to break my bones, and then he went limp. Just like that." Despite working as a guard all his life, Lucius had never witnessed a man's last moments like this, not so close up and immediate and painful. From sickness and old age, yes, even a gladiator's death in the arena, but never from such a brutal and personal fight. He shivered.

"Mario should have known a noble girl like this Cinna wasn't for the son of an ordinary freedman." The centurion crossed his arms, a deep crease on his forehead. "But I guess the power of love stands up against reason with young and eager ones like him."

Lucius kept his thoughts to himself. Cinna had been seventeen at least, and Marius was probably nearing his twentieth birthday, like himself. Not young at all. Both of them could have been married for years, should have been.

The centurion's calm voice tore him out of his contemplation. "Why did you venture out of the city that day?"

"Coincidence—or destiny." Lucius shivered. "I was on morning duty, and at the change of the guard, Attico told me he'd allowed a nobleman with two guards to leave the city at the break of dawn. He added one of his dirty jokes, you know him. But when I found out which nobleman, I feared something was amiss. First Cinna, then her husband? Why would an important citizen like him leave the town on foot at night? When I informed the watch leader, he sent me and Pio to investigate."

Gaius Vitellius nodded. "Attico shouldn't have opened the gate without calling an officer."

Lucius lowered his gaze. That's what he had done for Cinna the day she died, and it still troubled his conscience. But Vitellius was right. Even if he couldn't hold back the nobleman, Atticus should have reported the incident. As Lucius should have done with the girl.

He cleared his throat. "Pio and I both remembered the day we found his wife murdered at the memoria, so we first headed there. But then we heard a flock of birds clamouring to the east and followed their cries to the top of the hill beyond the gate. That's where we found them. First Otacilius, then Mario and the two slaves."

The centurion remained silent, watching the gloomy sky and the pyre for a long while before he spoke. "This is not your fault. You did what you had to do, Lucio."

Lucius wasn't convinced. "I feel guilty, abused—as if the gods had tricked me and made me their instrument of doom."

Centurion Gaius Vitellius placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Don't the ancient ones misuse the living all the time? If they played you, they could as well have chosen someone else. It doesn't mean you are a bad person, only that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

They both remained silent for a while, watching the logs in the pyre burst in the raising heat while the low clouds in the west turned red. Vitellius was the first to speak. "It is getting late. Stay here as long as you need to find your peace of mind. We can guard the city a night and a day without you, Lucio."

"Thank you, Centurion." While he watched the leader of the guard walk away with long steps, never looking back, a stray beam of evening sunlight reached the funeral grounds, danced over the grave markers and let the raven's feathers gleam a perfect black. Lucius felt a fraction better, the words of the centurion bringing ease to his troubled mind.

Moments later, the sun disappeared behind the western mountain range and deep shadows claimed the ground.

At nightfall, the mourners left the field of grief one by one or in pairs, muttering their last blessings. Aside from Marius' father, Aetius the older, and a young woman, Lucius was the only one who stayed.

Only when he approached them to settle on a log, he recognised his friend's sister. She had her head and face covered with a palla in faded black, the colour of mourning, and leaned against her father, not sparing Lucius a glance. Together, they waited in silence until the fire had consumed everything—body, grave goods, and the last meal offered to the departing soul.

To see his friend step onto the path leading from the world of the living to the netherworld was the ultimate gift he had for Marius, the only one he still could offer.

When the sun god sent the first tentative rays over the hills early the following morning, only a smoking heap of ashes remained of his childhood buddy. The clouds had dispersed and a pale blue sky promised a rare, beautiful winter day.

In the first sunlight, Marius's father unwrapped a precious glass urn. Lucius stretched his cramped limbs and stepped closer to run a finger over the smooth blue surface that reflected the morning light. "It's beautiful, worthy of a nobleman."

"A generous gift from my father's employer." The tears had left clean tracks on the soot-covered face of Marius' sister. He remembered her name now—Lavinia. Lucius was tempted to rub the dirt from her cheeks with his thumb and embrace her to offer comfort. But this wasn't the time to take advantage.

Then, the realisation hit his gut like the sharpened point of a pilum. Marius had once told him his father worked for Cinna's uncle as a carpenter. A freed man, yes, but dependent on the nobleman who sponsored him and his craft. That's how Marius had met the girl when he delivered his father's woodwork to the residence of Cinna's parents. After their death, she had been taken in by her paternal uncle. The spender of the urn was the man who'd married his friend's secret love off to Flavius Otacilius Parvus, as befitted him in the absence of her parents.

Lucius wondered how much the uncle had known about the love affair between his niece and his subordinate's son. Was the generous gift of an urn the sign of a bad conscience? It seemed hardly possible the man held Marius' father in such high regard.

He glanced from the precious urn to the worn face of Aetius and the tear-streaked features of his daughter. No, he wouldn't tell his dead friends' family about his nasty suspicion. They had enough sorrows without the knowledge and the doubts now churning in his intestines. And it wouldn't bring back Marius or Cinna from the realm of death.

Lavinia and her father knelt down to sift through the remnants of the pyre, collecting the burnt bones and blackened shards of the grave gifts from the still-warm coals on a piece of cloth. He joined them, kneeling on the caked soil and helping to retrieve the mortal remains of his lost friend.

When they filled the ashes and fragments of pottery into the urn, he slipped in the shards of the oil lamp he'd found in his friend's pocket—that cursed day beyond the east gate. Lavinia watched him with a frown, but didn't intervene. Perhaps he would tell her the story of the small white shards one day, of the lamp that had been crucial to Marius in these last months of his life.

It felt right that it should accompany him on this last journey.