Cold water hit Percy like a slap to the face. His eyes flickered open and he looked up to see Jason's legionnaire scowl hovering over him.
"Get up, you dog," Jason growled.
Percy groaned, stretched out his arms, and sat up in the narrow, stone bed. The thick straw-stuffed mattress shifted and rustled underneath him. "Furies take you," he swore.
Percy dried himself off with a homespun blanket which covered him and the girl at his side. She was a nonaria he'd picked up in the arcades near the forum, who'd cost him two copper assarii.
Jason held an earthenware wash jug, presumably where the cold water came from. Percy feared that Jason might smash it over his head.
"Your mother's worried to death about you," Jason said.
Jupiter's Cock! Percy was in for it when he got home. Even though Percy was a veteran of the Sixth Legion and wore a man's toga, Mater still tried to tie him to her skirts.
He reached over to grab his tunic off the floor. His hand fumbled about in the smoky darkness to find it. The smoke came from a single oil lamp in the corner of the tiny cubical, which produced more soot than light. Only a few rays of sunshine could get through the narrow
window.

Percy grabbed the nonaria's toga by accident. He placed it next to the girl. "Here, My Honey," he said.
A yawn contorted the nonaria's pretty face as she sat up and stretched. She was naked aside from a narrow crimson bandeau that covered her small, pointed breasts.

Her eyes widened when she noticed Jason standing by the bedside and quickly grabbed the toga and wrapped herself with it.
Even a whore has some dignity.
Percy bent over and continued to grope around on the floor for his tunic. Jason glared down at him like a centurion at a particularly unprepossessing raw recruit.
What was biting his ass? It wasn't as if he'd never seen Percy like this before.
Percy slid his tunic over his head. "How was the banquet last night?" He said. "Did you give my regards to Ramirez-Arellano and Portia?"
"I wasn't able to," Jason replied. He lowered his eyes and turned away. His grim expression told Percy that something wasn't right.
Percy raised an eyebrow. "Did something happen?"
"Ramirez-Arellano died a few hours ago," Jason's face was like carved marble with a fountain bubbling underneath. Though he tried to keep a stoical expression, a few tears welled up in his eyes.
Poor Bastard; both Ramirez-Arellano and Jason.
Ramirez-Arellano had been like a second father to Jason and Jason practically worshiped the man.
Percy grabbed a linen rag from off the bedside table and handed it to Jason.
"No," Jason grumbled. He pushed the rag away.
Damn his stubbornness!
Percy tossed the rag to him. "Take it!"
Jason dabbed his leaking eyes, took several deep breaths, and tried to regain his composure. Percy didn't blame Jason for being a mess after what he'd seen. He grabbed a jug of wine from the bedside table and poured his friend a drink. "Now, tell me what happened?"
Between gulps of wine, Jason described how a masked thug had stabbed Ramirez-Arellano, then slit his throat. Jason brought the dying man back to the Jackson villa, where Ramirez-Arellano passed away. Mater's first thought after watching the whole thing, was about Percy and his whereabouts.
"She sent me to look for you." Jason's legionnaire scowl returned.
Percy slapped his forehead. "Sweet Juno!" he swore, using an oath that Mater often used. He was a dreadful son for running off as he had done.  A city where an honest man could be murdered in the streets was a place where a mother had every right to want to keep her son tied to her skirts.
Percy took a silver denarius out of his purse and gave it to the nonaria. "This is for letting me stay the night."
"Thank you," she said. Her eyes lit up and she gave him a little smile. The denarius would buy her a decent meal or at least help her escape a beating from her pimp.
Percy nodded to the girl before lifting the patchwork curtain that acted as a door so he and Jason could leave the room.
The first floor of the brothel had a central courtyard whose walls were painted with erotica. These idealized scenes of fucking were as different as possible from the sweaty, sticky reality practiced in the tiny bedrooms that opened out onto the corridor. None of the usual moaning, grunting, and panting came out of these bedrooms. All was quiet because the brothel wouldn't open for business until the afternoon.
Thank the gods for small favors. The last thing Percy's throbbing head needed was a lot of noise.
Percy would have liked to freshen up at the baths before facing his parents. But only women could go to the baths this early in the morning. Men weren't let in until midday. So Percy's best option was to stretch his legs and get some fresh air to clear his head and find some food to appease his growling stomach.

Percy and Jason bought sausages and honey cakes for their breakfast from a street vendor in the forum.

They sat down to eat on the steps of the Temple of Venus Genetrix. This temple had become infamous in recent years for housing a golden statue of Julius Caesar's lover, the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. Polite Roman society was scandalized by this as much as the fact that Caesar had installed his eastern mistress in a villa near the one he lived in with his wife.
Percy broke off a piece of honey cake and put it in his mouth. "So, when you're done acting as my nursemaid," he said, chewing with his mouth open. "What are you going to do with the rest of your day?"
Jason frowned at him. "If I were your nursemaid, I would have taught you better than to chew like a cow."
"That's not an answer to my question." Percy opened his mouth wider and chomped louder.
"I'm going to call on Reyna to see how she's doing. As you would expect, she was devastated by her father's death. She started raving about how she's going to seek bloody revenge on her father's murderers and begged me to help her. I agreed, just to calm her down."
"Di Immortales," Percy groaned. "That girl's got you by the balls."
That was how Reyna worked. Very pretty, very clever, and very used to getting her way, Reyna wrapped every man who crossed her path around her little finger. First her father, then Jason, then her husband.
Percy had to salute her. Perhaps that was the best way for a woman to go through life.
Jason blushed. "I've known Reyna for years and I've always been fond of her..."
"That's not a good enough reason to put your neck on the line for a woman you'll never have." Percy rolled his eyes. "Just pick up a girl in the arcades who looks like her and get that fondness out of your system."
"Is that what you were doing back at the brothel with that flaxen-haired tart? Getting something out of your system?"
"What...no..." Percy's heart pounded in his chest and his cheeks blazed.
"Ah-ha! I've touched a nerve, haven't I?" Jason nudged him. "Who is she?"
"No one...I thought we were talking about you."
"We were but now I'd like to hear something stupid to distract from my problems."
Percy's story was pretty stupid. At least Jason obsessed over a woman he'd been close to for years, not one he'd only seen once and with whom he'd only exchanged a handful of words.
"Alright..." Percy sighed. "It all began with my dog, Mrs. O'Leary..."
Jason scowled. "That wretched beast nearly made poor Ramirez-Arellano her breakfast this morning."
Percy laughed. He'd raised the old mastiff since Mrs. O'Leary was a puppy. Mrs. O'Leary might bark and snarl at strangers something awful but she wouldn't hurt a flea.
"Well, Mrs. O'Leary got out a few days ago. I and a couple of our slaves searched all over the neighborhood for her. I found her at a drinking fountain a few streets over..."

A girl had been with Mrs. O'Leary, giving the mastiff a drink of water from her cupped hands. Some of the water had dampened her dress so that it clung to the shapely curves of her body. She gazed up at Percy from behind a gauzy white veil and said "Is this your dog?"

"Y-yes..." Percy stammered.
Her pale, wistful eyes, the color of smoke and ashes, took him aback. Her white veil and wisps of flaxen hair framed her vague gaze.
Grey eyes and fair hair were uncommon in Rome, where most had a dark coloring, and gave the girl an otherworldly appearance.
Percy stood still for a moment, afraid that if he so much as blinked, this ethereal vision might disappear. Perhaps she was a nymph who watched over the fountain?
"You're welcome," were her final words to him.
Percy stood there, frozen like a schoolboy who'd forgotten the lines of Euripides that the schoolmaster had called upon him to recite, as she walked away.
"Thanks," Jason guffawed. "I need a good laugh."
Percy folded his arms. "Ha, ha. You were right. This is stupid."
"Any idea who this mysterious nymph might be?"
"What does it matter?" Percy rolled his eyes. "I'll never see her again and it's out of my system now. Let's hurry up. My parents will be worried about me."
As he finished his breakfast, Percy looked around the forum and tried to recall the last time he felt like all wasn't a complete disgrace. Yes...it was two years ago when he and the Sixth Legion returned to Rome.
Julius Caesar received a welcome worthy of a god. His loyal legions were there behind him as he rode through the city in triumph, with a purple toga draped over his armor, a wreath of golden laurel leaves in his thinning salt and pepper hair, and his face painted red to resemble the god, Jupiter. Percy felt proud beyond measure to have played a role, however small and insignificant, in the great man's victories. All this was partially his triumph as well.
The forty days that followed Caesar's triumph held the most lavish public festivities Rome had ever seen: plays, chariot races, banquets for the entire city, and gladiatorial games where the four thousand captives the legions had brought back fought each other, and exotic animals, to the death. 
"Your son fought under Caesar," his parents' friends would say to them at these events. "You must be so proud."
And since then, he hadn't done much besides drink, gamble, and fuck his way around Rome. Indeed, my parents should be proud of me.

The walk from the forum to the Caelian Hill took about half an hour. Stretching his legs and getting some fresh air did wonders to clear Percy's head and it gave him more time to compose himself before returning home to his parents.
He'd hug Mater and assure her that he was alright. Then Pater would glare and grumble at him for worrying his mother half to death.
"You wear a man's toga," Pater would say. "I'd think you could be trusted to act like a man."
Jason's face grew paler when they got closer to the Jackson Villa.
"These are the streets I walked through with Ramirez-Arellano," he said. "On our way back from Portia's house." 
Percy put a hand on Jason's shoulder. "Do you want to take a different way?" 
"No. I'm fine." He pushed away Percy's hand. Percy shrugged his shoulders and continued walking.
Sweet Juno! Did Jason always have to be such a stoic?
Jason stared straight in front of him, not wanting to catch the eye of anyone in the throngs of people around them. Slaves running errands, swearing, and groaning as they carried their heavy baskets. Schoolboys reciting lines from Plato and Aristotle on route to their lessons. Housewives stopping in shady arcades to gossip. The hustle and bustle of everyday life.
They came upon the arcade that leads to the street where the Jacksons lived. Jason's face lost all its color. His chest rose and fell with shallow, rapid breaths.
"I can't," he said. "I can't."
Percy put an arm around Jason. "It's alright." He embraced his friend. "Go a different way. I can take it from here."
Jason lowered his head and walked towards his home like a dog with its tail between its legs. Percy crossed his arms. What was bothering Jason more: Ramirez-Arellano's death or that it was affecting him the way it would a normal human being. 
Jason modeled himself on the unfailingly noble heroes of the past like Hector and Aeneas: always doing the correct and honorable thing; always strong for everyone else. But no one was Hector or Aeneas. Even Hector and Aeneas probably weren't as wonderful as history remembers them.
Why couldn't Jason just be Jason, with all of his flaws and messy emotions?
Percy took a deep breath and turn the corner into the arcade. It smelt like a butcher's shop in there with Ramirez-Arellano's congealed blood still staining the cobblestones. Someone had written "Brutus sleeps", a reference to the legendary founder of the Roman republic, on the arcade wall using the blood.
Percy scowled. Did the republican scrum who'd desecrated public property with this graffiti have any respect for the dead? Hopefully, a street cleaner would come soon and clean up this mess.
Thank the Gods that Jason didn't have to see it.

The first person to greet Percy when he returned home was Mrs. O'Leary. She'd been dozing in the mosaic floor in the vestibule but rose up like a giant wave of black fur when Percy walked through the door and splashed her master in the face with drool.
Percy scratched the mastiff behind her ears. "Good morning, old girl," he said.
"Master Percy, a gawky, red-haired Greek slave named Grover panted as he rushed into the vestibule. "You're home."
"I am. Where's my parents?" Percy stroked Mrs. O'Leary, who thumped her tail against the floor.
"They're in the atrium and they've got guests."
Oh shit! Not only would he have to face his parents but their friends as well. "Who?"
"Atlas Titan and the Lady Calypso."
Atlas Titan was one of Pater's associates. It would be best if Percy snuck through the atrium without being noticed, to spare his parents the embarrassment of having their guests see their son stumble in looking like a satyr.
Percy crept around Corinthian columns and beds of tuberoses while Lady Calypso helped Mater with her weaving and Titan ranted at Pater.
"I've half a mind to murder that Odysseus," Titan said. "After all I've done for him, he goes and insults me like this."
Calypso, a pretty girl with a long, pale face covered in freckles, blushed and lowered her large, brown eyes. Odysseus was...had been...Calypso's betrothed.
Titan's paunch shook as he continued ranting. "Jilting my Calypso for Icarius's harlot of a daughter." 
Penelope, daughter of Icarius, a powerful general and senator, was one of Rome's most celebrated beauties and most sought after heiresses. She had dozens of illustrious suitors ensnared in her web, why would she choose an upstart jurist like Odysseus? Poor Calypso.
Near the edge of the atrium, one of the floor tiles was loose. Percy's foot got caught on this loose tile and he stumbled to the ground. Why did no one ever think to fix this blasted tile?
Mater's yellow veil fluttered as she rose from her loom. "Perseus Jackson!"

"Good morning, Mater." Percy stood up and rubbed his bruised knee. "How are you?"
Her blue gown whipped at her legs as she ran over to him.

She threw her arms around him and pulled him into a crushing embrace. "My love." She broke away and slapped his cheek. Percy winced. "Don't...you...ever... Do that...again."
"I'm sorry, Mater."
He would never forgive himself for running off and scaring her, especially after what she'd been through last night.
"You should be." She gave him a glare which said "you're lucky we have guests or I'd really let you have it" then lead him to the center of the atrium where Calypso was weaving and Pater and Titan were still discussing politics.
Calypso rose from the loom. "Hello, Percy," she said. She fingered the crescent-shaped lunula pendant that hung around her neck from a string of emerald beads.

Percy gave her a slight bow. "I hope you're doing well, Calypso."
Calypso gave him a closed-mouth smile. She had a habit of trying to keep her mouth closed when she smiled or spoke because she was insecure about her somewhat prominent front teeth. These front teeth, combined with her freckles, caused Calypso's six older sisters to give her the nickname, the spotted mare. This was out of jealousy, of course. Calypso was the only one of Titan's daughters with any claim to beauty.
"I heard about Odysseus," Percy continued. "I'm sorry."
Calypso gave another one of her closed-mouth smiles and wrapped her olive-colored veil tighter around her shoulders. "I guess somethings aren't meant to be."

Poor Calypso was lovely but she couldn't compete with the dazzling Penelope and as the youngest of seven sisters, her father wouldn't be able to provide as large a dowry. Life could be terribly unfair sometimes.
Mater put a hand on Percy's shoulder. "Percy," she said. "Why don't you take Calypso for a stroll around the garden?"
Percy froze like one of the gorgon's victims. The betrothal with Odysseus had fallen through; were they now going to try to pass Calypso on to him? There were worse things than being married to Calypso. She was pretty and probably wouldn't give him much trouble. She'd mature into the ideal Roman matron: content to spin and weave in the atrium while her husband bedded the slaves and blew through her dowry at brothels and gambling dens. But was that the woman, and the life, Percy wanted? He didn't know.
"sorry, Mater... Calypso," he said. "My head feels like it's made of lead. I'd like to freshen up with a bath and rest for a while."
Titan raised an eyebrow. "Rough night, son?"
You have no idea, sir.

With a clearer head after a bath and a brief nap, Percy took a walk around the neighborhood, which was even busier than it had been a few hours earlier. Liter bearers carried businessmen and politicians home for their midday meals. A cart driver's mule took a dump in the middle of the street. Two women filled their water jugs at a fountain.
The two women at the fountain would have caught Percy's attention simply for being beautiful but they were also a study in contrasts. One was small and nymph-like with olive skin and dark hair. Her clothes (a simple tunic and shawl) were clean and tidy but plain and a bit shabby. The other one was statuesque and fair with a pale complexion and flaxen tresses. She wore an elegant grey gown and a nearly sheer linen veil. They were perhaps a slave and her mistress. But what was such a well-dressed lady doing fetching her own water when she had a slave to do it for her?
The fair one in grey turned in Percy's direction. Her pale, smoky eyes, looking at him from under a diaphanous veil, belonged to the fountain nymph who'd aided Mrs. O'Leary. She gave Percy a nod of recognition and a little smile as if to say, "Oh, it's you."
The dark-haired one tapped her mistress on the shoulder. "Annabeth," she said. "We best be getting home."