The next day…
After being scolded and struck by his father's wives—the matronae—until noon, Lepidus returned to his cubiculum and slept.
He woke at dawn, his battered body still aching. But he was used to it.
'Well, sort of...' He groaned and tried to find a comfortable position.
Then he found a bowl of vegetable soup next to his head. Covered with a lid.
'Must be Nubias,' He thought.
He lifted the lid slowly, his arms trembling, and smelled it.
His stomach growled. But he had no strength—not yet, not freshly woken and in the state he was in.
Lepidus sighed instead. 'They forgot a ligula.'
He breathed in. The smell from last night was still there.
Minus Caligula's scent.. that he already forgot even when he imagined it in his head.
'A whole day, wasted. A whole day without seeing… or even drawing… anything..'
Or anyone.
Now that he was awake, he wouldn't be able to sleep again. So he let his memories run...
And just like that, time slipped past him.
Before he knew it, rays of morning light were seeping through the small crack in his cubiculum door.
Light footsteps can be heard. It's getting near.
Then Saha, one of the servi, entered. Wearing a blackened tunica.
'She must have cleaned the hearth'
"Lepidus, your stomach glued to your cot?" she asked plainly—her words are rough—as he lay face down.
"What do you want?" he groaned into his pillow.
"You not eat?" She nodded at the still-full bowl.
Lepidus didn't answer.
"Want me help you up?" she asked, pity in her voice.
"I'm fine…" he sighed. "Are they—?" he began, voice hoarse.
And Saha, somehow understanding what he meant, replied, "No. Gone out."
Her Latin was still rough—she'd only been learning it for about a year.
"And Father?" he asked, voice even smaller.
"Gone too. With them."
Great. 'Of course.'
And after a while nobody spoke. They just look at each other.
Lepidus, who has known the little girl for how many years now, knows how pushy she can get. So he sighed and broke the silence...
"Wanna… Help me up?" 'Pride be damn.'
Later, after finishing the cold soup and gritting through the pain in his back, he slipped out.
Not before snatching a few scrolls from Aemilius's cubiculum and stomping his dirty sandals across his father's pristine marble floor.
Satisfied with his handiwork, he quickly left, putting on his tattered cape over his red tunic. Avoiding his sisters eyes, his saccus in his hands.
Lepidus wandered the backstreets of Rome, cheek still stinging from the now reddish-violet hand print and bruises blossoming down his spine.
They'd turned a dark, ugly shade now. 'Luckily it's hidden. Or I'd look hideous.'
He ended up, as he often did in moments like these, at Marcus's insula—a cramped but warm tenement that had become a second refuge.
He was fifteen. Lanky. A bit too tall for his age, with limbs he hadn't quite grown into yet.
Today, that height didn't help him stand any prouder.
Marcus, his plebeian friend, opened the door without surprise after hearing Lepidus call his name.
His shaggy brown hair half-covered his kind eyes.
He didn't ask questions. One look was enough. He let Lepidus in and passed him a damp cloth from a chipped bowl of water.
"Your new look suits you," Marcus teased, sitting cross-legged on the floor, trying to ease the tension.
Lepidus gave a soft, bitter laugh. "Ha ha... yeah. A new fashion trend."
The cloth was cold and soothing against his burning cheek. Marcus raised an eyebrow.
"Well, if it's the latest style, I'm sure Caligula dulcis will be thrilled."
They all knew about Lepidus's quiet fixation with the noble boy.
They'd seen the drawings. The way Lepidus froze whenever the name "Caligula" came up. They knew.
Lepidus rolled his eyes—then winced. Still sore.
"I'm sure he'll be impressed. A plebeian like me, keeping up with the trends," he muttered.
But even as he said it, the word—plebeian—tugged at something in him.
It didn't sit right. Not when his life straddled two worlds.
He still didn't know where he belonged.
Silence settled between them.
Marcus stared at the floor, quietly wondering which member of Lepidus's noble family had done this to him this time—and how many more times he'd see his friend like this.
But he didn't ask.
Lepidus wouldn't want that. He wouldn't want him to pry... would he?
And Lepidus?
He was thinking of Caligula's birthday.
The invitation still burned in his mind like a flicker of light.
He had to go.
But somehow. Looking like this, he didn't know how he'd face him—this might be his only chance. One chance.
'I can't let it slip away… it's only five days from now… maybe by then, the bruises will fade…' he thought, hopefully.
He didn't know exactly where his father and the wives had gone.
But he had an idea.
Something had happened yesterday—some exchange between his father and Tiberius.
His father had protested Tiberius's decision about the succession.
And then… Tiberius must have relented. His father was happy, after all. He'd even taken the wives out. He scratched his chin as he pondered.
Then Marcus broke the silence. "Hey… want to come with us to the Circus Maximus later?"
His attention pique.
"There's a munera. Lucius will be there. We're selling thermopolia snacks." Marcus continued when he saw Lepidus' interest.
Lepidus blinked, then nodded. "Oh—it's the last day of Volcanalia is it?"
"Yeah. Or… are you still, ahem, hurting? Can you take it?" Marcus asked, expecting.
"Is that a challenge?" Lepidus asked playfully. "Of course I'll go."
"Leave your saccus here—but hide it. My sister might play with it again." Marcus warned.
Then they heard a familiar footsteps from outside. And the annoying voice that yelled, "The great Lucius is here!"
Marcus rolled his eyes. "It's Lucius. He's here. Let's go!"
Later, Lepidus stood in a dusty alleyway behind the market, leaning against a sun-warmed wall.
Marcus and Lucius told him not to help. To just stand here and wait.
And so he waited... He breathed in a sigh.
He can smell the scent of roasting meat, bread, and sour fruit clung thickly in the air.
It made him bite into a slightly bruised apple that Lucius told him to hold—juice dribbling down his chin.
He liked it here. Watching life pass by.
The chaos, the noise. It made him feel less alone.
His slightly long black hair clung to his temples in the heat.
Green eyes gleamed with something, too sharp for his age—curiosity, perhaps, or longing.
His features were striking, almost too pretty to go unnoticed.
Even in a tattered brown cloak and worn sandals, girls glanced at him as they passed.
He heard their giggles—but didn't react.
The bruises on his back were hidden under the cloak—but the hand print on his cheek? Impossible to miss. It was clear. Like a brand.
But it did not stop them from pausing to stare.
He closed his eyes and let the market sounds wrap around him: hawkers shouting prices, pots clanging, footsteps crunching over gravel.
It was loud. Comfortably loud.
His thoughts drifted back.
When he met Marcus and Lucius. He'd been robbed of his silver coins for the first time—it was right after Germanicus's funeral procession.
Still grieving. But not feeling lost anymore. A slave had taken his pouch—the silver his mother had given him.
Marcus and Lucius had chased the thief down. Got it back.
Lepidus had shared the coins with the thief anyway as he saw his sorry state, just like him that time.
He even tried to give some to Marcus and Lucius who were childhood friends since birth.
But they only laughed and refused to take the coins. Not mocking. No. They then called him dominus iuvenis. Saw through the boy carrying a lot of coins, but never pried.
'I'm not a dominus iuvenis though…' he thought.
But he hadn't corrected them.
In some way… he was.
That was when he started to like them.
He was jolted from his memories by Marcus's voice echoing down the alley.
Laughter. Lucius too.
Lepidus peeked around the corner. They were carrying crates.
"What took you guys so long?" he called, tossing the apple core away.
"The dominusiuvenis grows impatient," Marcus grinned. His messy hair fell over one eye. "Lucius got distracted by the view again."
Lucius's freckled face flushed red.
"Not true!"
Lepidus smirked. "Another noble's daughter, Lucius?"
Lucius turned away. "I didn't say that—!"
But his blush said everything.
"Fifth one, right?" Lepidus added with a grin.
Lucius, desperate to change the subject, pointed to the apple cores. Only one untouched apple remained "Hey! Those are ours!"
"Oh?" Lepidus took another exaggerated bite. "You mean the rotten ones?"
Marcus laughed. "Stingy merchant paid us in those. Said labor's only worth the bruised batch."
"They're not that bad," Lepidus said, licking juice from his fingers. "I've had worse."
He smiled—not because things were good, but because, for a moment, they felt good.
Here, in this loud, dirty alley, with apples and teasing and familiar laughter—he almost forgot the mark on his cheek.
Almost.
*******************************
The twelve-year-old Asprenas's voice sounded with glee as the rich aroma of freshly cooked lucania drifted through the air.
"Oh, that smells delicious!" he exclaimed, darting toward a nearby thermopolia stall without waiting to see if Caligula would follow.
Two young male slaves struggled to keep up, their footsteps uneven as they hurried after him.
Caligula blinked, momentarily stunned by his companion's sudden enthusiasm, before trailing after him.
He wasn't used to this kind of impulsive nature.
"Asprenas, slow down!" he called, raising his hand to block the intrusive light as his cape's hood did little to shield his eyes from the sun.
His voice carried a hint of exasperation—though maybe not entirely unwelcome.
His friend.
'Or… could he still call him that?'
Their last proper interaction had been years ago, back when his father was still alive.
They're still both kids.
It's not that I'm not a kid anymore. 'I'm still a kid... but somehow a bit older? After all.. I'll be 12 in five days...'
Since then, Asprenas had vanished—no letters, no word—only to reappear at his grandmother's estate like a whirlwind this morning.
One moment Caligula had been sitting in the hortus, and the next Asprenas had grabbed his hand, voice full with excitement, shouting something about a munera on the last day of Volcanalia.
And now, they'd been walking for nearly an hour. Almost meridies.
The sun bore down harder with each passing minute, tiny beads of sweat gathering along Caligula's brow and trickling down the slope of his nose.
His boyish face that was exposed in the sun glistened under the light, but the heat did little to slow Asprenas.
Caligula squinted against the brightness, his hand now tugging at the edge of his hood.
His vision—sharply contrasted in shades of black and white—only made it harder. Shadows too deep. Light too bright.
The sun washed everything in blinding grey, and the constant movement of the crowd disoriented him.
Still… something in him stirred.
Maybe it was Asprenas's laughter.
Or the smell of lucania in the air.
Or maybe it was just the feeling of being pulled—if only briefly—out of the heavy silence that had followed him for too long.
His siblings don't even bond with him. They always leave him alone. Not Drusus though.
He can always hear him sneer and feel Drusus's anger radiating off of him to Caligula. But Nero Caesar and his sisters?
They just left Caligula to his own device.
"You know…" Asprenas started, his voice suddenly softer, walking beside Caligula as they passed a row of closed tabernae, wooden shutters rattled faintly in the breeze.
"You probably don't remember, but… when we were babies, our mothers used to sit in our garden's villa in Antium and let us crawl around in the grass."
Caligula glanced at him sideways. Blurred.
"Asinia—my mother—she used to say Agrippina was the only noble who didn't treat her like she was beneath her. She admired her. Said she had the fire of old Rome."
Caligula remained quiet, expression unreadable.
"And you bit me once," Asprenas added with a chuckle, nudging him. "Right on the wrist. I cried for two hours. My mother still brings it up."
Caligula gave a small, unwilling smile. "Sounds like something I'd do."
'But I don't remember that'
He can feel Asprenas has grinned, but felt like it faded almost as quickly as it came.
"I wanted to write to you, you know? After you left your domus. After everything. But we were stuck in Venetia that winter—my uncle broke his leg, the roads froze over… and when we finally returned to Rome, you were gone. Syria, they said. Then…" He trailed off.
Caligula knew what came next. Everyone did.
"When you came back…" Asprenas swallowed. "You didn't look at anyone. You were pale. Thin. You didn't speak. I didn't know what to say. So I said nothing."
They stopped walking. The scent of cooked meat was gone now, replaced by dust and heat and silence.
"I thought maybe it would hurt you more if I tried to remind you of something happy," Asprenas said. "So I just… let it be."
Caligula was still staring ahead. His jaw was tight. He put hands behind him, an act that he does whenever he feels uncomfortable—his default when he didn't want anyone to see they were trembling.
Asprenas took a step closer. "But I never stopped wondering how you were. Not once."
A long pause hung between them. Asprenas seemed to open his mouth like he might say more, but thought better of it. Instead, Caligula felt Asprenas' gaze shifted past him.
"Oh—Caligula! That's my classmate!" he said suddenly, waving toward a pair of boys loitering near a faded aedicula—a shrine along the road. "Come on, let's go say hi!"
Before Caligula could respond, Asprenas had already crossed the narrow street.
Caligula followed, slower, more hesitant. Still squinting.
The two boys seemed to glanced at him as they approached, then their blurry faces leaned in with each other.. an act that's familiar with Caligula.
An act of whispering something to each other. Their hands cupped behind.
He heard his name—or at least thought he did. He couldn't tell if they were curious, or wary, or both.
Asprenas chatted easily, slipping into the conversation with that effortless charm of his.
He laughed, teased, even clapped one of them on the back.
Caligula stayed silent, standing a step behind, his hands clasped behind him again.
He could feel their glances—quick, flickering, then avoiding.
He knew that look. Even if he doesn't see it. People trying to figure out how close they could stand without getting burned.
Then, they became silent, grounding Caligula from his thoughts.
And, as if trying to fill the silence, Asprenas' friend said with a grin, "You'll never guess what I heard—Drusus the Younger's been throwing parties left and right. He says he's going to take the throne any day now…"
He laughed, shaking his head. "And he said you're cursed—" Asprenas stopped his friend's mouth from continuing.
He froze.
Caligula had stopped moving.
His face had gone still. Mouth slightly parted.
The air seemed to press in, heavy and unmoving. His fingers, behind his back, had gone rigid.
"…Cursed?" he echoed, voice low.
Asprenas' smile seems to falter. "He didn't mean—" He let out an awkward laugh and reached out again quickly this time, clapping a hand over his friend's mouth, too hard, too sudden.
"Nothing! Nothing! Just gossip, you know? Nonsense."
He forced another laugh and turned to the others. "Let's go! The munera's about to start—we're almost there!"
The others followed, half-confused, half-relieved.
But Caligula didn't laugh. He paused for a bit. Before slowly following.
He walked behind them, quiet again. The word hung in his chest like a stone.
Cursed.
******************************
INDEX:
Caligula dulcis- beloved Caligula, an endearment
Circus Maximus- an oblong stadium, primarily for chariot racing but was also used for events like munera.
Munera- gladiator fight
Volcanalia- a festival in honor of Vulcan, the god of fire (August 23)
Dominus Iuvenis- young male master
Lucania- type of thermopolia food, meat
Meridies- nearing 12 noon
Tabernae- shop
Antium- ancient coastal town located south of Rome
Venetia- northeastern Italy