Gigi Sinclair

"He is insane." Cicero rubbed his hands and stared at the doorway Mark Antony had left through, as if that would transmit his contempt to the man himself.

"He is a coward in the skin of a bully," Brutus replied. "Like all bullies. He claims to be loyal to Caesar, but he merely fears retaliation." If word came from Egypt that Caesar was dead, Brutus knew Mark Antony would not hesitate to kill both he and Cicero that same day. It was what Antony would do first that worried him.

"And yet he has the right to show such disrespect to honest, noble men like us, here in the senate chamber."

Brutus shrugged. It was the way of the world, or at least their world, now. Caesar had forgiven them, but he may as well have branded them at the same time. They were treated like lepers. Even Brutus's mother was distant with him. One of the Julii was constantly in the house these days, and Brutus assumed Servilia had transferred her motherly affections to that girl.

"We have made our bed, Cicero, but I confess it is difficult to lie in it." More than difficult, it was painful. Brutus had never known one could be surrounded by so many people, yet feel so completely alone.

"You should have taken me up on that offer of the farm." Cicero smiled, knowing full well there had been no chance of that.

In hindsight, though, Brutus wondered whether he ought to have accepted, given up on all his idealistic foolishness and gone to live on Cicero's farm. It would have upset his mother, but she would have gotten over it. Cato and Scipio and the others would have called them cowards and traitors and any other name they could come up with, but those were mere words. Brutus knew they would never try to come after them, or change their minds.

He reached out and took Cicero's hands in his. Brutus was no healer or physician, but, although Cicero winced a little, it didn't feel like Antony had broken anything.

While they had been friends before all this, Brutus would not have said that he and Cicero were bosom companions. But circumstances had thrown them together, and now they were both outcasts, Brutus had come to rely on Cicero more than he had ever expected. He knew his fragile mental state was to blame for it, but Brutus had even, he noticed, begun to feel a deep affection for the man, something he had felt for few others in his life.

"Antony has always been jealous that Caesar favoured me over him." Brutus did not release Cicero's hands, and Cicero did not pull them away. "I tried to seduce him once."

"Antony?" Cicero looked so profoundly shocked, Brutus had to smile at the horrific thought of it.

"Caesar."

"Ah." His relief was evident. There was a pause, and Brutus wondered why he had brought that up. It had been years ago, when Brutus had been young, although old enough, one would have thought, to know better. "What happened?" Cicero finally asked.

"He told me I was his beloved son, and we left it at that." Brutus remembered the embarrassment in great detail. It was the same way he had felt when Caesar so magnanimously embraced him in his camp: like a wayward child nevertheless loved by a good and long-suffering parent. "He never felt that way towards Antony, which is why Antony is so enjoying this chance to get his revenge."

"I would not wish such a commander even on Caesar," Cicero replied. "He is unstable, and he will come to a bad end."

"We can only hope."

There was a long pause. Brutus knew he should release Cicero's hands, but he did not, and, finally, Cicero said: "I have never thought of you as a son, or, indeed, any member of my immediate family." Although he was a man of many words, this time Cicero made his meaning clear by the look in his eyes.

Brutus could not pretend he had ever felt searing lust for Cicero, but he knew it would be comforting to sleep with him. It would be a way for Brutus to forget, for a while, that he was a pariah and a traitor and that his days were probably numbered. It would bring he and Cicero closer together, and cement this bond that had grown between them.

But it would also serve to isolate them, to cut them off even further from those who had sided with Caesar, and from the others who had sided with Pompey and had not given up so easily. It might even distract them from their purpose, and that would be fatal, for themselves and for the republic.

"When all this is sorted out," Brutus said, looking at Cicero, "We shall go to your farm and be together as two free men of the Roman republic." They may have made an oath to Caesar, but that did not mean, Brutus thought, that they had surrendered their beliefs. By way of a promise, he kissed Cicero's hands gently and respectfully, the opposite of Antony's threatening gesture, and released him.

"And until then," Cicero said, "We are forced to endure the degradations of men like Mark Antony."

"It is a small price to pay to save the republic." Even as he said it, Brutus was unsure. He did not know whether it would be saved, whether the gods would be just and make Caesar see the error of his ways, or whether tyranny would prevail and the names of Pompey and his supporters would disappear in time, until the world forgot not only their existence, but that of the republic.

It seemed a feeble vow to make to the only man who was still by his side. So Brutus kissed him, there in the senate chamber where all their trouble had began.

It was not a heroic gesture, and Brutus knew if anyone walked in, Mark Antony included, they would see this as two weak aristocratic men engaged in a weak and foppish act. But since public opinion of them could hardly get any lower than it already was, Brutus didn't care. When he pulled away, Cicero looked at him with such an expression of admiration that Brutus knew for certain that whatever the gods had in store, he would not face it alone.

Together, they descended the steps of the senate chamber, and together they went out into the glorious city of Rome.