The Roman Saga. Behind The Great Wall. Igor Yevtishenkov

they’ll bring him back. He is the Emperor’s slave. They’ll see what’s wrong with the wound and return him. Believe me.

      Zeno was indeed soon brought back. They cauterized the wound, but did nothing more. The young man quietly moaned in the corner from the burning pain, and Paul Domician sighed dreamily for a long time, remembering the smell of the magic robe of concubine Minfei. Lacius alone looked sullenly ahead, warily listening to rustling sounds in the darkness. Anything could happen before morning, and he didn’t want it to happen while he was sleeping.

      CHAPTER XIV. “PEACH GROVE” IN THE HOUSE OF GOVERNOR BAO SHI

      The entire next day they were kept in the same gloomy room as before, without being taken outside. Eunuchs and a doctor came to Zeno several times. First, he examined him, and then applied some ointments. The wound was not dangerous, but it was hot, and dirt could get in there. The knife cut through the muscles on the stomach and side, above the thigh, without touching the insides. There was no fever, and Lacius hoped that in a week it would begin to heal. They spent the day in short conversations, unable to discuss the same thing for the hundredth time, and only in the evening they learnt that at that time the Chanyu of the Xiongnu tribes named Huhanye arrived to the palace.

      Throughout the night, Lacius slept intermittently, feeling danger and afraid to relax. He fell into a deep sleep only in the morning, when Zeno and Paul woke up. But already in the afternoon he was awakened, and the eunuch ordered all three to leave the room. Without saying anything, they were taken to the gates of the inner city and handed over to the head of the Governor’s guard, Fu Xing.

      – What’s happened? – coming out of the gate, Lacius immediately asked him. The young warrior looked at the guards and answered, as always, briefly and simply:

      – You will be taken to the house of our Governor Bao Shi.

      – Why are we being taken there? Can you say anything? Is there Goju there? No? Then what happened? Why so many guards? There are about twenty people here… – Lacius and Paul Domician asked vying with each other, and the blind singer for some reason believed that the head of the security was more favourable to him than to others. But Fu Xing did not answer them until the governor’s house.

      – Take them off, take the chains off them! – Bao Shi suddenly began to fuss when they just entered the gate. It was unheard of – the governor was waiting for them on the steps of his luxurious home! Lacius stopped in disbelief and looked around the courtyard. – The Emperor is truly omnipotent and kind to us! He is the luminary of the day and night! Our gratitude cannot fill the cup of his wisdom, – he sighed, rolling his eyes to the sky. Officials from the palace handed him some kind of scroll, he accepted it with a bow and exchanged the necessary ceremonial bows and words with them for a long time.

      Surprised and a little frightened, Lacius and Paul sat on a bench at a small forge, watching all this, and did not understand anything. Zeno lay next to them and was silent. The servants knocked down their chains, trying not to damage the skin on their legs, and this was also surprising, as if the Romans had suddenly turned from slaves into long-awaited guests.

      But when the Emperor’s envoys left, Bao Shi turned around and went into the house without even looking at them. Lacius, Zeno and Paul were led into the same barn where they had recently been kept with the rest of the slaves. They also brought water and some food there. On this day, they only managed to find out that for some reason concubine Mingfei was able to convince the Emperor to leave them in the capital and not send to the Xiongnu’s camp.