Honour Read Online Free

shoulder?’
    ‘He would need to be with you on my side.’
    If that was delivered with a smile, there was an undercurrent of spleen to it. Two years previously Petrus, ever the schemer, had put him in mortal peril in pursuit of a political goal that he had declined to share with the person who might have paid the price to see it completed or fail. If they had never discussed it, Flavius knew that if he had died in its execution that would have been, for this natural courtier, a price worth paying to achieve success, namely the removal of someone he saw as a potential future rival to both himself and the man he served.
    To say Petrus was his uncle’s right hand was literally true; Justinus was a bluff and honest soldier where his relative was the opposite. He could neither read nor write, therefore he depended on his nephew to both compose his orders and to a large extent see them executed. If the bond between them was strong it was often strained as Petrus pursued goals that were disapproved of by a man of an upright disposition, objectives the nephew insisted were designed to aid and protect his uncle in a polity ridden with intrigue and infighting as courtiers jockeyed for power and the affluence that went with it.
    ‘You will have written the orders for my recall?’ Petrus nodded; he even had access to the signature stencil Justinus used to sign his orders. ‘So what does Justinus have in mind for me?’
    The nephew just smiled, but it was not one of humour, more of supremacy. About to speak again, Flavius was cut off by the entry of the general himself and his opening words, as well as the surprise in both voice and face, spoke volumes.
    ‘Lord, Flavius, what has brought you home?’
    About to reply that it was obviously not at his personal command, he flicked a glance at Petrus to get a very slight shake of the head, added to an expression that told him to be cautious and it was he who spoke.
    ‘Has it not been too long since he was with us, Uncle, and was his deployment not for a fixed term?’
    ‘Was it?’ Justinus enquired, looking slightly confused, before breaking into a wide grin, one nearly as wide as the arms with which he stepped forward to embrace Flavius. ‘Well I am glad to see you, boy.’
    ‘Are we not all glad to see him,’ Petrus added, if less fulsomely.
    The hands of Justinus were on the shoulders now and he was looking hard into the face of the youngster. ‘I swear you are the spit of your father, God rest his soul.’
    That had the young man drop his head and move his thinking from the very obvious fact that it was not Justinus who had recalled him but Petrus, a notion that presaged something that might be both unpleasant and dangerous. The memory of how his father and three brothers had died because of downright treachery haunted him enough to overwhelm that immediate concern, the reaction not missed by Justinus.
    ‘Forgive me if it causes you discomfort but I mention it only to praise you. I knew your papa when he was the age you are now, with the pair of us not long joined the imperial army. What a set of rogues we were—’
    ‘Have you eaten, Flavius?’
    His uncle stopped as Petrus butted in, wishing to cut off a flow of reminiscence of the kind he had heard far too often; old soldiers never seemed to tire of their tales of camp life and fighting, as well as what they got up to elsewhere.
    ‘Well,’ said Justinus, ‘we shall all dine together and you can tell us of your exploits on the border.’
    A swift response came from the nephew, to whom the tales ofyoung soldiers were no more enthralling to him than that of their elders. ‘I have another arrangement, Uncle.’
    Justinus looked pained. ‘I can guess in what kind of company.’
    Petrus merely shrugged; it was an ongoing dispute that had obviously not been tempered in the time Flavius had been absent. Justinus sought for his nephew the same as his parents. Born of a mother who had risen from humble stock to wed a