The Will

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"We're trying to find his father's will," the big, soldierly-looking fellow informed me. The odd youth seated next to him just looked at me with a wide-eyed, reptilian stare. I detested him without even knowing who he was.

"I see, and who might this father be?"

"Caesar," said the big man. A closer look told me he was little older than the other. His size and his tough looks made him seem the elder.

I contributed to the silence that followed. This was not the sort of thing one expected to hear on an otherwise unexceptionable morning in Rome. Now I gave the wide-eyed boy a closer look. He was scrawny, with a big head on a thin neck and a shock of unruly, light-coloured hair. I couldn't see much family resemblance. He had the beginnings of a straggly beard and wore a dark, dingy toga, both tokens of mourning. A lot of Romans were wearing mourning at that time.

"Then you would be young Octavius?" I said.

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