‘Sir, are you …?’ he began. ‘Yeah, Bathyllus, I’m fine. Still a bit of a headache, but no bones broken. Perilla at home?’ But she was already there, practically flying through the atrium entrance. I might’ve been wrong about the no bones broken, because she was hugging me so hard I felt my ribs creak. ‘Hey, lady,’ I said. ‘Pull back a bit. I’m pretty bristly.’ ‘Marcus,’ she said, the words muffled against my shoulder, ‘I will kill you!’ Ouch. Nothing like a touching reunion when you’ve been away on business for a couple of days. ‘Felix told me he’d sent a message,’ I said. ‘Of course he did.’ She hadn’t let go. ‘Three days ago, to say you were at the palace and being taken care of. Just that. There hasn’t been anything since. What was I to think?’ The bastard. Oh, sure, he’d done as he’d said, all right, but although it was accurate enough as far as it went, the wording left a lot to be desired: taken care of would’ve worked pretty well as a euphemism.
