The Demons of Rome

VII - Defenders of Rome

The weeks passed slowly. Aelith was a good teacher, albeit a harsh one, and Iatus could read pretty much anything the demon put in front of him now. He was very excited when he got his toga. It was plain white but he loved it. His imaginings had all come to reality and when Ava had dropped it off he had paraded grandly around in it, giving speeches to imaginary, cheering masses. Aelith had got his perch, which he just adored; he was too stubborn to admit that anything was done to his satisfaction but he would spend most of his time on there, hooting instruction at Iatus when Ava was out. Iatus had really taken to reading, he loved the amount of knowledge contained in the library and would spend many an evening there, although there was little else to do.

The day before term started, the carriages arrived. Huge things pulled by teams of horses and adorned with all the finery money could buy. They came and delivered their packages of finely dressed students followed by a servant; each was greeted by Philip in turn and shown to their rooms. For some reason there seemed to be no activity around Iatus' room.

They were all about Iatus' age, although none were younger, if Iatus was 14 then they were between that and 16. He supposed at 17 they went off to do their military service.

Later in the day other, less adorned carriages pulled up and deposited less well dressed students. They were all smart but they also weren't Nobles. Philip greeted them as well and servants were allocated to each of them. This time they were shown to the rooms around Iatus.

Iatus decided to see who was moving in so he stuck his head out the door. There were a few people milling about but they all seemed to be servants except for one boy directing things into place next door.

"Umm, hi," said Iatus meekly.

"Hello there, are you next door?" the boy replied cheerfully.

"Yeah."

"Well good to meet you, I'm Javi, what's your name?"

"Iatus."

"Ah, another commoner! Finally! There wasn't a single one in the two years above me, which was fun. Anyway, I'm a second year now so I doubt we'll be seeing a lot of each other but feel free to say hi once in a while."

"Oh look, the filth found a friend!" called a loud, mocking voice from along the corridor.

Iatus and Javi turned to look and saw a mountain of a boy walking along the corridor towards them followed by a team of servants carrying all manner of furniture and luxuries. He appeared to be one solid mass of muscle and carried a sword nearly as tall as Iatus. Walking alongside him was a tiger that was looking at Iatus like he was food.

"Evening Trajan," replied Javi warily.

"New filth, as you're new I'll give you a free pointer. Don't get your hopes up, you may be being allowed to train with us, but you're not one of us. Commoners have no real power anyway, first time you step onto the battlefield you're as good as dead."

The boy laughed at Iatus' fear and walked away.

The tiger curled its mouth into a big grin, revealing all its teeth to emphasise the point.

"Don't mind him, in fact don't mind any of them. Us commoners are put in with the military caste, most of the people's families here have been battlemages for generations, they're proud and hate that they're not nobles so watch them. The nobles are all put in the west wing and will generally just ignore you.

Iatus shrugged, he was used to being ignored and hated.

"Well... I guess I'll leave you to unpack," Iatus said and went back to his room.