He allowed a brief smile of contentment to ease onto his features. By the time he had finished his business with Verchinex, and got Xena back to Rome, he would have accumulated enough dinars to really cause Pompey problems. And, with the Warrior Princess to fight in the private pits of the city, and maybe even some of the big prize gladiatorial combats in the Coliseum, he would have plenty of money for the foreseeable future.

- Oh, Xena, my pet, - he thought possessively, - What a true treasure you are. Far better than just a wagon load of gold! You replenish my stocks like a bottomless purse. -

He put the scroll down and lent his elbows on the desk, lowering his chin onto his loosely clenched fists as he allowed his mind to play over his plans once more. He tested every crack, every crevice, for danger and the chance that something could go wrong, and formulated back up plans to take care of the unexpected. A good general always had a fall back position ... just in case!

A knock on the door announced the entry of a guard who responded to Caesar's raised eyebrow with, "Messenger back from the barbarians, sir."

Caesar sat back in his chair and replied, "Send him in, Crato." He tried to make it a point to know as many of the men's name under his command as possible, especially those in the elite maniple and those of his personal guard.

The dusty, travel stained messenger hurried through the door to where his general awaited him. He executed a salute and stood waiting for leave to speak to his commanding officer, "Well?" demanded Caesar, wanting to compel the soldier to produce a reply, "Did they send an answer Tirem?"

"Yes sir, but not a written one," answered the man promptly.

"Well then out with it man. What did the Gaul say?" demanded the Roman noble imperiously.

"Sir, the barbarian, Verchinex, says he agrees to the meeting and your terms. He says he'll be there in seven days time, but that if you play false he'll drive you and every ..." Tirem stopped, contriving to look embarrassed and a little unsure of himself, which took some doing for a veteran courier.

"Just complete the message, Tirem. I'm sure you'd appreciate some rest and there's nothing that the Gaul can say that hasn't been said before by at least one other person." Caesar assured him.

The courier completed the message and was grateful for the hand that flicked his dismissal. The look on the general's face, when he'd told him exactly what the barbarian planned to do to his commander and the legions, had been grim enough to make him wish the floor would open up and swallow him. As he closed the door behind him, the sentries on duty saw him shake his head and wander off down the corridor muttering, "I didn't know it was even possible to do that to another man."

The guards looked across at each other and shrugged their shoulders. If someone had sent a message to upset the commander then they'd soon know about it. They stood and waited to see what would develop.

Xena sat quietly in her cell, replaying the moves of that last chess match through her active mind, seeking out the weaknesses in her defence and the problems with her attack. Since that first game, that had ended with a draw, she and Caesar had played several more and the tally now stood at two wins to Xena, four wins to Caesar and three draws.

It galled her to lose to him, but no more than it did for him to lose to her, especially as she was so new to the game, and he was considered to be something of an expert. Xena had little doubt that she would eventually even the score with him, but she also began to recognise that in this game, much like in life, he was her match. Not in any physical sense. In a straight out fight she'd cut him into little pieces, although he might provide a little sport in doing so. And definitely not in a partnership sense! She may have loved him once, but that had long since been ground into the dust and the seeds that had sprung from that love had been rage and hatred. No they were matched adversaries. As commanders, strategists and tacticians they were a pair. Each counterbalanced the other to perfection. Which is why the bloodless battleground of the chess board was proving to be an attraction neither of them could resist.

She lowered her head towards her captive hands as the straw she was laying on began to irritate her nose. She scratched the offending area and pushed the unhappy memories of Chin, that the action conjured, firmly into the deep pits of her mind, preferring to think of happier moments with her bardic friend ....

Like the time, at some inn somewhere, when Gabrielle had been deeply involved in the telling of a story ... about one of their minor adventures, Xena seemed to remember. The bard was perched on a stool on a table, and had become very animated in her description of the Warrior Princess's battle with a rogue centaur which had the crowd spellbound ....

Unfortunately, during the action bard, stool and table had parted company, and Gabrielle had landed in a heap on the floor with a very red face and a very sore rear end. She had gamely finished the tale but, the following morning she had refused Xena's offer of a ride on Argo with heated vehemence and had become quite belligerent about the whole thing when she caught the Warrior Princess with a half smile on her face.

"Quit that," the bard had snarled, not feeling in the mood to be the 'butt' of anyone's amusement and cultivating an angry attitude to hide her embarrassment over the incident and her sore backside. It all just seemed to bring the worst out in Xena. Well, not really the worst, more like the playful, which seemed like the worst to the bard at the time.

"Make me," grinned Xena feeling, just for once, light hearted enough to play.

Gabrielle had stood in the middle of the road, frustration plain on her face, as she tried to work out someway of getting her own back, without suffering yet worse indignities.

"One of these days, Xena, I'm gonna do just that!" shouted the blonde stamping her foot angrily.

A look had edged it's way into the Warrior Princess's eyes as she cocked her head to listen for something. Then she swung a leg over the horse's head and slipped lightly down onto the dusty road. A wicked smile had played across her lips as she hooked her chakram and sword onto Argo's saddle, shrugged out of her armour and hung that there as well.

"Ah! Xena," began the bard, recognising the glint, and bringing up her staff protectively, "what have you got in mind?" she asked, swinging her weapon in defensive arcs as her friend had advanced on her.

"Oh, I just though that you might need something to help cool you off," came the reply, with that wickedly playful grin and the devilishly flickering eyes.

Gabrielle had looked around wildly, guessing that there was water close somewhere, and that she was destined for it. She saw none, but in that brief second she had taken to look, Xena had by-passed the staff's menace by the simple expedient of a forward flip over the bard. She had then resorted to brute force, by scooping Gabrielle up off the ground in her strong muscular arms.

"Xena! Put me down!" yelled the blonde, wriggling wildly.

The Warrior Princess grinned impudently at her and had started a mad, haring run, through the woods, until she reached a spot where she had launched both of them off a high bank, into a deep pool below.

Gabrielle had come to the surface spluttering over the indignity of it all, looking to see where Xena had got too. When after some time, the dark warrior hadn't surfaced, the bard began to get frantic and started to dive down to look for her lost companion. After about the sixth such attempt at search and rescue, the blonde had heard a cool clear laugh from the shore, where she spotted Xena sitting by a fire, already drying out, while she was gutting and preparing two large fish, ready for lunch.

- My bard's rage was a wonder to behold, - grinned Xena to herself as she had remembered the rest of the day, which they had spent by the pool doing domestic chores, such as making some long needed repairs to her armour, while Gabrielle, once she had calmed down, took the chance to write out another story. It had been an idyllic, peaceful interlude in their normally hectic and deadly dangerous lives.

The smile slipped and faded as she returned to her present and remembered just exactly where she was, and where Gabrielle could be. She shook her head impatiently. They'd been in Lugdunum for four days, and there hadn't even looked like being another pit fight during that time.

Since Blasius's unfortunate 'accident' she'd been treated with a fairness and respect which she hadn't really expected. Her assorted bruises had, at last, all disappeared, although the sores around her wrists and ankles were still in evidence, if better than they had been.

So if there were no fights, and no movement, they were obviously waiting for something. - The reply to a message, - her active brain suggested. - He's looking for a meeting with Verchinex. But just what are his aims? - She didn't question her part in Caesar's likely plans. She was fairly certain that she'd already worked that out.

The other thing that worried her was her four would-be rescuers. There had been a real ruction in the guardroom when one of the men on a pass had failed to return at the allotted time. The garrison patrols had been turned out and the soldier found with startling rapidity. He'd been stumbled across, literally, outside the garrison walls, stone drunk.

>From what she had heard of the matter, from her guards whispers and from piecing two and two together, (they had no idea just how acute her hearing was, so she often picked up scraps of information that she was never meant to have), she knew that two men had abducted him and forced him to divulge information about their special prisoner. The very vague descriptions that the soldier had given could have been anyone. But, allowing for the fact they knew she was here, it was almost certainly two of her friends and, descriptions or not, Xena had a fair idea which of the two it was.

Verchinex watched carefully as his warriors demonstrated their prowess in the melee put on to decide just which of them would accompany him and the other chiefs to the meeting with Caesar, "The hundred and eighty best of you will go," he had told them. "If Caesar plans any form of treachery he will not find it so easy as he might think."

Since then, the fighting had been keenly contested and he was now looking for the final thirty warriors to accompany him. Of his chieftains, he'd take just three with him, his dignity demanded no less, but he had decided to leave Calvert and Lyulph in charge of the rest of the Gaulish forces should they be needed for rescue or revenge.

His mind continued to work on the problem of just what Caesar expected from him. He knew the man well enough to know that he would never have sought the meeting if he didn't think he would be able to get Verchinex's agreement on some issue that would be of profit to the Roman. The question was, what was it? and what made Caesar think that he could get him to swallow it?

He shook his shaggy black curls in frustration, focusing his attention on the fight as it was narrowing down to a conclusion. To his surprise he saw that his brother, Lachlan, was still amongst those in with a chance for one of the sought after positions, - Mendala's right, - he thought, - I've got to stop looking at him as though he were a child. He's a man grown and shows some ability. -

Finally the battle came to a natural conclusion when only thirty men were left standing on the battleground. Verchinex was somewhat proud and surprised to see that Lachlan had made the select one hundred and eighty men. He stood and motioned for the other one hundred and fifty warriors to join the last thirty, "You men have won a place in the guard that will accompany me to this meeting with Caesar. It will fall on you to ensure that Caesar does not live to leave Vershin if he meets us with treachery. May the glory of the gods be with you all."

- At least the rain has stopped ... finally! - thought Toris as he miserably picked at the bread and cheese they had managed to buy for lunch.

The two men sat huddled in yet another barn, on a farm just outside of Lugdunum. The city had got just too hot to hold them, with strong patrols out, searching for strangers and whisking off anyone they didn't like the look of. The pair had managed to avoid any real trouble, but they'd decided that they were better off waiting beyond the city walls until they could work out just what in Hades they were going to do next.

They had talked out just about every possible plan they could think of for getting inside the garrison, getting through a hundred and eighty or more trained, veteran, soldiers, getting Xena out of her cell and shackles and then getting out of the place with their skins in one piece.

- It is, - Toris had finally conceded, - plain impossible! Unless we get ourselves captured and taken into the fortress, but then we'd be in just as big a fix as Xena is. - He thought glumly.

"I wonder how Autolycus and Joxer are getting on?" said Iolaus, looking for something to break the silence.

"They can't be any worse off than we are," chipped in Toris.

"Don't you be too sure. I think those two could find trouble even in the Elysian Fields." smiled the smaller man, who Toris was rapidly beginning to regard as a good friend.

"Like someone else I could mention," grinned the taller man as he thought about his sister.

Iolaus looked at the man who was so like Xena, yet so different in many important ways. He had the blazing anger, but it was usually unfocused and quickly forgotten. He showed glimpses of Xena's fighting skills, but would never be the warrior his sister was. He shared her looks, but without the startling intensity. In many ways he was a pale shadowy imitation of the Warrior Princess. "What was she like?" asked Iolaus suddenly, "As a child I mean."

Toris thought about it for a long moment. How best could he describe his sister as a child, "Competitive," he said at last. "I'm three years older than Xena, but by the time she was walking she competed with me for everything. You know how it is, brothers never have any time for little sisters ... they just get in the way. My friends and me, we used to try and chase her and Lyceus, our younger brother he was about a year younger than Xena, away, so that we could play our games in peace, without having little brats about."

"I bet that pleased her," grinned Iolaus who could just imagine how a miniature Xena would take that kind of rejection.

Toris shook his head ruefully, "You have no idea. When I was nine, me and my friends spotted an eagles nest about three quarters of the way up a cliff near the village. We'd all tried to find a way up to the nest to get at the eggs. It was like our own test of manhood, you see. The first one amongst us who could climb to the nest and get an egg would become the group's official leader."

"Don't tell me! Xena did it first." laughed Iolaus.

"Damned right!" agreed Toris, "She was six! Just six. She left Lyceus at the bottom of the cliff, after we'd gone home, and then she climbed up there and got an egg. I tell you Iolaus, none of us had managed to get more than halfway to that nest before we'd had to give up. On the way down she slipped and would have fallen and broken her neck if she hadn't managed to grab onto some root. She got pretty banged up, though and it took her a lot longer to get down the rest of the way.

"Mother was frantic. No one knew where Xena or Lyceus was, and it was pitch black by the time they got back home. Xena had broken her ankle and Ly had to support her all the way back from the cliffs. But they came in with Xena holding that damn egg, that she'd somehow managed to keep whole, and both had broad grins on their faces."

"I'm the leader now Toris," she said to me, "you gotta do what I say now."

The blue eyes looked up at Iolaus, "Have you any idea how that made me feel, Iolaus?"

His friend shook his head, being an only child did have some compensations attached to it, even if, as a child, he'd been unaware of them. He'd often wished that he'd had little brothers and sisters to play with like the other kids.

"It was amazing that she got the chance to grow up to become who she did. There are so many times I could have cheerfully strangled her, and my friends could have happily killed her as well. The trouble was she was quicker, stronger and far more intelligent than any of us. The only person who could match her was Mother, and she only managed it until Xena was about eleven or so. Up until then Xena's life was full of escapades, childish scraps, running wild and assorted punishments for a myriad of misdemeanours."

He grinned at the thought, "She always took the punishments without a murmur ... even when she hadn't done anything to deserve them. She picked up quite a reputation in Amphipolis. She was a great one for playing practical jokes and she was very inventive with them too. It soon became pretty natural for everyone to blame Xena for everything that happened. It must have driven Mother mad, because she got a litany of complaints about her daughter every day. Mind you, it meant that I had a fairly free ride through life. Mother was so tied up in trying to sort out Xena's disruptions that my occasional misbehaviour barely got sneezed at."

"Your mother must be a strong woman," smiled Iolaus at the thought of her battling wills with the young Xena.

"Where do you think the renowned Warrior Princess gets it from?" Toris asked quirking an eyebrow in a very familiar way.

The companionable silence fell between them once again before Iolaus broke it once more, "What do you think, Toris? We're doing no good here. We can't get near her. What do you say we go back and find the others. If we can help them get Gabrielle free, we might just be able to do something to prise Xena loose."

Toris felt torn. He didn't want to abandon his sister to her enemy, but he could see no way of helping her as things stood. Maybe if they could get the bard free, and let Xena know about it, then it might make the difference. He nodded his head in agreement. It was surely better than doing nothing.

"We'll probably have to go to Rome," put in Iolaus, thinking about it, "Unless Autolycus and Joxer have managed to free her already, otherwise that's where they'll go."

"Have you ever been to Rome?" asked Toris, knowing that the small man was far more widely travelled than he was.

"Nope, but I've heard the women are beautiful." came back the answer with a smile.

Caesar was at his desk once more when the messenger from Brutus was announced. He listened to what he had to say and dismissed him with an imperious wave of his hand.

- So, - he thought, - the loose ends are falling into place. It's a pity that one of the two wasn't the brother, but we'll snare him and the other one soon. Then, Xena, my sweet, you will be tied to me hand and foot until it's time for you to die. -