Joxer gave him a cheesy grin and answered, "Well I didn't actually say I've never played before. I just asked you to explain the rules," he chuckled. "Actually I'm pretty lucky at dice games. In fact I've been called 'Mr Lucky' before." He laughed as he crossed his legs.

"Well, I suppose you have to be lucky at something," the thief continued to grumble, having the feeling that he'd just been suckered.

"Just pay him the money, Autolycus," smirked Iolaus, rather pleased that the wannabe warrior was able to get one over on the thief. "And pass me the dice, I'm gonna make the numbers tumble."

"Listen, shorty," began the King of Thieves testily, "I've just about had it up to here," he gestured over Iolaus' head, "with you."

"You wanna make something of it," growled the blonde man as he stood and loomed over the thief. They'd been stuck together for many days, and these two men had a short tolerance of each other.

Autolycus jumped up too, and leaned over to look down at the far shorter man, "And if I did, what do you think you could do about it?"

Bunching a fist in a threatening manner, Iolaus took a step towards the other man as Toris scooped the dice out of the way, "I'm sure that I can think of something," snarled the blonde.

Autolycus stepped back and held up his hands placatingly, "Now let's not be hasty. You don't want to start something that I might not be able to finish."

"Aw, c'mon guys," Joxer tried to calm things down, "Let's get back to the game."

Both looked down at him and said in perfect unison, "Shut up, Joxer!" before turning back and glaring at each other.

"Hey!" barked a voice from the other side of the room. All eyes turned to see Hercules regarding them sternly, "I'm trying to read here," he said gesturing with the scroll in his hands. "Play nice."

Under the demi-god's scrutiny, the two antagonists glared at each other for a heartbeat more, before Iolaus grumbled, "You're bacon just got saved, pal," as he reseated himself on the floor and caught the dice that Toris passed to him with a grin.

"Anytime you want to try, Curly," muttered Autolycus as he took his place in the circle too.

"Oh, Autolycus," called the big man, his eyes back on the scroll that Gabrielle had lent him.

"Yeah?" returned the thief.

"Don't forget to pay Joxer the money you owe him," instructed Hercules.

Grumbling under his breath, Autolycus dug through his various pockets and hidden pouches to dig out the three dinars that he owed Joxer. He handed them to the grinning man, who happily took them and pocketed them with a cheerful, "Thanks."

Settling back down to the game, bets were made on the next round of throws and order appeared to be restored once again as the four men egged each other on cheering and groaning as luck either brushed them or passed them by.

Hercules kept a surreptitious eye on the group, particularly watching Toris. Since he had met the man, the demi-god had been struck by just how much he and his sister were truly alike. He'd heard, from Iolaus, all about the raven haired man's suspect temper and hot headed actions, which he suspected were not so unlike Xena's before she learned to channel her rage and focus on an objective. To add to this he was sparing with his conversation almost to the point of reticence, a characteristic that was matched by Xena's own absence of social chatter. Then of course they were very physically alike. Tall, hair as black as a raven's wing, piercing blue eyes and strong, muscular bodies. Hercules judged that Toris had the edge on his sister in height and carried a few more pounds, but Xena's strength far surpassed her sibling's and was not greatly less than his own.

Of course, the Warrior Princess was a lethal weapon in her own right as well as with the tools of the bloody trade she once followed. The son of Zeus had never seen a warrior who approached her total fighting capabilities. Her competitive nature and relentless drive made her the best at what she did.

Iolaus had told him that Toris was good with a blade and pretty handy in a brawl, but he had none of Xena's phenomenal ability and power, and Hercules doubted that he had the gift that allowed the woman to heal far faster than any mortal had a right to. That, more than any other characteristic that she possessed, had caused him to speculate about her, because the only other person, he was aware of, with that particular anility, was himself.

He shook his head and turned back to concentrate on his reading, allowing the chattering from the game to wash over him as he followed the story of Caesar's pursuit and capture of the bard and the Warrior Princess. Gabrielle had written it out to alleviate her boredom, and Hercules had asked if he could read it to try and gain a better understanding of the entire situation.

It was at this point that Ephiny, Eponin, Gabrielle and Nebula re-entered the men's suite of rooms. Hercules looked up, somewhat surprised to see them return so quickly, and instantly noted the glum frowns that the women exhibited. Something had happened, and it obviously wasn't good news.

He saw Eponin stop just inside the door, barring entry to anyone, and making certain that no-one could crack the door to eavesdrop. It would take someone with extremely acute hearing to be able to glean anything through the thickness of the heavy oak doors themselves.

Nebula gravitated over towards where the men had looked up from their dice game to see what was going on. When she reached Iolaus, she ruffled his hair and grinned as she greeted him, "Hi, curly."

"Quit that!" he snapped, the rosy hue of a blush showing evidence around his neck. He looked up and saw Gabrielle watching and the flush ran rampant up to the roots of his hair.

"Aw," chuckled Autolycus, "Isn't that sweet."

"Look, I've had just about enough of you and your comments!" flared the blonde man, making a lunge away from the close proximity of the pirate and towards the throat of the thief.

"If you gentlemen have quite finished playing," Ephiny cut in coldly, "I think you should know that we have a problem that we need to sort out."

That brought everyone up short and captured their attention, except for Iolaus who suddenly found himself in close proximity to Nebula once more as she draped an arm across his shoulders and squeezed him close, "Decided that you're ready to do the bondage thing that you promised me?" she asked in a stage whisper that had him blushing crimson once again.

"Well," commented Autolycus speculatively, "Well, well, well. Didn't know that you went in for that kind of thing, short stuff."

"I don't," growled the short man huffily as he extracted himself with difficulty from Nebula's grip and hurried over to stand at Gabrielle's side, only to get a somewhat frosty stare from the bard.

"She's just teasing," he shrugged as everyone turned their eyes on him once more, "Honest."

"I'm certain that you don't owe us an explanation," the Amazon Queen stated frigidly, "Whatever you do with Nebula is your own affair, I'm sure."

"Gabrielle ..." Iolaus tried before giving it up not knowing what to say to the young woman who had stolen his heart three years previously.

"Iolaus, let's hear what the ladies have to say, shall we?" put in the demi-god, as much to rescue his floundering friend as anything else. Iolaus shot him a grateful look. "Uh .. sure, Herc," mumbled the blonde man.

"Ephiny?" questioned Hercules politely, standing up and offering the couch to Queen and her Regent.

The two women sat down and gestured for the rest of the people in the room, with the exception of Eponin, to gather around them so that voices would not be required to be raised. The men all moved across and seated themselves on the floor in a kind of semi-circle, with Iolaus keeping a wary eye on Nebula until she went and stood behind the two Amazon Queens.

Taking a deep breath, the Regent started with, "This is a little difficult to explain. It's a domestic Amazon issue that I hoped we had under control, only now it seems we don't and it's threatening to undermine everything that we're doing here."

"Forgive me, Queen Ephiny," put in Toris, "but that's a little obscure, you know. How can domestic issues for Amazon's affect my sister's rescue?"

The Regent turned her eyes to the tall man and wondered, once again, how he could look so much like his sister, "You can drop the Queen part, Toris," she said, not unkindly. "I hope we're all friends here and titles are really only for formal occasions."

Toris smiled back at her lighting up his normally brooding face as his wonderfully blue eyes sparkled, "As you wish, Ephiny. But why should Amazon issues interfere with what we're trying to do?"

Her smile vanished to be replaced by a small frown as the Regent sought for the best words to explain the problem that had suddenly reared it's ugly head once again. Sighing, she started to explain, "What you all need to understand is that Xena, through her ties to Gabrielle, is very much bound up in Amazon disputes. There is a loud minority within the Nation that resents Gabrielle's right to rule as Queen. They consider her to be an outsider, who is rarely present within the lands, and believe that she has no idea about, or concern over, traditional Amazon heritage. They are convinced that the only way to restore the Nation to former glory is by deposing Gabrielle and replacing her with a more fundamentalist ruler."

"Excuse me," interrupted Joxer, "but if Gabrielle were to be deposed, wouldn't you become the next Amazon Queen?"

The bard rolled her eyes, and retorted sharply, "No Joxer, it doesn't work like that."

Ephiny laid a hand on Gabrielle's arm to calm her, before she tried to clear things up, "I'm Regent for Gabrielle," she told him stressing the word 'for'. "The Amazon's accept me in that role, but they would probably not accept me as Queen in my own right. I was married to a centaur and my son is a centaur prince. Those are two black marks against me. On top of that, if Gabrielle was deposed, I'd be seen as a threat because of my support for her."

Seeing some blank looks on faces, Gabrielle was about to try and explain, when Autolycus stepped in, "All right. From what you've said so far, there's a bunch of Amazons who don't like you and Gabrielle. How does that effect Xena?"

Gabrielle gave him a grateful look and took up the next part of the explanation. "The only way that I can be deposed is if a challenge for leadership is issued. That means a fight to the death," she spoke up quickly as she saw Joxer about to speak. "In that situation, the challenger fights the Queen or her elected champion ..."

"Xena," put in Toris his voice filled with certainty.

"Xena," confirmed the bard as she continued, "so naturally enough it's in the interests of the dissidents to make sure that Xena cannot accept a challenge on my behalf .. after all, who's going to be mad enough to go up against the Warrior Princess in a one on one?"

"I am," Hercules groaned trying to lighten the brooding atmosphere a little, and was rewarded with a few chuckles.

"That's different and you know it," grinned Gabrielle impishly. "She won't hurt you ... much!"

"Tell me that when you're tending the wounds I'm bound to get from it," he smiled back at her, making her laugh.

"You'll get over it," she told him unsympathetically. "You heal as fast as she does."

"Fine," Toris tried to turn the conversation back to the matters in hand, "So some Amazon's don't want to see Xena free. How is that affecting the situation here?"

Ephiny took over the story once again, "When the beginning of all this trouble blew up, Xena brought Gabrielle back to Themiscyra to try to keep her safe. The trouble was that there were outstanding charges, against Xena, before the Council of Elders." She saw the look of recognition in Joxer's eyes and she'd already told Hercules about it, but there was a look of outrage on Toris' face and his concern was mirrored by both Iolaus and Autolycus.

"After all she's done for you!" the dark haired man exclaimed, jumping up as his temper got the better of him, "What ? Isn't saving the Amazons from extinction, not once but twice, enough?" he demanded, eluding to the narrowly averted Amazon and Centaur war and the malignant Velasca. "Doesn't saving your life and the life of your son count towards anything!" he raged. "What was it that she did that was so bad you needed to charge her with it?"

Ephiny also rose. Her body quivered with anger at the accusation in the man's tone and the knowledge that he'd found all the incidents that the Amazons found so difficult to reconcile to the sight of an out of control Warrior Princess rampaging through Themiscyra's streets in search of Gabrielle, the clear intent of murder shining in her eyes.

"What did she do?" hissed Ephiny in return, "What didn't she do! She cut down two young Amazons, seriously injured several others and broke my arm, all with the intent on murdering the Queen! What she did to me I could forgive. But the two deaths had to be accounted for!" she fumed.

"Ephiny," Gabrielle said quietly, touching her friend's arm, "Why don't you let me try to explain to Toris and the others?"

Grudgingly, the Regent deferred to the Queen, retaking her seat, although her glare never left Toris' face. - He's got that same burning look in his eyes as she has, - she noted, - but Iolaus is right, he doesn't have her control and, thank the Gods, he's not the danger that she is. -

"What is all this, Gabrielle?" Xena's brother demanded. "None of your letters ever mentioned trouble with the Amazons, and you never let us know that you and Xena were having difficulties."

The bard looked at him, waiting for him to force his hasty temper under control before motioning with her hand and saying, "Sit down Toris." As he was grudgingly complying her mind was racing furiously, - O Gods, what should I tell him? He knows nothing about Solon or Hope. I deliberately kept quiet about those things. I really didn't want to hurt either him or Cyrene. -

"Gabrielle?" he asked in a tense though quieter tone.

Glumly, she decided that he should hear an edited version of the events, "I don't want you to tell your mother what I'm going to tell you now. I don't want her hurting for something that's in the past" She waited for his reluctant nod of agreement before continuing, "Some things happened a while ago that led to other things .. you don't need to know all the horrendous details," she forestalled his question, "Suffice to say that both Xena and I did some fairly horrible things to each other. The result was that we split up nurturing a lot of hate."

She bit her lip as a tear trickled down her cheek. Brushing it away with a quick flick of her hand, and refusing to let the dam burst she continued, if a little shakily, "I went to stay with the Amazons, while Xena went off on her own. Wherever she went Ares, found her. He worked on her hatred so that the next thing that happened was that Xena came tearing through Themiscyra, looking to kill me. She removed anyone who got in her way and flattened Joxer for trying to protect me. Then she .. then ..." she bit her lip once more and found it impossible to go on.

Putting her arm around the young Queen's shoulder, Ephiny drew the shaking Gabrielle down on her shoulder and took up the story in a calm, almost detached voice, "She snared Gabrielle's ankles with a whip, mounted a horse and dragged her from town and over the countryside intending to kill her."

Iolaus looked angry, Autolycus was thoughtful while Toris had gone white, obviously seeing visions of his sister's past ascent to the position of the most feared warlord in Greece.

"When they reached the cliffs overlooking the sea on the boundary of Amazon lands, Xena intended to throw Gabrielle over the edge. There was a struggle and Gabrielle broke free, but then threw herself at Xena taking them both over the edge of the cliff." She saw the stunned looks on the men's faces, "Somehow, they both survived. According to the little I've been told the 'gods' allowed them to review their differences and work them out, and both escaped from the entire mess without any physical injuries and healing emotional ones." the Regent finished.

After some moments of shocked silence, Iolaus cleared his throat and asked, "And you still came here to try and rescue her?"

Ephiny shrugged, "She's my friend. Whatever she did, or didn't do, the Council of Elders decided that she could only be held partially responsible for her actions. They believed that Ares had much to do with the way events transpired. They sentenced her to a year's banishment from Nation lands, which was about the mildest sentence she could be given."

"Gabrielle," spoke the quietly subdued voice of Toris, "How can you still trust her after doing that to you?" his voice was filled with shame, his eyes were fastened on the floor.

"Look at me Toris," the bard commanded and waited for him to comply before trying to explain, "I trust her because she's my best friend. I trust her with my life." Keeping contact with the blue eyes of the man before her, she continued, "The question should be, 'How can she trust me?'. You see I lied to her and betrayed her, not once but twice. The first betrayal almost resulted in her execution by an old enemy, I'll never know how we escaped that or how she could forgive me for what I had done. How many people has she ever forgiven for betraying her?" she asked.

No one answered knowing full well that Xena, the warlord, had always exacted harsh retribution against anyone foolish enough to do so. Her reputation as a cold, merciless, leader had been legend and everyone in the room knew that the price of betrayal was death.

"Well she forgave me for that, but my second betrayal led to the death of someone she loved very, very much, and the grief it caused her left her easy prey for Ares . Whatever he did to her, left her mind cloudy about the entire event in Themiscyra and what she did to me. It wasn't until about halfway through the trial that I managed to get her to remember what had happened .. it almost broke her heart." Gabrielle swallowed as she remembered holding the warrior as she shook with unshed tears finally knowing what she'd done to the bard.

"She was just as much a victim as I was. The Gods were playing their vicious games and we were their pawns." She cleared her throat and finally said quietly, "Now if any of you don't want to help free her, then Ephiny and I will find a way of getting you away from Rome as quickly as possible."

Moments seemed to fly by as everyone waited for someone to speak. Finally, Hercules stepped into the breach and said gently, "I don't think anyone here wants to abandon her. We all care for her too much to do that. So why don't you just tell us what has happened to cause a problem here and now."

Ephiny ran her fingers through her blonde curls, a habit when she was worried, angry, or both, and tried to focus on the problem, "When I decided to come here, to try and find out what had happened to Gabrielle and Xena, I judged it unwise to leave the leading members of the opposition at home, so I brought them with me where I could keep them under observation and out of trouble. The rest of the honour guard was made up by warriors screened personally by Eponin, Solari and Malonda, to ensure that only those loyal to the Queen would be here."

"Let me guess," chirped Autolycus, "your rebels have managed to hatch something anyway, right?"

Ephiny gave a brief nod, "Nebula was good enough to follow Xena, after she left the Temple, this evening, just to make sure we knew where she was taken. As we had expected, she was escorted to Caesar's palace. What we hadn't expected, however, was for an Amazon to be seen leaving by a side exit of the building. Nebula followed her back here and then came and told us what she had seen."

"I thought your people were keeping an eye on your rebels," ventured Iolaus.

"They are," responded the Regent.

"So how did ... no don't tell me," groaned Autolycus as he slapped his palm to his forehead, "your screening process was not as rigorous as you thought, and now you don't know who you can trust. You've got a bunch of Amazons that not only want to see Xena out of the picture permanently, but they'd also be happy if you and Gabrielle happened to be swallowed up in the proceedings as well. Sheesh! This just gets better and better!"

"Well," the bard said quietly, "Autolycus has just about summed things up. For safety's sake, the only people that we know we can trust are here in this room. Has anyone got any suggestions about how we are going to deal with this situation?"

There was a gloomy silence before Toris asked, "Can we identify the suspect women? I mean I know you brought the leaders out here and know who they are, but what about the ones you've only just found out about?"

Ephiny gave a slight nod of her head, "Some," she verified, "Nebula recognised Jerushan and Essaine, as the messenger and the guard who allowed her out of the barracks. Now admittedly Essaine may not be one of our traitors," the word left a foul taste in her mouth, "she may have just let Jerri out thinking she was going to do some site-seeing or something, but we really can't afford to take that chance. So, as far as the situation is concerned, Essaine must be counted as being against us."

"Are there any amongst the guards that you would definitely count as being sound?" questioned Iolaus.

The Regent threw a look over her shoulder at Eponin, "Poni?" she asked.

Nebula strode across to the door, "You're gonna be more use in the discussion than me," she told the weapons master, "I'll hold the breach, you go and thrash this out with them."

Eponin gave the pirate one of her rare smiles and a short, "Thanks," before heading across to the others to apply her knowledge to the problem, "The warriors that I personally selected I'm certain are above suspicion. Each of them has expressed loyalty to both Gabrielle and Ephiny, and most have a high regard for Xena. They were the first chosen for this mission and I'd trust them with our lives."

"How many of them are there?" asked Hercules.

"Fifty-seven," answered the weapons master promptly, "The rest of the guard were vetted and selected by either Solari or Malonda."

"Who recommended Jerushan and Essaine?" asked Gabrielle, hating the idea that either of the two highly placed women could be part of a conspiracy against her.

"Solari recommended Essaine, Malonda, Jerushan," reported Eponin, "although that doesn't mean anything. They could have easily been taken in by some clever acting. We were kind of in a hurry to put together this expedition."

"Autolycus cleared his throat, "In that case how can you be so sure about those you selected?" he questioned.

"Because each of those warriors has been personally trained by me. I've known them all well for years and I know their views. Not one of them has ever expressed a word against Gabrielle," snorted Poni derisively.

"Okay," persisted the thief, "So why don't you know the others so well?"

"To mount this expedition, we had to call in warriors from the village garrisons and the border outposts. I know all of them. They have all trained under me at one time or another, but I am not close enough to them to be able to tell their sympathies. We had to make certain that Solari had a strong enough, loyal guard at home to protect against problems there, so we did our best with what we had." Explained the dour Amazon brusquely.

"Are you sure this Solari is trustworthy?" insisted Autolycus.

Gabrielle held up a hand to halt the heated responses that she could tell were about to erupt from both Eponin and Ephiny, "If I were to doubt Solari's loyalty, I might as well doubt yours, or Iolaus', or even Xena's," she told him calmly. "Solari has stood by me and Ephiny from the moment I became Queen and had to face Velasca. It was through her 'good offices' that you were able to get us out of that cell in time to get to the ambrosia."

Recognition flashed in the thief's eyes, "She was the one who ..?" he held his hands to the sides of his chest and mimed the squeezing together of the woman's breasts as he remembered extracting the metal pin from her leather top to use as a lock pick. "That was her?" he asked.

Gabrielle nodded in confirmation, "So you see, Solari is beyond reproach."

"Mmmm," he considered, "Well what about Malonda, then?" He thought about the black haired Amazon who acted as Eponin's second.

"Loni's been with the Royal Guard for about six moons. She's a very talented Warrior and has risen quickly in the ranks to hold the position she does. She's never given us any cause to mistrust her," Ephiny answered.

"Great!" snapped Toris, "So we're back to trying to figure out just who we can trust in the guards, then, aren't we."

"If we'd got Xena here she could use her pinch to interrogate this Jerushan," muttered Joxer.

"Well Xena's not here," winced Gabrielle as the thought of where her best friend was impacted once more on her mind, "and we can't afford to alert our enemies that we're onto them. The question is what should we do?"

Silence reined in the room for many heartbeats before Hercules ventured a solution. To be sure it wasn't an ideal solution, but it was the best that could be come up with at the time, "I think that perhaps that Eponin should spend some time in the barracks and check out just who is particularly friendly with Essaine and Jerushan and see who, if anyone speaks to Tarelle and her people. Once we know who is working with whom, we can take steps to confine them."

"The question is, though, where?" puzzled Iolaus, "I mean we don't want half of Rome knowing that we have problems, so we can hardly get Pompey to lock them up or something."

"My ship," Nebula spoke from the door, "Use that. We can make it look as if they're a work detail to keep the ship in order."

"That might just work," agreed Autolycus, "but I suggest that we question Jerushan to try and find out what message she delivered to Caesar. We need to know just what they are attempting here."

"Who's going to question her? If she is a member of Tarelle's fanatic group, she's not going to be very willing to speak to us," frowned Ephiny.

"Why not let me and Iolaus have a go at asking her some questions," offered Toris, "We had some success with one of Caesar's soldiers a while back and, as Xena's brother, her reputation might carry some weight in your Amazon's thinking."

"Toris, I don't believe in torture," warned the bard with a touch of authority in her voice.

"Don't worry Gabrielle," the raven haired man assured, "she might have a hangover tomorrow, but that's about all."

"Very well then," agreed the young Queen, "I think we have a plan of action. Eponin, go and see what you can find out, and have Jerushan sent up to Ephiny's suite. Try to make it look like she was picked for a random task, perhaps get one of your trusted warriors to come with her so it doesn't look too suspicious. Oh and Ep," added Gabrielle as the Weapons master headed for the door. When the Amazon turned back to look she warned, "Say nothing about any of this to anyone .. including Malonda, okay?"

"My Queen," agreed Eponin formally, as she turned and left on her assignment.

No one took any notice when Autolycus excused himself and headed for the bathroom, all of them were concerned with ironing out any kinks and wrinkles that they could see in the hastily assembled plan.

Making his way to the large window, the King of Thieves, moved with confident purpose, having already studied every detail of the possible exits from the suite days previously. With practised skill, he stepped out onto the little sun balcony, slipped a small grapnel from his sleeve and swung it expertly by the strong thin cord, building momentum until he released it to catch over a hanging branch of a nearby tree. Without a sound, he swung himself away from the palace and down to the ground where he used the natural cover of shadows to proceed in hidden stealth. - Good job I persuaded Eponin to pick me up some basic equipment! - was his parting thought.