- Well there's nothing wrong in that, - he mutely assured himself, - Even the King of Thieves can be concerned about a friend. - He smiled to himself as he edged circumspectly along in the shadows, - Of course, when that friend has hair the texture of fine silk, and a body almost as perfect as my own. - His smile widened at that thought, - And then she has the most divinely kissable lips, and her eyes ... -

That brought him up short as he pictured a pair of dazzling, but very cold blue orbs that could skewer a fly at fifty paces. He swallowed hard and ran a finger around his collar. - Well a little danger is worth a taste of the Elysian fields, - he told himself with an uncertain chuckle before adding, - Stop that, Autolycus. This isn't the time for those fantasies! - he told himself soberly. But a little voice at the back of his mind answered, - A man can dream, can't he? - and it was enough to bring a quirky smile to the thief's lips.

It was just fully dark when he reached Caesar's palace. He found a secluded nook that he could watch the drill-yard wall from, wanting to make absolutely certain that the guard routine still followed the pattern he had previously established. He took his time, not willing to take chances here, finally being satisfied that all was the same and that he would once more be able to slip over the wall and into the parade ground without detection.

Preparing to move from his place of concealment, his progress was arrested as frantic shouts went up from within the building, the guards deserted the walls with indecent haste, heading towards whoever had summonsed them. To Autolycus, it appeared as if someone had just stirred up an anthill with a big stick.

"And I just bet I know who's holding that stick," muttered the King of Thieves as he sprinted for the now deserted wall and made a rapid ascent to the parapet, dropping over the top to the guard walk. Huddling into the dark shadows, his intelligent brown eyes scanned the central yard and outer perimeter, finding them devoid of life, but located a large collection of soldiers gathering around the outside of the palace building, "Dammit Xena!" cursed the thief in a low whisper, "What in Tartarus have you done now?"

Bursting through the dome in a shower of glass splinters, Xena landed unsteadily on a sloping roof and, before she could recover her balance, began to slide with increasing rapidity towards the edge and the long drop to the ground. Her feet slipped from beneath her, sending her crashing onto her pinned arms, and she continued her slide, at a reduced rate, towards a very long, sheer drop that would in all likelihood kill her, as the Solarium was on the top floor of the very high building.

A brutal jerk on her neck brought her descent to a halt as one of the lead chains managed to wrap itself around some of the broken metal frame of the dome. She allowed herself the luxury of a grimace as she recognised the existence of pain in her abused neck and the ripped flesh on her elbows that had been torn as she had skidded down the sharp slope of the tiled roof.

- Gods damn it, Xena! - she mentally swore, - That was just another dumb action in a whole list of them that you've been doing lately. Must be old age making you soft in the head! That or you're so full of 'cabin fever' you've completely lost the ability to control your actions! - she chastised herself as she reviewed her rather precarious current situation. - For someone supposed to be smart, you do manage to get yourself into some real jams! Then of course there's those poor kids. But if I'm not here, there won't be any reason to hurt them. -

Sighing, she glanced down the length of her body to where her long legs hung out over the edge of the high drop. Her backside rested solidly on the brink of the roof and she was held, firmly enough for now, by the snagged chain attached to her collar. - Alright, O great Warrior Princess, first thing is to get safely back on the roof. Then we can think about getting rid of some of these restraints. -

Taking a deep breath, Xena slowly used her strained muscles to twitch herself painfully, away from the precipitous drop, slackening the choke hold around her throat as she did so. Turning carefully, using the beam to help balance her, she managed to get onto her knees and from there to her feet. She retraced the path of her slide until she reached the shattered dome and could unhook the chain that had saved her life.

Moving to the apex of the slanted roof, that the dome was set into, a quick glance around into the darkness of the night told her she was on the highest point of the building. Employing her excellent night vision, she picked out a path that would take her to a lower, flatter, extension of the palace where she could use a wall to help push the beam out from behind her arms and give her a little more flexibility of movement. Carefully she gathered up the long chains on her ankles and tucked them through her belt to stop them dragging. Then she curled up the chains hanging from her collar. She couldn't do anything about those suspended from the restraining spar, but they were not hampering her anyway.

Before hazarding the fraught trip across the sloping tiles, Xena listened carefully to the continuing commotion in the solarium below her. From what she could hear, the assembled guards were awaiting the return of some of their number with ladders so they could climb up and start the pursuit. The Warrior Princess was far from foolish enough to believe that the soldiers seeking to follow her through the dome would be the only ones that Flaccus would deploy on the rooftop, but they could be used to herd her into an ambush, because the centurion undoubtedly had a far superior knowledge of the structure's layout than she did.

Pushing such concerns aside, Xena set off intending to ensure that the Romans did not recapture her without a fight. She could smell freedom beckoning her and would be damned to Tartarus if she gave it up without a struggle .. a struggle her captors would not forget in a hurry!

Flaccus forced himself to draw air into his tortured lungs as he registered what was happening around him. Pushing himself up from his knees, he heard Pompeia scream for the guards, and felt the shower of broken glass as some fell into the room instead of being shot out into the night by the slave's propulsion through it, - Mighty Mars! - his mind screamed, - She's loose! -

As confused legionaries slid to a halt when they could find no sign of fighting or the woman they were supposed to keep secure, the centurion forced himself to bark out orders: he had to ensure that she couldn't get off the roof and that she was re-taken without too much fuss.

"You two!" he snapped, above the angry, frightened, chittering of Caesar's wife, "Go and get ladders and nets. I want thirty of you up on that roof and after her as soon as possible." As the two soldiers scampered off, he claimed the attention of a decurion, "Lucas, pick three good men and send one of them off to Centurion Titus to alert him and have the rest of the guard turned out. Send another to the Quaestor and have him turn out the palace guard to aid Titus in sealing off the building. If she gets off the roof anywhere, I want to know immediately. Have the third messenger sent down to the VIIth's barracks and tell them I want three cohorts up here on the double. Tell the messengers to use Caesar's authority if necessary," he ordered, but as the decurion turned to leave, Flaccus stopped him and added, "Oh and Lucas, make sure every fifth man is carrying a net. I want her back alive and as unharmed as possible."

As the decurion saluted and hurried off to carry out his orders, the senior centurion scowled blackly, - By the gods, you demon spawned harpy. I'm going to enjoy making you suffer for this .. eventually. - He looked up through the broken glass into the dark velvet night sky. "Enjoy it while you can, slave, because you're going back into your hole, where you belong, very soon."

Pandemonium had broken out in and around the palace, allowing Autolycus to safely scan the situation and make an educated estimation as to what exactly was happening. Making quite certain that he was safely hidden from unwanted detection, the King of Thieves followed the flickering light of torches as people within the building moved quickly from room to room on the upper floor.

- Well, Gods be damned! - he swore silently as his brain sorted the growing evidence and came up with the answer, - You're up on the roof! Xena, I don't know how you managed that, but I'd be no kind of friend if I didn't try to help you .. and if you're still wearing all those chains, you're going to find it a little bit difficult getting off there without my very specialised type of help. -

He ran along the neglected wall keeping tight to the shadows, making his way towards the building that held the guards barracks and the palace dungeon. Using his grapnel he shimmied up the thin line on to the roof of that building, and made his way cautiously across the top until he reached a gap between the barracks roof and that of the palace. It wasn't a full gap, of course, a smaller building existed between the two, obviously built as an after-thought, to enclose the drill-yard completely. However, as things currently stood, there was a twenty-five foot gap between the building Autolycus stood on, and the palace roof where he suspected Xena was .. and a thirty foot drop from his position down to the lower roof, while that of the palace was some twenty feet higher again.

"Never make things easy, do ya Xena," he whispered to himself as he worked out the relevant distances, whilst paying out the line on his grapnel.

The problem was that he didn't have enough line to reach the top of the palace from the lower roof. This meant he was going to have to throw his line across the gap and swing over to the other side hoping to brace himself against the impact and trust that the soldiers were making so much noise in the parade ground that they wouldn't hear any sounds that he made.

"Well, in for a dinar," muttered the King of Thieves as he swung the line across to the other roof and gave it a sharp tug to ensure the grapnel had set. He took a deep breath offered up a silent prayer before whispering, "Oh Xena, are you ever going to owe me big time for this! Just don't do anything crazy until I can get to you and help you out of this mess." Suppressing the desire to yodel out his trademark cry, Autolycus took a firm grip on the thin line and swung himself directly at the wall opposite holding his legs out before him to take the brunt of the impact, hopefully on his feet.

It worked .. well partially! He did slow the velocity of his movement, but not enough to prevent the rest of his body, and more especially his face, hitting the wall with regrettable force. "Ughhn!" he grunted, "I'm getting way to old for this heroic stuff!"

Once he'd caught his breath and assured himself that no one had noticed him, he shakily wiped away the trickle of blood that ran from his nose and cuffed away the stronger flow from a gash on his temple. Breathing deeply, he gathered his strength and painfully climbed the rope to the top where he stiffly pulled himself over the ledge onto the roof, "Don't let anyone ever tell you that hitting a wall doesn't hurt," he grumbled as he quickly retrieved his line and hook. "Now, my dear Warrior Princess, just where in Tartarus are you?"

Xena had managed to reach her objective in one piece, without any more unscheduled slides down the roof. The area was a fairly flat and gave her a chance to work on easing the spar from behind her elbows by using the wall to shove against. It was a cumbersome process and took a while, but with controlled patience she finally got it into a position where she could slip her right elbow around the end of the wood, freeing one arm except for the chain that still dangled from the end of the beam. Carefully she allowed the end of the heavy spay to drop to her feet, where she manoeuvred until she could slowly work the beam past her left elbow drawing the right hand chain through with it.

There was a loud clatter as the wood and metal fell onto the roof, but Xena couldn't repress the grim smile that leapt unbidden to her lips, - Well one down. Only the leg irons, belt and manacles, collar and leg chains to go! - she thought sarcastically, wondering where she was going to find anything like a useable tool to work on their removal.

To be honest, she wasn't even sure that her skill would be enough to pick those locks. She hadn't had a chance to practice against them, because Patroclese had found and removed her hard won toothpick, and then the shackles had been changed after she broke free of the original belt. She'd had plenty of time to study the locks on the fetters and she thought that they'd be something of a challenge even for Autolycus with all his bag of tricks.

Stiffening, she was suddenly on full alert as her hyper-sharp senses told her someone was sneaking towards her. Maintaining her calm, so as not to alert whoever it was to the knowledge that they'd been detected, Xena waited until the intruder was right behind her before turning with an impossibly fast grace and delivering a crunching head butt.

"Ow!" moaned a distinctly unhappy voice as the Warrior Princess' victim's legs buckled to lay him sprawling at her feet.

"Autolycus?" hissed Xena in contrite surprise, "What in Zeus' name are you doing here?" she demanded, as she knelt down to inspect the damage.

The King of Thieves slapped her probing hands away and hissed back petulantly, "I came to help you, and this is all the thanks I get!" he grimaced pointing at the fresh blood pouring from his bleeding nose.

"I'm sorry, Autolycus," placated the warrior grudgingly, "But you should know better than to sneak up on me like that." She raised her hands once more to continue her medical inspection, noting the gash on the side of his forehead and the scrapes and bruises elsewhere, "What happen to you?" she asked, surprise evident in her voice, "I sure as Hades didn't do all this damage." She could see nothing life threatening so she stood back up and carefully checked the surroundings for any sign of Flaccus and his men, "Well?" she insisted when the thief remained silent.

Autolycus rose to his feet, straightened his tunic and muttered something that to Xena sounded suspiciously like, "I had a fight with a wall."

"What?" she hissed incredulously.

"Well it was the only way to get over here .. Do you know the whole palace and grounds are teeming with soldiers and just before I got clobbered by you, I caught sight of a whole host more heading this way."

"Flaccus has brought in reinforcements .. elements from the VIIth Legion most likely. We've got to get out of here." she added, rather unnecessarily Autolycus thought.

"You're not going far in those," he told her pointing to the shackles, "Let me have a look. I should be able to get them off pretty quick."

Xena looked agitated, "I don't know .. I don't like staying too long in one place. It gives them more chance to locate us and close in."

"A moment or two won't hurt," insisted the thief, "Just let me look ..." He groaned in annoyance.

"What?" demanded Xena, becoming more edgy by the moment.

"Hang on," Autolycus responded and with deft skill, quickly removed the chains from her collar and those on her ankles used by the soldiers to control her. "There's a problem with the leg irons and your manacles," he muttered in annoyance. "They've got a really complicated locks and I need some of my more specialised tools. The only problem is Brutus snatched them when he captured me and Joxer. Without them, it's going to take time to spring the mechanisms."

Nodding thoughtfully as she curled up a length of the chain freed from her collar, Xena replied, "Thought as much."

"Hey what are you going to do with that?" the dark haired man asked as he eyed the metal in the warrior's hand.

"I'm improvising," she told him with a feral grin, "If Flaccus wants me he's going to have to bleed to get me. This," she said hefting the chain, "Will make a useful weapon for now." She glanced around, "We need to find another 'safe' spot so you can have a go at those locks. Did you see anywhere that looked promising on you're way here?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah," replied Autolycus, "Follow me."

The pair made their way with stealthy speed across the roof of the palace towards a spot, which the King of Thieves had noticed earlier, that would give them some cover and several escape bolt holes if necessary.