“How long will you be gone?” The woman asked, worry beneath her breath.

  The man sat in silence on the edge of the bed they shared hours ago, knowing that she waited in agony for his reply. The room’s temperature did not only rise from the heat of the outdoors but also from the tension between the pair - a tension that has not been released for quite some time. The man tilted his head, his attention to the big black hound that pawed at his knee prompting the man to smile. To be sure the dog at his feet gave him more joy than his family did for the duration he had spent with them. He had seen things, wonderful and terrible things in the campaigns he took part in, a share of the spoils did not hurt either. Giving that up to raise a family in a bustling city without the assurance of food to put on the table and clothes on their backs would be a disservice to the family they started.

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  “When he says so,” he replied, breaking the silence between them.

  He had no need to say his name for they both knew it, Gaius Julius Caesar. She walked over to him; arms crossed before her and spoke.

  “Do you have to, meus amor?” she asked in a faint voice.

  He turned to her with his brows arched downwards, and his jaw clenched. She inched closer to touch him and he relaxed. Now he looked at her with pensive eyes, as though he knew it would take years before he could see here again. His uniform made it difficult to move but he wrapped her in his arms, knowing she could only feel the cold, dead surface of his armor. They remained that way for a long time, knowing that he would have to leave soon. This time, it was the hound that tilted its head and whined.

  “Forgive me,” he said, drawing himself away from her. “I’ll come back to you, I swear it.”

  She began to cry in near-silence with the exception of her sobs, he knew she was strong, but there was no one else to tell him how much he had wronged her by leaving.

  “Don't swear,” her voice shook. "Promise me."

  “I promise, mea amor.”