‘You are no father to me!’

‘How can you say that Patricius?’

‘Very easily, “Father”’.

Germanus watched while his son bowed in mock obeisance. The boy he had said goodbye to less than a year before was now a man: taller, thinner, more confident, and, as he looked into Patricius’s eyes, a good deal angrier than ever before. I really missed you! I believed that you were dead! I did not think those ransom notes were real! I thought – I don’t know what I thought! And now here you are. Still alive! My son – my one true son!  You really are!

‘Where were you when my mother was being raped and murdered at the villa? Where where you when I was carried off, imprisoned, starved, and tortured? What did...

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