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I now stood in on the dias that held my half brother and his newlywed wife, Maria's joy making her glow as though a candle had been  set, lit, inside her.
As the sister to the Emperor, I was allowed on the dias, along with Thermantia, Serena,  and Eucheris.  Uncle Flavius stood at my brother's shoulder,  and his daughter's, the pose an omen of their futures. Married, before men, and before God, but only so because Stilicho the Half-Vandal stood at their shoulders and held the nipping jackals of the court at bay.  The only sign of his emotions were visible when his eyes, ever watchful, scanned his daughters and his wife and son.  Joy, at Maria's own apparent joy, at at Thermantia's wholehearted happiness for her sister.
Cold, bleak fury at his wife and son.
His wife, and her son, I thought, looking on from my place beside them. Eucheris was no son of the Vandal, blood be damned. His mother's son fully, down to the bitter hate he held for me as well. I raged at that reminder of his claim to me, and the scene from Stilicho's bibliotheca with Serena's legisperitus before the wedding. 
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She had hired him to arrange the betrothal contracts for Maria, and Honorius, and Eucheris and myself. Her reasons had been simple. She wanted Maria bound to her by law as well as blood, and she wanted me to never set foot outside the house she lived in, where ever she lived. And she had done it. She had kept her threat to Uncle Flavius, and made Maria bound to her as her virgin daughter,  no matter who she wed. She was clever, and her legisperitus had been even more cagey than she.
If Maria was found to have broken her contract by being bedded, in any circumstance, then her wedding to Honorius would be voided, and Maria returned to her the day of the annulment. If Maria married Honorius,  then I would wed Eucheris two years later, if Honorius held Maria to the terms of the  their contract. If not, Eucheris would marry me the day Maria's marriage was annuled,  and if, in two years time, no breach of terms had occurred, Maria could no longer be left in the Empress quarters without a constant guardianship of highly born women, to witness that the terms of marriage not be breached. During my lifetime, I could not see Maria or Thermantia without Serena or Eucheris present.
If any of these clauses were breached, they consequences would immediately ensue.
Stilicho had risen, very, very slowly.  It seemed a full day had passed before he had stood fully erect before Serena and her lawyer.  Her eyes, glittering with glee and satisfaction,  slitted to pale blue  half-circles of cruelty as she looked up into his face.  And his face. Oh, God. His face had been so terrible to look upon. His hands rose, and he picked from the table before him the contracts laid out there. Without speaking,  he motioned his personal guards to take the legisperitus. They did, and I heard the chink of chains as they bound him, the room silent except for the worm's cries of injustice and the chains.
When they had dragged him away,  Uncle Flavius had looked at Serena and Eucheris, and finally,  his terrible face spoke. " You have cost us our lives, by your own hand, and your conniving,  wicked ways. You have twisted my son to hate in your likeness, and putrify his heart as your own. He is no child of mine, and neither are you my wife. You will stand beside me, and he beside you, where, and when I say, woman. No longer will you leave this house but for that, either one. Your hatred has scoured away your sense. You will not speak to me. Your guards will inform me of your every movement,  and will be instructed to kill should either of you defy me. You will speak to no one but them, and to the world , you will be as one dead. Any and all who ask for you will be turned back at my door, and never again allowed in. My children,  and my neice will move with me, and you will never again look upon my children in private again. Go, woman, and take your worm of a son with you."
And the remaining guard bound them, and the sound of Serena's screaming echoed inside my ears long after the guards returned. 
Uncle Flavius never again spoke their names, or the words wife, and son, again. 
He had spoken to me, to tell Maria and Thermantia we were leaving this house, and to tell them what had happened,  but he had me swear to not tell them the terms of the contracts before the wedding. I have never been so happy to swear to silence again, nor have I regetted and oath less.  I had also sworn, bent on my knee before the man I named Uncle for actions, not for blood, that I would find a way to avenge him on his faithless wife and worthless son. I swore to return the honor of Stilicho the Half-Vandal to him again, girl or no, whether he died, or God himself tried to stop me. I would never forget the emptiness of my uncle's face as he put away from himself his only son. I still can see that face, cold, and drawn and lines that spoke of his life ageing it beyond his years as it pronounced those  last seven words.