When he'd accepted the job as Princess Emilia's bodyguard, Lesley had been certain to keep a certain amount of free time to himself. Time to visit his mother, to continue to teach his best students, to keep up with his own training. As the tensions in the city had continued to ratchet up, however, his schedule had been thrown into disarray, and he'd found himself scrambling for an hour here or half a day there; after the harvest festival had turned into a riot, in particular, it had been impossible to take his usual day, since several of the guards had been injured badly enough to mess up the rotation. A bunch of unarmed peasants weren't a lethal risk to the well-trained and well-equipped soldiers, but Les suspected a few of those on the commoners' side were off-duty or retired Athenian Guard (not that he blamed them, their families were just as badly-off as anyone else in the city) and whether or no, a thrown rock to the eye was going to make a man incapable of fighting effectively regardless of whether it was from perfect aim or sheer accident.

At any rate, the effect was that this week, Lesley didn't have a full day to wander down to the Arcus, teach, train, bathe, and then spend a night in his mother's home before returning to the palati at dawn, and if he wanted to do anything with anyone else in particular, he had to negotiate their schedule too, so he made the much shorter walk to the mansion that had been his home for ten years seemingly a lifetime ago. Irreverently, he considered simply slipping around to the back alley, and jumping the wall to the huge yard near the stable, where he and Pavlos had once practice their swordplay under the sharp eyes of their teacher and occasionally Lord Panos. Dumb idea, though; the current staff wouldn't recognize him as someone who was supposed to be there, and would probably assume he was some irate commoner who still hadn't given up on causing yet more trouble. Which.... wasn't far off, other than the irate part. He was certain that Pavlos wouldn't be amused, though, given that there had been angry rioters determined to cause property damage in the inner circle at least once already this summer.

The servant at the gate narrowed his eyes at the broad-shouldered man in his sturdy, practical tunic, but it was always possible that such a person was some other noble's slave with a message, so he didn't immediately tell him to fuck off.

Lesley put on his best expressionless guardsman's face. "Please tell Lord Pavlos that Lesley of Lands Afar has arrived," he instructed, and folded his hands behind his back patiently. He still didn't particularly like formality - and it still wasn't a sign of respect, coming from him - but sometimes it got the job done. And sometimes it confused the fuck out of some poor house-slave. Lesley's expression held none of his laughter and a good deal of I-don't-have-to-explain-myself-to-you as the man tried to figure out what the appropriate reaction was, and eventually ran off to do as he was told. Lesley strolled in through the gates after him, and glanced around on the way up to the house. Nothing had changed much, at least at first glance. The Marikas were traditionalists; he was certain they would no more move a hedge or repaint the elegant column capitals a different color than they would desecrate an ancestor's grave. Lesley wasn't sure whether it was boring, reassuringly constant, or slightly creepy in it's timelessness.