Iulia couldn't help but feel that the flogging was her fault. She watched the proceedings with both hands clapped over her mouth.
The instant the whipping was done, Aeli turned to go back to the palace.
"No, Aeliana. You stay here and you help me save this man. Because gods damn it, but it's our fault that he's here to start with, and we've got to try to help him." Iulia spoke in Greek, spacing her words apart slightly so that Aeli could catch on.
She sighed, pouted very prettily. "Why can't I free the man and you distract the guards?"
Iulia rolled her eyes, slid a dagger from the sleeve of her dress. "You don't have a knife, now do you?"
Aeli's eyes went huge at the sight of the knife. "Fine, I'll distract the guards." Aeli said in her hesitant Greek. "But know that Father will disown you for this, if not cast you out of Rome entirely. This time tomorrow it'll be your corpse hanging up there." Still, she went to do what her little sister asked.
Iulia watched as she went up to the guards around the stocks, near hysteria, about a murder down the street. [i]You idiot, they'll know it's a sham! No one's ever murdered anyone on the Via Aurelia![/i] But eager to please their fair princess, several of the guards went to check it out and the remainder converged to console her.  She seized the moment, sprinted up behind the flogging post, severed the rawhide cords holding Aiden in place. He'd probably hit the cobbles hard, but it was better have bruised ribs than be left up there in agony all night.
In Celtic, she whispered, "Come on, we've got to hurry. They'll see something is wrong in a moment or two."