Tenth Entry - Chained - A.D. 180

Maximus' dark eyebrows raised in question.
"Just do it," I snapped as I walked towards him.
He looked puzzled but not alarmed. Not in the least. Dutifully, Maximus extended his arms, hands together, palms down. When I was close enough, I pulled the lock from where I'd been hiding it behind my back and tried to snap his wrists together, fumbling in my haste. Maximus saw what I was trying to do and reflectively started to pull his hands away. But he mastered his emotions -whatever they were- and forced himself to relax, until I managed to shut the lock up.

He remained there, holding his extended hands so that I could see what I'd accomplished, as if he wanted to reassure me. Perhaps he thought I'd become suddenly afraid of him, of the stranger he professed to have become in the years passed since we'd been together in Moesia. Then, he raised his eyebrows in question again, a gesture so subtle and regal that it made my heart jump. It never failed to amaze me how majestic he could be and act despite his low origins. Even enslaved and manacled, he looked regal and infinitely powerful and dignified. Certain things never change. And Maximus was still Maximus, no matter whatever he preferred to believe.

I steeled myself against my own feelings and fixed my eyes on his locked wrists -wrists I'd locked myself- suddenly unable to explain why or how I'd done it or what I was trying to achieve by restraining the proud and strong man standing in front of me. The man I loved with an intensity close to obsession. The man I'd been ready to send away forever yet who refused escape and freedom in the name of revenge. The man I'd been ready to lose to his wife... yet whom I refused to lose to vengeance and
death.

Maximus studied me curiously. He didn't seem angry. Just intrigued by the weird behaviour of the woman he'd rescued from slavery and whoring six years before and who had just locked his manacled wrists. The woman he'd rescued from slavery only
to throw her into a worst kind of enslavement for unrequited love chains us more securely than any iron link...
I briefly glanced at Maximus' face before going back to the table where I'd scooped the lock and returning with the chains. When he saw them, his expression changed from one of curiosity to another of irritation. He dropped his hands and looked
ready to turn away from me.
"Give me your hands," I ordered in the best commanding voice I could master yet sounding anything but sure of myself even to my own ears.
Maximus studied my face but I avoided his eyes.
"Julia... enough," he started, sounding like a father who's decided his child had suddenly become unreasonable and time has come to put a stop to games.
I swallowed hard. I was no child. I was in charge.
"Give me your hands."
He tried to tease me. He shouldn't have.
"Is that an order? Is Domina ordering the slave to allow himself to be chained?"
I bit my lower lip but refused to reply, just hold my precarious ground.
Maximus sighed in mock resignation and raised his hands again, watching me fumble with the chains. Still he didn't look angry. Just amused. That made it worst. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the cats stir in their places, disdainfully glaring at the lowly humans who'd awoke them with their ridiculous and undignified behaviour.

The chains now successfully through the rings of his iron wristbands, I stood in confusion, the ends dangling from my hands, the links cold and heavy... and seemingly useless. I was free. He was a slave. I'd locked his wrists. I'd attached the chains to his wristbands. I was in charge as he wasn't... then why was I the one who felt helpless and not him?
"You might want to chain me to that column over there, but the chains might damage the marble a bit," he suggested lightly. It was obvious that, despite his early irritation, he didn't take me or what I was doing seriously. That was a mistake. A serious one. A mistake my captains and agents and foremen and clients had learned to avoid. A mistake which had cost Avidius Cassius his own life. Didn't Maximus know it? Didn't he know me better?

Fueled by the memory of what had transpired six years ago in a military tent in Moesia, the memory of the moment I'd briefly snatched command from him and taken my life in my hands for the very first time, my confusion changed to conviction.
Grabbing him by his arms, I brusquely turned him and shoved him backwards non too gently, until his back met the cold marble of the column on the opposite side of the room from the one he'd suggested. No chance I was going to follow his amused
suggestion. Instead, I was going to show him who was in charge. He offered no resistance and, once at the column, I wrapped the long links around it then pulled them back to his front, forcing his elbows to bend and his hands to his waist. I didn't fumble and for a moment it was easy to believe that I was in charge ... but my confusion returned when I realized that I was holding the ends of the chains yet I had nothing to lock them.

"You're not very good at this, are you? You clearly are not accustomed to
restraining difficult slaves," said Maximus, humor evident in his voice. He obviously thought that it was some kind of childish joke he should endure good naturally, indulging the woman he'd rescued from slavery and whoring. Had it been like this when he'd promised me he'll teach me how to swim only to leave me while I slept my misery away and dreamed about his child? Didn't it cross his mind that I was ready to do whatever it took to have my way? That having my way had been my daily life for
the last years?

I glanced at the table where I'd left the key to the lock and heard him chuckle. It was too far to reach. Furious, inwardly cursing my lack of wits, I flung down the chains, viciously snatched the key, then swung around to face Maximus, fully expecting him to have removed the restraints and ready to throw myself on him if he'd done it... He hadn't moved. Yet, his lack of resistance wasn't in the least reassuring. It felt too much like mockery.
I picked up the chains again and, using all my strength, pulled them as tight as I could. Maximus grunted in surprise and I felt a grim satisfaction as I undid the lock, shoved the shaft through the chain links then snapped it shut again. Then, I stood back and looked at him, my eyes wide and my fingers pressed against my mouth.
I'd chained a man.
I'd chained a slave.
I'd chained Maximus.
He returned what must have been my shocked gaze with a level look, refusing to give up control even if he was back in chains.
Even if the woman he'd taken for granted hadn't behaved in the least in the way he'd come to expect.
"Is this what you want?", he asked and the slight tone of sarcasm in his voice brusquely brought me back to reality and the urgency of the situation.
"What I want is you on board that ship," I said.
"Julia..."
"I'll have sailors carry you there and lock you in the hold," I said, refusing to acknowledge the edge of desperation in my own
voice.
"What if the captain doesn't allow it?" he asked in his most reasonable voice.
"He will. I own the ship and he is in my employ, Maximus. In fact, I own an
entire fleet of ships," I said as I tossed my hair back with an impatient movement of my head. In the years that had passed since my marriage I'd grown unused to the feeling of my own mane lose over my shoulders or falling on my face. While a slave and a whore, I'd used to hide behind my waist long hair, letting it fall like a red-gold curtain over my face to veil the looks of hate or sadness, refusing to give those who used my body at their whim and for their selfish pleasures the final victory of seeing what was in my heart and soul. But I was not that Julia -"the best that I ever breed"- anymore. I didn't hide. I needn't hide. It was better to take me seriously... and not to take me for granted.

Maximus nodded and looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. His face was a study in admiration. He hadn't taken me seriously. He'd taken me for granted. Now, he was starting to understand both mistakes.
"I'm impressed," he said. "You're certainly not the same woman I knew... how many years ago?"
His casual mention of the past hurt. It hurt badly.
I refused to allow pain to deter me from my course.
"I haven't changed so much, Maximus, and neither have you. Our circumstances are different but we are the same people we
were then."
"Julia, if I'm not here when Proximo returns he will kill a man who saved my
life. I can't allow that to happen. Juba mustn't die for my freedom."

No matter how badly I tried to avoid it, my eyes glazed with scalding tears at the mention of the cruelty of the world that had come to be his. A world in which human life had even less value than it usually has.
"Maybe he won't... maybe Proximo didn't mean it," I said struggling to keep my voice firm and failing.
"Proximo can't allow a slave to escape without retribution. The other gladiator owners would demand severe punishment in order to show their slaves that such a thing is not tolerated. I wouldn't be surprised if they demanded that Proximo execute all of his gladiators as punishment for his carelessness with me. I couldn't live knowing that I had caused the deaths of men I consider to be my friends. Besides, there isn't an inch of this empire that Commodus wouldn't search until he found me. What does it matter if I die in a few weeks or a few months?"

What did it matter? How could he ask me what did it matter? Six years before, I'd risked my life to protect him and help him save his emperor's throne. Six years before I'd been ready to die for him... I still was. Not so long ago, at my seat in the second
tier of the Colosseum, I'd begged to the gods I pointedly ignored out of lack of faith and personal resentment to take my life but to allow him to live... How dare he ask me what did it matter if he died or not?

"I want to die! I have wanted to die for as long as I can remember but I didn't know it! Not until tonight! I want to die, General Maximus! What is it to you?"

Six years before, I'd asked him the same question. He'd come into my life and it'd shattered in the blink of an eye. He'd come into my life and I'd suddenly discovered what it was to be alive. Really, painfully alive. I'd learned what it was to feel warm and safe and cared for and what it was to need and hunger and being satiated. And I'd also discovered that, having learned all of these, I couldn't go on living like I'd lived since I could remember. I couldn't go on like that for another day and I'd tried to put
an end to slavery and whoring and hungering and needing. But fate had prevented it and, when Maximus discovered I'd tried to slice my wrists, he'd been furious.

"What is it to me? You dare ask me what is it to me if you live or die?"

But I'd been furious too and far beyond fear as shortly before, lying on a couch and begging for his body, I'd been far beyond shame. I'd defied him, mocked his concern and Maximus had shook me roughly, bruising my forearms, his deep voice turning
into a low, menacing growl.

"Do you know how many people I have seen die? Do you know how many men and boys I have seen pleading to the gods and the surgeons not to let them die? Do you know how many people I have killed or sent to their death? Do you know what all this blood and death does to a man's soul?"

He'd brusquely stopped but it'd been already too late and the bewildered look in his eyes had told me he'd said too much, voiced something buried in the depths of his soul, something that tormented him. Something he'd never before confessed to
anyone... not even to himself. There had been a long silence between us, then Maximus had dipped his head and his mouth had crushed mine in a heavy, punishing kiss. He'd kissed me with such a fierce intensity that he'd hurt my lips and the coppery taste of blood had filled my mouth...

And now, he wanted to die.

"All for revenge? You live for revenge? You stay for revenge?" I demanded, an odd question for a woman who'd craved for revenge herself. Who still craved for it. Who still had much to avenge despite wealth and power and freedom.
Maximus dropped his eyes for the first time since we'd met.
"There's more to it than that... much more," he said quietly.
"Then explain it to me because I don't understand."
He avoided looking at me. Instead, he looked at a table where our goodbye dinner had been set out.
"You promised me food, wine and comfort. Instead, I find myself chained
again."
He spoke in a light tone even if now it sounded forced. He was trying to distract me, to talk me away from my plans to free him and help him escape Rome, like a father trying to talk an upset child out of plans gone wrong due to bad weather.

Resting against the column, he looked relaxed and calm but I knew better. No matter how hard he refused to acknowledge it, not even his iron control was enough to hide from me his inner turmoil. He professed he wanted to die but there had been no
death wish in his eyes when he'd looked at me for the first time under the light of the oil lamps. There had been no death wish his embrace when he'd hugged me tightly against his warm body...
I took in his ruggedly handsome face, his stunning greenish-blue eyes, his long, elegant nose, his sweet, beautifully sculpted mouth, his firm chin, his broad chest wrapped in black leather strips and buckles, his heavily muscled and bronzed arms and legs... and burst into tears.
"You deserve it. You deserve to be chained," I sobbed knowing I was being unreasonable, even absurd... and not minding it. Not minding it at all.
Maximus made a move towards me but was stopped short by the chains.
"Julia?"
There was concern in his voice and his eyes but it was too late. I was beyond concern. I was beyond reason. I was angry. Bitterly angry. Angry with life and fate and the unfairness of both. Angry with Maximus who wanted to die when I was giving
him back his life and his freedom... and the chance to love and be loved again. And angry with myself for not having learned not to want and not to need what I couldn't have and instead going on wanting and needing and hurting.
"How many years has it been, Maximus? Is that what you just asked? Well, I
can tell you exactly how many years it's been right down to the day and hour
since I saw you in your general's uniform saying goodbye to me... and
dismissing me from your life!"
The cats jumped at the venom in my voice. Now completely awoken they stared at me with round eyes. Nigra, always the shy one, darted behind a couch while Rubia cautiously approached me, her green eyes curious but wary. Phoenion looked at me,
then at Maximus, then at me again and decided we were not worth the trouble. He curled again and closed his golden eyes.

Maximus remained silent.
I went on.
I couldn't have stopped myself even if my life had depended on it. I didn't want to stop. I was too angry and disappointed and frustrated. Too embittered.
Why couldn't I get him out of my heart? Why couldn't I hate him for all the pain he'd inflicted me with his rejection, for giving me a glimpse of what I could have had had our circumstances being different, then leaving me aside? Why couldn't I hate him
even now, when he was rejecting me again?

"You have obsessed me... every hour of every day for the last six years I
have thought of you and wondered where you were and what you were doing and if you were well. I imagined you in the arms of your wife and I wept knowing that I could never have you."
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I didn't bother swiping them.
Maximus stared fixedly at the carpet.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
Sorry? He was sorry? Were rejection and mockery not enough that he had to add pity to them? Six years before, when a young tribune named Martius had called me "the whore" in his presence, the burning intensity of his gaze had sent shivers down
my spine. His had been the tormented gaze of a man dealing with dangerous circumstances but also with his own demons for his dazzling blue eyes had burned with bitter anger and concern, guilt and sorrow, blazing fury and tenderness... and pity. Six years before, I'd silently pleaded that he didn't judge me for being what I was. That he didn't despise me for being a whore. But most of all I'd pleaded that he didn't pity me... But I was no more that woman. I was no more neither "the best that I ever bred" nor "the whore". I didn't plead. I needn't plead. I ordered. I decided. And I had my way.
Straightening my back, I raised my chin, my voice firmer and colder despite the scalding tears running down my cheeks.

"Don't be sorry, Maximus. Don't you see? So many times my love for you is
the only reason I wanted to live. I've ached with love for you, Maximus...
on the first day I ever saw you... and every day since."
Maximus looked at the ceiling and blinked, the muscles of his tanned throat
contracting as he swallowed heavily. He closed his eyes and leaned his head
against the gold-veined marble of the column, undergoing his own, personal Hades and that Hades had nothing to do with demise and slavery or even his family's murder. It was about him and me and what had happened in a curtained alcove during
an raucous party. About him and me and what had happened in a bath tub full of scented warm water and rose petals as death closed on us. About him and me and what had happened in a military tent between a half naked, drugged slave and a
handsome Roman general. He was revisiting dark corners in his heart and soul he'd never looked at in years. Dark corners he'd probably avoided in the same way he'd avoided me in the aftermath of Cassius' death...
There was no way he'd have ignored that I loved him. No way he'd have convinced himself that my love for him was but the girlish infatuation of a young slave with her handsome saviour. He knew better... even if he tried not to acknowledge it. Yet,
hearing me say it in loud voice had added heavily to his own misery. It should have been my turn to pity him but I was so angry, so bitterly angry that my outburst at the beach that stormy afternoon seemed but a childish tantrum. Not even the sight of his
own pain was enough to appease my agonized fury.
"But, you never once thought of me again, did you, Maximus? You were too busy with your family and saving the empire to ever think of the slave-girl whore again."
"That's not true," Maximus whispered, his eyes still closed.
I went to him and grasped his forearms, digging my nails in his flesh, my voice demanding and low with urgency.
"Then why didn't you answer my letter?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I vaguely noticed some movement by the door but didn't pay attention, focussed as I was on Maximus, on his every gesture and movement and word.
"Letter?" Maximus looked at me, his handsome, bearded face so close to mine, his tone perplexed. In my mind I saw the pious look in Aelius Trebutius Flaccus' face every time he'd brought up the subject of the letter he'd sent on my behalf to Vindobona and the subtle mockery in his courteous voice when he'd explained once more there had been no answer to it. The humiliation I'd refused to acknowledge time and again suddenly washed all over me and I whirled away to hide my burning face from Maximus, refusing to offer him the sight of my deepest misery... hiding behind my red-gold hair for the first time since I'd became free. For a moment, there was no other sound in the room that my sobbing breath. Then, struggling for control, I faced
him again, my hands on my hips and my head cocked in accusation, very much like the bitchy wife in the crude Roman farce yet unable to stop myself.
"I was told that you received the letter. Don't try to tell me that you didn't."
"Yes, I received it. I..."
"But you didn't answer it!"
"Julia," he pleaded. "It came to me when I was at Castra Regina. It arrived just hours before the camp came under attack by Barbarian forces. I read it, Julia, and I even started to reply, but... I didn't have time. Julia... I was at war. My own fortress was attacked days later and I lost hundreds of men. I was badly injured..."

I was getting angrier and angrier. My flushed face burned, not out of humiliation but out of red hot rage. Defiantly, I crossed my arms.
"You could have replied later."
"The letter got lost. It must have got rolled up in my tent because I
couldn't find it later."
"How did not finding my letter stop you from replying?" I slashed him mercilessly. Maximus licked his dry lips, a man at a loss, trying to reason with someone who's beyond reasoning, trying to keep himself under control even when everything around him had gone out of control. Why couldn't he be just a simple, lowly human being? Why did he always have to be above simple mortals, no matter how low his circumstances?

"I couldn't remember your last name or where you lived. I had my servant search for it but he couldn't find it either. Do you know who did, Julia? Do you know who did eventually find it?"
I set my lips in a stubborn line. His tone left no doubt about who had found it. Yet I wanted to hear him say it. I wanted the bitter satisfaction of hearing him say that his farmer wife had known that I existed... and that her husband had not been
completely immune to another woman. I wanted the bitter satisfaction of knowing that the woman who'd had Maximus' heart and body and faithfulness, the woman who'd prevented him from being mine even for a night, the faceless woman who still
claimed him from the After Life had hurt at least once as badly as I did and for the same reason I'd hurt every day and every night of the last six years.
"My wife, that's who. She was with me at Vindobona. I had to explain to her
who you were and why I got a letter -- that Olivia was convinced was a love
letter -- from a woman I had never mentioned to her."
That was it. He had said it. Yet it was not enough. Not in the least.
"You could have made inquiries and found out where I was if you had really wanted to."

"I WAS AT WAR! I WAS A GENERAL RESPONSIBLE FOR AN ARMY!"

Maximus exploded in roaring anger and twisted against his bonds, the iron links rattling and clicking. It happened so suddenly that I was nearly knocked off my feet, his burning rage so intense that it felt like a physical blow. Startled, I lurched back a step and pressed a hand on my racing heart. Rubia darted beneath a couch and Phoenion run towards the terrace. I'd never heard him raise his booming voice in anger. Not even when he'd taken control of Cassius' legion and had his officers arrested. His rage drove through me like a lightening bolt and I saw in his eyes the murderous blue-green light his enemies saw just before dying. I extended my trembling hands trying to placate him but not daring to touch him, as his fury rolled and thundered like a violent sea storm.

"I was fighting to save Roman towns, Roman citizens, Roman soldiers! I was
fighting to preserve the empire! But I lost, Julia, I lost everything! My family, my emperor, my army... my freedom! And during that time you've been worried about some damned letter!" Maximus' chest heaved and his face was flushed. He dropped his head and shook it sadly. "And you've just been worried about some damned letter," he repeated, sounding totally drained.
His body slumped against the column. He remained like this for a moment, then suddenly raised his head and laughed bitterly.
"What were you doing tonight, Julia... punishing me for that letter? Is that why I was tormented by your friend, Apollinarius, then left to hang in those chains for hours thinking that I was about to be raped...your friend's sex slave for a week? Just like
you used to be?" Maximus let his head drop back again against the column. "Is that why you personally chained me up again, to make it clear that our positions our now reversed?"
"No," I mouthed, but no sound came out from my tight throat.
"So have you had enough revenge yet, Julia, for that unanswered letter, for
your life of slavery? Have you punished me enough yet?"
He laughed harshly, an unpleasant sound that sent shivers down my spine.
"And you accuse me of living for revenge."

On shaky limbs, I walked backwards and sank into a chair. I needn't look at myself in the mirror to know that all blood had drained from my face. The heavy silence was only interrupted by Maximus' uneven breath. A tawny cat popped it's head from
the bedroom's door, seemed to consider there was no danger and silently came into the sitting room. Leaenea, Phoenion's daughter and the only one of Rubia's kittens which took after the proud Abyssinian. She jumped into my lap looking for some
attention but I was too deeply immersed in my own misery to even raise a hand and mechanically caress her. Leaenea had inherited not only her father's tawny coloring but also his haughtiness and soon jumped off and strutted away indignantly from the pathetic woman who didn't value her regal company.

From his place at the column, Maximus watched the offended cat, her tail high and twitching, seemingly glad for the distraction in the aftermath of mutual rage. I watched him watching Leaenea as I miserably pondered his angry, bitter words. Was he right? Was that what I'd really done to him when I'd left him chained and scared and alone for hours on end, believing he was to be used like a whore as I'd been mercilessly used? Did it matter that I'd never intended to have the charade gone for so long? Did it matter that I'd never intended to have him believe he'd been rented for stud service and by a man? Had I secretly agreed with Proximo about teaching "the haughty Spaniard" the lesson he so badly needed? Had I tried to punish him for not responding to my letter? To humble him for being born free and proud and a man while I'd been born helpless, a woman and a slave? Had I tried to punish him for not loving me? Had I been all the time after that final revenge no money could buy?

Leaenea gracefully leaped onto the table where the would be goodbye dinner was laid out and carefully started picking her way to the shrimp. His eyes still fixed on the cat, Maximus reflexively licked his lips. None of us said nothing. Instead, we remained like that for a long time, across the room from each other yet a world apart.
Silent and remote, both hurting beyond words. Both having hurt the other beyond words. Both exhausted. Defeated. Enslaved. And both so desperately alone.

Finally, I forced my watery limbs to move. I stood up, picked the key and
approached Maximus, giving him time as I'd done at the atrium. Time to yell at me or to reject me or both. He didn't. Without a word I unlocked the chains, carefully avoiding to touch him yet unable to shut off the sight of the soft hair which dusted his
forearms, the warmth of his heavily muscled body wrapped in black leather, his musky, male scent which filled my nostrils, enticing me to come closer, to grab his powerful shoulders, press my body against him and crush his mouth in a ravishing kiss...
Forcing my hands not to tremble, I bit my lower lip as I worked the lock and let the chains drop. I could feel his gaze fixed on my hands as he carefully avoided looking at my face.
"I'm tired, Maximus, and it's almost dawn." I said in a toneless voice and addressing his chest. Suddenly I felt exhausted, as exhausted as I'd never felt. "I need some sleep and I'm sure you do too. I... I hadn't really prepared a room for you because I thought you'd be on board ship by now. But, there's a second bedroom in there...," I gestured to the infant's bedroom's door with my head, "and it is quite dark because it has no window. You'll be able to sleep late."
Maximus moved away from the column and stood close to me while he worked the chains free. So close that I could feel his body's warmth and sniff his male scent. So close that I'd only need to take a step to be back in his arms...
"It's a bit feminine, I'm afraid," I babbled, his warmth and scent so disturbing that I knew if I didn't get out from the room, I'd made a mistake even more serious than all the mistakes I'd already made. "No man has ever shared this apartment with me..."
I stopped but it was too late.
"Your husband?" asked Maximus softly as he removed the chains from his wrist cuffs. I could feel him looking for my face, for my eyes, trying to read whatever truth was there to be read. I'd showed him my bare, bleeding, hurting heart. I refused to show him my bare, bleeding, hurting soul. Bowing my head I let my hair fell on it, hiding behind the red-gold curtain. Hiding as I haven't hid since I'd became free... Hiding for the second time that night. What did it matter to him if after a lifetime of whoring I now lived the life of a Vestal Virgin? He only wanted revenge. And death.
"In name only. We never were intimate. When I was released from slavery I
vowed that I would never share my body with a man again unless I loved him," I said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. "I cared for my husband but I didn't love him. So... I've lived here alone."
For a brief, fleeting moment Maximus seemed on the brink of touching me, of taking me in his arms... and for the first time since I'd met him, I feared he'd touch me or embraced me. For if he took me in his arms, if offered me comfort and warmth and
safety only to leave me behind again, not even death would be enough to put an end to pain.
Mercifully, Maximus didn't move.
I took a deep breath and went on talking, still avoiding his eyes.
"I'll have Apollinarius find some way to get those iron cuffs off you later,
and he'll find you some proper clothes and sandals. If you're going to remain here a week you may as well be comfortable. You can bathe when you wake up."

He nodded. Without a word, I walked towards my bedroom and gently shut the door without looking back at him. Then, I rested my back against it and looked around.
Hours before, when I'd left the safety of my sanctuary, I'd known that whatever happened between that moment and my return, nothing would ever be the same. And it wasn't. I'd also known that, after seeing Maximus for one last time, I'd be dead as a woman if not as a human being and without regard of how long I'd go on living... And there I was, back in my sanctuary and feeling dead as I'd known I'd feel... yet nothing had gone as I'd planned. I'd failed to save him and only succeeded in hurting both of us. Maximus was here yet I couldn't have him. I'd been ready to lose him to his wife and honor but I was damned to lose him to death. Why was it that fate always mocked me? That no matter how much I'd been ready to surrender so much more was demanded from me?

Sliding down the door's length, I sat on the cold, marble floor, hugged my knees and burst into tears. I wept helplessly, like a child, with big, gulping sobs that threatened to choke me. Had it been like this for the Lady Lucilla? Had it been like this for her
when, at eighteen, she'd been denied Maximus? Had she wept as helplessly as I wept now when she'd been forced away from him and married to her father's adoptive brother and co-emperor, Lucius Verus? Had she laid on her marriage bed like a
broken doll while her husband took her and dreamed about Maximus as I'd dreamed about him in mine, even if I'd been spared an intimacy I didn't want? Had it been like this for the widowed imperial daughter when she'd been offered in marriage to
Maximus and rejected by him? Had she raged as I did? Had she cursed his wife and him and fate and herself as I did? Had she craved for revenge? Had she felt a bitter satisfaction when she'd seen him reduced to fighting for the amusement of the mob?
Suddenly I hoped Lucilla was there so I'd be able to ask her...

After what seemed a long time, I forced myself on my feet, swiping my nose and my eyes with the back of my hand, so very much the gesture of the little, scared girl growing up at Cassius' villa that if I hadn't been so exhausted, so drained, I'd have
cursed myself again. Stumbling, I went to my dressing table, took off my jewels and carefully put them on the corresponding, velvet-covered tray.
Then, I took off my lavish, ivory silk tunic and with the same maniac tidiness, put it on the reading couch, the sandals beneath it. From one of my chests I took a cream colored, silk robe and put it on before going back to the table, picking up a brush and
using it on my waist long hair. Tears still running down my cheeks, I brushed it with single-minded concentration while I looked at my own reflection in the polished mirror. It showed me a pale stranger with huge, haunted blue eyes and lips tightly pressed to prevent them from trembling or, perhaps, from letting out a wounded animal's howl...

A loud meow at my back startled me so badly that I nearly let the brush fall. A demanding meow thst could only be Phoenion's. The Abyssinian cat sat on the carpet having come into my bedroom through my private terrace and looked at me
with a mix of curiosity and impatience, as if demanding an explanation for the undignified, noisy performance at the sitting room. Smiling despite tears, I swiped my nose and eyes again and scooped up the sandy colored cat. He immediately started to purr.
"I'm sorry, beautiful boy," I said softly, talking with my lips close to his ear as cats like to be talked. "Things have gone wild lately, haven't they?"
Carrying Phoenion in my arms, I walked towards my bed but stopped dead when I heard voices in the terrace... Frowning, I moved towards the archway that gave way to it but stopped again when I recognized one of them to be Apollinarius'.
"... she thought she was going to save you the way that you saved her..."
Phoenion butted my chin with his head, demanding petting and attention and I shushed him while I padded towards the columns. For once, the cat decided to humor me and remained quiet in my arms, his furry body warm and soft against my
breasts, his purr loud and steady.
Hiding in the shadows, I carefully moved aside one of the translucent hangings used to prevent nightly insects from coming into my bedroom and looked outside. The night was black with just a hint of brightness in the eastern sky and a few lights twinking in the distance, Ostia's lighthouse not visible from that side of the villa.
Maximus was at the terrace, standing close to the marble rail and looking down, at the garden, where Apollinarius seemed to be.
"... and set you free the way you freed her. But, you wouldn't allow it.
By not allowing it you chose to likely die... chose to take yourself awayfrom her again."
Despite the dim light, I saw Maximus sigh.
"My life is very complicated. It may look simple from the outside but it is still very complicated. I have an obligation to fulfill and I must do it regardless of the cost. And that cost will probably be my life."
"General, you chose death over Julia's offer of freedom."
"Chose? I have no choice. Why do both you and Julia assume that I have a
choice?"
Now Apollinarius sounded confused. As confused as I was.
"I assumed..."
"You assume too much. I have duties to fulfill. I have no choice. Unfortunately, Julia does not figure into those duties."
"Unfortunately...?"
My heart racing wildly, I hugged Phoenion tightly against my breasts. He blinked his golden eyes but didn't protest or made any effort to free himself.
Maximus started to walk away from the rail, then turned back again, pacing in small circles, so obviously frustrated that I had to restrain myself not to go to him, take him in my arms and soothe him as you soothe and upset child.
He started to talk, stopped, then started again.
"Do you not think that I am flattered that a woman of her beauty and intelligence finds me attractive? Do you not think that, given more time together, I possibly could return her love? I have no time Apollinarius. I have no choice. My being here just
makes it harder on everyone. It would have been better if I had been left in that cell in Rome."
"I didn't understand. Once again, I am sorry, General."
There was sadness in Apollinarius voice. Sadness and understanding. Maximus merely nodded and glanced at the eastern sky where the red sun had just broke the horizon. Then, without another word, he headed back into the sitting room, leaving me behind trembling, shocked... and desperately in love.

It was only when the first rays of sun slanted across the marble floor of my bedroom that I moved from my place by the terrace's archway. Phoenion had fallen asleep long before and suddenly his weigh seemed too much for my tired arms. I left him
on a chair, then curled up in my huge, canopied bed. Anxiety and grief finally caught up with me and my eyelids felt like lead.

"Do you not think that, given more time together, I possibly could return her love?"

Before falling asleep, I promised myself that a week would be enough time.

Exhausted by the previous week's emotions and the final outburst at the sitting room, I slept for hours on end, oblivious to the world and even to Maximus sleeping so close to me. No dreams or nightmares came to disturb my sleep and when I woke up I
needed but a look at the light coming from the terrace to notice that it was well past mid-afternoon. I raised to a sitting position and my eyes immediately darted towards the door.
Maximus.
My apartment was oddly silent and none of my cats was at sight. I jumped out of the bed and quickly washed, vaguely noticing that my eyes were slightly swollen. Too hurried to brush my hair or look for a pair of slippers, I opened the door and stepped barefooted in the sitting room, my waist long hair tousled from sleep. Nothing seemed disturbed. Maximus must still be sleeping. Forcing myself to calm down, I pulled my silken cream wrap about my body then quietly opened the door to the second bedroom, half expecting to find him awake and asking myself who'd
be the first to talk after last night's clash.
A sliver of light from the sitting room fell on the bed... It was untouched.

My heart pounding wildly, I shut the door again. Had he left somehow after his conversation with Apollinarius? Close to panic, I turned around asking myself what should I do... then stopped short. Maximus was sprawled on the couch by the food table, snoring softly, one hand resting gently on Nigra, while the shy, black cat contentedly purred as she slept on his chest, rising and falling with every breath.
I crept closer. He hadn't bothered to remove the leather cuirass. The couch was too short for him and one leg hung over the arm while the other was bent at the knee, his booted foot resting on the floor. In sleep, his tunic had crept up exposing almost
the full length of his tanned, hairy, muscular legs. A scar marred his right tight. It was deep and seemed to have been caused by a spear or an arrow wound. Was it the consequence of the serious injure he'd mentioned the night before? It took all my will to restrain myself from tracing it with my finger as I'd traced his name on the marble of the Colosseum. Tightening my hands into fists, I asked myself how many other scars were hidden by the black leather, how much abuse his god-like body had taken
along his soldiering years and later as a gladiator...

His other hand was propped against the back of the couch, his fingers gently curled. Maximus' head was turned towards the back too and in an uncomfortable angle and his hair was tousled. I walked closer to better admire him and my foot kicked
something hard that spun away on the carpet. A silver wine jug. Empty. No wonder he wasn't feeling any discomfort. Last time I'd seen it, it had been full. All that wine on an empty stomach...

In his sleep, Maximus looked young and sweet and innocent. Relaxed and unaware of being looked at, the fierce warrior gave way to the vulnerable man who lived inside him just like the scared, little girl still lived inside me. I longed to lie down by his
side, take him in my arms and protect him in his sleep, then see him awake, look into his stunning eyes and be warmed by his boyish smile... But the couch was too narrow for two people, in truth barely enough to accommodate his strapping body.

Gently, careful not to awake him, I lifted Nigra off his chest, catching his hand so it didn't drop, and set her on the floor, where she stretched luxuriously before hopping onto an empty chair to continue her nap. I remained like this for a moment, softly
holding his warm, strong hand in mine, his tanned, callused fingers contrasting with my milky, slender ones as I softly caressed his knuckles with my thumb.
And then, I saw it. Or, I'd better say I noticed its absence.
His wedding ring was missing.
Had it been taken from him along with everything else? Or had he took it off after seeing his wife's dead body? Had he had it on when Proximo had bought him at the slaves' market in Zucchabar? Or had he lost it somewhere on his way to the African
province?
Silently, I sat on the carpet beside the couch, lifted Maximus' limp hand, and rested my head on the warm spot where Nigra had just been, then let his hand fall into my hair. Maximus didn't stir.
Sighing, I breathed his musky, male scent, listened to the strong, steady thump of his heart through the leather and played in my mind once more the words I'd overheard the night before.

"Do you not think that, given more time together, I possibly could return her love?"

Oh, yes. A week would be enough time. More than enough.

I don't know how long I remained there, lulled by his warmth and scent and his beating heart. The oblique rays of the late afternoon sun moved across the marble floor and I dozed at times. Warmed by his nearness, his hand on my head, it was easy
to pretend that we'd never been apart. It was easy to imagine that the six years that had passed since Moesia had never existed. It was easy to imagine how it'd be when he finally accepted me...

A knock at the door startled me so violently that I jumped back, scared of being discovered taking advantage of Maximus' drunken sleep. Disturbed by my sudden movement, he grunted but didn't woke up and I struggled to my feet, then hurriedly
padded towards the door. I opened it a crack to find Apollinarius at the threshold. He eyed my tousled hair and silk robe and smiled a little, lopsided smile. Before he could talk, I pressed a finger on my lips and beckoned him into my apartment. Puzzled,
he came in, then saw Maximus sleeping on the couch and silently followed me to my private studio, where we settled leaving the door open to be able to hear if Maximus awoke.
"So he won't go away..."
"No," I said. "But I have hopes that he may change his mind..."
Our eyes locked and there was no need of words. He knew I'd heard his conversation with Maximus.
"Captain Paulus should remain on alert then?"
"Yes, he and the crew are to remain at the ship and ready to depart on short advice. Also tell him that Hispania may not be the destination..."
Apollinarius raised his eyes in question and I briefly explained about Maximus' family's murder. He shook his head in disbelief.
"Marcus Aurelius was a fair man," said my former tutor. "How could he sire such a monster?"
"Are the guards awake?"
"Awake and I'm proud to report they are retching their guts off!"
"I want them lodged away from the main house... have them lodged with the grooms and ask the stable master to keep an eye on them. I don't want those thugs snooping around my house or bullying the household..."
"I'll have a word with Sempronius... he'll take good care of them..."
I couldn't but smile. The stable master was a Nubian well over six feet tall and perfectly able to fell a horse with his bare hands.
He'd been among the slaves freed at my wedding and was fiercely loyal to me. If I ordered him to kill Proximo's men, he'd do it without hesitation.
"But, first of all, I need you to get some clothes and sandals for Maximus... and I want his iron cuffs taken off..."
"I'll send and errand boy to the harbour with the message for captain Paulus and he can pick up some of the clothes we bought for his journey... in the meantime I'll arrange it with the blacksmith..."
There was a faint, rustling sound at the studio's door and Apollinarius and I turned around in unison.

Maximus was at the threshold, blinking like an owl, his hair dishevelled. My heart swelled. He looked so young and sweet despite the black leather and the iron wristbands...
"I...I heard voices..." he said shyly.
Apollinarius bowed towards him.
"General..."
Maximus returned his greeting with a slight nod but his eyes were fixed on me. He offered me a little, tentative smile and I blushed like a girl.
Apollinarius looked at me, then at Maximus and wisely decided to take charge.
"Now that you have rested, general, I guess you'll be anxious to take a bath and change your clothes..."
It was Maximus' turn to blush. What embarrassed him? Having drunk too much and slept so late? Or the implication that he was in need of a bath?
Apollinarius chose to ignore his embarrassment and went ahead.
"Clothes had been bought for you but we stored them at the ship that was to... take you away... I'll have them fetched immediately. In the meantime, I'll arrange for the blacksmith to deal with your wristbands..."
Maximus nodded in silence. Apollinarius turned towards me.
"Will you give me a few minutes, then take the general to the blacksmith's shop, Julia?"
It was my turn to nod in silence, my eyes fixed on Maximus.
Apollinarius sighed imperceptibly.
"If you'll excuse me..."
Once alone, I stood up from my place behind the desk, struggling to prevent my robe from opening and feeling awkward as I hadn't felt in years.
"The blacksmith's shop is not far..." I babbled. "I'll dress in a minute and take you there..."
He nodded and moved aside to let me pass. I'd reached my bedroom's door when Maximus talked at my back.
"It was your hair, Julia..."
I stopped but didn't turn around. What was he talking about? He went on.
"It was coiled... I'd never seen you with your hair coiled... That's why I didn't recognize you at the atrium..."
I remained silent for a moment. Then, straightened my back and talked without turning around. There was no anger in my voice. Just sadness.
"You're wrong, general. You saw me with my hair coiled once before... We were sharing a bath tub... and I was naked."

Eleventh Entry - Conspiracy and Hope - A.D. 180

It took the blacksmith but a moment to free Maximus from his slave cuffs. He averted his head and grimaced as the heavily muscled, tall man swung his hammer down and I covered my eyes in a childish, silly gesture, unable to stand the idea he may be hurt. But the man knew what he was doing, the links broke easily and soon Maximus was free of them. He nodded his thanks to the blacksmith as he stood and removed his iron wrists, dropped them on the ground and kicked them out of his way. He needn't say how much he hated them. The barely contained violence of his gesture was more than enough.
Our hands collided as he started to unwrap the black leather wrist strips and I hurried to help him. He let me do and didn't offer resistance when I gently massaged the red, angry marks they'd left in his bronzed skin, anxious to erase any physical signs of his slavery at least for the time being. Maximus took the leather strips and we started back towards the house.

"A bath is waiting for you, and clean clothes, then we can eat breakfast," I said as we walked, unsure about how to break the uncomfortable silence that had fallen on us when I'd emerged from my bedroom dressed and ready to take him to the blacksmith's shop.
Maximus frowned, then smiled tentatively.
"We seem to have our hours mixed up. It looks to me like we're approaching dusk, not breakfast time."
"Well you insisted on drinking yourself into a stupor and you slept the entire day away," I teased him. Teasing seemed to come naturally to me when I was close to him. I couldn't remember teasing before our meeting in Moesia... and for sure I hadn't teased again during the six years that had passed since then. And I'd enjoyed every minute of the hours I'd spent with my head quietly resting on his chest, lulled by his warmth and scent and the strong, steady beating of his heart.

We walked along the colonnade of the reflecting pool with its dancing fountains, the main topped with the marble ship, the others adorned with sirens and tritons, all of them singing their gurgling song in the early evening breeze. Maximus looked down the length of the house then turned his eyes to the reflecting pool and our images, which followed us as we walked. He stopped and stared into the water. The reflecting surface returned the image of a muscular man dressed in a blue tunic and black leather armor and a slender woman in white silk, her long mane of red-gold hair cascading over her shoulders and to her hips.
Quite a contrast.
Even if I'm a tall woman -taller than most females and as tall as many men- beside Maximus I looked small and, most of all, fragile. As small and as fragile as I always felt beside such strong and virile man.
Our images rippled and changed, seemed to disintegrate only to reappear whole and clear on the surface of the pool following the rhythm of the dancing waters. Maximus looked at them for a long time, seemingly enthralled by the changes and light and color and obviously lost in his thoughts whatever they were. I looked at the reflection too, noticing that it was the first time I'd seen us together. The first time I'd seen what the others must see when they looked at us: a young, striking couple, my femininity fitting so perfectly beside his unrelenting masculinity.

Minutes passed and Maximus didn't move. Unsettled by his silence, I linked my arm through his, our skins gently brushing, his tanned, mine milky.
"You look very handsome," I mused while looking at his reflection. "Armor becomes you."
His gaze remained fixed on the pool's surface. He seemed not to have heard me but I knew better. I could feel the tension in his body and went on talking, forcing my voice to adopt a light tone as I tried to ease his mood.
"It's quite obvious that the people who attend the games think so too. Your name is scratched in the walls of the amphitheater along with suggestions about what they would like to do with you," I said trying to elicit an answer, "and tin dolls in your image are sold outside the building... quite virile dolls."
I stopped, embarrassed at the sole mention of the grotesque sexual fetishes made to his image but it was already too late to take it back. My painfully earned self confidence had been seriously battered the previous night and now seemed to have completely left me. I felt dumb and awkward, childish and vulnerable.
And Maximus' silence didn't exactly help.
"During the games, vendors even sell trays with your image painted on them and they ran out of stock very early the day I was there."
"I'm good for business," muttered Maximus, his mood visibly darkening. I bit my lower lip. I'd known it wasn't going to be easy but I'd only started to discover how difficult it was going to be.

After a brief hesitation, I pulled on Maximus' arm and steered him in the direction of the gardens, hoping to turn the conversation into another direction which may help keep the atmosphere as light as possible under the grim circumstances surrounding his unexpected presence at my villa.
"Do you like the gardens, Maximus?"
He relaxed visibly. Gardening and weather never fail when it comes to small talk. Even when it comes to a Roman general turned slave gladiator.
"The whole place is amazing. I've never seen anything like it."
I felt absurdly pleased with his compliment, a lovesick girl with her first suitor.
"My husband let me design it... with the aid of architects, of course. I would have liked something less ostentatious but he insisted on its size and lavishness. He entertained
clients here and wanted to impress them."
"His shipping business must have been prosperous."
"Yes, and now it is mine."
"You operate it?"
"Yes."
There was a hint of defiance in my voice and I cast a side-long look at Maximus.
"Are you surprised?"
"No," he said and his tone suggested that, after last night, nothing about me would surprise him again. "What do you do with your time --other than try to rescue ungrateful slaves-- now that you are alone in this huge place?"

I couldn't but smile at his not so subtle reference to the argument of the previous night but quickly sobered. How could I explain him what my life -my real life- was without telling him about my desperate loneliness, the sadness that spoiled every triumph, the longing that flooded every single hour? How could I tell him what my life was like without speaking about the warmth, the safety and the child I so much craved for? The warmth and safety no money could buy and the baby that was doomed not to be.
He was expecting an answer so I went on talking, keeping my tone deliberately light, even at the risk of sounding empty and childish.
"I read a great deal. I never had an education, Maximus, but Apollinarius has tutored me and I find myself hungry for more. And, I play with my cats and walk the gardens, although it's much nicer strolling them with you. I also have a very nice apartment in Rome."
"You should marry again. Have children," he said. It was so much like Maximus! Always caring. Always loving. Even when he refused to love and even be loved. Even if his good intention hurt more than it helped.
"Oh Maximus, you are always trying to take care of people."
He didn't answer. There was not much he could say. Taking advantage of his slight hesitation, I guided Maximus to a shaded marble bench where I sat down, then pulled him down beside me. I went on talking.
"I'd rather be on my own than in another loveless marriage."
"You might find someone to love if you don't hide in this place," he said. "Go to Rome..."
"Maximus, I meant what I said last night about not giving myself to a man
that I don't love," my voice dropped but remained firm as I spoke what was in my heart. What I needed him to know. What I needed him to understand. "I've had enough of that. Any relationship that I undertake will be based on love... or I'll remain on my own."

Silence fell over us again. Maximus rested his strong forearms on his knees and stared at the rose that softly brushed against his skin in the gentle breeze. His silence was unsettling. A lot more unsettling than his blazing rage of the previous night.
In my whoring days, I'd been highly regarded for the ease with which I managed men. I only needed to take but a look at them, to hear them speak a few words or move around to know how to get to them, how to enthral them, seduce them, pleasure them. Even how to manipulate them... in the case that I'd wanted to. If I'd had whored on my free will, I'd probably had come to enjoy that power. But I'd hated every single moment of it even if I'd managed to hide it both from my master and those men I serviced, seemingly without resistance or second thoughts.
Along with my beauty, my ease to seduce men had been the reason why Cassius had chosen me as bait for Maximus. But from the same moment I'd crossed my first words with him, my skills had deserted me. Or, I'd better say, I simply couldn't summon them to help me.

"General? Not enjoying the party?"

He'd turned around and I'd caught the first glimpse of that stunning blue eyes and then he'd talked and the heated rumble of his deep voice had sent shivers down my spine. When his smoldering gaze had roamed over my face and my body, there had not been lust in it but wonder, a man at a loss for words. In another situation, with another man, it'd had been an easy, quick seduction. Instead, it had been the moment my fate had been sealed.
I hadn't wanted to seduce him but that he desired me on his free will.
I hadn't wanted to pretend while moaning and writhing beneath him but that he drove me mad with his kisses and caresses and the rhythm of his powerful body.
And he'd desired me on his very free will but, nevertheless refused me, leaving me behind confused and frustrated, a woman changed forever.
Six years had passed and I still felt shy beside him, an inexperienced, vulnerable love sick girl instead of the self assured, powerful woman I'd become in the meantime.
Six years had passed and I still wanted the same.
And I had but a few days to get it.
I shifted slightly on the bench, then talked hesitantly.
"Last night... I didn't mean to blurt out my feelings for you like that. I'm quite embarrassed that I did."
He neither looked at me nor uttered a word. I forced myself to go on talking, feeling like a blind woman trying to find her way through uneven terrain.
"But... maybe it's for the better that you know how I feel. I never thought that I would walk these pathways with you even though I've dreamed that I would. It's amazing for me, having you here... even if just for a short time."
Maximus seemed very interested in that particular blood-red rose. He reached
out and I watched his large, callused fingers gently stroke its velvet petals. I wished he'd touch me as he was touching the flower... and blushed at the mere thought of his finger pads on my skin.
"Love is the most important thing that there is," I added in a barely audible whisper.
Still he didn't look at me.
"There's no future for us, Julia."
His tone was so cold and dispassionate that I couldn't but wince slightly. I skipped a heartbeat, then forced myself to go on talking, my tone deliberately flat.
"I know that. You made it clear what your future will be."
Maximus went on without looking at me, his eyes fixed on the rose, the contrast between his strong, tanned, callused fingers and the delicate, velvety petals so arousing despite the harshness of his words.
"Even if I was free, we couldn't marry. A man of my class can't legally marry a freedwoman."

Marry me? Did he really think it mattered that he couldn't legally marry me because I was a former slave while he'd been adopted by a senator? I couldn't but laugh. When it came to certain things he could be so deliciously innocent! All the power of his former office had not been enough to change it and neither had been his demise and ordeal. I briefly asked myself if he'd be so touchingly innocent when it came to what men and women do when they are behind closed doors.
"Maximus, you are of no class now," I said softly. "If you are set free you'll be a freedman, just like me."
"Maybe."
"Why 'maybe'?"
Maximus placed the heel of his hand on the back of the bench seat behind me, then shifted his weight to it, allowing his body to lean towards mine. His arm brushed my back and I shuddered. He barely touched me but it felt like an embrace. The sweet breeze lifted my loose hair making it caress his bare arm, red-gold hair dancing like a butterfly over taut, tanned skin. His face was very close to mine, so close that it'd take but a slight movement to reach his beautifully sculpted mouth with my own lips. His rumbling voice dropped to it's most quiet tone and deepest level.
"I know you think I live only for revenge for the deaths of my family, but there's much more to it than that."
It was my turn to remain silent. Maximus continued.
"You know that Commodus has a sister."
In truth, the young emperor had four surviving sisters but only one counted. The eldest one and former Augusta. The one who'd fallen in love with Maximus at eighteen only to be married off to Lucius Verus. The one who'd been offered in marriage to him many years later only to be rejected. The one who was rumored to have attracted an unnatural affection from her younger brother. The one who had so many things in common with me despite our seemingly opposite origins and lives. The one I'd felt so close to the previous night in the aftermath of rage and frustration and defeat...
When I finally spoke, my lips felt numbed.
"Lucilla... yes."
"Well, she has a son named Lucius. He and my son are... were... the same
age. Lucius is heir to the throne after Commodus."
Maximus smiled slightly. What made him smile? The mention of the imperial boy to whom my former, ten-years-old maid had been sent to on our return to Rome? Some joyous memory of his murdered son? Or his private memories of the woman who'd sat pale and tense at the pulvinar along her brother while he fought in the arena?
Maximus' voice brought me back from my musings.
"He's very young... so innocent... and he lives under the nose of his uncle.
I already know how ruthless Commodus is and that he would not spare even a
child. If Commodus feels threatened in any way I'm afraid he'll harm Lucius."
"Why would you suppose that?"
"His mother told me."
I felt as if he'd slapped me. Lucilla had told him? How? When?
"You've talked to the Lady Lucilla?" I asked carefully articulating each word. "Since coming to Rome?"
"Yes. She visited me at the gladiator school one night."
The wave of jealousy that swept over me was so powerful, so intense that it almost
made me reel. Blood roared in my ears and red haze blurred my vision. I bowed my head so that my hair fell over my face, hiding the anguish and the pain that no self control could prevent from showing.

Lucilla had visited Maximus at Proximo's headquarters. The same headquarters that had remained locked up for me. While my scheming and bribing and coaxing to get to Maximus had failed, she'd found her way to him. Was she the reason why Maximus refused all visits and Proximo allowed him to have his way? Had Lucilla used her considerable power to make him unavailable to anybody but herself?
Without raising my head I swallowed hard and asked, "Why would she do that?"
"Lucilla and I have known each other for a very long time. She was in Germania with her brother when the emperor... died. She knew that her brother had ordered me executed and was shocked when I turned up in the Colosseum in Rome as a gladiator. She came to see me to tell me her concerns."
Slowly, I digested the news. Lucilla had been in Germania. She had been in Germania along with her brother. I already knew that. She'd been by his side in the golden chariot when he'd entered Rome as emperor. It had been quite a scandal. Emperors don't bring their female relatives to official parades in their ceremonial chariots. Not even their wives. And brothers don't parade their sisters as if they were their consorts.
I knew Lucilla had been with her father and her brother in Germania. What I'd failed to see that she'd also been there with Maximus.
"Why? What could you possibly do to help her?" I said, keeping my voice carefully neutral.
"She knows that I plan to kill Commodus. I didn't exactly keep that a secret. She just gave me another reason to do so... to protect her son... the grandson of my emperor, Marcus Aurelius."

That was something new. Completely new. And serious. Rumors about Commodus' political ineptitude had started circulating years before he'd reached the throne. In truth, he'd reached it because he was Marcus Aurelius' only surviving son but, most of all, because the late emperor had died without officially announcing his succession, for simply being his son not enough to get the golden laurel wreath. He'd been in Germania visiting his father when the emperor had died and had immediately returned to Rome to claim the throne. Some said he'd left Germania like a thief, in the middle of the night, escorted by his praetorians and before the legions had sworn their allegiance. Rumours also said that unlike her younger brother, Lucilla was a born politician yet her gender prevented her from ruling. But being born a female had never prevented imperial women from plotting and conspiring, even from murdering when it was necessary or so they thought. I made some quick calculations. Lucilla was the second child of Marcus Aurelius while Commodus was the youngest of the dozen or so the emperor had sired. That put her around thirty while her brother was just nineteen or twenty... so young yet the most powerful man in the world.
"She plots against her own brother?"
"Sshhh. Julia," alarmed, Maximus quickly glanced around the garden to assure himself
that we were alone. "I know I can trust you because I put my life in your hands in Moesia and you didn't fail me. This information mustn't go any further than here."
"Of course not," I replied earnestly. Despite the unsettling news about the emperor's daughter, it thrilled me that he would trust me so easily. As easily as he'd done in Moesia, when he didn't know anything about me but that I was a slave and a whore.
As easily as I trusted him even when I trusted no man.
"I just want you to understand that I refused your offer of freedom for more
reasons than my need to avenge my wife and son. It's complicated, as I said."

So it was not only Olivia and Marcus who claimed him. It was also Lucilla and her son. A dead woman he'd loved and her dead son. A living woman he'd also loved and hers. Where did this leave me, a woman who was neither wife nor former lover and had no child to live or die for?
After a long moment, I summoned my courage and asked the most difficult question I can remember asking him.
"You care for Lucilla?"
"Yes... I care for her."
It hurt. Badly. But I swallowed hard and again forced myself to talk again.
"You love her?"
"No, I don't love her. At least... not in that way."
"You said that you've known her a long time. Did you love her once?"
Maximus smiled, trying to ease an anguish so intense that I didn't even think about denying it. He brushed away a lock of hair that had tangled around my throat.
"A very, very long time ago," he said softly. "Since then we have led quite different lives... and we both married and had a child."
His words didn't soothe me, jealousy and dread still gnawing my belly, Lucilla who'd seemed so close to me last night now a living, feared rival with a strong claim on Maximus' loyalty. I bowed my head and looked at my hands, devoid of rings and resting on my lap, my white knuckles betraying my tension.
"Sometimes old love can be rekindled," I whispered.
Maximus shook his head no. I knew I could trust his words but, oddly, I didn't feel exhilarated. They meant what they meant. They didn't change the dispassionate tone with which he'd spoken about us and what we couldn't have. And I had only a week.

After a moment, I faced him, looking right into his eyes.
"Maximus, aren't you afraid to die?"
He sighed.
"I've lived with death most of my life. I faced my own death, and the deaths of my soldiers, every time I went into battle. I face death every day now in the arena. No, I'm not afraid of dying. Besides, my wife and son are there already waiting for me to join them."
What a stupid question to ask! Of course he was not afraid to die! He wanted to die. He was ready to die. Once he'd avenged his dead wife and son, once he'd made himself sure Lucilla and her son were safe, he'd be ready to go... ready to leave me behind forever.
With a swift movement, I pressed myself against him, trying to reach him physically as well as emotionally... but any intimacy was blocked by his armor, my breasts flattened against the black leather, the buckles once more painfully digging in my flesh.
"I can't believe that your wife would want you to die, Maximus. She loved you," I said urgently, Olivia an unexpected ally in my desperate battle to save him from himself. "She would want you to live a long, happy life not to rush to join her for any reason."
"Julia..."
Before he could go on talking, I clasped his bearded chin silencing him, forcing him to look into my eyes.
"No... listen to me. A woman who loves a man would give up anything for him... sacrifice anything for his happiness. Olivia isn't watching you and resenting every bit of happiness that you can snatch in your remaining days. She would have wanted you to accept my offer of freedom... to live a long and happy life without her. To find love again. She'll always be there for you... ten, twenty years from now."
Scalding tears blurred my vision and I sniffed, then blinked them back.
"It's not about what my wife would want. It's about what I want," said Maximus calmly and determined, so impossibly determined and full of dignity that despite my efforts, tears spilled down my cheeks. I swiped at them angrily.
"Well, you're being selfish. You're not thinking of the people here who love you and want you to live. You're only thinking of yourself."
My outburst didn't deter him. Maximus gently wiped my tears with his thumb.
"Julia, if I could think of a way to accomplish what I must accomplish and then live... I might take it. I know that Olivia and Marcus will wait for me no matter how long I live."
"But I offered you a way and you wouldn't accept."
"There are good reasons for that."
"I know, I know... Juba. Don't you think that Juba would gladly sacrifice his life for your freedom?"
"Maybe. That's not my choice to make. But I won't sacrifice your life for my freedom."
Startled, I sat up.
"What? Whatever are you talking about?"
Maximus looked at the treetops.
"That city near here is Ostia, isn't it? There is an army base in Ostia."
My eyes widened and I sat up, hope raising inside me. Why hadn't I thought about it? There was an army base in Ostia! I'd spent some time at it at my return from Moesia!
"Yes. Yes. You could..."
But before I could go on talking, Maximus hushed me with a finger to my lips.
"I could approach that legion and find it under the control of a general who answers to Commodus, which is most likely the case," he said speaking softly and calmly, a father explaining an upset child who wants the moon why it's impossible to get it. "If he happened to recognize me he'd strike me down instantly. If he didn't recognize me then he'd hold me until I could be identified. Either way I'd be dead and Commodus would still be alive."
"But, what if it's men you know and they are sympathetic to your cause?"
"That's unlikely because my armies are in the north. But, even if it was one of the Felix legions I still couldn't leave here, Julia."
"But, you could go to see them and then come back here. I'll go with you. You could make plans--"
"No."
I shut my eyes and shook my head, frustration so intense that I felt like roaring.
"Maximus, why not? You're not making sense. You're an army commander and there may be an army nearby."
"Not any more I'm not. But Julia my point is that you have no idea what a vengeful man Commodus is. You don't know what he is capable of doing."
Not sure about what he was insinuating, I remained silent for a long moment, then I asked, "To whom?"
"To anyone who crosses him... to anyone who helps me."
"You mean me."
"Yes."
I grabbed Maximus' upper arms and shook him slightly, a gesture that seemed to come to me naturally when he drove me mad with his stubbornness. As always, it was like trying to shake the columns of the temple of Jupiter.
"Maximus, don't you understand? I am willing to take that risk."
"I'm not."
"Maximus..."
"Julia, how often have you been to the amphitheater to see the games?"
"Maximus, don't change the subject."
"Just answer me."
"Only once. To see you."
"Did you stay all day?"
"No, I stayed outside and just went in when I heard the crowd chant your name."
"Then you have no idea what atrocities go on there."
Even if I'd escaped a few minutes into the first spectacle, what I'd seen had been enough.
"I... I have some idea."
Maximus shook his head.
"The only time gladiators like me fight is in the late afternoon. Particularly skilled gladiators fight one-on-one. But earlier in the day the arena is filled with gladiator pairs -dozens of men at the same time- who are pitted against each other and against wild
animals that are specially trained to kill men. Most animals won't kill humans, you know, no matter how hungry they are. They have to be trained to kill people. The carnage is terrible."
"It's something I never want to see."
What did this had to do with me helping him escape?
"That's not the worst of it... not even remotely." Maximus did not look at me but to the darkening sky. "In the mornings the shows are particularly horrific. That's when condemned men are tied up and fed to animals without being able to defend themselves. Women and children too, from religious cults or prisoners of war. They're ripped apart while they're alive."
He cleared his throat and I refrained from mentioning that had been what had sent me running from my seat at the Amphitheater.
"But, I've seen worse. Last week we were taken to the arena early for some reason and left in cells most of the day. The most valuable gladiators are given the best cells -just a bit below ground- so we can see into the arena and hear everything that happens."
Maximus took a deep, shuddering breath and I knew there was something more behind his words. He was a veteran soldier, no stranger to blood and death.
"The games are paid for by officials hoping to get re-elected and they know that whoever puts on the best show has the best chance. By 'best show' I mean the
bloodiest and most depraved. Much of it crosses the line from brutality into perverted sexual exhibition."
He stopped talking and stared at the stars just beginning to emerge. I gave him time to collect his thoughts before urging him, knowing that he needed to talk about it, no matter how reluctant he seemed to be. No matter how reluctant I was to hear what he had to say.
"Go on," I said as softly as I could. "It's pretty hard to shock me, you know."
Maximus rubbed his hands over his face before he continued, a well remembered gesture that always made me want to take him in my arms and comfort him like you comfort a weary child.
"Do you know that the people in the seats picnic while they watch things like that? They eat food while human beings just like them are being destroyed before their eyes. They're completely insensitive to the most barbaric acts."
In my mind, I saw the people around the stall in the Colosseum arcade. Sweaty, noisy people carrying hats and cushions, food baskets and wine skins, ready to redeem themselves from the senseless misery of their lives for a few hours seeing others' lives destroyed in an equally senseless way.
Maximus' head dropped between his shoulders, his voice now almost inaudible.
"They wheeled a woman into the arena. A beautiful woman. She was naked and staked out face down over an elaborate gold cart made to look like an altar. It was like she was
a human offering to the gods. After they wheeled her around the arena so everyone could get a good look, they covered her with animal skins. Then a man entered the arena with an animal that he had obviously specially trained... and the animal raped the woman."
I gasped, my nails digging pits in his arm. That was it. Blood and death he could understand but in fair combat, not when it came to the helpless and innocent. Pain and violence he could endure but not abuse and perversion. Suddenly, I asked myself what had he seen when he'd seen Olivia's and Marcus' dead bodies. What had he seen besides death and whatever had caused it.
"I won't tell you what kind of animal it was but I wouldn't have believed it possible. Her screams were terrible. Needless to say, the woman was severely injured and bleeding badly. Wild animals were then released to finish her off. The crowd loved it."
Despite my efforts, a sob escaped my trembling lips and Maximus pulled me to him, wrapping me in his strong arms. My tears spilled again onto the black leather, as I wept for the senseless cruelty of a world in which a girl could be breed and raised for whoring and another could be slaughtered for the amusement of the mob. I wept for a dead wife and a dead son whose only fault had been being the wife and the son of a man betrayed by his emperor's son But, most of all, I wept for Maximus. I wept for the cruelty of his demise and enslavement, for his losses and his pain, shedding the tears his need to be strong prevented him from shedding. The tears he so badly needed to shed.
"There's more," he whispered.
"I don't want to hear it," I cried, my words muffled by his shoulder, the pain in my chest so intense that I thought my heart was going to break.
"You have to hear it."
He waited until my sobbing subsided.
"A bunch of chariots roared in, each one dragging a naked woman. When they were torn up and disembowelled but still alive, animals were released to finish them off. And that's not the worst I saw. The worst involved a dozen or so sweet, blonde girls... all of them looked to be under the age of ten... probably Germans. For all I know, I may even have been responsible for them being there. Spoils of war." Maximus shuddered and whispered, "I can't even tell you what happened to them."
At the misery in his voice, I tightened my hold of him. Was there no end to his pain? Was not enough that he had lost his rank and his freedom, that he lost his home and his family? Had he also to lose the illusion that he had done the right thing as a soldier of Rome?
Maximus gently rubbed my back as I lay against him, drained and limp, the world a dark and grim place, his arms the only safety and refuge.
"Do you understand now," he asked in an unsteady voice, "why I won't risk
implicating you in any plot to free me? You could end up in that arena as
entertainment for the crowd. I could never live with that."
Unable to speak, I nodded against his shoulder and sniffled. We remained that way for a long, long time. Both comforting the other. Both drawing comfort from the other.
Finally I sat up and cupped his face in my hands.
"I'm sorry I called you selfish."
He smiled and kissed my fingers, his kiss sweet and soft like a butterfly's touch.
"That's alright."
"Last night you said that you were responsible for your family's deaths and
that you deserved to die. Maximus... what happened to them?"
Instantly, I felt him withdraw.
"I'd rather not talk about that tonight."
My hands dropped to his shoulders and I studied his drawn face. Instincts hadn't failed me. Olivia hadn't been simply murdered. Something far more terrible had happened to her. And to Marcus.
"I understand," I said as I inwardly cursed myself for having asked that question and wracked my brain for some way to lighten the dark mood that had descended upon us. Maximus' stomach growled as if on cue, a welcome distraction amidst grimness.
"Oh my, I forgot that you haven't eaten in so long. You must be starving."
Seemingly grateful for the excuse, Maximus rubbed his stomach.
"I am, actually."
I stood up and tugged on his hand.
"Come, the meal will be waiting for us in my apartment. It's probably cold by now."
Maximus allowed me to pull him down the path.
"It's probably not there at all. Your cats probably got it again. Best fed cats I've ever seen," he suggested with light mockery.
I laughed. "No, I had the servants cover it this time."
My arm slipped around his waist and Maximus draped his hand over my shoulder in automatic response. It felt so right. So natural. So good.
It felt as it'd been meant to be.

When we arrived at the house, the servants were lighting lamps and lanterns as well as the torches in the iron holds along the main road. Maximus tensed again at the sight of them but my arm tightly wrapped around his waist prevented him from dropping his hand from my shoulder. My household was well trained both in efficiency and discretion but even if men and women bowed their heads respectfully, I knew they were casting avid glances towards the man in the blue tunic and black leather armor. Since Marius Servilius' death, no guests had lodged at the villa and male visitors hadn't gone beyond the studio at first floor. Not many Roman households are lead by females and sometimes modesty can be useful. Besides, mourning is the perfect excuse to avoid entertaining.
Haughtily ignoring their barely disguised curiosity, I steered Maximus towards the stairs and the safety of my private apartment.

To my dismay, Apollinarius was there, directing a group of servants who busied around, carrying covered dishes and amphorae, linen and towels, small jars and lamps. Women hurried themselves in the sitting room while men came and went into the second bedroom. When they saw us, they stopped on their tracks and bowed respectfully. Apollinarius beamed.
"Just in time!" he said. "General, your clothes have just arrived and your bath is ready."
"Thanks," mumbled Maximus as he swiftly disentangled from my arm. I let him go and walked towards the table to inspect dinner and the startled servants made a show of being busy with their tasks while they cast sidelong glances towards Maximus. They knew who he was. They had to. Some of them had even been at the games. An unknown man sleeping at their reclusive mistress' private apartment was quite a novelty in such a quiet household. Rome's star gladiator was another, more impressive one.
From her place on a couch, Rubia looked indignant at the fussing people who dared disturb her regal privacy and I couldn't but agree with her. I wanted everybody out and I wanted it immediately, before their presence destroyed the scarce success of my efforts to ease Maximus' mood.
"I hope the size is the right one. When I bought them, I'd only seen you from some distance..." went on my former tutor, oblivious to the turmoil.
Maximus nodded, obviously uncomfortable with the attention he was receiving, both from the servants and Apollinarius.
A dull ache started at the back of my head.
Rubia was right: somebody had to put order before things went out of control... a task that usually falls on my shoulders.

"Leave us."

The servants jumped at the sound of what I privately called "the voice". Six years had passed since Silvia Cornelia's cook had tried to paw me. In the meantime, I'd learned to deal not only with insolent servants but also with bullying foremen, rebellious captains, treacherous commercial agents, arrogant competitors and unwanted suitors. I'd learned the trick from my husband, who never raised his voice but a fraction and whose absolute lack of emotion when issuing orders left no doubt that he expected to be obeyed without questioning or delay and what would be the consequences for failing to do it.
The household knew the drill and it took but a few seconds to have them finish their tasks and clear the room, "the voice" having also warned them not to come back without being called and that gossiping would not be tolerated. I turned towards my former tutor as Apollinarius shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, a clear sign that he was mortified for having failed to prevent an uncomfortable situation.
I softened my tone.
"Please, my friend, be so kind to cancel all my appointments for the next week. I won't be receiving visitors either. Inform Athenodorus and Nicia that I want them to attend me and the general personally."
Apollinarius nodded.
"If there are letters to be signed and dispatched, have them ready for breakfast time. Deal personally with any other matter. You can brief me about what I need to know after I do the signing. By the way, tell Athenodorus I want breakfast served at the terrace."
"As you wish, Julia."
"Thank you, Apollinarius. I'll see you in the morning."
My former tutor bowed slightly, then left the room and closed the door.

Finally alone, we remained silent for a long moment, merely looking at each other, Maximus talked first.
"I'll go take that bath."
"Do you need help?"
I noticed the mistake only when it was already too late and blushed painfully. Where were my wits when I so badly needed them? Where was the woman who could easily deal with insolent servants, bullying foremen, rebellious captains, treacherous commercial agents, arrogant competitors and unwanted suitors? "What I-I meant is... all those buckles..."
Maximus smiled softly as I struggled to control my stammering.
"I can call Phaedrus to help you... He was my husband's manservant... he's bored now for he has nothing to do... Apollinarius brought his own manservant with him... Phaedrus is old but he..."
Maximus raised his right hand and gently traced my cheek with his callused finger, touching my skin as lightly as he had touched the velvety, blood-red rose. I shuddered and averted my eyes.
"Julia... Julia... It's fine... I can manage myself... Besides, I'm a slave..."
"No."
"Julia," he went on, absently caressing my cheek, "you have to accept it..."
"No."
"Julia, I shouldn't be here... I shouldn't share your apartment... You have to think about your reputation..."
"No!"
"Julia, even if it can be accepted that you rented me for... I shouldn't live at your private apartment... I should lodge somewhere else, with your servants..."
"NO!"

Maximus blinked at my vehemence but didn't take his hand away, just let his finger rest against my cheek.
"No, Maximus. This is my house and my word is the only law that rules it," I said, unconsciously repeating my husband's words. "And in my house there are no slaves. Just paid servants or guests. In case you haven't noticed, you fall in the second category. An unexpected but welcome one. And now, general, go take your bath. I'm hungry and I cannot start dinning ahead of my guest..."
Maximus offered me a little, rueful smile.
"I could always say when you were angry with me, Julia, because you stopped calling me 'Maximus' and, instead, called me 'general'..."
I couldn't but smile back, even if my smile was not a joyous one.
"I'm not angry with you, Maximus..."
"Not even because I refused to escape?
I drew a deep, shuddering breath.
"I can understand your reasons for refusing to escape, Maximus. I can even accept and respect your decision. But you cannot ask me to be pleased about it. Not even you can demand so much from me..."
Something flashed in the depths of his stunning blue eyes. He swallowed hard and blinked rapidly, as if trying to hide an unwanted emotion, then let his hand fall, lowered his gaze and remained silent.
"Go, Maximus. I'm really hungry."
Without a word, he turned on his heels and got into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

I remained at the sitting room for a moment, then briskly walked towards the terrace, badly in need of air even if I'd just come back from the gardens. Usually, the glorious sight of the sea was enough to soothe my spirit and sitting there, among the potted trees and flowers, never failed to help me recover control. But not that day. Not when it came to Maximus. I looked at the water beyond the sandy beach and didn't see it but the turmoil I'd briefly seen in Maximus' sea colored eyes.
Brusquely, I turned around, padded towards the second bedroom's door and knocked softly. I hadn't the slightest idea of what excuse I'd offer to intrude in his privacy and I didn't mind. I could always say that I wanted to check the servants had properly done their job, no matter how lame it may sound after Apollinarius' cheerful display of efficiency.

There was no answer.
I knocked again.
Again there was only silence.
Slowly, I turned the knob and the door opened.
"Maximus?"
The room was empty.
I couldn't remember entering since my arrival to the villa as a bride. It remained closed, being opened only when the maids cleaned it and polished the floor and furniture. The fact that it was the room destined for a child that was not to be made me avoid it as carefully as I avoided all thoughts about that child.
In the golden lamplight I discovered it was larger than I remembered and well appointed as every other room in the villa. It was windowless but not oppressive, with pastoral murals decorating the walls which continued across the ceiling painted to represent a sky. There was a big and comfortable bed, its covers a delicate shade of green which perfectly matched the murals, a carved chest at its foot. Maximus' new clothes were on the bed, tidily piled up: three tunics --a white one, a sand colored one and a red wine one--, male underwear, two belts and a pair of good sandals.

A large and obviously Eastern wool carpet covered a good portion of the mosaic floor and two large wooden cupboards dominated one wall, while a chair sat close to a small table were a lamp stand supported four lit bronze lamps. Another one burned on a second table close to the bed and there was also a bowl of fresh fruit, a silver jug and a glass. The closed door on the other side of the room told me all I needed to know about it's occupant current location. It opened into a large, tiled bathroom complete with toilet, tub and basin, illuminated during the day by the light that entered through a glass dome.
Seeing it was already too late to talk to Maximus and that I'd had to wait for him to come to the table, I turned to leave the room but something by the other side of the bed caught my attention. The black leather cuirass was lying on the floor, where Maximus had discarded it along with his sturdy boots. His blue, slave tunic had landed a few steps away, as he got rid of it on his way to the bathroom, shedding his armour and clothes as a chrysalis discards its ugly cocoon to free a beautiful butterfly.

I picked up the tunic, which was still faintly warm from his body. It was made of coarse linen, frayed, badly wrinkled, no more than a rag yet it had looked so regal on him... I brought it to my nose and avidly sniffed it. It smelled of leather and sweat and of his own, unique, musky, male scent. I closed my eyes, hugging the tunic against my breasts as I longed to hug him, my nostrils filled with his scent, my mind flooded with images of Maximus discarding his clothes and walking naked towards the bath tub... I'd never seen Maximus undressed but in my dreams. I'd never seen him even bare chested, his body always denied to me both by clothes and military regalia an his own self control. But what I'd already seen of it was more than enough.
As I remained there, my eyes closed, my nose buried in his tunic, the sweet, familiar fever sang in my veins and I felt my skin heat and sensitize. I'd never seen Maximus undressed... and, now, only a closed door stood between us, between his naked male beauty and me...

It would have been so easy to walk the few steps and push it open... It would have been so easy to walk into the bathroom while unclasping the shoulder brooches which held my tunic and let it fall by the marble bath tub... It would have been so easy to step into the warm, perfumed water that filled it and slide against his naked, wet, good-like body...

Would he reject me? Or would I see his eyes burn with the blue fire which had burned in their depths six years ago in a tiny, curtained alcove? Would he be outraged? Or relieved that I'd taken the initiative from him? Would he accept me, the real me, when he'd take me in his arms? Or would he close his eyes and pretend that the woman he was taking was his dead wife?

I whiff of perfume floated towards me ... something like a wood... resin and pine and herbs...Soap... It was followed by a splashing sound... somebody energetically scrubbing himself... My eyes snapped open... Something was wrong... Utterly wrong... When closed, the heavily carved oak doors of my apartment muffled all sound...

But the door was not closed as I'd thought when I'd entered Maximus' bedroom. Instead, it was slightly ajar and as I turned, I got a glimpse of the bathroom's tiled floor and basin. Fascinated, I remained there, listening to the sounds coming from beyond its threshold, as Maximus washed himself with a soldier's efficiency and a Roman's relish.

I tightened my hold of the tunic, my heart racing, my mind shouting that I should get out of the bedroom, that I shouldn't be caught there, seemingly spying him even if that had not been my intention yet my body rebelling against the need to leave and urging me to go to him, to cross the threshold and join him... to cross the threshold and make him mine...

Suddenly, there was a loud splashing sound followed by silence. Through the open crack I saw steam. Then something white. A towel. He'd come out of the bath tub and was drying himself. I should go. Anytime now he'd open the door and come into the bedroom just to find me there, hugging his tunic, invading his privacy...

I didn't move.

My eyes caught movement. A shadow. Then, a glimpse of glistening, tanned, bare skin, taut over well developed muscles.
Maximus' naked back.
The curve of a round, beautifully sculpted, rock hard buttock.

Still hugging his slave tunic, I run away from the bedroom.

Twelfth Entry - Rediscovery - A.D. 180

By the time Maximus emerged from the second bedroom, I'd managed to compose myself enough to offer him a pleasant, calm look, the perfect hostess greeting her honored guest. He'd chosen the sand colored tunic, which enhanced his deep tan and dark hair and beard. It was a little snug at the chest and the hem fell a couple of inches too short but Maximus was not the kind of man to allow sartorial imperfections to bother him and carried whatever put on --be it silvery wolf furs or a coarse slave tunic-- with an unconscious elegance many an emperor would envy. Between the short hem and the sandals, I could admire his tanned, bare legs: they were absurdly beautiful. His waist was wrapped in a soft leather belt and there was a leather thong around his neck from which a pair of animal teeth hung. Suddenly I remembered having seen the leather thong in Moesia but what it was that hung from it had always been hidden under his military tunic. In truth, I'd not seen it but accidentally discovered it while kissing and licking his neck at a tiny, curtained alcove.
With his hair still damp, freshly scrubbed and faintly smelling of pine, Maximus simply glowed.

I was sitting on one of the couches, hand feeding Rubia little pieces of shrimp which she nibbled delicately. She eyed Maximus with narrowed, green eyes, seemed to approve him and went on eating. Cats are known to have excellent taste.
"Feeling better?"
"Oh, yes!"
The obvious enthusiasm of his answer made me smile and I gestured him to the chair by the table while I washed my fingers in a silver bowl.
"You don't mind, do you? I mean, the cats..."
"No, why should I?"
"Some men don't like cats..."
"I do like them. They are beautiful and smart... Like you..."
"Like you," I wanted to say, the glimpse of tanned, bare, glistening skin I'd got through the narrow crack still burning in my mind while I silently admired the feline quality of his beauty, the unconscious grace of his movements. For once, I managed not to blush. Instead, I offered him a wide smile in exchange of his compliment as I went on.

"This is Rubia," I said in a tone that suggested that instead of a huge, three colored cat I was introducing a daughter of marriageable age. "She was my first friend when I came back to Rome. A very good friend. I found her when she was a kitten at the praetorian camp..."
"What were you doing at the praetorian camp?"
"I spent some time there at my arrival to Rome..."
Maximus raised his eyebrows quizzically.
"Perhaps you remember that I was sent to Rome along with the other women under the custody of the legion the emperor sent back to Italia..."
He nodded as he accommodated his big frame on the chair with a certain caution, as if he'd spent so much time away from civilized furniture that he was afraid he may break it. When he was sure it'd hold, Maximus visibly relaxed and I had to make an effort to hide my mirth.

"My manumission was treated separately from the other women's... The officer in charge left me at the castra praetoria while he dealt with my papers, then picked me and brought me to Rome. In the meantime I found Rubia under a cart. She was lost and hungry. Cornelius Crassus wanted to take me to his family's home..."
"Cornelius Crassus?"
"The officer in charge. A good man. He went beyond the emperor's orders and his duty and helped me..."
It was the first time I'd openly spoken about my gratitude towards the young quaestor, a subject I always mentioned with reluctance even when talking with Apollinarius. But in Maximus' company and after all those years, it felt natural and safe to give voice to something I couldn't deny: Cornelius Crassus had been a good man and picked up helping me when and where both Maximus and Marcus Aurelius had stepped out of my life. As I talked, I was looking directly into Maximus' eyes and I saw something flash at the depths of those greenish-blue pools which could go from burning flame to ice pit in an instant... Something unsettling and thunderous. Confused, I blinked at his hard stare. Perhaps the light of the oil lamps was playing tricks.
"The emperor gave me to his care. He told me he was one of his most trusted men in Rome. Last time I saw him, he was wearing a senatorial toga..."
Maximus' eyebrows raised even higher.
"You knew Marcus Aurelius?"
"Well... yes. He had me taken to his tent the night of his arrival to Moesia..."
"You went to his tent?"

In the years passed since that night -one of the most painful nights of my life- I'd come to regard that secret meeting between a young slave and whore and an ageing Roman emperor as something entirely natural. Maximus' startled reaction reminded me that it wasn't.
"Yes... he wanted to thank me for saving his favorite general's life... yours..."
Now Maximus looked positively aghast and at a loss of words.
"When I talked to him I understood why you liked Marcus Aurelius so much. He was a great man... I mourned him..."
"You talked with the emperor?" insisted Maximus, still obviously unable to believe that Marcus Aurelius had been interested in knowing me. I choose neither to take offence nor to remind him that my role in saving the empire had not been exactly a minor one.
"Yes, we talked. Mostly about you... He loved you, Maximus... He told me you were the son he should have had..." I said softly.
Maximus remained in silence but I could see his lips slightly tremble and how he pressed them tightly to prevent them from doing so. I allowed him a moment to recover, then gestured towards the food. Having dismissed the servants, we were to serve ourselves.
"Wine?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow. He smiled sheepishly.
"Just a little. You don't water it?
I laughed. "No, I prefer to drink very little but with no water. Besides, watering Caecuban is a crime. But if you feel like watering yours..."

I didn't add that even if I preferred not to put that skill to test, I could probably hold my drinking better than him. Any woman in my former profession quickly learns how to manage both her disappointment and wine. If she doesn't, she can only expect a more miserable death than her already miserable life.
Tentatively, his brows knitted, Maximus took a sip. Then smiled.
"This is nothing like the wine you drink at the army..."
"No, that's the kind of wine senators and aristocrats drink. They pay dearly for it... and my ships transport it to the four corners of the empire..."
I picked up some shrimp and vegetables and started eating. Maximus seemed to hesitate for a moment, then carefully filled his plate. I was ravenous and so must be he. Yet he looked shy, obviously not used to the lavishness of a table like mine. He took a pickled artichoke and carefully bit it, then his face brightened. I wondered when had it been the last time he'd eaten such kind of delicacies as those displayed in front of him. A long time for sure. Perhaps, the six years that had passed since I'd sat on a stool by his side as he reclined on a couch and fed him little bits, while he played with my hair and caressed my arms...
After the first bite, he started eating heartily. For a soldier and a farmer, he had rather good table manners.

We ate in companionable silence for a while, then Maximus spoke.
"That's what you did, isn't it?"
"Pardon me?"
"Save my life. That's what you did in Moesia. And I never thanked you..."
"It's alright, Maximus..."
"No, it isn't. You saved my life and I didn't thank you... and you tried to save me again and I didn't thank you either..."
"You needn't thank me. You saved mine when you gave me my freedom. We are even..."
"You must think I was ungrateful long before I became a slave..."
It was my time to remain silent. Maximus' eyes softened.
"Thank you, Julia..."
I nodded, raised my cup to my lips and took a small sip to avoid having to speak.

Silence fell on us again and again it was Maximus who broke it.
"How long were you married?"
"Three years. My husband died two years ago."
"And he was a shipbuilder..."
"Yes, a very accomplished shipbuilder and businessman. He lived in the same apartments' building where I lived at the Quirinale..."
Maximus looked confused.
"The Quirinale?," he asked.
"The neighbourhood on Colina Quirina, by the Via Nanomentana..."
"Julia, I've never before been in Rome... and the only places in Rome I know are the gladiators' quarters and the Colosseum..."
It was my turn to be aghast.
"You've never been to Rome?"
He offered me a little smile and shook his head. "No, I was born in Hispania and spent all my life warring at the provinces, mostly in Germania. The first time I saw Rome was when the slaves' wagon I was ridding crossed the city's walls..."
Air left me as if I'd been hit. Vainly I grasped for words, then took my napkin and nervously wrung it while I pretended to clean my fingers.
He'd never been to Rome before.
Never.
How could it be? How could the late emperor's favorite general never come to the Urbe, not even on commission? How could a man who had devoted his life to fighting and protecting Rome and all it meant never set a foot on its capital city?
But, above all, what jealous god had kept him away from Rome and only brought him when enslaved and degraded to fight for the amusement of the mob? What cruel, vain deity had prevented him from riding the Via Triumphalis dressed in scarlet silk and a golden cuirass, crowned with a wreath and showered with flowers by an adoring mob?

"I-I'm sorry... I-I knew you were born in Hispania and that you didn't come from a Roman family b-but..."
"It's alright, Julia. You were telling me about your husband...?"
I took a deep breath.
"His name was Marius Servilius Tibullus and he was more than thirty years older than me... A fine man... Smart, honest, a hard worker... He was sick... a weakness of the marrow. He'd been a widower for many years and his only son had died at birth along with his wife. When he knew he was going to die, he decided to take a wife to help him ease his last days. I refused him, told him I didn't want to marry. It was to no avail so I told him I'd been a slave and a whore but he insisted and finally we made a deal... He was very good to me even if he didn't love me..."
"How couldn't he love you?" blurted Maximus. "Any man in his right mind..." He stopped, obviously embarrassed. I pretended not having heard him but the elation I felt at his words was so intense that I thought I was going to suffocate. Somehow, I managed to go on talking nonchalantly.
"He was very good to me and I came to appreciate and respect him even if I couldn't love him either..."
"You were happy? I mean..."
"I know what you mean... " I shrugged. "Maximus, we come from very different origins. You were born free and I was born a slave. You are a man and I am a woman. Our lives have been very different... I doubt we think about happiness in the same terms..."

Silence fell on us again but this time it had a melancholic quality. We were so close yet we knew so little about each other. We went on eating for a while before Maximus broke the silence for a third time.
"You've become not only a business woman but also a philosopher!"
I couldn't but laugh and he smiled his sweet, boyish smile. As always, it lightened his handsome face and seemed to erase the lines that years of heavy responsibilities and worries had imprinted on it, managing at the same time to make my heart jump.
"Well, you have to thank Apollinarius for that!"
Maximus became serious again.
"How does your friend fit in the story?"
"I met Apollinarius through Cornelius Crassus, the military quaestor who brought me to Rome. We shared an interest in poetry..."
Maximus frowned and seemed to ponder what I'd said. He was a man of action, not words. It was only then that it crossed my mind that perhaps he'd never read a book in his life. Literacy was mandatory in the Roman army which not only trained its men in the use of the sword but also taught them to use their heads. But military tactics were no poetry and official correspondence had nothing to do with philosophy. There are military men who are also scholars but they're born in patrician houses at the Palatine Hill, not in a humble farm in Hispania.
"In those days I was barely able to read or write but I wanted badly to learn... Cornelius Crassus brought me to his sister's house, helped me establish in Rome and then sent Apollinarius to me as a goodbye present..."
Maximus frown deepened.
"Goodbye present?"
"The emperor sent him in a mission to Britannia..."
The thunderous, unsettling light was there again, a cold fire in the depths of his stunning eyes. No, it was not the light playing tricks but something different. Inwardly, I ordered myself not to even dare hope. Of course, it was to no avail. My heart hammered wildly in my chest as I went on talking.
"Apollinarius had been his and his brother's tutor. He started teaching me and we became good friends. He... he was a slave himself... we have much in common..." I explained, my tone indicating that I was not inclined to disclose my friend's private life. Maximus listened in silence. "When I married, he choose to come with me and helped me learn how to manage the estate and household, then became my secretary... and when I became a widow and inherited the business, he became my right hand..."

Nigra came in from the terrace and went to Maximus, seemingly happy to see her sleeping companion again. She rubbed her jet colored coat against his ankle and voiced a soft "Mrrrrrrt!" Maximus arched his eyebrows and looked at me for translation.
"She wants food," I explained and his face relaxed visibly. He looked at the variety of dishes in front of him and hesitated between roasted fowl and grilled fish. I pushed a small plate of smoked cheese towards him. "Here. If you want to become her new best friend, feed her this." Maximus accepted the dish and tore a bit of cheese, then offered it to the plump, small black cat.
Feeding Nigra took some time but when it was over and Maximus reached for the bowl to cleanse his fingers before returning to his own meal, he was grinning. Midway into drying his hands, he suddenly raised his head and asked, "What happened to the other women? To Eugenia?"
My eyes widened in surprise. "You remember Eugenia?"
"Of course, I do. She and the others were very brave when they helped us."
I slightly blushed at his use of "us".
"Well, I must confess I don't know what happened to them. You see, Maximus, on the way back I was treated separately from them for the emperor had entrusted me personally to Cornelius Crassus..."

There it was. The angry blaze immediately after the mention of the quaestor's name. Maximus suspected something had happened between Cornelius Crassus and me? That the patrician young officer had dared make advances? That I'd welcomed or even encouraged him?
Whatever he thought, he didn't like it. Whatever he thought, he didn't want it. He didn't want neither another man touching me nor the idea that I may like another man to do it. Whatever he thought and regardless of the time passed and what should have happened but failed to happen between us, he considered me his. I took a sip of wine to mask my rampaging exhilaration.

"The emperor signed my manumission personally and made me an imperial freedwoman. My reward was also different. He issued orders for his banker to help me establish in Rome and Cornelius Crassus was in charge of supervising the procedures and reporting to him. Besides... " I bit my lip, hesitating about the next words. "Besides, I wanted to start a new. Really a new so... so I decided that in order to do it, I needed to get away from them. Honestly, I didn't want to end up opening a salon and going back to the old life... which I suspect it's what at least some of them must have done..."
I looked at Maximus in earnest.
"There are not many things a woman can do by herself in Rome and I'm afraid some of them must have ended up as paid courtesans. The gods know I don't blame them but that's not what I wanted for me..." I lowered my eyes to my hands, primly folded on my lap. It was oddly difficult to talk about this after years of carefully avoiding to even think about Eugenia, Honora and the others. I'd refused to buy myself fake papers to erase my soiled past but I'd also refused to remain close to the people who'd remind me of it. I'd vanished on my free willing yet I felt somehow guilty of what may have befallen on my fellow slaves and whores. I'd been the one they'd turned to in seek of advice and help and comfort. In seek of guidance. And I'd left them when they'd been more deeply in need of it than ever.
"It was hard to leave them but I had to do it," I said, hoping to have come to terms with my decision and knowing that I'd never come to it. Not at least completely. "Even Eugenia, who was the closest to a female friend I ever had. But I had to do it and I did it. I think Eugenia knew but didn't question me even if it hurt her to see me leave her behind... So I simply vanished..."

"For sure you did."
"Pardon me?"
"You vanished, Julia. You vanished so completely that I couldn't find you."
My gasp must have been explosive for both Nigra and Rubia raised their heads and looked at me with slanted eyes from different corners of the room.
"You looked for me?" I asked, sure that I'd heard him wrong and was making a fool of myself.
"I did."
"B-But y-you just s-said t-that y-you've never b-being in Rome..."
Maximus raised a hand to stop my stammering. Then, he left his goblet on the table, rested his elbows on his tights and looked at me intently as he spoke in a low, rumbling voice.
"I've never been to Rome before. I didn't come personally looking for you. But a few months after you were sent back here, when I was back in my legion's camp in Vindobona after a leave of absence, I decided to check how were you doing... I couldn't come personally and didn't knew where to look for you so I asked my legion's praetor for advice. He directed me to an agent in Rome, a capable man who'd run many errands for him and other officers. I hired him to make enquires about you and inform me how were you doing..."
Maximus leaned towards me, the blaze in his greenish blue eyes softened to a low, steady flame.
"The man looked for you for months but couldn't find you. Just your freedwoman's name in the censor's registers. Nothing more. By the way, your freedwoman's name is beautiful... and befitting."
I felt as if I'd been struck by a lightning bolt. He'd looked for me... When he'd come back from Hispania and his wife, he'd hired an agent to look for me in Rome... and I'd accused him of not caring for me, of dismissing me from his life with no second thought. Swallowing painfully, I lowered my eyes to my lap and reflexively, my left thumb looked for my wedding ring to turn it around my middle finger as I always did when worried or distressed... But the thumb pad only found the slight indentation left there by the golden band. When I talked, it was in such a low whisper that I could barely hear myself.
"Why did you look for me?"
The answer took so long that I thought he'd not heard me. When I was on the brink of repeating my question, Maximus talked again.
"I was worried. You were by yourself in the world and the world is no place for a woman by herself. I wanted to know if you were alright. If you needed help..."
"Help?"
Maximus sighed deeply.
"I was worried that you may have been forced to go back to... to your former life. I knew you'd not do it on your free will but circumstances may have forced you to... I hoped it was not the case."
"And if it'd be?"
"I was ready to help you."
The silence that followed was so absolute that even the cats raised their heads, unsettled by the lack of sounds.
Maximus had looked for me. He'd been worried for me. He'd been worried that I'd be forced into whoring to subsist... or perhaps simply out of loneliness.
He'd been ready to help me if that was the case... but what did "help" mean in this case? As if he'd read my mind, Maximus answered my unspoken question.
"The agent was instructed to provide you with whatever you needed if it was the case. I was ready to help you financially and to offer my... moral support."

I raised my eyes and looked into his, needing not only to hear his answer but also to see it. Needing to see beyond those stunning greenish-blue pools and into his heart and soul.
"Would you have come to me if he'd found me?"
Maximus looked at the ceiling in the same way he'd done the night before, when he'd been chained to a marble column, not so far from where we were sitting. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard and I couldn't but shiver at the sight of the muscles of his tanned throat moving, absentmindedly noticing that a few sun bleached hairs had escaped the neck line of his tunic and made themselves visible against the dark brown of the leather thong. After a long moment, he lowered his head and when he spoke again his voice was soft yet I could feel it vibrating in the depths of his chest and finding an echo in the depths of my soul.
"I never lied to you, Julia, and I'll not start now. I don't know. Honestly, I don't. It was not a matter of me wanting it or not but of my duties and responsibilities. While you came to Rome, I went to Hispania and since I went back to Vindobona, I had but one chance to leave Germania. It was three years ago... and it was the last time I saw my family... It was the last time I saw them alive."

Maximus paused for a moment and licked his lips before talking again.
"Then, your letter came and I understood why you'd vanished... You'd married..."
My letter.
The letter I'd wrote a year after marrying, when Maximus' name had suddenly popped up in a conversation during a banquet at this same villa. The letter I'd entrusted to Aemilius Trebutius Flaccus to be sent to the then Commander of the Armies of the North. The letter which answer I'd awaited long after cold reason should had overruled all hint of hope.

"I'm sorry I didn't answer your letter, Julia. It was a hard time. Everything went wrong... I lost it... When I recovered it, it was already too late..."
My letter.
I remembered every single word of it. I didn't need to have a copy made for I'd committed every one of them to my memory and there they were, along with every little thing regarding Maximus. Along with a few kisses and caresses and words whispered in a curtained alcove and in a bath tub filled with warm water, perfumed oil and pink rose petals but, above all, along with the unspoken feelings which had burned in the silences between them.

It had been a formal letter, a proper missive from a married woman to a man who was not her husband, every polite formula observed and the handwriting as fluent and elegant as the upper class Latin I so easily commanded. I'd told him about my arrival in Rome and my education and marriage to a wealthy man and thanked him properly and profusely for helping me become a freedwoman and thus make all of these possible. I wanted to show him that I could be more than beautiful. That I could be more than a slave and a whore. That I'd become educated and refined, a woman worth of being the wife of a powerful and respectable man. But, as I wrote, my heart and hand had burned with the need to tell him that no freedom or wealth would ever be enough to make me forget him. Not even to lessen the emptiness of my heart. I burned to tell him how much I loved and needed him and that without him, I'd never be whole for he was the other half of my heart and my soul. I burned to tell Maximus that only being with him I'd be able to say my farewell to the scared, little girl who still lived inside me and also be able to say my farewell to the sad, lonely whore that was so close under my skin, for only being with him I'd come to be healed and clean and thus the woman whom he'd seen beyond the scared little girl and the sad, lonely whore. That only being with him, that woman would be able to surface and bloom.

I'd wanted to write all of these but I hadn't. Yet everything had been there and it'd only taken a woman's eyes -Olivia's eyes- to see the truth beyond the formal phrasing. Had he seen it too? I guessed he did. The blaze in his greenish-blue eyes said so.

"I'm sorry, Julia," went on Maximus after a pause. "The letter came along my official correspondence. I should have had it traced, looked for you. I didn't remember your married name but your name as a freedwoman... If I'd tried, if I'd tried really hard, I'd have been able to eventually find you but..."
I stretched my hand across the table and rested it on his. Maximus' hands were big and warm and strong. Farmer's hands. Soldier's hands. They always made me think of black soil and red blood and fertility. Not the obscene fertility of Lupercalia but that of the Earth and nature... and the baby we'd cradled between us in a painfully sweet dream.
"I couldn't... I have no excuse... That is what I was trying to explain last night..."
I leaned towards him and raising my other hand I rested my index finger against his lips, silencing his apologies. They were soft and warm and slightly damp.
"Shhh, Maximus. It's alright. Besides, I owe you an apology for... you know... last night..."
Maximus offered me a slight smile and wrapped my hand in both of his. Their callused palms rasped my skin, but there was something utterly reassuring about it, their warmth enveloping me sweetly as I traced the contour of his bearded cheek, gently cupping his dimpled, firm chin.

We remained like that for a long, sweetly melancholic moment. We remained in silence, lost in each other's thoughts yet silently speaking to each other through hands and eyes, the feeling oddly intimately but not disturbing. It was peaceful and satisfying and I couldn't but ask myself if that would be what those who have the blessing to love and be loved in return share.
It was so peaceful indeed that, when the knocking at the door came, neither of us was startled or hurried to let the other go. Instead, we turned towards the door in unison as I ordered whoever was knocking to come in.
Athenodorus and Nicia entered and respectfully bowed their heads, then asked permission to take off the dishes if we were done with the meal. I turned arou