Twenty Eighth Entry - Other Ways of Vengeance - A.D.180

I took Maximus to the farm using the long road across the woods. There was a shorter, quicker way to get there but that meant riding along the beach and I had other plans involving it and our return to the villa in the late afternoon.
The road under the pines was narrow and cushioned by decades of pine needles trampled both under horses' hooves and human feet and shadowed by the tall trees that grew at each side. Under them, the bright summer sun was reduced to a soft, greenish light that combined with the rustling sound of the branches moving high above us to produce an eerie sensation.

We rode in silence for the road was too narrow for two horses side by side so I took the lead keeping a good pace whenever the low branches allowed it for Sidereum and Fulmen were anxious for a good run and had started snorting and stomping with impatience as soon as they were taken from their stalls to be saddled.

The farm was not one of those fancy places rich senators who indulge bucolic pretences or curious notions about republican ideals (*) build every now and then for their own satisfaction. It was neither a rural villa but, instead, a solid, traditional, all Roman farm.
When I had bought it, it had been but a badly neglected, run down, mid-sized country estate but the land was good, there was water aplenty and the main house and barns were good brick and mortar so some money and effort had soon made a difference. And when Athenodorus managed -- through one of his numerous Greek friends living all along Italia -- to persuade an experienced man to leave his own, small state in the Sabine hills and become my farm's foreman, it had taken no time to see it blooming. The man's name was Calistus, a medium height, bearded individual who looked a lot more like the traditional, soft spoken Greek teacher than a farmer but I had soon learned how deceptive his appearance could be. And also had the farmhands he had picked and hired with expert eye and the authority of those who are used to demand from the others nothing that they don't demand first from themselves. Calistus had brought along a wife and three young children and the couple kept on increasing their family at steady pace but pregnancies and motherhood had never stopped Crispina from personally supervising many of the farm's tasks, like the preparation of preserves and sausages that she shipped to the villa at regular intervals or the weaving of the sheep's wool that was used to sew winter clothes for the farm hands.

It was Crispina who welcomed us at the steps of the main house, her hair coiled in a neat bun and dressed in a simple but spotless homespun tunic. Her younger one was at her hip and a girl who could be no more than three years old grabbed to her skirts with one hand while she sucked the thumb of the other in fierce concentration. The child had curly black hair and looked wide-eyed at the horses and their riders as we dismounted and the farm's dogs noisily barked but, when we stepped towards her, she hurriedly hid behind her mother.
Alerted of our visit by Athenodorus, Calistus was already on his way to the house and arrived before we had finished returning Crispina's welcome. His sole presence was enough to calm down the canine frenzy. Deciding it was too hot to bother, two of the dogs returned to their places by the shadow of a nearby tree while another three followed us swinging their tails and lolling their pink, wet tongues in a vivid demonstration of doggie enthusiasm.
If Calistus knew who Maximus was or was surprised to have him around, he didn't show it. Instead, the usually silent foreman looked more than happy at the chance to show the farm around.
He offered us a respectful bow and wasted no time leading us towards the nearby barn where he started showing the latest achievements in his usual, brusque way. And it took but a casual comment from Maximus to send the man's dark eyebrows high up his forehead. The foreman looked at him as if taking his measure then at me then again at Maximus and offered us a brief smile made of uneven, yellowish but strong teeth. Even to my own ignorance, it was obvious from the comment that the strapping man who had been introduced to him as "General Maximus" was not a pompous fool just arrived from Rome but someone who knew what a farm was and what it took to make it work. From then on, everything went on smoothly and soon we were inspecting pigs, cows, goats, sheep, oxen, mules and horses as if Calistus had been a Roman general proudly parading his troops for a visiting commander. Then it was the turn of chicken, ducks and geese and when it was over Calistus took us to the smoking house, the stores and the barns where fodder, grain and dried vegetables were stored while he and Maximus discussed animatedly the advantages of digging an extra cellar to keep onions, carrots, garlic, beans and other vegetables fresh for as long as possible into the cold season.

By the time the inspection of the farm was over and we returned to the house, it was already high noon and both men had gone over a long list of subjects, from the kind of baskets that were better for storing vegetables to the advantages of braiding the leaves attached to garlic and onion bulbs for preservation purposes, including in the meantime the right amount of salt to prepare a brine that would soften the olives and render then eatable more quickly but would also keep them longer, the better way to keep mould from ruining fresh cheese and how to turn the inevitably spoiled food into something edible for the pigs.
My presence forgotten, Maximus and Calistus talked animatedly, agreed on most subjects, differed about one or two and let out a hearty laugh every now and then. Smiling at their obvious enthusiasm, I kept walking behind them, making my presence unobtrusive and keeping to myself. Even if buying the farm had been my idea and it had proved to be a good one, I seldom went visiting. Calistus did a good job and the farm's ultimate goal was to help feed the people living in my lands and provide part of the food demanded by my kitchen. Money came from the ships and the cargo and that was where I focussed my energy. Between the shipping business and running the estate there was enough work for me even with Apollinarius' help.

When we arrived at the house, Crispina received us at the veranda with a basin full of water to wash our hands and refreshments to calm our thirst. Then, while Maximus and Calistus shook hands and the foreman returned to his tasks followed by the dogs, she suggested we sat there and had something to eat.
"Thank you, Crispina," I said as I returned my empty cup. "But I'd prefer that you pack us something we can take away the for there's still a place I want to show to the General. Add some wine and a blanket, please."
The woman hurried to obey with a swiftness and lack of arguments that had me hoping Nicia would be so accommodating.

Early in the morning, when I had briefly conferred with her before going to the stables, my maid had been disappointed at my refusal to let her organize a lavish meal at the farm.
"This is not a fancy banquet," I pointed out when Nicia was forced to stop her heated arguing in order to take a breath. "This is about simple, rustic, country life…"
"That is the problem," Nicia shoot back. "Everything at the farm is so rustic!"
She managed to infuse the word with a quality that suggested something as smelly as Simacus' cartload of manure. "I can go there and have everything…"
Biting my lower lip so as to refrain from making a sharp comment about the well-known Roman opinion about Greek snobbism, I awaited until the next stop for breath then issued orders for our return to the main house, presumably in the evening. Nicia's eyes had opened very wide then glinted with undisguised interest. I knew that would do the trick.
Before she could recover, I hurried away, leaving my maid already doing what she liked to do best: plotting on her mistress' behalf.

Crispina provided us with a well-washed horse blanket, a small terracotta amphora full of home made wine and two bundles carefully wrapped in clean pieces of cloth. Thanking her, I took Sidereum by the bridle and guided him toward the dirt path behind the farmhouse and the trees that loomed not far from it.
Maximus followed me in silence but I needn't him to talk to know how enjoyable visiting the stable and the farm had been for him. The comfort and luxury of my villa had awed him at first and even if he had come to quickly accept both as my natural surroundings and up to a certain point enjoy them, it was obvious that it was at the stable and the farm that he felt more at home.
It hurt a bit, of course, for I had wanted him to share what was mine and to give him what he had missed and so badly deserved after a lifetime of harsh life at the frontier and the brutality of the last months of his life. Yet there was an odd consolation in his obvious enthusiasm as he animatedly talked with the foreman about crops and newborn animals. He had been torn all his life between farming and soldiering, between nurturing life and bringing death. He had fiercely loved both his farm and the army and had devoted himself to both in his own, personal way… In the end, everything had been taken from him but at least the land had not betrayed him as his emperor's son and his own legate had done.

The gurgling sound of the stream reached our ears before we came to the clear that surrounded its crystalline course. It was a narrow stream, so narrow at some points that children enjoyed jumping over it. It was also shallow, the bed covered in soft, flat rocks and the shores by succulent, emerald green herb. Blue and yellow bell-like flowers added a touch of colour and a slight hint of perfume while little, silver colored fish darted furtively around. Sniffing the nearness of cool, delicious water, Fulmen and Sidereum snorted and bobbed their heads as we stepped again under the trees' canopy.
"So, this is it," said Maximus with a delighted smile. "The stream where the servants' children come fishing…"
"Yes, it is. And if you change your mind and decide to give it a try, I always keep some string and pins in my saddle bag…"
Maximus cocked an eyebrow.
"You fish?" he asked.
I chuckled.
"The gods forbid it! I am a city woman but riding in the countryside taught me to always carry string, pins and other stuff in my saddle bag just in case…" I nodded towards the horses. "We better unsaddle them so they can drink and browse more comfortably while we eat…"
In the end, it was Maximus who took care of both Fulmen and Sidereum while I spread the blanket and opened the cloth wrapped bundles in what seemed to have become the accepted routine of the last days, be it that we were at my sitting room, my private terrace, the Poseidon's deck or, like now, under the trees and by a stream. Once opened, the bundles revealed a bountiful of black and green olives, cheese, freshly baked loaves and slices of a pork sausage flavoured with nuts and spices then smoked to perfection. At the farm there were no honey, raisings and pine nuts biscuits but Crispina had packed us some libum (**) that promised to be an acceptable replacement.
"Fish or no fish, for sure that stream adds lots of value to your land which, by the way, is very good considering the nearness of the sea," said Maximus as he sat on the blanket by my side and took the bread I offered him.
"Truth is it's not the only stream in the property," I commented as I handed him the small amphora. "I'm afraid Crispina forgot to pack us cups so we will have to drink it directly…"
Maximus nodded and brought the amphora to his lips then threw his head back and took a good swallow, the powerful muscles in his tanned throat deliciously rippling as he did.
At the sight, I reflexively licked my lips.
"There are two other streams," I explained as I took back the amphora. "One is not far from here. It's bigger and carries a lot more water. Serves well to water the crops and the animals. The other one crosses the back end of the villa."
"Where do they flow? asked Maximus as he heartily munched his piece of cheese.
"Well, all watercourses around flow towards the Tiber…" I said reminding myself that he had never been to Rome before and knew little about the surroundings. "We are very close to it (***). Ostia's harbour is where the Tiber meets the sea…"
"I know…"
A quick shadow passed through Maximus' eyes and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
I bit my lip.
For sure he knew that.
Proximo must had brought his gladiators by sea in order to arrive in time for the games.

In order to hide my discomfort at such a careless comment, I nibbled a sausage slice but gave it up after a bite or two for my stomach churned at its taste. Absentmindedly, I remembered Apollinarius commenting that regret had never been good for digestion.
My fingers toyed with the slice, then left it aside.
"Lost your appetite?" asked Maximus in between bites.
"No, it's just that it's a bit strong on the pepper…" I offered.
That was not true. Crispina had a wonderful hand when it came to seasoning sausages.
Maximus smiled and popped another slice in his mouth.
I licked my lips.
Seeing him wolf down his meal was, indeed, incredibly arousing.
"City girl," he teased. "It takes a country boy's stomach to fully appreciate a good country sausage…"
I couldn't but laugh. Sitting on the faded blanket, drinking wine directly from the amphora and heartily enjoying his rustic meal of cheese, olives, sausage and bread, with a gurgling stream at hand and the horses softly snorting as they ate the fresh grass, Maximus looked not only younger and fresher that ever but content at heart and utterly at peace.
Leaving the amphora on the ground after a second swallow, he cocked his head and looked at me in earnest.
"That is what I am, Julia," he said. "A rustic farmer and an even more rustic soldier…"
He sounded a bit shy, as shy as he had looked the first evening he had sat to dinner at my luxurious apartment.
"That's why I love you…" I breathed.
Maximus offered me a little, lopsided smile.
"Well, that's one of the many reasons why I love you…" I went on. "The fact that you are tender, caring, brave and fiercely loyal to those you… care for also count," I said and hurried up to cover my blunder. "And, of course, being beautiful as you are adds some weigh…"
His smile took an embarrassed quality. In the same way that the talk about my servant's affection made me uncomfortable, any mention of his own, obvious beauty had that same effect on him.
Averting his greenish blue eyes, Maximus toyed for a moment with the grass then dug his fingers in the dark soil. Scooping a handful of damp lumps, he slowly crushed them between his callused fingers then let them fall back.
"Men should never leave the land behind, Julia," he said in a husky tone. "Working the land is what keeps you true to yourself. What reminds you of your duty… and gives you the strength to fulfill it…"
There was a moment of silence then he added as if talking to himself, "Those men in Rome should leave their squabbling and plotting and return to the land… This is where truth and power are. Not in war. Not in conquering. Not in bloodshed…"

"A man has to do what he has to do."

There was a long silence.
The horses dozed in the cool shade of the trees.
The birds seemed oddly quiet.
Even the breeze seemed to have died giving way to a silence that was deafening in its own way.
Then Maximus brusquely threw the last soil lumps away and turned towards me.
And then, I saw it coming.
The exact moment when he made up his mind.
First, his gaze took that distant, faraway look that I had already learned meant he was lost in his deepest, more intimate thoughts. Then, when his decision was already taken, he blinked as a man who has just awoken and those sparkling, jewel-like eyes darkened and hardened as the gems they resembled.
With horrified fascination I saw him slightly straighten his shoulders as his mouth lost all softness and his chin set in an even firmer way than usual. Like a bird trapped by the hypnotic view of death slowly sliding towards it under the guise of a snake, I saw Maximus prepare himself to shatter both peace and happiness.

"A man has to do what he has to do."

"Julia, we have to talk…"
"No…"
Maximus voice was low and firm but there was no lack of gentleness in it.
Mine, instead, sounded badly strangled.
"Julia, you know we have to do it."
"No…"
"There's nothing to be gained denying the truth…"
"NO!"
He blinked again at the anguish and distress of the scream that came from my suddenly rough throat.
Startled, the birds in the nearby trees took to the air in a flurry of feathers and indignant squeaks.
Maximus' sigh was barely perceptible but for the slight parting of his lips.
I'd have missed it if I hadn't been looking at his face so intently that it hurt.
"Julia, when I am… gone… I want you to leave Italia."
"Maximus…"
He silenced me with a gesture then took me by my upper arms, his callused palms and fingers gently rasping my skin. Absentmindedly I noticed his ever- present warmth over my flesh suddenly gone cold.
I shuddered.
"Julia, I want you to leave…" he went on, "Go away. Don't waste a moment. Get on one of your ships and go away. Go to that villa of yours in Melita or, better yet, go farther."
"Maximus…"
He slightly shook me, the glint in his greenish blue eyes turning from the usual flame into piercing steel. He was all coolness and restrain, a general ready for battle.
"Have you got friends somewhere in the East?"
"I have a friend in Alexandria…" I said before I could stop myself, his commanding voice and demeanor demanding immediate, unquestioned obedience.
"Good. Go visiting and remain there till…"
Partially recovering my wits, I struggled against his hold.
Of course, it was to no avail.
"Maximus, what are you talking about?"
Only when the echoes of my scream drowned the gurgling sound of the nearby stream did I notice that I was screaming.
Maximus' fingers painfully dug in my flesh as silence fell on us and stretched for a long, long moment. Our eyes remained locked with each other's, mine challenging and imploring at the same time, his giving away nothing but that steely glint that threatened to pierce both my heart and my soul.

"A man has to do what he has to do."

Yet I refused to cower.
After what seemed an eternity, Maximus took a deep breath and eased his hold of my arms but didn't let me go.
"When I go back to Rome," he said in a low voice, "things may take a nasty turn. In any case, it won't be easy and more probably than not it will be dangerous. Very dangerous. I want you safe. I want you away from Italy."
"Maximus, please!"
Something thunderous flashed in the depths of those startling, greenish blue eyes. His hands closed on my arms again and he shook me till my teeth rattled.
"Listen to me!" he exploded in roaring anger, the flames in his eyes leaping dangerously and replacing the steel in its depths with burning fury.
There was another long silence, then Maximus sighed and eased his hold of my arms, his thumbs rubbing my skin in a gesture that was half apology and half comfort.
"You know what will happen when Proximo takes me back to Rome… I will go back to the Colosseum, back to fighting and I will kill Commodus… unless he has me killed before…"
He stopped and when I failed to say anything went ahead.
"But if I manage to survive long enough, I will have his life… and my vengeance."
At the underlying hate in his tone I shuddered uncontrollably.
In an absent way, Maximus rubbed my upper arms as if trying to ease a chill.
"Commodus knows it too. He knows that given a chance I will go for him… and he also knows that if that happens, he is lost…"
The silence that fell on us once more was not the sweet, companionable one I had come to know and cherish so much. It was nothing like the silence we had shared while lying in each other's arms. It was, instead, a pregnant silent, rich in threat and menace like the silence that precedes a really bad storm.
Even the wood and the stream seemed to have fallen silent, dreadfully expecting for the lightning to flash and thunder to roar.
And a storm was coming.
Despite the lightning and thunder, despite the howling wind and the crashing waves and the pouring rain, there's something oddly comforting about storms for they bring along with their fury a promise of rebirth, be it for nature or men.
But the storm that was coming promised only destruction and grief and death. A storm where the blasting of trumpets and the roaring of drums that signalled the reopening of the games would replace thunder as lightning would be replaced by the flash of steel clashing on steel…
"He fancies himself a warrior and a swordsman but he's only playing soldiers with his praetorians… He's no match for me…"
Maximus' words brought me back from my dark musings.
Blazing anger had been replaced in the depth of his eyes by the steady fire of determination.
And it was all the more scarier.
"Commodus knows that if I survive long enough, he's doomed… So he will take whatever chance he has to kill me."
My mouth suddenly filled with the acrid taste of ashes.
Oh yes, a storm was coming and on its wake there would be no chance for rebirth…

"A man has to do what he has to do."

"An ambush on my way back… A fake accident at the Ludus Magnus (****)… A rigged fight…I don't think he will try something obvious… The Spaniard is still too popular…"
There was a hint of derision when he referred to himself by the name Proximo had given him.
"I'm counting on this but Commodus is very volatile… He always was. Even when he was a child."
I opened my mouth but no sound came from it. Oblivious, Maximus went on talking.
"He hates losing…" he said. "And he has lost to me too many times…"
My eyebrows arched on their own volition yet the notion of a man -- any man, even the Roman emperor -- losing to Maximus was not difficult to believe. And their steps had crossed more than once along the two decades Maximus had spent at the army, two decades that had also involved a close relationship with Commodus' father and his sister. And along it, the Lady Lucilla had loved him and Marcus Aurelius had made him his appointed heir…

"When I am back in Rome, I will need all my strength, all my skills and all my resources to keep myself alive long enough to be able to get to Commodus…"
Being unable to shut off Maximus' voice, I closed my eyes as if the resulting darkness would help me hide from the grim truth he was voicing.
"This is my only chance, Julia. I don't need to worry myself thinking about your safety… I can't indulge worrying about your safety!"
Feeling as if he had slapped me, my eyes snapped open and I tried to shake his hands off but he refused to let me go.
"You needn't worry about me, General!" I snapped back hoarsely. "I can take good care of myself! You should know better!"
Maximus blinked at the oblique mention of the way I had overstepped him and taken Cassius' life before he could stop me. Then, he looked at me for a moment and offered me a little, sad smile.
"Julia, you don't know Commodus. Nobody in the whole empire will be safe while he remains at the throne…"
He was probably right but I refused to pay heed.
Besides, Rome is a good part of the world but not all of it. Whoever has a shipping business knows better. There are other lands beyond its borders where the will and word and rule of the Roman emperor mean nothing.
"Either he'll kill me or I will kill him… In any case, the consequences will be bad…"
My eyes were looking directly into Maximus' and the hint of steel was there again and so was in his low, deep voice.
"If he gets me before I can kill him, Commodus will feel invincible and become worse and worse. Sooner or later they will go for him but in the meantime he will manage to do lots of damage to Rome…and to hurt many people…"
Stopping, Maximus blinked then swallowed hard, the strong muscles of his throat bulging and stretching under the tanned skin and despite the tension I had to refrain myself not to slide my fingertips over it then rest them on the hollow at its base, where his pulse visibly throbbed.
"If I kill him," he went on saying, "chaos will follow. There's no adult male in the imperial family who can take the throne. There will be a power struggle… It will take time before the peace is restored…"

Civil war.

Civil war…once more.
Of course, he was right.
Nothing but civil war could result from the killing of an emperor, especially if that killing was the consequence of a blood debt instead of the last act of a well planned and better staged political plot.
Republic or empire, Rome has a long tradition of civil wars, generation after generation decimated by the bloody feuds between ambitious politicians who were more alike the chieftains and warlords they deemed as enemies than they cared to admit. Marius and Sulla. Caesar and Pompeii. Octavius and Marcus Antonius. Galba, Otto and Vitellius going for each others' throats in the aftermath of Nero's suicide and tearing the country to bloody shreds. Vespasian biding his time in the East, stalling the grain carriers and tightening his hold on Rome's throat till the diplomatic genius of his eldest son, Titus, got him the support and acceptance that brought him back to the Urbs as emperor and saviour of his country. Vespasian had brought back law and order and when he died, ten years later, he had left his capable son to follow his steps. But despite his youth, Titus had had only three years left and when he died, his younger brother, Domitian, had revived the horrors that Rome had thought buried forever along with Nero's despised ashes. Nobody had been safe from his volatile cruelty and historians still wondered how a strong, moral man like Vespasian could have sired such a monster… He had been killed, of course, and even if there had been no civil war, the unrest that had followed had demanded its own share of death and blood. The Senate had chosen Nerva as new emperor and ordered Domitian's name and titles and memory erased from public monuments and history books as they had done decades before with Nero's. Nerva had brought peace and order back to Rome and so had done his successors.
Trajan, his adopted son.
Hadrian, adopted by Trajan.
Antoninus Pius, adopted by Hadrian and who had in turn adopted Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.
There had been plots and betrayal that could have unleashed the old horrors again but a series of strong, able men had managed to prevent them.
And when one of those plots had gone too far, Maximus and I had put a stop to it and the lives of the men behind the conspiracy.
Now, Marcus Aurelius was dead and the circle was coming to an end.
Another monster born from the loins of a good man sat at the throne at the expense of his father's life and a strong, moral man's demise.
And the empire was his playground.
Ninety years of peace were on the brink of shattering to bloody pieces, sweeping along lives and hopes and dreams and leaving behind a trail of death and despair.
"It needn't be like this…" I whispered or I think I did for my voice was so low that I barely could hear it.
Still talking urgently, Maximus paid no heed.
"In any case, it will be hard… and I won't be here to take care of you…"

Suddenly, I noticed that we were kneeling facing each other on the blanket, Maximus' hands lightly resting on my shoulders, mine lying limp on my thighs. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember when or how we had moved and come to it.
"That is why I want you to go away, Julia. I want you to go away from Italia before things get out of control. I want you safe…"
I opened my lips but before I could say a word Maximus silenced me, slightly pressing a callused fingertip over my lips.
"You know what I think about your plan to make me escape…"
At the mention of the argument in my sitting room the night Maximus had been brought to my villa, I became tense. Feeling the change in my mood, Maximus offered me a little smile and soothingly caressed my hair.
"Don't misunderstand me, Julia," he said softly, tenderness replacing in his voice the steel of his fierce determination. "I don't regret being here… being with you. No matter what happens, I will never regret… these days…"
As he talked, his eyes softened from hard gemstones into ocean colored pools and I felt myself getting lost in the lulling warmth of those bottomless waters… Waters in which I'd needn't fear to be drowned for they promised safety instead of death. But Maximus' following words brought me back to cold, brutal, real life.
"But it is dangerous. Perhaps now, with the plague, Commodus is too worried to pay attention but sooner or later he will get word about me being taken out of the city…"
"It needn't be like this…" I whispered again and again my words sounded too faint to my own ears.
"He can easily trace me to you… I want you safe, Julia. Leave Italia. Go to Melita or better yet, go visiting those friends... Go to Alexandria. Go wherever you want to go but when I am gone, Julia, leave Italia."
The knot in my throat was too much to be swollen.
Unable to speak, I shook my head no.
"Please, Julia. Leave Italia…"
Maximus' voice lowered, urgency and concern turning it into to a hoarse whisper. "Whatever happens, I cannot protect you…"
His voice drifted in the breeze.
Somehow I found mine.
"It needn't be like this…"
"Julia…"
Maximus' gently moved some tendrils away from my face and caressed my cheek. Under his warm, callused palm my flesh felt smooth but also cold and hard.
As cold and as hard as marble.
As cold and as hard and also as dead.
"It needn't be like this…" I repeated stubbornly.
"Julia, we have already talked…"
"Maximus…"
"Julia, you know I can't go away…"

Before I knew what I was doing, I punched him hard on his broad chest.
My fist landed with a loud, vaguely sickening thud.
Maximus winced in surprise and perhaps also in pain.
The blow had been harder than I had intended.
Harder than I imagined it could be, a dull pain spreading from my tight fist and up my arm.
In any case, it had reached its goal.
Now I had his full attention instead of his intent to sooth me or convince me.
"It needn't be like this!" I screamed, "And it has nothing to do with going away!"
Maximus looked at a loss.
"It needn't be like this and it has nothing to do with me either…" I repeated in a hoarse voice that I barely recognized as mine.
A voice so hoarse that was more sob than voice.
"Julia…"
He tried to take me in his arms but I slapped his hands away.
"It has nothing to do with me… It never had!"
Maximus frowned and cast me a wary glance.
I had seen him look at me that way before.
It had been in Moesia, when I had stabbed Cassius to death and his bloody corpse was on the floor between us.
"I love you, Maximus," I went on oblivious to the wariness in his eyes. "I have loved you from the first time I ever saw you. I had never loved any other man and I will never do. There's nothing in the world that I want more than being with you. Nothing!"
As I spoke, I grabbed him by his upper arms and tried to shake him but as always it was to no avail.
Burning with frustration, I punched him again.
He could easily have avoided the blow or stopped my arm for even if fury gave me speed and strength I was no match for him. Yet he allowed me to hit him, taking in my blow, taking in my anger in the same unquestioning way in which he took in my tenderness and loving surrender, a man who was man enough to accept the pain that comes along with love.

"I don't give a damn about money or riches or whatever! I would leave everything behind this same moment if you'd but come with me…I'd follow you on my bare feet to any corner of the empire and beyond and call myself happy while I walked by your side…"
Flames leaped in the depths of Maximus' eyes and for once I forced myself not to guess what had caused them to burn with renewed life.
There was something more urgent to do than guessing whatever he felt for me.
"But you have told me your reasons not to leave and I respect them… May be I don't agree with them but I respect your decision. The gods know I will have to live with the consequences…"
He opened his mouth but before he could say something -- anything -- I silenced him as he had done shortly before, pressing my fingers against his warm lips.
"It's not about me, Maximus," I insisted, "but it needn't be this way…"
Maximus pushed my fingers away and I let him do.
"Julia, what are you talking about?"
"You can have your revenge… but it needn't be this way… You needn't give up your life to get even with Commodus… There needn't be a struggle for power or a civil war or chaos…"
He frowned quizzically and I grabbed his hands in mine.
"Maximus, you are the true emperor of Rome. Why not claim your right?"
"Julia…"
"Listen to me! Wasn't this what Marcus Aurelius wanted? Didn't he make you his sole, rightful heir? Wouldn't the emperor want you to challenge his usurping son and rescue Rome from his hands?"
Maximus shook his head yet it was not a gesture of denial but one of confusion.
I pressed harder, hating myself for the pain I was inflicting him but ordering myself to do it nevertheless. To do whatever was necessary to take Maximus from the road that would only lead him to his own death.
"You said you didn't want it but that you couldn't deny a dying man his last wish…"
The arrow hit its target.
Maximus winced as if I had slapped him.
He looked stricken.
If the cause of that look was the discovery of my own ruthlessness or the reminded weigh of his own, private burden, it was not important.
Only one thing counted.
Saving him.
Even at the price of losing him not to death but to Rome.
"Maximus, Commodus has enemies. And he makes more every day… Why not expose Commodus' crime and claim your right? Why not have him declared a public enemy as other emperors had been and executed?" I urged him, my nails digging in his palms. "Do it yourself if you want! Kick his body down the Gemonian Steps (*****) as that of a traitor for a traitor he is! A traitor and a parricide! Have the mob drag his corpse to the Tiber with hawks and his memory erased from Roman history! You can have your vengeance, Maximus, but you needn't lose your life while at it! Have a better, greater revenge: let Commodus' last memory be that of you sitting in his throne! Take everything from him as he took everything from you!"

Maximus shuddered then closed his eyes, his big, warm hands tightening his
hold of mine in a way that threatened to snap my fingers.
Oblivious to the pain, I brought them to my breast.
"Grant a dying man his last wish…" I whispered. "Claim your right! Return
Rome back to its true self! And get your vengeance in the meantime. Then…
then you can do what you want… Leave the power to the Senate! Sit yourself
on the throne! Return to Hispania! Do whatever you want…"

Even as I talked I knew I was deluding myself on this last subject.
If Maximus claimed what was his right, there was but only one road left ahead. And that would take him away from me forever because it lead to the throne.
A woman can lose a man to another and still hope to recover him.
Instead, losing a man to Roma Dea is forever and many women can attest to it, from Cleopatra who lost Marcus Antonius to her vengeance and the freedwoman Antonia Caenis who lost Vespasian to the cursus honorum (******).

"A man has to do what he has to do… even if it's not exactly what he wants to do…"

Maximus himself had said so but probably he didn't know how many meanings that line could have!
In that, special case, it meant not only taking the throne and the dreaded, attached burden that had crushed so many men and had so many others betrayed and killed but also strengthening his claim and ensuring the backing of the Senate. It was crucial for any man donning the golden laurel wreath but especially for one like him, who had no political career or allies in the Urbs.
And that could only be achieved by marrying the woman whose imperial blood and political influence could grant him both: the Lady Lucilla.
Yet, losing him to Roma Dea and giving him up to Lucilla was preferable to losing him to death…

A woman has to do what she has to do… even if it's not what she wants to do.

(*) The ideal of the rustic country life is dated to the days of the Roman Republic and was celebrated by many poets, included Virgilius. As the empire grew in size and strength, the men who ruled it also grew in ambition and the heroic, selfless soldiers with no political ambitions of the early days were replaced by corrupted, power ridden ones who plotted, betrayed and murdered to get their goals. By the end of Marcus Aurelius' reign it was obvious that the empire had reached its zenith and was starting it's long slide down. Consequently, the Roman society experienced an intense and melancholic longing for those selfless, brave men and the virtues of the old, simpler days. Marcus Aurelius himself -- who was also the most important philosopher of his time -- celebrated the ideal in his superb "Meditations", a series of private writings in Greek published after his death. In many senses, Maximus embodies the virtues of those republican men, brave "farmer soldiers" who took their weapons to defend their country and returned to their crops when the war was over.
(**) Libum: A Roman pastry which name can be loosely translated as "Spelt Bums". They were made with flour, eggs, ricotta cheese and honey.
(***) In the last eighteen centuries, the landscape of the Italian coast has changed a lot. The still standing and breathtaking ruins of Ostia are not, as they used to be, by the sea but a few miles inland due to the landslides and earthquakes that pushed the beach ahead. The Porta Marina does not give way to the seashore as it used to but to a modern highway. The remains of the Harbours of Claudius and Trajan were discovered in the 1960s, when teams working in the construction of Leonardo DaVinci International Airport -- in the area known nowadays as Fiumiccino -- accidentally found four Roman merchant ships buried in the mud. Also the actual course of the Tiber is different and the causeway runs farther from the ruins of the city that it used to. "Fiumiccino" translates from Italian as "Little River" and probably originated out of the presence of a stream in the area were Julia's villa was.
(****) Ludus Magnus Gladiatoris: Latin name of the gladiators' compound where the fighters coming from the provinces were lodged during the games. The still standing remains can be seen on Via Labicana, behind the Colosseum and across from the Aurea Domus' ruins and gardens.
(*****) Gemonian Steps: In Latin, "Gemoniae Scalae". A stair on the slopes of the Capitoline Hill where the bodies of those who had been executed for treason were exposed for public derision before being dragged to the Tiber.
(******) Cursus Honorum: In Latin, "The Course of Honor" or the formal succession of steps in the political career of Roman males from the senatorial and equestrian classes. It was a fairly structured system and imposed a series of duties and limitations to those who wanted to achieve political office. One of them was that senatorial men could not marry freedwomen. Another, that they should be married to be eligible for office. Antonia Caenis, a highly educated imperial freedwoman, was Vespasian's lover during his youth but he was forced to leave her and marry a woman of his own class, Flavia Domitilla. The story, nevertheless, had a happy end: decades later, when Vespasian was a respected and prestigious former consul in his late forties and his wife died, he settled with Antonia Caenis and openly lived with her till her death. Vespasian refused to marry again even when he became emperor of Rome and the woman who had been born a slave in the imperial palace, ruled it as his equal.

Twenty Ninth Entry - Dust and Air - 180 A.D.

After what seemed an eternity, Maximus finally opened his eyes.
And as he did, I saw the flames in their depths had been replaced by haunted shadows.
"Julia, I am but a slave. A gladiator! How do you expect me to claim my right... even if I have it?"
There was pain in his voice, the kind of pain that would shatter me -- really shatter me -- if I went on listening.
Impatience was as good as any other thing to hide my own fear and grief.
Freeing my aching hands from his, I grabbed the front of his tunic with both.
"This is Rome, Maximus! People don't even go to the lavatory without signing papers! (*) You said it yourself! There was a document, a contract between Marcus Aurelius and you! Both of you signed it! That document proves that you are his chosen heir, not Commodus…"
At the mention of the document, Maximus closed his eyes again and slowly shook his head no.
My hands tightened their hold of his tunic as dread made the bile rise in my throat. Somehow I forced it down.
"Maximus, what happened to the document?"
He took a deep, shuddering breath then a second, calmer one and slowly, very slowly opened his eyes again.
That faraway look I had come to know so well had replaced both flames and haunted shadows. A faraway look that told me he had crossed the threshold of his personal Hades once more.
"We signed a document, yes," he said, slowly articulating each word, like a father trying to make a stubborn child understand why it is not good to hope for the impossible. "There were two copies… one for Marcus and one for me… I suspect Commodus found his copy…"
"And yours?" I urged him, "What happened to your copy?"
Maximus pressed his lips into a hard line then spoke again, always slowly and carefully but now sounding instead like a man revisiting once more an episode he had played in his mind a thousand times yet struggling to see it under a completely new light.

"When I returned to my tent, after refusing to swear loyalty to Commodus, I dressed in my battle armour and put my copy of the document under my cuirass… It was still there when Quintus' praetorians knocked me off... It was still there when I escaped my executioners and rode towards Hispania…"
He stopped and I let out the breath I couldn't remember I was holding.
"What happened then?"
"I lost the first horse in Narbonensis (**). With only one mount and the weather becoming warmer day after day, I left my armour behind…"

My hands clutched his tunic with renewed force, my knuckles white out of effort and distress. Somewhere in Narbonensis, he had left his armour behind…
Somewhere in Narbonensis...
"Maximus…"
Cocking his head, he smiled sadly and traced the contour of my cheek with a callused finger in an absent, somehow unsettling way.
"Oh, I took the document with me. I still had it with me when I arrived to my farm…"
A new, haunted shadow crossed his greenish blue eyes.
For a moment, those stunning, sparkling jewels turned dull with anguish and misery.
Then, as the tidal wave of anguish and misery washed away to be replaced by a hard, steely glint, I saw in their depths what he had seen on that fateful day when, wounded and exhausted, burning with fever and sick with desperation, he had arrived to his devastated home...
Black smoke curled towards a limpid, blue sky obscuring the sun of what should have been another simple, perfect day in balmy Tergillium.
Black was also the scorched land, the ripe, golden crops I had seen in my dreams gone up in flames like some grotesque sacrifice to a blood thirsty deity.
Black were the corpses lying around, frozen forever in the grotesque contortions of unspeakable agony...
Black was the sooth that marred the now broken beauty of the pink stone house where only death lived...
Under the perfect sun, all was shadows and ghosts and death.
All was blackness and emptiness and grief.
And among devastation and sooth and smoke and death, a rose vine bloomed in pink, perfect clusters...

"...my bedroom's window was close to it and in the summer, I lied awake in my pallet and I could smell the roses..."

I saw it all as if I had been looking at it through Maximus' eyes.
And along with the sight of death and devastation came grief, a grief so intense that it was physical pain...
Unable to stand it, I closed my eyes trying to shut off the visions and also the anguish and the misery.
But as I did, the images were replaced by vivid smells that assaulted me with the force of a physical blow...
The fecund smell of good, black, fertile soil...
The fresh, vaguely spicy fragrance of rose vines...
The sharp, heady one of mint...
The overpowering, chocking smell of smoke...
The sickening one of burned flesh...

"Roses and the mint my mother grew in her herb garden... I don't remember anything more..."

Not once but twice he had seen that picture of desolation.
Not once but twice he had seen those he loved taken from him by the fire.
Not once but twice he had survived devastation and death.
Not once but twice fate had spared him for its own, mysterious reasons...

And I wouldn't -- couldn't -- accept that he had been spared twice just to be reduced to slavery and fighting for the amusement of the mob. Much less, that he had been spared twice just to be killed by the treacherous monster that had murdered his emperor and his family and usurped his right to rule the destiny of Rome.

Shuddering uncontrollably, gasping for air, I opened my eyes.
"Where is the document, Maximus?" I urged him, chocking on my own words and trying to steer him back towards the right direction... Trying to steer myself away from those visions of death and devastation that I knew would haunt my dreams, as the vision of the Celt slaves at Ostia's harbour used to.
Maximus didn't answer.
Dread threatened to overcome me again.
"Did the slave traders take if from you?" I asked softly, desperate to break the unsettling silence that had fallen on us yet terrified of what I would hear when that happened.

But Maximus didn't utter a single word.
Instead, he smiled.
A sad, tired, lopsided, bitter smile.
Such a simple gesture yet it managed to send a shiver down my spine.
For there was something more behind its seeming simplicity.
Something more and infinitely worse than sadness and tiredness and bitterness.
Something terrifying.
For it was the kind of devastation that only comes in the wake of utter, mocking irony.

"No," he said softly, his finger still absently tracing the contour of my cheek. Under the callused finger pad, my flesh felt numb. "They took my clothes and boots and my freedom but they didn't take the document…"
His voice sounded perfectly calm.
Even soft and gentle.
Decidedly polite, so very much like that of a man casually exchanging pleasantries out of good manners.
But it managed to curdle the blood in my veins.
For there was no hint of warmth in that low rumble that I loved so much.
Neither a hint of life.
Just the desperate lucidity that only lingers at the border of madness.

I let a heartbeat pass before speaking again.
"Where is it, Maximus?" I insisted while forcing myself to speak softly, desperately clinging to my determination to find out where the powerful document that could turn the tide was.
"Oh, you needn't worry. It's safe, Julia. It's in the safest possible place…"
As he talked, he smiled again in that sad, meaningful, unsettling way and the dread I had managed to keep under control up to that moment turned into something physical and sickening.
I don't know how I managed to go on talking.
"Where did you hide it? I have agents in Gades and Malacca! (***) I can send a message to the closest one and have the document retrieved and brought to
Rome… I can…"

Maximus stopped me with the callused finger pad gently pressed against my lips.
This time, his wan smile only reflected intense sadness.
"Shh, Julia. It cannot be retrieved. Not from the place where I hid it…"
My mind raced trying to grab the possible implications of his words.

What had he done?

He had had it with him when he had arrived to his farm...
What had a man crazed with fever and grief done to the document that had triggered his demise and the destruction of those he loved? What had a man who only wisheed to die done with the document that granted him the power he had never wanted?

"Maximus, what did you do with it?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he raised his stunning eyes towards the trees' canopy and for a long moment remained like that, lost in the contemplation of something that was well beyond it and only he could see.
Silence stretched for what seemed an eternity.
Then he spoke.
Softly.
So softly that his words were barely more than a whisper.
Yet his words had the force of a physical blow.

"I put it in Olivia's grave. I buried my last duty to Rome with my wife's body.
It seemed the right thing to do… She died because of that duty…All else is dust and air..."

Like a beaten gladiator, I bowed my head in the time honored gesture of defeat.

Buried.
The document that was my only hope to save Maximus and also the only hope to save Rome from a madman was buried in a an anonymous grave in Hispania.
His wife's grave.
Lost to me as Maximus would soon be... unless I could find another way to have his claim to the throne put in front of the Senate.
Still clutching the front of his tunic, my white knuckled hands shook visibly and I bit my lower lip fiercely to still them.
It was not the time to indulge in weakness, much less to surrender no matter how bad the blows were.
"Think!" I ordered myself inwardly. "Damn it, think! There has to be a way! There is always a way...!"

"Witnesses!"

Maximus turned to look at me and blinked, brusquely bought back to reality.

"Witnesses!" I repeated. "There has to be witnesses! Documents demand witnesses to be legal! Who witnessed the signature of the document, Maximus?"
"Nobody... There were no witnesses. Marcus and I signed the two copies privately in his tent and he stamped his imperial signet ring on the wax…"

I felt like screaming.

"But he was the emperor of Rome! He knew better than that! He..."
Maximus shook his head no.
"Julia, you don't understand..."
"No, Maximus! YOU don't understand! It's your life we are dealing with here! Your life and your right and your chance to..."
He shook his head again.
"Julia, you don't understand...." he repeated.

"THEN MAKE ME UNDERSTAND!"

Maximus flinched at the murderous rage in my voice.
High above our heads, the startled birds noisily flapped their wings and squeaked their indignation at the renewed interruption of their bliss.
Unable to control myself any longer, I let out a dry sob.
In the depths of Maximus' eyes, concern replaced all other emotions and he swiftly moved to take me in his arms but I let his tunic go and slapped his hands away, rejecting his attempt to calm me down, knowing that if I allowed him to hug me against his chest, that if I accepted his warmth and comfort, I'd shatter never to recover again.

No, it was not the time to indulge in weaknesses or longings, much less in tears.
It was the time to endure and fight and do whatever it took, whatever had to be done -- coax, blackmail, bribe, even kill if it was the case -- to save the man I loved...
For with the same, desperate lucidity that he had talked about his fateful demise, I knew that was my last ever opportunity to steer him away from his determination to get his revenge at the price of his own life.

And perhaps, what my love had failed to attain, his love for his emperor and his country would do.

"Then make me understand..." I repeated, my own, broken voice now but a barely audible, hollow whisper.
Tentatively, Maximus caressed my cheek. I couldn't remember him hesitating to touch me before but neither had he ever seen in my eyes what I knew that now burned in their depths.
Absentmindedly, I wondered if the cause of his hesitation would be burning rage or cold determination.
More probably than not it was pure madness.
I didn't reject his caress, the warmth that was as much his as the heated rumble of his voice and the sparkle of his jewel-like eyes barely registering yet nevertheless more than welcome.
Had it only been a few moments ago that we had been drinking and laughing?
Had it only been a few moments ago that we had shared warmth and sweet intimacy?

"Julia, everything happened so fast…" he started, still caressing my cheek. "First, there was the battle... The last battle against the German tribes. It meant the end of a twelve years long war. And it was a terrible, bloody one..."

As he talked, Maximus blinked again and I reflexively blinked back.
And as I did, I saw it as I had seen the devastation he had witnessed when he had arrived to his farm.
I saw the flames engulfing the trees of a Germanian forest and also the fur cladded warriors desperately attempting to reject the charge of the iron cladded Roman legion.
I saw the smoke and the contorted faces of the warriors on both sides, some screaming in defiance, others frozen forever in the grimace of untimely and violent death.
I saw the men falling under arrows and the flashing swords finishing their job.
I saw death, swift and brutal and agony, equally brutal yet unmercifully slow.
I saw proud Roman standards standing tall in the middle of the carnage.
And I saw blood, as red and as bright as only blood can be.
And the blood flowed red and bright, splashing silk standards and soaking Roman tunics and Barbarian furs, as Romans and Barbarians bleed side by side, their blood mingling in death as it hadn't in life, soaking the damp, trampled soil like a sacrificial tribute to a terrible, Underworld deity.
I saw everything as if I had been seeing it through Maximus' eyes... or as if his eyes had turned into some dark mirror able to reflect the horrors he had witnessed in a lifetime of hardship and soldiering at the faraway Northern frontier...
That time I didn't close my eyes and along with the visions of death and destruction, the unwelcome sounds of battle and death came in the wake of the bloody tide.

The blood curdling battle cries in a hoarse, barbaric language.
The whistling sound of the arrows flying around.
The screams of the wounded and the dying.
The neighing of the terrified horses.
The clash of steel on steel...

"The front was a few miles ahead of our camp…" he went on, unaware of my turmoil... or perhaps in an attempt to steer me out of it. "Commodus and Lucilla arrived the same day of the battle. When Commodus got word of what was happening at the front, he took his horse and came to us, leaving his sister behind…"
As Maximus spoke, the pieces of the macabre jigsaw puzzle started falling in their places. For a brief, fleeting moment, I thought I could hear them clicking as they did... and the faint sound made me think of crumbling skeletons and heaps of dry, dead bones.

A second shiver run down my spine.

"He arrived when we were getting ready to return and came back to the camp with us… There was a big celebration. Everybody was so excited… The war was over… Germania was finally safe… We were leaving… Were going home..."

Home...
They were going home.
Or so he had believed.
As they moved back to the camp, Maximus' didn't know that his emperor expected him to change the simplicity of the farm and the dark soil he called "home" for the marble, the intrigues and the splendor of the Palatine...
"The celebration took place at the emperor's tent. I was late. There were many things to take care of and I had been visiting the wounded at the valetudinarium (****)… We won… but the aftermath was Hades…It always is…"

Somewhere above us a bird cried. It was probably just a matting cry but to me it sounded very much like the distressed cries of the men wounded in battle.

"The wounds were terrible," went on Maximus, as he let his memories flow. "The cries of the dying men. The smells. The blood… Don't delude yourself, Julia. No matter what your books say, there is nothing like winners or losers. War is just about casualties and destruction… It is just about death..."
His voice was flat, the voice of a military commander briefing an audience about just another engagement. But his choice of words betrayed the emotions hidden behind that dispassionate speech and spoke about what was in his heart.
A man who is man enough to feel compassion even for the enemy he had defeated.

"I was late and very, very tired. Marcus left early. He looked exhausted… fragile... "

An insect buzzed loudly across the stream, probably a bumblebee seeking for juicy flowers with the single-mindedness of its specie and the healthy indifference of nature in a sunny, summer day.

"Then, the following morning, the emperor called me to his tent… He was writing…
We talked and he told me what he wanted me to do... He put it simply. He said, 'There is one more duty that I ask of you before you go home' ... "

"One more duty."

As simple as this.
Just three words to change a man's life forever.
Just three words to turn the son of a humble Spaniard farmer into the mighty emperor of Rome.
Just three words to shatter his life and have all he loved destroyed in an instant.
Just three words thought to raise him above all other men and that had only succeeded in dooming him to slavery and the denigration of killing other men to amuse his would be subjects...

"I told him I knew nothing of politics, that a city's prefect or a senator would do better than me… But he said it had to be me and he gave me till that evening to take my decision…"
Marcus Aurelius had loved Maximus as if he had been his own son and his last will had been that he inherited his power instead of the one he had sired.
The simple idea of the power that comes along with the office makes greedy men restless and saw them lie, betray, plot and even kill to reach it. Yet the emperor had described it as "duty"... How very much like Marcus Aurelius -- the thoughtful man, the compassionate ruler, the wise philosopher -- to see the naked truth beyond the glitter of gold and the solemnity of the purple!

And the emperor who had been singled for the office when he was just seventeen and groomed for power since his early youth had described his demand as "one last duty", knowing his most trusted general would never elude duty even if he'd reject the idea of power for power's sake.

Was it Plato who said the best rulers are those who are unwilling to rule? (******)

The aged and exhausted Marcus Aurelius had demanded "one last duty" and given Maximus time to take a decision.
But he knew there was no way he would fail him, for his sense of duty would overcome even his deeply ingrained suspicion about politics.
Even his most personal longing.
Maximus had wanted nothing else but to go back home, back to his wife and his son and the fertile land of Hispania yet when confronted with his emperor's demand, he had been ready to put his life aside once more and shoulder the heaviest burden he had ever faced.

"All else is dust and air..."

A new, dull ache made itself noticed in the depths of my heart as I inwardly, silently wept for the old emperor and the tough, Spanish soldier, both ready to do their duty to Rome and both betrayed by a greedy monster who only wanted the gold and the purple and power for power's sake.

"I couldn't disappoint him. How could I have refused him?"

Oh yes. Those had been Maximus' words when, a few days before, he had broken the news on me as we sat by the sea.

How could he?
A man who was man enough to take an oath and fulfil it to the end.
Even if it meant sacrificing his heart's desire.
Even when it meant sacrificing his own life.

I shuddered.

Misunderstanding my trembling, Maximus moved again as if to gather me in his arms but stopped in mid gesture. Instead, he tentatively rubbed my arms, as if trying to offer me some warmth in a world gone cold yet hesitating.
I didn't reject his new attempt to give me comfort.
Instead, I lightly rested my hands on his chest in a silent gesture of acceptance.

"I returned by sunset and I gave him my answer… I didn't want to do it but neither could I deny him his last wish… He was pleased with my decision... We talked again... we talked at length. About Rome and the future... That same morning Marcus had told me he was dying... yet now he seemed invigorated... He was dying, Julia, and he still had the will to make plans for the future..."

Maximus' voice broke infinitesimally yet the intensity of the emotion behind his otherwise calm voice was undeniable. He pressed his lips tightly to regain his control before he continued.
And I had to use all my strength to refrain from taking him in my arms.
No, it was not the time to indulge in comfort... and neither was any warmth left in me to offer or share.

"He said we'd return to Rome together and that he hoped the gods would grant him enough time to teach me what I needed to know... He said he'd introduce me to the men I could trust in and warn me about those I should never trust. Then he produced the document and we signed it… And when it was done, Marcus asked me to leave him for he needed to pray for guidance… I bid him goodnight and we embraced… That was the last time I saw him alive…"

Old and exhausted, frail and sick, the emperor had not only found the strength to choose the best and most deserving man to follow his steps but had also planned to devote his last days to the greatness of Rome. To spend his last days teaching Maximus the intricacies of power and the unspeakable depths of men's treachery.
Had his heart's ached when he had accepted that his own son could not carry on his legacy? Had he wept in silence in the aftermath of his choice? Had it hurt badly to know he had failed as a father even if he had succeeded as a warrior and a ruler?

A man who was man enough to accept his own failure and do his best to make right what was wrong.

"Didn't he bring in a witness?" I asked, shocking myself with the sound of my voice.
The words had come out of my mouth before I could even notice that I was speaking. "A trusted servant would have done provided he was a free citizen…"
"I know…"
A heartbeat passed.
Then a second one.
Sometime mid way to the third, Maximus slowly shook his head no one more time.

My heart sank.

"No, there was no witness… Marcus said we'd meet again in the morning and that the senators would also take part in the meeting..."
I frowned in confusion.
"The senators?"
Maximus nodded.
"He had had two senators brought from Rome along with Commodus and
Lucilla. We were to meet with them in the morning and the senators were to be informed about his decision and witness other state documents that needed to be signed. Then, the senators would return to Rome ahead of us, bringing the announcement of my election and present the document to the Senate…"

Senators.

There had been two senators at the camp at Vindobona.
Maximus had briefly mentioned them when he had told me of Marcus Aurelius' decision about his succession but, overwhelmed as I had been by the enormity of the revelation, I hadn't had time to give them a second thought.
Now, the word flashed in my mind with the swiftness and burning radiance of a lightning bolt. Reflexively, my fingers clutched again the front of his tunic.
There had been two senators specially brought from Rome on the emperor's orders.
Two men who should have enjoyed great power in order to be chosen for such an important mission as it was validating the imperial succession and bringing the news to Rome... specially when the whole procedure involved the disinheritance of the emperor's own son.
Two men who should have enjoyed Marcus Aurelius' trust... or who represented two important fractions of a Senate that the late emperor had always managed to keep under control while preventing its members to make a priority of their own agendas.
A hint of hope flickered in the depths of my heart but I forced myself to ignore it.
The days that had followed Marcus Aurelius' death should have also been ones of intense turmoil as it always happened when a Roman emperor died. Many things may happen in the wake or a ruler's death... specially if he had been murdered by his son.

"What happened to the senators?" I asked, bracing myself for the bad news that could shatter my newborn hope while I desperately tried to remember if any member of the Senate had died or gone into exile immediately after Commodus' arrival in Rome.
Maximus frowned.
"I don't know," he said sounding slightly puzzled, as if the question had never occurred to him before. "When I returned to my tent after refusing to pledge my loyalty to Commodus, I asked my manservant to awake them for I needed their advice. That was when I put the document under my cuirass… Then Quintus came in. We argued and he called the praetorians. They arrested me and ordered them to take me away, ride till dawn and execute me… You know the rest of the story."

I did... but there were still too many dark corners where enemies could be hidden... and also others where hope could be awaiting to be discovered
"Names!"
"What?"
"The senator's names! If the emperor was planning to have them witness his choice of succession he must have told them about his plans. About you! What are the senators' names? They can attest to your right!"
"Julia, you don't understand! Everything was conducted in privacy and the senators were to be informed in the morning. Marcus needed… he needed time to… to deal with family matters first."
Frustration gnawed at my belly like an angry, wild beast.
Instead of forcing myself to ignore it, I allowed it to fuel my determination to find a way out of the doom Maximus' seemed determined to condemn himself to.
"But the senators were there, Maximus! They met you! They must know something!"
Maximus sighed.
"Julia, I met them but briefly. It was at the celebration after the battle. Commodus…
Commodus introduced us and we just exchanged a few words. There was some kind of amiable argument about the republic and the empire… Then Commodus took me aside. He said he needed to talk to me…"

As he talked, Maximus frowned again.
I frowned back.
Had Commodus already arrived from Rome with a plan to speed up his ascension to the throne?
"He was… anxious. He has always been... I've known him since he was a
child... But that night it was different… He was excited about something and talked in riddles about the future and said that he'd need me when the time came… That is how he put it... It made me wary… Commodus and I never had a liking for each other... there has been...too much bad blood between us for too many years..."
Something in Maximus' voice and words rang an alarm in my mind.
Since the dawn of time, every single whore has heard that tone enough times not to miss it for it is the tone men use when they talk about women they had loved and lost, the same women they vainly seek in other female bodies...
And Maximus' tone left no doubt about the role Lucilla had played in that long standing bad blood between him and the now Roman emperor.

"... the Lady Lucilla has some more pressing... personal problems which may take precedence over her attempts to guide her brother in matters of Roman politics..."

Aemilius Trebutius Flaccus' voice echoed in my mind with the brass-like quality of the trumpets in a military parade.
So it was true.
Commodus not only had killed his own father but also felt an unnatural inclination for his favorite sister.
My stomach heaved with revulsion.
I ordered myself to ignore it.
And also to ignore the burning stab of jealousy that always came along with Lucilla's mention... or the mere suspicion of her involvement.

Maximus was talking.

"... yet he was acting very friendly… Then, the following day, shortly after Marcus Aurelius told me he'd empower me instead of him, Lucilla told me that Commodus was sure that their father had called them to Germania along with the senators to witness his appointment as heir to the throne…"

Lucilla.
I let his tunic go and instead grabbed his bare, upper arms.
Once more he was drifting away from where I wanted him.
Touching his flesh seemed as good a way to bring him back as whatever I could say.
The rock hard flesh under my palms was warm and the slight softening in his greenish-blue eyes told me I was right.

"Maximus, the names... Give me the senators' names…"
"What for?"
"Commodus has enemies, Maximus! He is one of those persons who have a talent for
making enemies anywhere. And some of his are in the Senate… "
"I know. Lucilla told me… the night she came to the Ludus Magnus…"

Lucilla.
It always came back to Lucilla.
I felt like yelling.
Instead, I took a deep breath and went on talking, absentmindedly noticing that despite the strain I was undergoing, my voice sounded remarkably calm.
"Then you know that some of the senators would welcome a change in the Palatine…"
"What are you talking about?"
I licked my lips suddenly gone dry.
They tasted like ashes.
"Since he ascended to the throne, Commodus has been confronted with a good part of the Senate. I got word about the arguments that raised the same day he entered Rome… And it was a nasty one involving a senior senator who dared
remind the new emperor about his responsibilities and that his rank meant among other things dealing with ugly, every day life. The plague that gave me the excuse to bring you here is the consequence of Commodus' refusal to be bothered with this kind of things…"

Maximus' eyes opened very wide and a look of disbelief crossed his handsome face.

"One more duty", the emperor had said.
And his murderous son couldn't care less about it.

"Since then, things have been deteriorating. The senators openly criticized his dedication to stage his one hundred and fifty days of games and the resulting expenditure. He didn't waste time to retaliate. Some senators have been accused of treason, forced to judicial suicide, killed or exile and their wealth confiscated…"

Maximus' jaw hardened visibly.

"Senators come from power and privilege, not to mention money. They resent their world being threatened as much as Commodus resents his fantasies about being a great ruler being challenged…"

As my last words drifted in the slight breeze, I suddenly noticed that the wood had fallen silent around us, as if every living being were holding its breath.
As if every single living being clung to hope with the same stubborn determination I was.

"Give me the senators' names, Maximus. I have contacts... and I can buy my way where I don't have them. Let me do this for you. It will take but a day to know where those senators' loyalties lie and who are their supporters and allies…"
Maximus sighed.
"Julia, this is too dangerous... I don't want you involved..."
I ignored his warning.
"I don't deal with senators. They are patricians and males and I am but a woman, a merchant, a former slave and, what is even worst, a rich one. Their class wants nothing to do with mine but they need us more than they care to admit. They run their businesses through their freedmen and freed people prefer to deal with their own kind. My fleet carries merchandise produced or imported by half the senatorial families in Rome…"
Still Maximus remained silent.
"My banker, the man whose nephew wanted passage to Alexandria, he deals with many politicians. He's shrew and his informers are even better than mine… He was close to at least one of the men Commodus eliminated…"
At the mention of Commodus' treachery, a steely glint shone in the depths of his eyes and my heart jumped in my chest.
I was close.

"Bankers are worried about Commodus, Maximus. It's not only that he's not a good administrator as his father and grandfather were but also that he's ruthless…He's depleting the treasury to finance his games..." I paused for a moment then added, "Maximus, he is selling the grain reserves to pay for them..."
He blanched.
"And when the treasury is empty and the grain reserves are gone, he will go to them to borrow money. That is hardly new. Emperors have been borrowing money for decades and bankers have given it gladly. There's always good profit in lending to the throne…"
Maximus' face now was an expressionless, unreadable mask.
"If an emperor can't repay his debts in money he can give them land or privileges… That, provided he is not too reckless…"
As I talked, my eyes were locked with Maximus yet his gave away nothing.

"Commodus sent a clear message to the Senate when he had some members charged with treason but the message also reached other ears and raised many eyebrows. The new emperor's reign doesn't fair well. He already debased the coinage and his endless games keep the Urbs paralysed. It's not good for business and they are used to emperors who kept the business moving despite wars. They don't want a return to Domitian's days… even if none of them is old enough to have lived in those days…"

I paused for a moment, vainly trying to weigh the effect my words were having on him but it was useless. Whatever Maximus was thinking, he kept to himself.

"So, when the treasury is depleted -- and from what I heard it will be soon -- Commodus will turn to the bankers and they will be forced to lend him the money… You don't say 'no' to the Roman emperor… But they know they cannot expect to recover their money. How can a man who neglects the public works and sanitation to use the money to pay one hundred and fifty days of games be expected to pay back?"

At the mention of the games, flames leapt in the depths of Maximus' eyes. Or, perhaps, it was the thunderous flash of an angry lightning bolt.
"How can you expect a man who doesn't understand the value of money to return what he has borrowed?"
A slight frown appeared on Maximus' wide forehead and his eyes looked suddenly hooded.
And dangerous.
"Do you know how Roman emperors replenish their treasury and repay their debts? They go to war, Maximus. And many times their campaigns are paid for the same bankers they owe money. Or the slave traders…"
Maximus blinked yet he still said nothing but the muscles of his throat contracted as he swallowed convulsively.
The mention of the slave traders had been a low blow but I forced myself to go ahead.
"Commodus is no more warrior than he is a skilled administrator. He cannot promise the slave traders prisoners of war in exchange of their sesterces...Or he can make the promise and expect the slave traders and the bankers to laugh in his face…"

"No, Maximus, the bankers know Commodus will not only ruin business but he will neither repay what he borrows. On the contrary, they can only expect to be prosecuted on some charge and have their wealth seized... "

For an instant, Maximus seemed on the brink of saying something but the words never came. I went on talking.

"These men live for their wealth, Maximus. They would welcome a change in the Palatine... and they would back any fraction of the Senate that dares go against Commodus... specially if the senators support an officer who..."
Maximus stopped me.
"Julia, even if you were right, I am not an officer anymore... I am just another anonymous slave and who just happens to be a good gladiator..."
I dug my fingers in his heavy biceps, desperately grabbing his flesh to force control over me. I was close and getting closer. It was not the moment to confront but the moment to convince him. I was vaguely revolted at the notion that what I was doing could be considered as an attempt to manipulation. But the feeling was short lived. Love has its own rules and reasons and only a fool questions them. It was not the time to indulge in scruples and attempting to manipulate him was nothing compared with saving his life... even if it was only to lose him to the throne.

"Your troops believe you dead," I said carefully weighing my words, "but if they get word that you are alive, would they fight for you?"
Maximus nodded reluctantly.
"Unless things have changed a lot, they'd do it to the last man..." he said.
I let his biceps go and slid my hands along his arms then took his unresisting ones in mine.
"Then tell me the senators' names!"
"Julia... "
"Tell me the names, Maximus, and I will have them here the day after tomorrow!"
"But..."
"Money opens more doors than any battering ram. And I am rich, Maximus..."
"I know you have money, Julia, but..."
"No, Maximus! Senators have money... Instead, I am wealthy. One of the wealthiest persons in the empire... Wealthy enough to buy half the Senate and have the emperor kicked out of his throne!"

Maximus pressed his lips tightly. I couldn't read his thoughts but there was no doubt that he was thinking and thinking hard, as a man who is trying to take a specially difficult decision. I tightened my hold of his hands.
"Say it, Maximus! Say it! Please! Say it!" I willed him. "Say it and let me help you..."

"Senator Gaius..."
Maximus' voice startled me out of my musings.
"Wha..." I started but my throat was so tight and dry that I was forced to stop.
Blood drummed in my ears.
I had done it!
"No, you haven't..." whispered an insidious, male voice in my ear. "You are only half way into it..."
I shook my head to clear my mind and shut off the voice that was familiar yet I couldn't place.
"What?" I repeated, hearing the mounting anxiety in my tone.
"What?" echoed Maximus sounding slightly puzzled but mostly disoriented. Power games were not for him but action.
"The senator, Maximus! What is his name?"
"Gaius. Senator Gaius..."
"Damn it, Maximus! Half the Senate answers to that name... and half the male, Roman population too! I need the senator's complete name!" (******)
Maximus looked confused.
"I don't know..." he said. "It was an informal introduction... Commodus only mentioned the senators by their first names..."

Silencing the screams that struggled to erupt from my throat took more will that I thought I had. Had I come so long only to see my hopes crumble at the last possible instant? Had I fought so hard just to be defeated merely by an informal introduction?

Once, shortly after he had started tutoring me, Apollinarius had taken me to a glass workshop. It was a big room, lit and warmed by the fire that roared in a distant corner and crowded with sweaty men who moved hurriedly, working the mysterious stuff that bubbled in a brick oven, modelling it while it was still hot and malleable, turning it into rods and spires, melting it down again when they were not satisfied with the results. Despite the amount of people there, it was a mostly silent place, the glass cooling so quickly that the men couldn't afford to waste an instant for fear of ruining it.
A young woman with her hair covered with a piece of cloth moved around also in silence, gathering the already finished pieces the men set aside on their work benches and putting them on the shelves mounted against the walls. There were wine cups and elongated vases, small vials and jars. In a glass bowl, a bunch of colored small pieces awaited to be mounted in earrings and necklaces (*******).

But it was neither the pieces aligned on the shelves nor the small, colored bits that looked like a rainbow trapped in a glass net what had claimed my attention. It was, instead, the glass blower working by the oven. He was naked but for a ragged loincloth and a piece of cloth tightly wrapped around his forehead and sat seemingly inmobile on a high stool. There was nothing remarkable about the man. He was thin, small framed, with big, stained hands and lanky, mouse brown hair that hung lifelessly around his equally unremarkable face. Yet I couldn't take my eyes from him as he carefully blew into the long and thin metal pipe he was holding and the shinny blob at the extreme blossomed into a translucent bubble.

I had gasped and used the back of my hand to dry the sweat beading my upper lip, my eyes fixed in the bubble as it became bigger and bigger, my heart racing madly as it became translucent, swelling like a fecund womb. For a moment it was as if the delicate bubble had become my whole world and I gasped again when the glass blower slightly touched it with a tool and the perfectly round, fragile sphere developed an elongated neck. Without a second look, the glass blower passed the pipe to another man who rolled it in his hands as he held a tiny glass rod with tweezers. In a flurry of movement, he rolled the pipe once more then cut the glass piece and set it on a working bench where a third man put the final touches before setting it aside. Unable to take my eyes from it, I stopped the young woman when she tried to retrieve it and put it on the shelf.

The resulting piece was but a small glass vial about three inches tall. I knew enough about glassware to recognise it as unremarkable, an anonymous vial made of unrefined, brownish glass with a little, spiralled adornment in white. I also knew if I looked at it in day light, I'd be able to see sand grains imbedded in the glass. Hardly a valuable piece, it would be sent to the market with just a crude cork to seal it for it was not worth the extra work of creating a glass cap. Each of my few glass pieces were a lot more better than that humble vial.

Yet I insisted in buying it for as I watched the glass blower working at it, there had been a brief, magic moment, when the swelling glass bubble had turned into my whole world. It had been a timeless moment, when the swelling, trembling bubble became impossibly fragile and balanced for an instant between perfection and disaster and my heart had swollen and trembled along with it.

Now, suspended somewhere between hope and desperation, so close to my goal yet threatened by failure once more, I felt as if had been trapped in that glass bubble again. A bubble I could feel swelling and becoming more and more fragile, dangerously tilting at the edge of precipice.

In my mind, the insidious male voice was replaced by an insidious, humourless laugh.

I still have the little, humble vial. It is set on a shelf in my private studio and has elicited more than a frown from Nicia, always ready to vanish the small, unattractive piece and replace it with one of the many exquisite ones I owed. But I had always forbidden it and instead use to take it in my hands every now and then, roll it between my fingers and look at the shinny sand grains in the dark glass. Long before moving to Ostia and getting most of my valuable glass pieces, I had already learned that glass blowers die young, coughing their lungs off after a few years breathing the poisonous fumes of the hot, liquid glass. Why is it that blood is always the price that has to be paid for everything beautiful, worthy or important?

The humourless laugh echoed in my mind and the bubble that had become my world stretched a bit more and trembled as in warning.

"Maximus," I heard myself say, "there were two senators. What was the other one's name?"

He remained in silence for a moment, as if he had been trying to remember the man's name or, perhaps, to put a name to the emotions he must be reading in my eyes.

As the silence stretched, I could feel the glass bubble swelling to the limit, becoming impossibly thin and impossibly fragile... trembling...

"Falco. The other senator's name was Falco."

In a silent yet deafening explosion, the glass bubble shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.

(*) Romans lived in a highly organized society ruled by a series of complex and meticulous law codes that reached every single aspect of political, civil and military life. All males of the senatorial and equestrian classes and also the male members of the imperial family were trained as lawyers for they were the only ones with the birthright to serve as government officers. Those senators who didn't choose to follow a political career acted as judges and barristers and all were involved in the procedures of lawmaking. The Senate also served as law court. Many senators left scholarly treaties about the application and fine points of the Roman law and some emperors were distinguished lawyers. There's plenty of evidence about the way the legal system worked and how frequently Roman citizens took each other to court to solve their differences. Up to a certain point, the Roman society was very much like the modern American one and people followed important cases with the same avid interest as they do today, specially when a "star lawyer" was involved.
(**) Gallia Narbonensis. One of the partitions of the province of Gaul, situated in nowadays France. The city of Narbonne owes its name to its Roman founders.
(***) Latin names of the nowadays Spanish cities of Cadiz and Malaga.
(****) Valetudinarium: In Latin, "infirmary". Despite their high degree of sophistication, Romans didn't have hospitals as we know nowadays but the Roman Army included a highly organized medical corps staffed with trained surgeons, male nurses, apothecaries and assistants. Written reports found in an excavation in Judea describe the military Roman infirmary as something very similar to a nowadays hospital, with an emergency room, operating theatres, separate wards for different kinds of wounds and ailments and the staff working on shifts. Roman military surgeons kept medical files on their patients written on wax tablets they hung at the foot of their beds to keep their colleagues of the following shift updated about the latest developments in the treatment.
(*****) In "Gladiator", Commodus kills Marcus Aurelius in front of Plato's bust, director Ridley Scott's subtle homage to the Greek philosopher who, indeed, wrote the line quoted here by Julia.
(******) Romans used an elaborate naming system known as "tria nomini" established in the late days of the Republic. This system was designed to register Roman citizens, distinguish them from non-citizens and slaves and also to provide enough information about persons so as to be able to place them in the right social class, family branch and generation. This was specially important for a highly organized society with a serious shortage of names, Gaius being the most common male one. A complete Roman name was formed by three parts: praenomen (personal name), nomen (family name) and cognnomen (nickname). With few names and strict rules about how children should be named after their parents, it was not unusual to find many people sharing the same name in each family and other, informal rules were developed to distinguish one member from the others. Emperor Vespasian's complete name was Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus, that meaning he was a male member of the Flavian family branch of the Sabine Hills named Titus and, among the many Titus Flavius of his family (his father and grandfather also were Titus Flavius), the son of Vespasia Polla. His son and heir was also Titus Flavius Vespasianus but, since childhood, he was called Titus to distinguish him from his father, while his younger son was Titus Flavius Domitianus, named after his mother, Flavia Domitilla. Like many other things pertaining the Western culture, our modern naming system originated in the Roman one.
(*******) Colored glass played a mayor role in the manufacturing of Roman jewelry, replacing precious and semi precious stones in not so expensive but in many cases beautiful pieces. Romans didn't cut their precious stones in the faceted, sparkly way we do nowadays but instead preferred the formate known as "cabouchon", with rounded, polished surfaces, thus making colored glass an apt replacement when it came to cheaper designs.

Thirtieth Entry - Falco - 180 A. D.

If there has ever been a moment in my life when I thanked the gods for my training as a whore that was it. I didn't need a mirror to know that nothing in my face revealed the way the simple mention of a man's name had shocked me. It hadn't suddenly turned into a suspiciously unreadable mask nor had it adopted an equally suspicious, blank expression. No muscle either strained or twitched and there was no increased hardness in my mouth or chin. No color flooded it and neither did a sickly pallor. My eyes didn't give away anything and no tremor of my lips betrayed my turbulent emotions.
Instead, there was nothing but utter, perfect, absolute control.
Turia would have been proud.
Even Cassius would have smiled in grudging admiration.
No, my training had not been wasted.
And it still snapped automatically when required.
Given the situation, it was a comfort of sorts.

Kneeling on the blanket I saw myself reflected in Maximus' eyes as the silent roar faded into an equally deafening silence.
He neither blinked nor betrayed any emotion but he was too perceptive and little if anything escaped his notice.
And he knew me too well.
I had to act before he could guess there was something more behind my silence than surprise or disappointment. For, despite my calm, I could feel my control sliding by degrees and I knew I would soon be losing it.

Forcing myself into action, I stood up managing to make the movement swift and natural but with the slightest hint of brusqueness.
Maximus didn't try to stop me as I turned around and padded away from him, completely blind to both surroundings and direction yet still managing not to move so quickly as to raise his suspicions.
I had but taken two or three steps when I stumbled and was forced to stop.
A brief but acute pain darting from my left foot forced me to lower my eyes searching for whatever had I stumbled against and found myself stupidly looking at the sandals I couldn't remember having taken off. They had been primly set beside the blanket and I had stepped on one of the buckles, probably getting a small cut on the sole.

Kicking them viciously and, oblivious to the discomfort, I stepped on the grass and then into the stream.

Cold water brought me back from wherever my mind had strayed.
The stream mostly run hidden under the canopy formed by the trees so the sun had little if any chance to warm its water. Despite the heat, it felt like liquid ice as I moved towards the middle, padding on smooth pebbles and raspy sand, paying no attention to the hem of my tunic quickly getting soaked.

Coldness crept over my ankles as the stream covered them. The bottom was flat and at its peak water didn't raise more than a foot. The current caught my tunic's hem and gently made it undulate, following the patterns it traced on the surface of the gurgling water. Something slippery fleetingly touched my foot and I caught sight of a small, silvery, tapered fish before it shyly darted away.

Using every ounce of my strength, I ordered myself to stop and remained there, standing in the middle of the stream, my feet firmly planted on the sandy bed, my eyes fixed ahead but seeing nothing, my breath even if the dull ache in my heart was growing by the moment.
But no matter how much I tried, no matter how much I ordered myself not to do it, I couldn't stop and hugged myself. Not tightly as I used to when I was a scared, little girl who had neither mother nor toys. Or as I did when I woke up in my bed, cold and lonely after dreaming with Maximus.
Instead, I managed to make the movement fluid and natural, nothing more remarkable than the slight gesture that signals that a balmy afternoon has turned into crisp, early evening.
A casual onlooker would have thought that it was but a normal reaction to the cold water I was standing in. Even my arms were covered with goose bumps.
Oh, yes.
My training had not been completely wasted after six years of freedom and wealth and power.
And cold water had nothing to do either with the mild, defensive gesture or the goose bumps pebbling my arms.

"Falco. The other senator's name was Falco."

My skin crawled as it did when I happened to see a cockroach, an insect that vexes me completely out of proportion considering that I find spiders amusing and even fascinating while most women go into hysterics at the sight of them.
My stomach heaved as it does when I sniff the smell of freshly boiled milk, an oddity that has accompanied me since childhood. It was not the sudden and absolute conviction that I was going to be sick then and there but a persistent discomfort that settled in and took hours to ease.

Taking in a deep breath I somehow managed to control both the crawling and the heaving.
And even if I slightly rubbed my upper arms, I also managed to make the movement not only natural but also graceful and even elegant.

"Falco. The other senator's name was Falco."

Of course I had heard his name every now and then.

Nobody living in Rome could fail to hear it. He was too well known. Too prominent. Too rich and highly placed even when Fortune was not smiling to him. And Senator Anicius Dellius Falco was not the kind of man to tamely wait till the goddess Fortune felt like smiling to him again and neither showered her altars with offerings and prayers hoping to court her favour. Instead, he was the kind of man who takes what he wants, even if that means grabbing a deity by her throat and forcing a smile from her and, while at it, he'd never lose his own smile, a smile that was anything but pleasant and that never touched his eyes. An unrelenting man bred for power and whose ambition had no match, with enough famous ancestors immortalized in the corners of the Urbs (*) to rival any emperor.

Even if at certain times badly decimated due to political whims and also the zeal of some of their own members, the Dellii were one of the oldest patrician families and had busied themselves marrying noble blood and old money since the days of the Republic. The current head of the gens had been around the political circles for well over three decades and done his duties to Rome flawlessly. He had married two or three times and always the right lady, had sired sons to follow his steps in the Senate and daughters to bring in more alliances and power through adequate marriages while he reached the highest possible honors outside of the imperial family. Two times consul, his name had been added to the list of his ancestors thanks to the inscriptions in the public works he funded and promoted with the same relentless regularity he pursued office after office and law after law.

Unlike many of his ancestors -- starting with the first Dellius in the times of the civil war between Octavius and Marcus Antonius (**) --, senator Anicius Dellius Falco had lived in times of peace and stability and had had no need to switch allegiances to retain his office, power and money. On the contrary, his cursus honorum had taken place during a period of smooth transition, power handed by each emperor to his appointed heir and whatever attempt to disrupt order quickly silenced. Perhaps he had found it disappointing for he was known as a cunning man with a liking for intrigue… or perhaps it had suited him well for it had spared him time and energy to focus in the only allegiance that really counted and that was to himself and his own interests.

He was not a pleasant man. Despite peace and stability, Anicius Dellius Falco had managed to make enemies among the ranks of his fellow senators and there were more than a few who'd have been happy to see him fall. Yet he was not only cunning but also slippery like a snake and always managed to get away with whatever dirty deed.

Most of all, he was as skilful when it came to taking advantage of other people's weaknesses as when it came to keeping his secrets.
And secrets he had, one of them perhaps his only weakness, a secret that to me was no secret at all.

In between marriages, Senator Falco indulged his share of banquets and parties as all men did but he was remarkably discreet concerning his pleasures. It was not a matter of self-restrain or moderation but of what some would consider to be a specially refined taste that was not easy to satisfy.
For Anicius Dellius Falco preferred young girls to women and was very specific about them.
Specific and strict.
He wanted them young but not as young as others who shared his inclination. His girls had to have crossed the threshold of early womanhood but barely, slender like ephebes but with budding breasts, fresh and virginal but that had just started their monthly bleeding.
And he used them just one night.
A night along which he gave each one of them a doll, fed them bits of fruit and sweetmeats while they sat on his lap and then took their virginity.

Some men who prefer girls to women are tender with their victims in the same way priests are tender with the beautiful beasts they slaughter on the altars. But that was not Anicius Dellius Falco's case. Instead, he rejoiced in his girls' terror when he turned from friendly into fiendish and even more in their pain when he raped them repeatedly and viciously.

I winced at the memory of his first slap.

Fuelled by desperation and fear, I had managed to escape his hold but he had grabbed me by my wrist, turned me around and hit me. The blow had sent me reeling against the bedpost, my eyes blurred, my ears ringing and my lips and cheek painfully throbbing. I remembered thinking that he was stronger than he seemed to be, with his slender body, his narrow shoulders and this manicured hands. Before he hit me, I had been screaming but his slap silenced me as much as the certainty that nobody would come to help me, no matter how much I cried. Numbed by his blow, I slid towards the floor but he caught me before I reached it, threw me on the bed and used me for what seemed an endless night.

"Falco. The other senator's name was Falco."

I had left his bed and his palatial home while he slept never to return.
Once my virginity was taken, I was of no interest for him.
Senator Anicius Dellius Falco enjoyed the dubious honor of having been the first of the countless men who got me in their beds and also that of being the only one who never asked for me again.

No, I had never seen him again.
Not even when I became a wealthy freedwoman, for the senator moved in other, select circles and was very conscious about his rank and privileges. Most of all, he was wealthier than most of the men of his class and that kept him away from seeking financial help among those of mine.

I had never seen him again but, instead I had seen the endless parade of young, blooming girls sent to him at regular intervals.
And I had seen them when they came back.
Wild eyed and bruised.
Broken and discarded.

I had never seen him again but his voice had haunted my dreams and before I could teach myself otherwise, my skin had crawled at the mention of his name.
As it had just done.

I had never seen him again but the memories of that night at his home were still fresh in my mind even when the memories and faces of the countless men who came after him had mercifully blurred.

I had never seen him again but I had heard his name now and then, for he had taken office after office, a veteran politician who commanded a powerful fraction of the Senate.

I had never seen him again... and now he was back in my life, at the most unexpected moment and in the most unexpected way...

The gods really know how to mock us.

A splashing sound at my back bought me back to reality.
Maximus wadded the stream and I allowed him to get near but didn't turn around to look at him.
I couldn't face him.
Not yet.

He stopped at my back and the warmth of his nearness wrapped around me with the swiftness that was so familiar while he remained there, giving me time to either accept his presence or reject it.
As I didn't move or react, Maximus came closer and slightly rubbed my bare arms with his callused palms then slid his around my body and gently pressed my back against his broad chest.
I let him do and rested against him, thankful for the rock-hard solidity of his presence, a welcome anchor in the renewed darkness that had engulfed my life.

"Do I guess correctly the senator is not the right man for your plans?" he asked softly.
I licked my lips.
"No," I whispered.
"But you know him," he went on and I strained my ears, trying to catch whatever lied beyond his question.
I couldn't.
Either Maximus was even better than me disguising his emotions or his suspicions run in another, completely different direction.
I sighed.
"If you'd have lived in Rome for as long as I did, you'd know him too," I said, my voice sounding as perfectly neutral as the comment I offered.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Maximus wasn't ready to let the subject go so I better steered him towards a safer direction.
"Senator Anicius Dellius Falco," I recited dutifully. "Old name, noble family, more money than you care to count, perfect cursus honorum and three decades in Roman politics. Two times consul. Should have been balloted for a governorship years ago but…" (***)

I stopped and frowned. I had ruthlessly taught myself to keep his name from my mind and not to flinch at its mention till it didn't register anymore but he had always been there, at the edges... very much like the little, scared girl and the lonely, sad whore I had been.
And now that he was back and somehow linked to Maximus there was no way of denying his ever standing presence.
Would he be waiting for me in the Great Beyond?
Would he time line up with Turia and Cassius in due time and laugh at me?
Somehow I managed to swallow down the evil tasting, cold lump nested deep in my throat but not before Maximus noticed my sudden silence.
"But?" he coaxed me gently.
This time I took such a deep breath that my lungs ached.
"But the senator didn't exactly enjoy the favor of the late emperor."
Maximus tensed at my back but when he spoke his voice was carefully guarded.
"What does that mean?"
I rested my temple against his bearded chin and closed my eyes again but it was a mistake for as I did, the familiar face emerged from the resulting darkness. My eyes snapped open but not before the narrow face crowned by curly brown hair with silver patches on his temples and deeply set, unsmiling, hazel colored eyes offered me the familiar, humourless grin.

"It means," I went on in a surprisingly steady voice, "that Marcus Aurelius didn't trust him despite his many years of impeccable service and discreetly barred his appointment…"

Governorships are granted through what is supposed to be a fairly impartial procedure not involving votes that can be bought with money or by claiming past favours or the promise of future ones. In any case, it is supposed that the eligible men have long before proved themselves above such things… but Romans are practical and know a thing or two about treachery. Besides, for any law that is issued there are ten times the ways to avoid it or twist it to their will. So they gather solemnly at the Senate, call upon the gods and ask them to witness the fairness of the procedure and ballot the eligible men for the appointment of provincial governors.
Of course, when it comes to politics, "fair" doesn't mean the same as in other situations and being well connected by the time of the balloting never hurt a former consul.

Yet there is an ultimate obstacle that even the best connected men have found difficult if not impossible to avoid: an informal, unspoken veto from throne.

"Marcus Aurelius suspected about his intentions?" asked Maximus but it was more a statement than a question.

"He said we'd return to Rome together and that he hoped the gods would grant him enough time to teach me what I needed to know... He said he'd introduce me to the men I could trust in and warn me about those I should never trust..."

I smiled wanly but didn't answer.
"Was he involved in...?"
Maximus didn't complete the sentence but there was no need of it.
We both knew what he was talking about.
"Cassius' plot against Marcus Aurelius?"
He let a heartbeat pass.
"Was he?"
I shrugged.
"May be... Before you arrived, couriers raced between Moesia and Rome day and night as Cassius negotiated the support of the Senate... As far as I know, he was fairly optimistic... and the senator has always been an influential man..."
"But when the plot was discovered," he insisted, "the senator was not listed among the conspirators..."

Maximus' sudden interest in Falco was not exactly what I needed at that moment but there was no way to escape his inquisitive mind without raising suspicion and questions I didn't want to face, much less to answer.
"He wasn't," I agreed, "but in Rome and when it comes to senators, that usually doesn't mean anything more but that the man in question was smart enough to sever his ties with the conspiracy in time..."

There was a silence only interrupted by the gurgling sound of the running water. Despite the dense foliage of the trees, I could see that the sun had moved well beyond its zenith and the oblique rays proclaimed that mid-afternoon was close.
For a moment I felt disoriented and sick.
Exhausted.
My knees threatened to buckle under my body and it took all my will to remain standing.
Where had all the warmth gone?
I shuddered.
Maximus slightly tightened his hold of me, silently offering me support and also the chance to free myself if I found his embrace restrictive.
My body moved as if on its own will to better accommodate against his and Maximus' rock hard muscles rippled as he moved in automatic response.
I sighed, the way we fit so perfectly against each other never failing to fill me with wonder.
Why couldn't our fates fit accordingly? Or was it that they did but in a perverse, grim way?

"And Marcus Aurelius didn't want him to become governor of a province as he should have been?"
I nodded.
Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus had not only been a good judge of men but also had learned to trust his instincts.
And his instincts had told him not to trust Anicius Dellius Falco even if he had given him no more proof of treachery than the emperor had given the senator reasons to claim foul play.
"It seems to be the case and I'm not surprised about it," I said, without noticing that I had slipped into dangerous terrain.
"Why?"
Maximus' voice didn't betray anything but there was a familiar glint of steel beyond the heated rumble of his voice vibrating in the depths of the broad chest pressed against my back.
"The emperor was a scholar," I said while allowing myself a rueful smile, "and knew his history very well..."
Maximus remained in silence.
"The Dellii had been around since the days of the Republic," I went on, "and were always very skilful in the arts of survival… In politics that means making the right alliances or changing the wrong ones in time…"
"What are you talking about?"
"It started with the first Dellius, you know? He fought on Marcus Antonius' side while his star shone… but when it started to fade, he turned towards Octavius…"
"Many men started that war on his side but became disappointed with him and changed sides…"
I went on as if I hadn't heard him.
"When Antonius' forces got blocked in Actium (****) and it was obvious they couldn't break Agrippa's hold, many senators and officers who had followed him to the East started deserting. They sailed across the Gulf of Ambracia (*****) to Octavius' camp... Marcus Antonius knew it but didn't stop them… He couldn't bring himself to kill those who had shared his table and triumphs…"

I stopped and frowned deeply. What was I doing, babbling Roman history and utterly Roman, real life drama while the hope that had sustained me against all odds crumbled around me? Why did the famous tale of blazing glory and doom sounded so adequate in the aftermath of shattered illusion and renewed darkness?

"Dellius was not among the first ones to change allegiance… " I went on, "but he was the one who choose his timing more expertly… and only crossed the gulf after Marcus Antonius had informed his supporters about his plan to break the blockage... "
Of course, Octavius had magnanimously forgiven all those who had run back to his arms and was probably more than a bit amused at seeing his former enemies trip on their own togas to prove the depths of their newly acquired loyalty. The man who'd become emperor Augustus and whose shrewdness, will and determination would give birth to the Roman empire knew the value of a public gesture... and also that there was always time to punish those who had despised his youth and seeming weakness to follow the shinning star of his rival.

"But Dellius didn't need to worry about the reception Caesar's heir would give him for he carried with him the information that would make Octavius lord of the Roman world..."
"Marcus Antonius was lost long before Actium... " offered Maximus softly. "He lost the war when he severed himself from Rome... What Octavius knew or didn't know, wouldn't have changed the out coming of the war..."

Apollinarius and I had discussed the subject many times.
My former tutor supported Maximus' theory. Despite our Roman clothes and manners, Apollinarius was as much an outsider as I was yet he accepted Rome for what Rome is, some times vaguely amused and others decidedly disgusted as it befits a pure blooded Greek.
I, instead, have never been good at accepting things as they are and preferred to believe that Marcus Antonius had wanted something different for Rome.
Yet Roma Dea had entered the game and the newly appointed deity wanted nothing less than an empire to rule over and an emperor to honor her altars. And Octavius had given her both... (******)

I sighed.

"Maybe he was lost, and maybe he wasn't... Octavius was not as powerful as he wanted the others to believe... Surprise could have made it... but Dellius crossed the gulf that night... and presented Octavius with Antonius' plans... In the end, he played into his rival's hands... and even if it took some time to see the end of the war, after Actium there was no doubt about who would win…" (*******)

"Julia, that happened two hundred years ago. You cannot blame Senator Falco for what his ancestor did... no matter how bad it was..."
Suddenly, I turned around and faced him.
Taken by surprise, Maximus was on the brink of letting me go but recovered in time to keep his hold of me.
"Maximus, didn't you hear what I said? The man should have been balloted for a governorship years ago... but Marcus Aurelius barred his appointment..."
His face was a perfectly handsome yet unreadable mask.
"He didn't trust Falco..."I went on, "and he probably had his reasons... Very good reasons. If he is ambitious enough and he gets the right province, a governor can become a formidable rival for the ruling emperor..."
"Do you think he wants to be emperor?"
The question was so candid that I couldn't but laugh.

"Perhaps... but what I am sure about is that he helped make an emperor..."

Maximus blanched.

"Lucilla is right, Maximus. Commodus has enemies in the Senate and some of them are powerful... But he also has some powerful supporters... "
As I talked, his chin visibly hardened.
"There is much profit to be obtained by supporting an inept man's claim to the throne... and much more if that man is more interested in the idea of power than in power itself..."
He remained in silence but swallowed hard.
"Maximus, Senator Falco leads the party that supports the new emperor... He is Commodus' main advisor... "
In the silence that followed, even the gurgling sound of the stream had a deafening quality.
"I'm sorry, Julia..."
Maximus' voice was so low, so soft that for a moment I thought it was my imagination but before I could wonder if it was the case, he spoke again.
"I'm sorry things cannot be as you want..."

I remained in silence.
There was hardly anything else I could say.
He was sorry that things couldn't be as I wanted and I could read anything but sincerity and regret in his now unguarded, greenish blue eyes. But, what was he sorry about? Because my would be plot with the senators had failed before being set in motion? Or because whatever affection he felt for me was not enough to overcome his need of revenge and his duty towards his dead emperor?

For once, I was unwilling to guess what lied beyond his words.
For once, I was unwilling to be in his arms.

Do you know what the worst mockery the gods vex us with is?
The understanding that in order to blame them for our problems, to curse them for our disgraces, to hate them for the senseless grief they inflict upon us, we first have to believe in them.
I suppose it is reasonable for, it is not to them that we send our prayers when in need of help? And, don't we shower their altars with offerings when we believe them to be the reason of our good fortune or happiness?

It was then and there that I understood.
And it was then and there that I became a believer.
I still am.
Even if one of a different kind.

Brusquely, I freed myself from Maximus' arms and hurried back towards the blanket under the trees, the soaked hem of my tunic dripping on my bare, cold feet. As I reached the spot, another wave of disorientation hit me, making me stumble and brusquely sit down, all pretence of control forgotten, my breath coming short, my eyes burning but dry, my head so light and my heart so heavy yet both painfully throbbing in unison.
Slowly, I slid down and rolled on my left side, turning my back to Maximus, still standing at the stream.

The words rang in my ears sounding very much like the artless, wooden recitation of a child too young to understand their meaning.
Who had written those verses? Where had I learned them?
Why did they come back to my mind in that moment?
Apollinarius.
It had to be him who had taught me those lines that bespoke of disenchantment and hopeless finality…

And then I remembered.
Hadrian.
It had been Emperor Hadrian who had written them in his death bed.
The soldier. The philosopher. The poet. The historian. The architect.
Hadrian who had singled out a teenaged Marcus Aurelius to become emperor in due time.
Hadrian who, like Maximus, had been born in faraway Hispania.
The man who had been master of the world and whose glory had reflected on that of Rome yet had died lonely, exhausted and with a broken heart…

I don't know how long I remained there, lying on my side, my eyes unfocussed, my mind blank and numbed, the wood's sounds muffled to my ears, the verses echoing in my mind time and again like some macabre lullaby.
At some point there was a rustling sound at my back.
Maximus.
He sat at my side then lied on the blanket behind me, close but not touching me, offering me his warmth and solid presence, letting me know he was there for me, ready to take in my grief or my anger.
Even my silence.
As I didn't move or talk, he lightly rested a big, warm hand on my hip then slid a heavily muscled arm around my body and brought me closer.
I let him do and his warm breath softly fanned my nape, the rhythmic blow little by little bringing my mind in focus again.
We remained like that for what seemed a long time.
So close yet so far away, together but separated by the fate I insisted on defying time and again.

After what seemed an eternity, I turned my face towards Maximus.
As I did, he raised on his elbow so as to be able to look at me closely.
Still in silence, I caressed his bearded cheek, tracing the contour of the strong bones and marvelling at the softness of his beard and the raspy texture of the skin where it had been shaved. Cupping his dimpled chin, I let my thumb pad toy with the delicious arch of his beautifully sculpted lips then slid my hand to the back of his head, caressing his nape then burying my fingers in his soft, dark hair and gently tugging at its ends.
At the tug, he offered me a little smile, one of those little, boyish smiles that never failed to bring another to my lips.
"Your hair is longer... and also is your beard..."
Maximus' smile became broader and sunnier, that kind of smile that never failed to make me feel light headed and light hearted.
"I know... I will have to have both trimmed..."
"I will have Phaedrus attend you..."
"It's not necessary..."
"He will be happy to have something to do... Since my husband died..."
"It's not necessary, Julia... I can take care of myself... I am used to..."
I rolled on my back to be able to better see him and Maximus moved in accordance to make room for me.
"Didn't you say you had a manservant?
"Yes, Cicero... "
"And?"
He frowned.
"And Cicero always complained that I didn't give him enough to do!"
I couldn't but laugh and the sound took me by surprise for it was that of perfect, careless laugh, not what you'd expect from a woman who'd had just seen her hopes of love and a future destroyed.
"He liked you..."
Maximus pushed some tendrils from my face but I could see he was just gaining some time to decide if he wanted to talk about the man or not.
"And I liked him immensely", he said, finally making up his mind.
"He was more a friend than a manservant... "
As he spoke, he slid his arm around my waist once more and slowly caressed the small of my back.
"Tell me about him..." I asked and Maximus hesitated for a moment. He had never been a talkative man but I couldn't have enough of his voice and his words and his memories.
"Please..."
He blinked then went on talking.
"When I became General Maximus, the emperor also assigned me a manservant. Cicero was a former soldier who had been badly hurt by the Germanians..."
He was no man of words but when he talked there was something utterly compelling about the way he used them. Perhaps it was his voice, that heated rumble that could go from deep purring to roaring thunder without losing its quality. Perhaps it was the strength that was always there…

"He was captured and tortured and his face was badly scarred... He was licensed but he knew no life but that of the army and Marcus Aurelius offered him a place as my manservant... He had never served under me but choose to remain by my side..."
"The emperor himself appointed your manservant?"
Maximus' chuckled.
"Marcus trusted me to defeat the enemy but not to be willing to choose a manservant!"
I chuckled back.
"What happened to Cicero?"
A shadow passed across Maximus' face but he recovered quickly.
"I don't know... I just hope... he didn't do anything stupid and had himself killed by the praetorians... He tried to defend me when they came for me but I told him to remain apart... I hope he didn't do anything foolish..."
Silence fell on us as I went on toying with his silky, coal colored hair.
"Did you ever let your hair grow?"
Maximus looked surprised at the sudden change of subject but recovered immediately.
"Yes, I had long hair when I became a soldier... and I used to let it grow when I went home on a leave..."
"How do you look with long hair?"
He shrugged.
"I don't know... Hairy!"
I couldn't but smile again and caressed his dimpled chin with my thumb's pad
"How is your hair when you let it grow?"
"Wavy..."
My eyebrows arched in puzzlement.
"Wavy?"
It was his turn to smile.
"You sound like Cicero when he arrived to my home in Hispania and discovered I hadn't had a hair cut in months. He said he had never imagined I had wavy hair..."
"I had never imagined it either..."
"There is an especially annoying curl that falls on my forehead all the time, no matter how much I push it back..."
"A cow lick?"
"Indeed..."
"I would like to..."
I stopped in mid sentence and averted my eyes, then closed them.
Maximus said nothing but the warm hand that had been rubbing my back stopped dead and before he could prevent himself, his fingers closed on the fabric of my tunic.

Behind my closed eyelids, I desperately tried to picture Maximus with long, wavy hair and a stubborn curl falling on his wide, tanned forehead.
I nearly succeeded.
I nearly saw him, so different yet so familiar, looking younger and careless, the booming sound of his laugh ringing in my ears…
I clung to the fleeting vision with the same, fierce desperation with which I had clung to my dreams of him and my hopes to save him…
But the sunny, lively image was replaced by the steely glint of a well known yet long forgotten silver dagger.
For a moment I could nearly feel the cool, well balanced grip and the lethal weigh of that perfectly forged, perfectly sharpened instrument of death.

Falco's dagger.
The one I had stolen from his house, hidden under the clothes of the exquisite doll he had given me.
The dagger the twelve years old girl I had been had considered burying in his body while he slept.
The shinning blade I had once brought close to my face, my eyes burning with madness and desperation on the polished mirror while I struggled to find the courage to disfigure my face to put an end to the endless misery its beauty had inflicted upon me.
The same blade I had willed to slash my wrists one fateful night in far away Moesia…
And the one that had put an end to the life of the man who had bred me like others breed cattle…

My fingers closed convulsively but found nothing to grip but emptiness.

Slowly, very slowly, I opened my eyes and found myself looking into Maximus' gentle, concerned ones.
Without a word, I moved forward and softly touched his lips with mine.
He accepted my kiss eagerly, the familiar warmth and tingling rushing through my veins.
A taste of man and sun and wine…
But when he tried to deepen the kiss I retreated, for once unwilling to be kissed by him for I knew if I allowed him to kiss me, I'd shatter never to recover… and it was not the moment for it.

I sat up.
"Have you rested enough?"
"Well, yes..."
If he was surprised by my attitude, Maximus didn't show it.
"Then lets move... There is something I want to show you..."
"Julia..."
But I was already on my feet and looking for my sandals.
"Saddle the horses while I pack..."
He looked at me for a moment, then nodded and stood up.
By time I was done with the packing, Maximus had Fulmen already saddled and was working on Sidereum. He worked with the efficiency and economy of movements of a born horseman trained by the best army in the world.

"Maximus?"
He turned around swiftly.
"What did you do with my dagger?"
For a moment, he seemed on the brink of asking me what dagger I was talking about but he knew better than that.
"I gave it to Gallienus, my master of the horse, and told him to get rid of it before I returned to Cassius' tent..."
I nodded but said nothing.
Maximus let a heartbeat pass.
"Why?"
For a moment, I was on the brink of asking him why what, but I knew better.
"I always wanted to know what happened to it... That dagger was... special to me..."
Maximus scrutinized my face looking for a hint of what lied behind my seemingly harmless words.
I offered him nothing but a little smile.
He frowned slightly but returned to the horses.

Whoever has been a whore knows a thing or two about deceit for it is deceit what keeps you alive and in the right people's good graces.
Whoever has been a good whore knows more about deceit than a good politician for deceiving becomes your lifestyle.
You survive by deceiving men into believing you are willing to be with them.
By making they believe that you enjoy their company.
That they are special and desirable.
That when they take you to their beds, they are but gods incarnate and you a willing, mortal woman.
Most of all, you deceive them into believing that you are grateful for their favour and breathlessly satisfied by their attentions and skills, no matter how inexistent they may be.
You even deceive them into believing you are the woman they want to be with, be it that she is their best friend's wife, the Roman empress or a long dead, Eastern queen.
Even if that woman is their own daughter...
We have long ago agreed that I was one of the best ever so lets now agree that, when my mind is set into it, I can also be a master deceiver.
How couldn't I be if I was able to look in the eye at the only man I had ever loved knowing I was soon to lose him to vengeance and death and smile as if nothing happened?

Yet smile I did.

Not a happy smile.
Neither a suspicious grin.
Not even a bitter one.
Just a quiet, neutral one.

A woman at ease with her own decision.

And the decision was taken.
Soon Maximus would return to Rome and I would go after him.
And when he'd die, I would die too.
But not before getting a new dagger, good steel and a well balanced hilt.
Not before paying a visit to a certain house at the Palatine Hill.
And not before taking the life of Senator Anicius Dellius Falco as I should have done that night twelve summers ago.
As I should have done for my mother, for all the girls who had been raped before me and for the scared little girl that I had been then.
But perhaps the gods are not as capricious as they seem and there is some kind of twisted logic when it comes to the fate they had ordered for us.
For taking his life now also meant avenging his betrayal to Marcus Aurelius and most of all to Maximus.

I doubted he would appreciate the gesture but by then he'd probably be too happy to be reunited with his family to pay much attention to me.
Besides, what has to be done has to be done.
And Cassius would appreciate his old associate's company.
Eternity is way too long to spend it by yourself.
And I was soon to be the one going into it utterly alone.

(*) Notorious Roman citizens who had distinguished in politics and military campaigns were granted the honor of having their statues placed at forums, street corners and squares.
(**) As many minor and side characters in this story, Dellius was a real person who lived in the times of the civil war between Marcus Antonius and Octavius and who, according to historians, acted in the way Julia tells Maximus.
(***) Becoming one of the two mandatory Roman consuls was the ultimate elective office a Roman senator could reach. Once a consul, he was only eligible for another term or could be balloted for a governorship, which was not an elective office because - in the case of rich or fickle provinces -
it involved too much power to risk it falling in the hands of the wrong man.
(****) In the morning of September 2nd. 31 B.C., Cleopatra's and Marcus Antonius' jointed navies attempted to break Octavius' blockage and return to Egypt leaving behind their land forces to make their way back by themselves. The decision - usually attributed to the queen's influence over her Roman consort -- was contrary to their officers' advice for Marcus Antonius was a notorious army commander while Octavius had Rome's best admiral -- Agrippa -- on his side. By the end of the day, Cleopatra and a quarter of the navy had managed to escape followed by Marcus Antonius but they had lost 300 ships and 5000 men. A week later the land forces surrendered, joined Octavius's army then marched to Egypt to fight against their former leader.
(*****) Situated in Western Greece, the Gulf of Ambracia lies between Actium -- where Marcus Antonius was camped -- and Preveza, where Octavius built a city to celebrate his triumph, naming it Nikopolis (in Greek, "City of Victory").
(******) The cult of the deity known as Roma Dea was created by Octavius, the grandnephew of Julius Caesar and his appointed heir who then adopted the name Augustus as he became the first Roman emperor. It is believed that his wife, the formidable empress Livia, suggested him the creation of the cult when the newly subjugated Middle East countries demanded a deity to worship that linked their local culture to that of the empire that had absorbed them as provinces.
(*******) Contrary to what movies have suggested for decades, Marcus Antonius' and Cleopatra's sound defeat at Actium did not put an immediate end to the civil war between them and Octavius. It signalled the beginning of the end for the couple and their ambitions but it took Octavius well over a year (and the betrayal of some Middle East kings) to be able to break the Egyptian frontier at Pelusium and defeat Queen Cleopatra VII and her Roman lover.
(********) Publius Aelius Adrianus (76 AD to 138 AD, fourteenth emperor of Rome) Surviving fragment.