Seeing my confusion, Marcus Aurelius smiled at me and softly
said, "Julia, you saved General Maximus' life."
I was aghast. Bewildered. My eyes widened and fixed on the emperor's.
His words echoed in my mind. "Julia, you saved General Maximus'
life" Had the old man lost his wits? He was talking about
a fierce warrior, a powerful general of the Roman army. Marcus
Aurelius' lips twitched in amusement, as if I had given voice
to my thoughts.
"Yes, child, you saved him. If not for you, General Maximus
would be dead. He owes you your life ... and I owe you his life,"
said Marcus Aurelius. He remained silent for a moment, then he
lowered his voice and added looking at me in earnest, "Believe
me, Julia, I'd prefer ten times to lose my throne than to lose
Maximus."
Unable to answer, I kept my eyes on Caesar's while my fingers
tugged nervously at the fabric of my tunic. The emperor reclined
more comfortably on the cushions as he went on talking, his eyes
remote, his thoughts no longer in Moesia but in the past.
"I met Maximus for the first time when he was fourteen. We
were in Hispania, where he was born. I had just become emperor
and he had just enrolled in the army, a provincial, farm boy who
had no right to be in the legion for he was not a Roman citizen.
Yet he was anxious to devote his life to serving the empire. Even
at such a young age it was obvious how special he was."
Caesar's eyes softened as he quietly spoke about Maximus and hearing
him I forgot my anguish and heartbreak and imminent departure
and, enthralled, I just listened to him as he talked about the
handsome, strong, compassionate man both an emperor and a slave
had come to love.
"Through the years I met him time and again only to see the
promise he showed as a boy flourish. I have seen time and again
proof of his courage, his loyalty, his compassion... He's all
a man should be... He's all Rome should be..."
He remained silent for a moment, lost in his thoughts. In the
golden light of the oil lamps, I saw unshed tears glittering in
his blue eyes. Then, he spoke in a low voice, obviously talking
to himself, my presence utterly forgotten, "He's the son
I should have had..."
Suddenly, Marcus Aurelius not only looked older than his years
and tired after marching with his legions for days on but also
fragile. And haunted. He wasn't looking at me but lost in his
private thoughts and his eyes blazed with conflicting emotions,
as Maximus' had blazed when he had faced Martius at the same tent
where we were sitting. And like Maximus', the emperor's eyes were
those of a man battling against his own demons.
I felt my heart ache for whatever pained the old man reclining
on the couch, a man who was the most powerful in the world yet
was not immune either to love or the pain that comes with it.
I swallowed my own grief and had to restrain myself not to kneel
by the couch, take his hands in mine and try to offer him some
comfort... the idea of a woman like me being able to bring comfort
the emperor of Rome as ludicrous as that of me having saved the
life of Rome's most skilled warrior and powerful general.
But Caesar was talking again, still lost in his memories of a
man who seemed to leave his imprint in the soul and heart of every
person that crossed his path, be it a slave or an emperor.
"I've seen him grow up and rise from his humble origins
to the highest rank of the Roman army and felt proud, as proud
as a father can be... If I lose him..."
Both Caesar and I shuddered at the idea of losing the man we both
loved. The emperor sobered, turning his attention back to me.
"But you were there when he needed you, Julia, and saved
his life. Even if there's not gold enough in the empire to pay
my debt to you, this cannot go unrewarded".
He raised his right hand and took off the heavy, golden ring which
adorned his ring finger. Then, he offered it to me.
"Here, take this."
I looked at him hesitating and he prompted me again to take the
jewel. It was a big, beautiful signet ring, exquisitely carved
and very heavy, definitively a ring designed for a man. For a
powerful, wealthy man. It shone in the dim light of the lamps
with the unique shine of pure, old gold.
"Do you know what is this?"
Dumbfounded, I took the signet ring and shook my head no. Marcus
Aurelius went on talking, his throaty voice now a mere whisper.
I had to strain to hear his words.
"This is my family's seal, Julia. We, the Antoninii are not
really a family anymore but a group of strangers become relatives
through adoption and arranged marriages, all celebrated in the
name of the glory and might of Rome, its blood and roots long
lost. I wanted to rectify this but..." the emperor stopped
as if he had said too much, too much even for a conversation which
was supposed to never have taken place. "Yet we are the emperors
of Rome... and this ring is not merely a valuable jewel or an
empty symbol for it can command more power than a heavily armed
Roman legion."
The emperor rose from the cushions and sat straight. He took my
hand in his and closed my fingers over the ring which I continued
to look at dumbly. Then, he held my hand in his long, elegant,
aged one. But his hold was not that of an elderly, fragile man
for his fingers were firm and strong like that of a younger one,
the fingers of an emperor who was also a philosopher and a warrior.
"Julia, if you ever need help, print the seal on a piece
of wax and send it to me at the imperial palace and you will have
whatever you need or want. If I'm not there or have died, send
it to my daughter, Lucilla. She'll recognize it and grant you
whatever is necessary and with no questions. But never, ever,
send it to my son. Never send it to Commodus. He must not know
that you have the ring, do you understand? If Lucilla and I are
both dead, send it to my grandson, Lucius Verus. Nowadays he's
but a little boy but he shows great promise."
Marcus Aurelius eased his hold and reclined again. Feeling once
more overwhelmed, I looked at the ring and felt my head reeling.
Things were happening too fast! First my freedom, then my reward
and being notified of my imminent departure, then the emperor's
ring and promise... I was free, I was wealthy, I had the personal
protection and the favor of the emperor... yet I was loosing Maximus.
I was being pushed away from him as he had pushed me away from
him, afraid of losing his iron control and giving himself to the
passion that was consuming both of us. I breathed hard, trying
to master my emotions, to gain foot in the slippery terrain that
my life had come to be ... and suddenly I saw the opening, the
light, the hope. Clasping the ring in my hand, I looked at the
emperor's eyes with eyes I knew must be wild, blazing as they
were with both hope and desperation.
Marcus Aurelius looked at me quizzically.
"What's it, child?" he said gently. "Talk..."
Words stuck in my throat and I desperately tried to master my
voice. Unable to do so, I threw myself on my knees in front of
the emperor's couch. I heard him gasp but suddenly I recovered
my voice and before he could speak again I blurted my plea.
"Sire, please ... I... I've been a slave all my life! I d-don't
know how to live in another way! Please, Sire, grant me my only
wish! Give me to General Maximus, Sire! Let me remain with him!
He'll be a good master and I will serve him well."
It was Marcus Aurelius' turn to be taken aback. He raised his
hands and tried to placate me.
"Child, child! You don't know what you are saying! Rise!
Sit down and listen to me."
But I was beyond myself, desperately clinging to my last hope
not to be pushed away from Maximus, not to be left alone once
more after getting to know how it was to feel warm and safe and
cared for.
"Sire, please! Give me to General Maximus! My only wish is
to remain with him!"
Marcus Aurelius sadly shook his head.
"You're not yourself, Julia. You don't know what you are
saying."
"Sire, you said that I'd have whatever I needed or wanted!
The only thing I want is to be his! You owe me!"
Desperate, I tried to take his hand and give him the ring back,
all its power hollow and useless if it couldn't grant me my only
opportunity to remain with Maximus.
"Julia, General Maximus would never take you or any other
slave. He abhors slavery and has never owned a slave or kept a
war prisoner as his personal property. You know what I'm saying
is true."
I didn't but I guessed it was true. Slaves and whores were not
for him. Yet I was both and desperately wanted to be his, no matter
how.
"Sire, if you'd order him to take me and keep me.... You're
the emperor! He'd have to obey!"
"Rise and stop humiliating yourself!"
I winced as if Marcus Aurelius had slapped me, for his voice was
as cold and as hard as steel, the voice of an emperor who was
also a warrior addressing a lowly subject.
"I have made you a freedwoman and a freedwoman you will be!
The least you can do is act like one!"
I whimpered.
"Sit down and listen to me!"
Trembling, I stood up and returned to my chair, my head bowed
in defeat, my eyes on my lap, my fingers convulsively clasping
the imperial ring.
"In the last days you have been through too much. It's been
hard, very hard. Yet you have proved your strength and bravery
and you are quite young. No matter how confused you feel now,
you will recover."
I was too scared by Caesar's anger to dare to talk, yet I looked
at him with pleading eyes. Marcus Aurelius' hard gaze softened
a little.
"You know, Julia? You remind me of my daughter, Lucilla,"
he said. "Like you, she's smart and beautiful and brave."
Again, I was at a loss. How could I be compared with the emperor's
daughter if not to say that she was everything I wasn't, everything
that I won't ever be? And again Marcus Aurelius smiled as if I
had voiced my thoughts. "You were born a slave and she the
daughter of an emperor, thus favored by the gods as you were not.
But when she was about your age, she wanted something that she
couldn't have. She wanted it badly and I, as father and emperor,
had to deny her as I'm denying you now even if for completely
different reasons. She thought her life was over, yet she managed
to go ahead. You will manage too, Julia."
I refused to acknowledge his words and still looked at him
with pleading, tearful eyes. Marcus Aurelius sighed heavily.
"Tonight, General Maximus asked me for a leave. I granted
it and the day after tomorrow, he'll depart from here. He'll go
to Spain, to his farm. And his wife."
I felt as if I had suffered a vicious blow, my breath left me
in a rush. To Spain? To his wife? Suddenly I remembered Maximus
lively steps as he left the tent where I was now. He looked as
if a great weight had been taken from his shoulders ... but his
stride was instead that of a man who was happy because he was
returning home.
In a flash, I remembered Maximus' scalding lips and tongue devastating
my defenses, his heat and hardness pressing against my belly,
his strong hands caressing my body, his fiercely protective gaze...
and I remembered Eugenia howling like a wounded animal when the
baby had been taken from her arms, truly understanding for the
first time the depth of her pain. Feeling like howling myself,
I bit my lip so hard that the coppery taste of blood filled my
mouth ... the same way it had filled it when Maximus had crushed
my lips with his in a frenzy of need and desire.
Caesar went on talking. "Julia, tonight I offered General
Maximus the option of divorcing his wife and marrying my daughter
... they have known each other since they were very young..."
Marcus Aurelius' voice drifted away. If he added anything more,
I didn't hear it, the blood roaring in my ears muffling all sound
around me. The emperor's daughter? Maximus had been offered marriage
to the emperor's daughter? I had never seen the Lady Lucilla,
as the imperial family is seldom seen in public, lest it be at
the games and I have never been at the Colosseum myself. But I
had seen her statues when she had briefly been co-empress with
her mother and I remembered how she looked ... a tall, beautiful,
regal woman, majestically wrapped in her stately robes and adorned
with the jewels befitting her rank. So proud. So self assured.
So different from me.
She was the daughter of an emperor, the widow of another and also
probably the mother of a third. And she had been offered to Maximus
in marriage. My breathing was hard, uneven, the pain in my chest
so hard that I thought my heart was going to burst. Was there
no end to my grief?
"Years ago, I made two mistakes I greatly regret,"
went on Marcus Aurelius, forcing me to pay attention. "One
of them was to allow a senator to adopt Maximus instead of adopting
him myself. By offering him marriage to my daughter I was trying
to amend both..."
Little by little the pieces fell in place. And suddenly I knew,
beyond any possible doubt, that what the Lady Lucilla had been
denied when she was my age had been Maximus. An indescribably
heated jealousy washed over me. She had wanted him ... had he
wanted her too? Was Maximus going to divorce his farmer wife to
marry her? Of course, he could have any woman he wanted ... and
also those he even didn't bother to want.
" ... but he didn't even want to hear about it. Maximus'
marriage was not an arranged one. He married for love and he still
loves his wife."
Love.
He had married for love. I should have known he wouldn't have
married simply to have a woman give him sons to perpetuate his
name. He had married for love. And he still loved her. He loved
her enough to refuse marrying the imperial daughter. He loved
her enough to push away his opportunity to become a member of
the imperial family. To be emperor himself. I couldn't help but
think that not many men would do such a thing, women just a commodity
to be used and discarded, be they wives or whores. Not many men,
only Maximus. Not many men, only the man I had fallen in love
with.
Like a defeated fighter, I bowed my head and simply accepted the
blows without offering resistance while I helplessly wondered
how would if feel to be loved like Maximus loved his wife. And
I pitied the Lady Lucilla, who could have anything in the world
but had been refused when offered in marriage to the man she also
loved.
The emperor sighed again.
"As the emperor of Rome, I don't need General Maximus' consent
to marry him to my daughter. I could simply order him to divorce
his wife and marry Lucilla and he'd have to do it. Yet, no matter
how much his refusal disappoints me, I will not do it. And I will
not order him to take you as a slave. For doing each of those
things would be to deeply hurt a man I love. And I would never,
ever consciously hurt Maximus. Not even to save the empire."
Marcus Aurelius remained in silence for a moment, then he said
softly. "Julia, listen to me. Along with freedom, love is
the most precious thing a man or a woman can have. Or lose. It's
so rare, so ... difficult to find ... so fragile ... true love,
that is. And nobody, not even the emperor of Rome, has the right
to interfere with it."
I pressed my lips together, numbed by pain, helplessly listening
to Caesar's words. His were gentle, wise words but for me they
had the finality of a death sentence.
"You are young and smart and beautiful. And now, you're also
free and wealthy. Someday you will find someone, someone special
whom you'll love and be happy with," said Marcus Aurelius
in a gentle, soothing voice ignoring the pain his words so alike
Maximus' were unleashing inside me. "And when this happens,
you will remember this night and this conversation and see that
if I had done as you asked, I'd have helped you to make a serious
mistake .... and also made both you and Maximus very unhappy."
Marcus Aurelius remained silent for a moment, then smiled ruefully.
"Julia, the gods have plans for every one of us. They put
you in the path of General Maximus to help him and be helped by
him in return. But they did not choose to make you his, not even
as his mistress, for Maximus would neither hurt his wife by taking
a mistress nor you by offering you less than he offered her ...
That is the kind of man he is."
Even if I was drowning in my own grief, I couldn't but agree
with Caesar.
That was the kind of man Maximus was. Too good to be a simple
mortal. Too human to be a god.
"He's not for you, Julia. Keep him always in your heart,
for what he did for you must not be forgotten. But learn to live
without him, for he can't be yours."
Caesar sighed. Suddenly, he looked not tired but exhausted. As
exhausted as I felt. Exhausted by his own emotions as I was exhausted
by mine.
"It's late, child. And tomorrow will be a long day. Probably,
we will never see each other again but rest assured that I will
never, ever, forget you or the debt I owe you. Now, put the ring
in this pouch, hide it and return to your tent for Cornelius Crassus
will come for you at dawn to take you and the women to Rome. I
trust both of you to get them there safely."
He handed me a purple, velvet pouch. I hesitated before taking
it and Marcus Aurelius smiled encouragingly.
"Sire, I don't think I can do it ... live as a freedwoman,
I mean."
My voice sounded small, once more the voice of the scared, sad
and lonely little girl who still lived inside me. And the little
girl was more scared and sad and lonely as she had ever been.
"Julia, you helped the man who saved the empire and also
saved his life. You can go ahead with yours."
I bowed my head again and put the ring in the pouch made of the
fabric forbidden to everyone but the royal family. I fumbled with
the golden cord, failing twice before I could tie it properly.
"Do you know what the difference is between you and my daughter,
Julia?"
Startled, I looked at the emperor. Why was he asking me such a
thing? He was not a cruel man, then why was he comparing my life
of enslavement and degradation with that of his proud, self assured
daughter?
"No, Julia, it's not that you were born at a slave's quarters
and she at the imperial palace," said the wise, compassionate
man reclining on the couch. "The difference is that she knows
the extension of her strength and courage and you still have to
acknowledge yours. It will take time, Julia. And pain. But you
will."
Sniffling and obviously dismissed from the imperial persona, I
bowed my head and turned on my heels in a sudden urge to leave
the tent, to get into the night and the open air.
"Julia?"
Marcus Aurelius throaty voice stopped me at the entrance of the
alcove. I didn't turn around and he didn't expect me to.
"Even if the gods have ordered differently, rest assured
that you are a woman worthy of him and he could easily love you.
That is why he would never have you as either his mistress or
his slave."
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and, squaring my shoulders, left the tent.