Redemption Part-1

by DNA

Some women take an interest in offering Maximus a new life. He's a little reluctant to accept their help. Will be added to subsequent parts as time and research allow. If critiquing, be merciful please--this is my first time working with this.

4. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

O-kay, briefly: disclaimer is the usual...Dreamworks, blah, blah...

Max is cheering up a little in this one. Don't worry, there's still a little more angst in the last part of this first piece--what will be chapter 6. Which is written, but has yet to be typed, and I must study for my exam. Then onto book 2 and Britannia...and soundtrack, after soundtrack, after soundtrack for inspiration...lets see, i've, of course, got gladiator in the old cd right now, and braveheart, moll flanders, dances with wolves, and i'm onto last of the mohicans...all of which will be seeing ample playing time during book 2.

A little something about the name change: Lucius Castus was actually a dux Bellorum (military commander during wars) known as Lucius Artorius Castus, who inhabited Britain during the time of Commodus' early reign. Look at this as a bit of blatant foreshadowing for the second part of this story. Because of the name Artorius, there is some conjecture in the scholarly world that this commander, who incidentally was thought to have headed the Sarmatian cavalry stationed in Britain at the time of this story, and will be featuring very prominently in the next story, was one of the potential sources for the later legends of King Arthur (in answer to one of the reviewers...yes I love Gillian Bradshaw. No, much to my shame, I did not read Island of Ghosts...I didn't even know what her novel was about until after I thought up the outline of this story...I'm scared to read it now, in case of overlap, until I've written more of the setting in Britannia...although I may pick it up for inspiration. In any case, the woman is a goddess amongst historical authors, especially if you like classical history, and I would never even seek to approach her level in writing talent...she's an author for career, I'm one for hobby...and it's fanfic at that;). Anyhow, Lucius Artorius Castus fought a series of campaigns all throughout Britain against the Caledonii, the tribes inhabiting the area across Hadrian's Wall from Roman settled Britain, between 183-185. While I'm going to be twisting history, and as I said before, making it a bit schizoid bringing in elements from after commodus' death in 192CE, this is pretty much the general gist of my "inspiring muse".

Enough, read on: I realize this chapter seems a wee-bit frivilous, but angst gets to me after a while, and even in the movie, the man wasn't always doomy and gloomy...

Oh yeah, and about the prenomen and cognomen things mentioned in this chapter...there's a certain website that explains very nicely the formalities about Latin naming...one of which is the fact that the prenomen, um I think that's the first name of the roman gentry, while listed with the name in full, was often not the first name of common usage...hence Marcus Antius Crescens Calpurnianus would probably have gone by Antius and not Marcus...at least I'm guessing on that. In any case, I realize Cicero probably had another full name that was never mentioned in the movie, and that Castus is most likely a last name when used properly, but forgive the creative license I'm using here for the framework of this story...don't flame me too much...please;)

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He awoke the next morning with no memory of ever having fallen to sleep, but he must have, for the braying of the donkey was the next thing he heard, making him open his eyes to a world awash with bright sunlight and birdsong, feeling more rested than he had since taking to the road.

No dreams. He hadn't dreamt the night just past, and felt the better for it.

Both women were bustling about the camp, packing goods and readying the morning meal, a simple fare of bread and well-watered apple wine. He joined them after washing up by the stream, acknowledging them each with a nod of greeting, harnassing the donkey after eating his share, since they had finished securing their other provisions earlier, doing him the courtesy of letting him sleep longer.

For the first time, the lushness of the Italian spring brightened his mindset. Perhaps it was the simple fact of a few hours well rested slumber, but the heaviness of his emotions didn't appear to be weighing him down as much this morning. He would hardly have said he felt happy, nothing even approaching that level of cheerfulness, or that the qualms from the night before were not preying at the back of his mind, but he felt lighter somehow, less burdened by the crushing weight of grief that had imprisoned his soul these past weeks. He couldn't have said from whence this new bouyancy of his mood had come, but it put him in a more amicable state toward the women. Scarcely accepting of their guidance, especially after the revelations of the night before, but less anatagonized by their presence, almost welcoming of their companionship as it were.

So much was the difference in his bearing and mannerism that when Maeve motioned him to the side of the wagon, informing him that, "Your name Maximus, while common enough, is too well known for us to chance--", he merely cut in with a shake of his head, saying agreeably, "I've thought of that already." He could see she was preparing herself for another dispute. For the first time in two weeks, she mis-read him as he explained without animosity, "Don't worry, I've no reservations on giving over my name. If Maximus is to be dead to Rome, it won't do to be called by it."

Maeve's startlement was a mere raise of elegantly arched brows as her daughter asked expectantly, "Well, did you chose another name, then?"

"Lucius," he answered the daughter, but was looking directly into Maeve's icy-orbs. "For the child whose life was taken before he had a chance to know what living means."

The older woman nodded affably. "It's a neutral enough name, not likely to be associated with an ex-gladiator. Do you have a cognomen?"

"Castus," he said simply. "It was the prenomen of my devoted servant and friend, Cicero, who gave his life in order to release Rome from the clutches of a tyrant."

The older woman signalled her daughter to take up the reigns, and with a brisk snap they set off on the main thorough-fare leading to the gates of Genova. He walked beside where the older woman sat for a few moments more, before taking his now customary spot by Hercules' side. "Do you tell the guards at the gates of larger cities you enter the same story--that you and your daughter are wandering peasant healers from the northern islands?"

"Something along those lines, with a bit of a twist added in for good measure," Maeve said with an almost mischevious glint in her eye. "And now with you along, we're going to be amending our tale some to include your part, Spaniard."

He was hesitant to ask what Maeve meant, dreading the answer when he saw the dark look Nemhyn threw her mother at mention of their assumed disguises. Being the seeress she was, it turned out he didn't have to verbalize his puzzlement, as Nemhyn's mother continued. "You see, the story we give the wall guards usually goes something like this..."

That as she elaborated, delineating his part as the dutiful servant of two peasant women whose family had fallen on hard times, he discovered the reason behind Nemhyn's increasingly irritable countenance, and was witness to a rather impressive display of just how well the daughter could oppose her mother on certain points. Though as he'd suspected, the mother's way won out in the end, despite the furious protestations of the daughter which lasted until the gates of Genova, and had him thanking the gods that for once, it was not himself at which Nemhyn's temper was directed.

He also learned later that morning, despite her inability to lie convincingly, Nemhyn, and her mother, were actually quite adept at dissembling when they were required to: Nemhyn as the simple country girl awed by the magnifiscence of seeing the home province to the Queen of Cities for the first time in her life, her mother, displaying with seeming ease, a hunched, elderly woman, rocking and twitching, muttering under her breath to voices only she was privy to. His own part was none too taxing for that matter, the faithful servant required to hold Hercules' halter as he let Nemhyn do the majority of the talking with the customs guard.

A portly, bald soldier, bored and hassled by the number of people in line at the gate's booth, even at this early hour of the morning, he asked the typical questions: where they had come from, how long would they be in Genova, for what purpose. He listened to Nemhyn's answers with visible contempt, as she spoke with a deliberately heavy provincial accent.

"Herbs, sir, that's why we're here. Uncommon ones, such as not found on the island, but aplenty in the markets of Rome." Not quite gutter Latin, but spoken so roughly, Maximus had to look down, concealing his silent snicker as the guard struggled to understand her.

"Britons, then," the guard said, somewhat insolently. "How long in the city," he asked yawning, scratching the patchy stubble on his chin.

"Only till we catch passage, sir. To Targo."

"Targo," the man reiterated, puzzled. "Where the Hades is Targo?"

Nemhyn, evincing an attitude of timidity, said, "It's a port. In Hispania, isn't it, sir? I don't know exactly...never been to the mainland before."

Comprehension came across the soldier's face. "Tarraco. Is that what you mean?"

"Aye, sir, " Nemhyn confirmed eagerly in her exaggerated accent. "With my mum, sho's pained in her bones and not quite right in her mind, and our servant."

"Damned provincials," the guard muttered under his breath, still audible. "Ought to make it a requirment to speak proper Latin before you leave your island."

Based on the short fuse of her temper usually operated on, Maximus was expecting Maeve's daughter to erupt at some point during her discourse with the guard. Instead, she dimpled at the man apologetically, humbled, to all outward observors, by her ignorance of proper Roman speech. It was extremely convincing, her charade, and had Maximus not seen evidence of her true character while they'd been on the road, known her true origins, he would have been taken in as well.

Her smile had the desired effect upon the guard, as the portly officer relented somewhat, his rude manner, saying, "Provincial or not, you are a pretty thing, aren't you."

Maximus, holding the donkey's halter, saw her look down modestly, and gods help him, giggle like a school girl.

"Ah, can't see what harm you and the likes of your companions would do here in Genova," the guard said, waving them by and indicating the next group, a troup of roudy actors, to approach the booth.

Nemhyn just smiled again, climbing back into the wagon, snapping the reigns as Maximus strided next to Hercules, the group moving under the vault of the gate. The guard called, "At the docks young mistress, ask for Theseus the Fisher. He owns a ship large enough to carry your folk and the wagon. He offers an honest fee with a trustworthy crew. Tell him Dedus sent you."

"I shall, sir. Thank you much," Nemhyn returned, whispering under her breath as she faced forward,

furious, "Damned indigent--provincials my bloody arse. I could quote more Latin poets than you've probably ever heard of, and properly at that!"

They moved into the press of the crowd, making their way to the docks. Maeve, her voice shaking with laughter, said, "If you didn't do it so well, daughter, I wouldn't have you perform it. But you're so utterly convincing. At least this one didn't grope you."

"Grope you," Maximus repeated over the the din of Genova's human enpacked streets.

His words were the spark for the heated lashing of her rage, that until now, she'd been keeping in check, though, as before, he was not the immediate focus of her temper. That position he gladly let Maeve occupy. "You," Nemhyn huffed at her mother, "just like to see how much humiliation I can take! Don't try to patronize me by saying how well it works every time. And yes," she continued in the same voice towards him, "the last tried to grope me. A slimy Sardegnian when we went to Rome, pawed at me like a satyr."

"And-," Maximus urged, wondering if the man who had the audacity to take such liberties was still alive to tell about it.

"And...what," Nemhyn shot back in exasperation. "Believe me, in my homeland he would have gotten a dagger to the throat and a threat of being as gelded as Hercules. Here, I have to suffer it."

He cocked his head in question, catching himself as he was jostled into Hercules' shoulder by a harried looking errand boy. She caught his look, explaining, as to a simpleton, "It does no good to travel as a peasant woman if I blow our cover betraying the sensitivities of nobility. With you around," she added meaningfully, pulling back on the reigns abdruptly to slow Hercules from running over a woman trailed by three children, "the guards may still drop comments every now and then, but they leave off on the groping."

Maeve was drawing amusement from their conversation, saying nothing as the wagon made its slow, awkward way to the docks. He saw her try to suppress her chuckle though, when he said, against his better judgment, with feigned gravity, "Nothing like my presence to protect a lady's honor. But, what am I to do if they decide to grope me?" He supposed it was his poorly hidden smirk that incited her wrath this time, but she had caught onto his jest, failing horribly at keeping the laughter completely out of her voice.

"I don't know, Spaniard. Tell them Hercules will attack. He's very sensitive to insult done his family and is completely Roman in his aversion to relations between males."

A wise man might have known when to drop the teasing, but piquing Nemhyn was proving to be a rather newfound, and enjoyable past-time. And unlike the mother, who was still watching their exchange with unabashed mirth, the daughter had no impenetrable demeanor of a seeress.

"But, Nemhyn," he asked in assumed innocence, guiding the donkey through the noisy streets, stopping for people on their way to market, passers-by moving from one local vendor hawking wares to another, "What if the next guards take to Hercules?"

Her answering experession promised bodily harm, save that her eyes were dancing.

At which point, Maeve finally blurted out in varying degrees of merriment an alarm, "For the love of Brigid, stop the wagon, Nemhyn," reaching simultaneously for the reigns as her daughter, driving the donkey, almost collided with a man hauling freshly cut pork shanks and beef haunches, still dripping with blood, to the nearby meatery. The wagon came to a brusque halt that made Hercules' head jerk back and up, along with eliciting curses from a peddler of clay tablet moldings who had a cart behind theirs. The trio ignored the incensed man as Maeve directed, chuckling still, "It's about time, Spaniard, you drove Hercules through the crowd before my daughter runs an innocent city-dweller over in her temper, and you prostitute our poor beast."

As he and the younger woman switched places, Maximus said in passing, with exaggerated commiseration, "Hercules was missing the company of a woman anyway."

Taking the donkey's halter, still ignoring the outpourings of invective from the man behind them, she called back, grinning, "No hard feelings for losing my privledged place. Mother was getting scared of my driving. There's no need to do in an aging woman before her time."

That comment had Maeve tsk-ing in mock-offense, and him laughing outright, smiling openly. He took up the reigns, and they began to move again, when he heard Nemhyn vociferate over her shoulder, "I'm not sure, Spaniard, what happened to you between last night and this morning, but I'm almost thinking I preferred your glowering to this new mood of yours."

An incredulous, "Really," was his reply, as he began to bristle, thinking she meant it in offense, until he saw her smile back at him, a delightful flash of teeth a that lit her clean lined features to pleasing lovliness, and drew another exhilerating laugh from Maeve. He found their jocularity too contagious to pass up, and instead of reacting with animosity, he found himself smiling again, joining in once more to let the cleansing power of his own mirth soften the hard core that had formed around his heart

The docks were a chaotic clamor of rough and tough crewers moving about their labors over the loading areas and gang-planks which extended out into the harbor waters, encircled by the shanty vendor-stalls selling all manner or paraphanalia from fruits and cheeses, to mass produced deities meant to protect the safety of ships upon the high seas. And always, the drowning clamor of men at work coincided with the nefarious smell of fish wafting over the the entire spread of ships coming in and departing port-side Genova.

It was a day much like any other for Theseus the Fisher, though it was prgressing slower than he might have wished. He and his men had been held up by a cracked wine barrel earlier in the morning, and it had taken ridiculoulsly long, not only to stopper the leak, but to find a replacement adequate to ensure the wine didn't go bad. He prided himself on delivering good products in a timely fashion to his clientel, ensuring that the wines he shipped stayed as well-preserved as the day their containters were first sealed, and that oil distilled from the lavender fields growing thick in the hills along the Genovese coast did not go putured in its amphorae.

He'd been dubbed Theseus the Fisher by his wife in the first years of their marriage as a joke because he absolutely abhorred the overwhelming scent of the docks, the appearance of the scaly, slimy creatures most of his fellow comrades of the sea dealt in. He was, in fact, Thesus the Wine Merchant, but the former title had stuck amongst his crew over the years, and he'd never outrightly objected to it.

Now he stood here, considering whether or not to take on board a trio of peasant farmers from the norhtern isles...or he supposed they were peasant farmers. Probably more land-owning working class than mere peasants, he figured. They were a neatly dressed bunch, if simply attired, and they had their own donkey and wagon. The daughter did most of the talking, in a heavy provincial Latin, fluent enough for that, keeping her mantle drawn modestly over her head.

He tugged his beard with a pondering motion. "Humph. Tarraco, eh? Well, I won't lie, I wasn't planning on heading that far west this early in the year, though some of my deliveries, I suppose, could be re-scheduled for later. Who recommended my name, young miss?"

"Dedus, sir," the woman answered readily. "At the gate this morning."

He chuckled, deep and rumbling. His old friend was always ready to help a pretty woman, especially the slightly naive, somewhat taken in types.

"Your mother--is that your mother?" She nodded, and he asked, "What's wrong with her?"

"Hears voices sir, touched by the gods in some manner I'm not sure about. Beyond that, only the maladies of age. You've my promise, sir, she's not a threat to anyone and won't get in the way of you and your crew otherwise."

The open, pleading look on her face was very engaging as were her eyes, hazel--he always looked at women's eyes. She was quite becoming, actually. Setithes, one of his men, would probably be taken with her, ready to propose marriage by the end of the week it took to reach Tarrco from Genova.

"Humph," he whiffled out again. "Not your mother I'm worried about. It's the donkey crappering all over the cargo-hold stalls. My men aren't bastin' stable-hands."

"Oh," the girl said obligingly, "no worries on that sir. That's what our servant's for. He'll keep the bottom cargo-hold good and clean."

Theseus saw the servant, sitting up by the lunatic mother, react with a sharp raise of his head and a look at the girl afoot that spoke volumes about the indignity of his coming task. The girl looked back at the servant in turn, smiling with a curious mocking-sweetness, and then to Theseus.

"Seems your servant there has soemthing to add about that," Theseus commented. "Never a good thing to have an importunate servant. Too bad he's not a slave," he continued, studying the physique of the other man closer, with open admiration. "Say there's a whole lotta slave cargo headed for Tarraco and the arena these days, renewed popularity after that fiasco in Rome month past. From the look of your servant, miss, he might do well in the arena."

Theseus wasn't sure, but he thought he saw something in the gaze of the girl spark, harden perhaps, before the look disappeared, fleeting, replaced by a flashing smile and her gay laughter. "By the Fates, Lucius...in the arena," she said doubtfully, waving her hand with an inconsequential manner toward the servant. "He's never so much as lifted anything sharper than a sickle for harvesting grain sheafs. He's served our family faithfully for years, now, since the death of my da."

Theseus, still taking in the build of the man in the wagon, who was now looking down at the reigns in his hands, seemingly chargined by the reference to his less than servantly attitude, highly doubted the man never lifted anything more than a sickle. But Theseus knew when not to ask further questions of potential passengers. So long as they paid, and either stayed out of the way of his men while on board, or helped in the labor even, it was not for him to judge what manner of story those he took on his ship told him.

He hurumphed again, saying," Be that as it may, young miss, but in my experience--"

"THESEUS!" The shout came from one of his men on the dock, breaking into his remark. "WE NEED YOUR HELP! ONE OF THE DAMNED AMPHORA IS CRACKED!"

He swore, quite inventively. It was a trait he was known for, that his men never ceased to draw amusement from, but his wife scolded him on whenever he was home.

Whatever he'd been about to advise the girl on, it was forgotten as he said somewhat gruffly, his attention occupied with his merchandise, "You can load your animal and wagon on now. We depart in a half an hour, so you might as well just stay on board and get settled--we'll discuss fees later."

The woman agreed good-naturedly, nodding, pulling the donkey's halter to lead the animal up onto the deck, the servant snapping the reigns lightly. "And you," Theseus warned, now to the servant, "don't go getting into trouble with my men. We'll be together for a good week and I need no confrontations from a hireling who over-estimates his worth."

He assumed the servant was intimidated, for he was very carful to keep his eyes averted, responding to Theseus's tone with a stiff, "That's understood."

It was enough for the sailor. Despite the initial bullying stance he took when confronting new passengers to his ship, he was a fair man, and tried not to pre-judge others on first impressions. He spit once, absently, nodding to the peculiar trio, and walked up the plank to his vessel, already considering how he was going to deal with the cracked amphora.

Maximus wasn't intimidated. Maximus was fuming, and Maeve supposed, he had a valid enough reason to be. Her daughter had really pulled a wicked ruse on him by assigning such a menial task.

He was arranging their things below deck with Nemyhn, cross-tying the donkey, securing the wagon and its contents for the voyage. "Is this your idea of some crude joke," he remonstrated heatedly. "A stable hand?"

Her daughter's answering look was withering. "It was the only thing I could think of right then. You're supposed to be a servant, no?"

"That," he responded with angry emphasis, "was humiliating!"

"You," she rejoined, "didn't have to react with such affront. Why not announce to the world who you really are, for all the care you put into your demeanor. The point of covering up our identities isn't to have them guess at who we are the first day we journey out on sea," adding, "and if you want humiliating, try having them gawk at you like a main dish in a five course banquet!"

Maeve, sitting on a rough-hewed bench, listening to them bicker back an forth, thanked the gods for small mercies: that they were still attentive enough, despite the rising rage, to not raise their voices overly much. The men above would have been provided a treat worth scampering for had they heard what was being said below deck. As it was, she was sure the captain, Theseus, suspected something was amiss concerning their story, but had the sense to not ask questions.

"Oh you needn't worry yourself there. That...fisherman," Maximus snapped back at her daugther, saying the word like an invective, "did enough gawking in my direction to make me feel like a prize gem on a jewler's stand!"

And we were all getting on so well earlier this morning, Maeve thought trivially. Time to intervene. Their exhange would only serve to instill more hard feeling. Returning to the dispostion of the sane momentarily, she cut in before her daughter could come back at Maximus with another trenchant remark, letting the intonations of her voice soothe the younger persons like oil upon parched skin. "Enacting this charade isn't easy for any of us, but its necissity I think we can all understand. Our dear Theseus' perceptive suggestion about entering you, " she went on, looking at Maximus, " in the arena games struck a little too close for comfort to my liking."

He didn't quite flinch, but she saw his eyes alight with grim realization to the meaning of her words. He knew this already, she guessed, but hearing it helped perhaps, to reinforce their need to dissociate their normal behavior with any relation to their actual identities. That meant acting out their parts in all their authenticity, whether it was herself babbling to the gods, her daughter acting like a country simpleton, or Maximus cleaning after the donkey.

However, her daughter had evinced just a little too much satisfaction from relegating that task to him. "Besides," Maeve added, "if you're concerned about being the only mucking up after Hercules, my daughter forgot to mention she spent the better part of her girlhood in the stables as a child. She'll be glad to use the expertise she gained there to help you clean after the donkey as well."

It never ceased to amaze her, the curses that could come from the mouth of an educated, literate woman, like Nemyhn, supposedly raised to the genteel standards of Roman nobility, when infuriated. Except that the genteel part had been passed over in lew of Maeve having been a less than traditional Roman mother, her daughter recieving the better part of her training, and raised the better part of her life, along a military out-post of the northern frontier. Hence, as the situation stood, Maeve presumed, as she had come to over the years, her daughter's normally less than lady-like deportment was no more a source of intimidation or concern than Maximus' volatile nature.

Maeve found it rather funny, really, but knew better than to react with nothing other than a bland look toward the youger woman.

It was Maximus who suprised her, however, for the second time that day, making the leap from insulted hosility to humor with a laugh, no doubt caused by Nemyhn's outraged swearing. A laugh that started deep in his chest, shaking his shoulders, and rendering him helpless of speech for a few moments. Maeve, with her characterisitc faint amusement, thanked the gods again, that there was no loose utensils within reach of her daughter that could serve as useful projectiles. "You have to admit," he tried choking out between guffaws, "the odor is bound to dissuade potential gropers." Standing by the donkey, he gave the beast a fond pat on the muzzle.

Nemhyn was trying determinedly to keep her own face straight. "Great, so now you emerge from your doldrums simply to make sport of my circumstances. Just remeber who's the stable hand and who's the country-girl."

Maeve suggested, "You two could always switch roles if you wanted. Not to say the men up above may not wonder at it, but according to them, we're little better than ignorant northerners with eccentric customs anyway."

Maximus, looking her way, started chuckling again. "The beard, though...how would we--," he broke off with a movement of his hand tracing his chin, indicating her daughter's lack of facial hair.

Nemyhn gave them each a look that threatened expulsion over-board once the ship left port, though her eyes were twinkling. Maeve knew that gleam; it meant her daughter was about to add her own two drachmas worth to the banter. "Mother, don't you dare respond to that. You've offered enough helpful suggestions today."

"And you, Spaniard," Nemyhn said, directing her mock censure onto Maximus, "ought to be more careful with whom you pick sides."

"Why is that," he asked, smiling, knowing she was jesting.

"Becuase mother, here, gets off easy as the mad woman. She doesn't have to do anything but rock back and forth and babble to the gods. You and I, however, get to clean up after the damn donkey."

"You have a point," he said consideringly as each of them looked to Maeve now, who put up her hands in a warding gesture, openly chuckling herself.

"You two ought to have more respect for the slack-witted elderly," she admonished both of them, in her own defense.

One of the crewers from the above deck called down, interupting anymore of their discourse, telling them they were ready to set sail. When the trio was sure the man above had resumed his usual shipboard duties, Maximus replied to her in wry appreciation, securing the last of their miscellaneous items as Nemhyn seated herself next to her mother, "Those words are hardly the first I would use to describe you, Maeve, even if you were deaf, dumb, and blind, and still babbling to the gods like a mad woman."

She found herself laughing at that, heard her daughter, in an echo of Theseus, hurumph at Maximus' comment. A sound that told Maeve, for once her daughter and the ex-gladiator were in concurrance rather than discord. Leave it to me to be the object upon which they fix a united front, she thought, shaking her head.

Better that than having to listen to them argue for a week in the close, ship-bound quarters.

The mood of high spirits with which they embarked from Genova, so at odds with the glum of their overland journey, marked their time on the sea to Tarraco. The difference, Maximus realized, was being in the presence of men again. Men who hadn't known the excess of vanity and corruption which came with power, nor experienced the harsh brutalities of slavery. These were men who made up the blood of the Empire's citizenry, despite asking any trumped up, toga-attired senator who would have held the lack of familial history dating back to the first founders of the Roman Republic disqualified all but the most elite from that distinguished standing.

Maximus knew better though, as he helped Theseus and his crew with their tasks on board ship--still healing injurres permitting. In spite of the captian's intially crass attidude toward him, Theseus proved to be a man of decent sensibilities, honest in his dealings with the women, advising Maximus to not over-strain a still mending arm and ribs, though the captain was thankful enough for the added pair of hands when loading and moving the cargo around at their occassional stops along the coast. The sailor had a sense of humor courser than that of an army barracks, and eyes that would sparkle like twin sapphires when he would tease Setithes, a fellow crewer from the Greek colonii in southern Italia, about the man's evolving infatuation with Nemhyn. The other sailors would join in the ruckus laughter, trading jibes--two brothers from an island off the Greek mainland, a man born in Ostia, raised in the African provinces, and Theseus' son, a boy of 17, traveling with his father, learning the family trade.

The blood of the Empire's citizenry. Men who worked at honest jobs for honest livings, supporting families and raising new generations, moving about the peace of Imperial ruled lands and Imperial-guarded seas with never a thought to the shifting dynamics of Rome's power structures--Her government and military--taking for granted those structures were as eternal as the word of Rome Herself.

It seemed an unspoken agreement that neither he, nor the women, wanted to compound this temporary respite playing the parts of common folk, with mention of Pertinax, Britannia, or Rome. Nemhyn performed her role with smooth expertise, the concerned daughter of simple country folk attending to Maeve, who, if one had not known her true attributes, enacted the character of the mad with ease. Himself, he partook in the men's badinage with passive appreciation, laboring with them side by side, hauling their casks of wine and amphorae of oils, mending sails, and the like, sometimes adding a jest of his own that endeared him to the crew, albeit, remaining a man of few words for the greater part of their voyage.

There was a day, toward the end of their week together, as the port of Tarraco came ever closer, he knew when the bitterness of past weeks was beginning to perceptibly reduce its hold over him. They were unloading the last of wine barrels at a small fishing village somewhere along the coast of Gaul, and one of the brothers, examining the fresh scars across shoulder, arm, and side--the men worked bare chested in the heat of day attired in the simple linen kilts of generations of sea-goers--said almost enviously, "Ah, Lucius, those wounds don't look like something sustained in a fieldhand's work. What happened?"

It was curious, the absence of bitterness that usually stirred in his soul, or the sour taste that came to his mouth at mention of a life still too recent in tragedy for casual reference. He only looked to Nemyhn, who had caught his eye with a warning glint, enjoying the sun above deck with her mother, and smiled impassively. "Someone tried to take excessive liberties with the lady one night in a tavern we stopped at." Her features relaxed, and she grinned at his fabrication.

He left it to her to invent the rest of the tale, for the brother wanted to know who had won the scrabble. Maeve's daughter was easy in the company of men, not intimidated by their seemingly rough humor, and they were laughing uproarisly by the end of it. Especially at the part where he cracked an ale-mug over the eros-inspired assailant's head, throwing him out the door of the tavern into a local dung-heep.

At least most of the crew was laughing. From the corner of his eye, Maximus saw Setithes at the prow, glance over at him watchfully, concieveably with concern for the woman he'd developed an infatuation for, or maybe in self-preservation, careful to not cross ways with her servant and do her unintended insult, so sharing the fate of the imagined aggressor.

Maximus only wished, with a sardonic twist of his lips, the actual tale of his injuries had been so comedically inspiring.

Towards dusk that same day, when the men were below deck eating their evening meal, Nemyhn entertaining them with a raunchy tune she must have picked up from a life raised along a garrison-outpost, Maximus took advantage of a solitary moment, coming out to lean over the side-rails of the ship's upper deck. He gazed onto a passing coast lined with gentle hills and craggy shores, darkened to a sublime velvet blue-black by a sun which turned the glass-like waters of the Mediterranean a molten gold before dropping below the horizen.

He wasn't suprised when Nemyhn came above, perhaps an hour later, to join him, just as the first stars and a pale slice of moon were aglimmer in the sky over-head. She's drawn her shawl back, gathering it around her shoulders in the cool of the evening, saying, "We've been blessed with fair weather this voyage. Setithes tells me we arrive at Tarraco on the morrow."

"That soon," he replied. "Has he asked for your hand in marriage yet?" It was said lightly, a glimpse of a smirk crossing his features. She turned on him with a quick movemnet of her head, scowling initially, gradually becoming a smile and soft chuckle when she realized he was teasing.

"Please, he's not that charmed by me yet. I think he's frightened by Hercules."

"Understandable, since he's been the one mucking the donkey's place below on the days you're supposed to."

"That," she exclaimed with mock defensiveness," is only because I've been cleaning up on the days you're supposed to thanks to mother and her guilt trips."

He laughed at that, changing the subject before they got into another quarrel over the donkey. "Are those the kinds of songs daughters of generals always sing--the one I heard earlier tonight? Those lyrics would have done a bar-performer proud."

With raised brows, she said, "Are you having doubts again, as to the truth of mine and my mother's origins?"

Chuckling, he answered, "Not after the words in that song. I can well believe you spent the majority of your--," here he was careful to look around, be sure none of the crew was in listening range. "--your girl-hood along a border-wall crawling with soldiers."

"Mmhmm," she concurred with a half-smile. "Don't forget the garrison hospitals during my training. It's amazing the songs men sing to occupy their time while they wait for injuries to mend. What astounds me is that they actually march to tunes like that: about a shepardess, her goat,and a wandering ruffian."

"Right. The garrison hospitals," he repeated in a deliberatley vague tone. "Who knew the acts of love could exist in so many forms, and that a high-ranking officers daughter would come to sing about them to a crew of sailors."

It was the words or the tone, maybe, that finally set her off this time, when she admonished, all temper and some laughter, "Don't you dare take the moral high-ground on this one, Spaniard. I'm sure you could share a few tunes yourself. You were, of all things, a soldier once."

Wasn't I, he thought with a sudden forlorn, distant sadness, dampening for a moment, the light-hearted manner of their repartee. She must have seen the look that fell across his countenance, for she was suddenly muttering an uncharacterisitic, "I'm...I'm sorry...I didn't mean to..."

"No. No sorry. It just caught me off-guard for a moment. This last week has been...relaxing. Sort of."

She gave him a curious look. "Except for Hercules, I mean," he clarified with a sudden smile, attempting to ease past the awkward allusion to his past.

It worked, making her grin wickedly. "Don't get me started on the donkey. You're quite dreadful at mucking stalls you know."

"I know. It was the easiest way to get you to do my work," he said with a wicked flash of his own. He heard her expulse a righteous breath indignantly, before he went on. "And as for tunes...," at which point he shared three or four from his old marching camp days in the field. With lyrics that shocked her to blushing even while she was laughing helplessly, only to sing them the next day at noon-tide, her parting gift to Theseus and his crew, coming to port in Tarraco.