Antoninus spied Diana long before she caught sight of him

Antoninus spied Diana long before she caught sight of him. The morning was temperately sunny, as if designed to make them comfortable as they courted one another, each from a safe distance. Safe, meaning allowing them to conceal their shyness whilst they might still admire one another.

During the sweltering summer, Diana had grown accustomed to taking her chores, such as sewing and washing, outside into the shade just beyond the brick building where she and Julia lived. Grateful for the cool air and chance to socialise with some of her previously haughty neighbours, she had also found herself, in recent days, longing for the chance to see Antoninus.

Julia had wandered out into the dusty road, where she sat playing with her collection of rag dolls, most of which Diana made in her free time. The child adored the open space and the attention she received from their fellow Romans, always captivated by her sweetness and sharpness of wit. Nonetheless, she kept herself mostly aloof from other children; always, when asked to play, she turned her button nose slightly upward and raised her eyebrows, as if she had not heard their request.

Diana would have laughed at this spectacle, had it not caused a strange foreboding in her heart. She herself did not feel the need to cultivate relationships with other women, but Julia would need friends. As Lucilla's handmaiden, apart from with the goodly princess herself, Diana had known no real female camaraderie, and had often felt the pinch of isolation terribly. She did not want the same thing for Julia – and was certain that the princess would not, either.

"Baby, stay away from that horse," she called out to the girl, constantly watching her out of the corner of her eye.

Julia promptly skipped out of the way of a man approaching atop a scruffy grey steed, barely glancing at what she was moving away from. Diana caught her small hand as she hurried back to her, gesturing for the girl to sit down by her feet. All the while, she subconsciously left a hand resting upon Julia's soft blonde hair, as if to reassure herself that she would not disappear.

"Good morning," a voice said softly from Diana's left hand side.

She shivered visibly with fright, looking up into the sunlight at a familiar face. Without thinking, she smiled broadly, remaining silent.

"May I sit down?"

Diana blushed furiously, remembering her manners. "Please," she mumbled, waving her free hand in the direction of a low stool a short distance away from hers.

Antoninus sat, gazing at her somewhat confidently. Remembering Julia's revelations, Diana's cheeks burned even further as she grappled inwardly for something to say. Fortunately, he thought faster than she did.

"Good morning, Julia," he greeted the little girl, lowering his head to her level as she sat beside her mama, stroking her doll's hair.

"Good morning," she answered quietly, giving him a heartbreaking smile.

"I hope I do not seem too impetuous," the gentleman said, eyeing Diana confidently. She flushed again, seeing him up close for the first time. He seemed much too young to be handling a business by himself; not more than twenty-five. His smile wasn't in the least overbearing, as many professional men's expressions seemed – rather, it seemed to ask politely that she let her guard down, and allow them to be friends. She found herself smiling easily all of a sudden, as his soft brown eyes held hers gently but firmly.

"You do not," she said quietly. "My daughter takes so much of my time that I must seem the impudent one. My name is Diana."

"Antoninus," he replied, bowing slightly and holding his hand out for hers. He grinned again at Julia, making her squirm bashfully, before returning his stare to her mother. "Your daughter is delightful. You do not seem in the least impudent to me. I hope very much that you'll let me get to know you both better."

Proffering her quivering hand almost immediately, Diana looked directly at their companion, an unfamiliar although very pleasant sensation rising inside her – a facet of her being she had thought she would never be able to enjoy again.

From that morning on, Diana became somewhat lazy, all of her secret thoughts being reserved for her newfound friend. She carried out her domestic and parental duties as efficiently as before, if not more so, but now knowing as she did that there could be more to her life than these duties had broadened her horizons like nothing ever had.

Her meetings with him by day at the market were businesslike but friendly, Antoninus maintaining his tradesman's composure while she likewise played the busy, distracted mother. Their meetings in the evening, however were entirely different affairs.

Diana would put an unwilling Julia to bed, clumsily deflecting the child's constant questions as to where she often disappeared to at night, before hurrying out to wait for him in a secluded part of the street. On an occasion such as this one, Antoninus seldom took long to arrive.

He was so well dressed, as usual, that he almost put her to shame as she stood in a plain, worn tunica, trying to suppress her shivering as he approached. However, he hardly seemed to notice as his smile spread across his handsome face and his wide, honest eyes shone with gladness to see her.

"My dear," he said softly, taking her hand and raising it to his lips. "Are you cold?" His expression told her he was captivated with her, yet she was far from ready to accept that he was. His friendship meant too much to her to risk sacrificing it for these new emotions, overwhelming as they were.

"I am not cold," she replied, trying to muster a little confidence. "In fact I am quite warm. May we sit in the shade?"

Moments later, they were sequestered in a small copse of fruit trees, the sweet smell of the land and the balmy half-darkness seeming to enclose them agreeably. They fell into conversation easily, Antoninus never letting go of her hand, and she silently wishing that she never had to take it away from him.

"You've done a wonderful job raising Julia alone," he complimented her, making her smile broadly. "She is absolutely beautiful, and so polite and intelligent. How is she lately?"

It was exactly the kind of praise she had craved fervently for almost five years, convinced that she would never inspire it, least of all in a man.

"Oh, thank you. She's very cheerful, though she resents being left with only our neighbours to keep an eye on her. She is a handful, but she means the world to me. She was a special gift to me, you see, and I'm determined to honour the person who gave her to me, whom I loved very much." Despite her strained tranquillity, her voice broke a little and her eyes pricked invisibly with tears.

Antoninus, of course, did not detect any riddle in her words as he stroked her fingers sympathetically.

"Your husband?"

"Yes," she replied with practised poise.

"You may tell me about him if you wish, you know, Diana. Please never hesitate to tell me anything." He squeezed her hand gently in reassurance.

"His name was…Marius. We were married not long before he joined the emperor's Praetorian guard. Julia…was born several months after he was killed in action shortly before the death of Commodus."

"So you are a widow," Antoninus said, his voice becoming gentler, but at the same time remaining softly authoritative. "Raising your baby by yourself in this city. What a wonderful woman you are."

Her eyes joined with his, filling with spontaneous tears, this time of joy, as she smiled. Gratitude welled up inside her, ready to spill over. The look he returned caused her breathing to cease. For one heart-stopping moment, he looked as if he would kiss her.

Instead he kissed her hand again, his own breath hot against her skin, making her exhale audibly.

They sat up a while longer, talking less suggestively, before he walked her slowly back to her building. Half of her was hoping he would kiss her before he left, but he did not. Instead he told her again that she was a wonderful woman, and held both her hands and her gaze for a long, long time.

Walking slowly back to her room, she consoled herself by hoping he would visit her again the next day.

The apartment door opened with a creak, and Diana was stunned to see Julia still awake. She had put her dolls underneath her bed, unusually, and was braiding her own sumptuous long hair with focused concentration. It took her several seconds to acknowledge her mother's presence through her large sleepy eyes.

"Julia," Diana said sternly. "Sleep!"

"You go out every night to see Antoninus, don't you?" the little girl said, smiling audaciously.

Flustered, Diana hurried to sit on the child's bed, where she pulled up her covers and tucked them in again tightly. "You impertinent little thing! You will sleep now, and then in the morning you will learn to mind your own business!"

She watched as Julia's face fell, the childishly forlorn expression tugging at her heartstrings as it unfailingly did.

"Oh…I am sorry. You have a right to know. Yes, I see Antoninus." She smiled. "But you of all people should approve of that!"

"I do. He is a very nice man. Are you going to marry him?"

That last question caused Diana to lie awake herself that night, wondering what, if anything, lay in their futures in this humdrum area of the city. Four years had passed, each day as uneventful as the last, the only enthralment to be found being watching Julia blossom into a girl. Was Antoninus, in his tenderly vigorous pursuit of her, about to change everything?

Her whole body warming at the thought of him, Diana sincerely hoped that he was.

The following day, in between playing dolls with Julia for hours, Diana dreamily counted the hours until Antoninus may possibly visit her again. They had plenty of supplies in their little home, so going to market again was not an option, unless she wished to appear odd to him. In her mind's eye she kept a picture of him just as she had seen him last: his height and build, the fineness of his clothes, the mildly forceful kindness in his expression and touch.

The day was cool, as they found sitting in their usual spot in the square, yet she felt warm almost perpetually; a glowing warmth he had caused, far below her skin.

Julia guessed what her mother was thinking about, but did not care to mention it. It seemed exceedingly silly to her. Far less interesting than appraising, sullenly, the state of her dollies; their clothes, like her own, were not nearly as sumptuous as she would have liked – not liked the beautiful gowns and jewels she had seen upon wealthy women crossing this section of town, no doubt on the way to a land of great big houses elsewhere, the kind fit for such royalty as they seemed to be.

"I want to learn to sew, Mama," she said, disturbing the woman's trance-like state of reflection as she held up the two dolls in her hands. "I need to make new clothes for these, and for me and you if you like. I think it must be nice to wear fine things, like those ladies we see sometimes riding here."

Diana's eyes widened involuntarily as several new images filled her mind. All those times she herself had worn such things; times that Julia could never know about, not if their clean break with bygone times was to be complete.

"I will teach you to sew," she replied, her voice somewhat flat even as she smiled down at the quick-witted child, just barely five years old. "But you must promise, if you make such garments which I have no doubt you will, that you never become as shallow as those ladies. It's a hollow world they live in, darling. They have none of the freedom we have here."

Julia wrinkled her nose, thinking. "I promise, but I still shouldn't mind trying it, just a bit. I'm sure Antoninus would enjoy seeing you in pretty cloth and jewels."

"Julia! What did we talk about last night?"

The child squealed with delight and terror as Diana pulled her small body onto her lap, tickling her tummy as she hugged her tightly. Both, for a moment, ignored the two extremely well dressed, dour-looking men approaching them slowly from across the short, sandy expanse of the square.

The older of the two men was clearly in charge of the operation, and not enjoying the location of this proposed meeting. He wafted a few flies from around his face, kicking the dirt ahead of him distastefully, he gaze remaining fixed upon the woman and child not far ahead. The man following him walked slightly faster, seeming less focused, but well informed of what was shortly to happen. A servant.

When Diana spotted them, her heart seemed to stop beating. A horrible coldness spreading from inside her chest held her paralysed for a moment as Julia, sensing her discontent, ceased squirming in her lap and looked vaguely in the direction of their approaching visitors.

Quintus, catching the former maidservant's horrified stare, smiled serenely and did not tarry to introduce himself, and inform her that he knew who she was. Seeing her blanch as her predicament registered itself in her mind, he took a certain pleasure. But not as great as that he felt upon fixing his eyes upon the little girl she held close to her, staring up at him with suspicious eyes. A face framed by curling fair hair, and a mouth set so defiantly. The resemblance was unmistakeable – but not with this woman, this impostor parent.

The child was a living replica of its true mother.

"Sir, you are not listening to me," Diana blustered, struggling under the impossible burden of her fear. "I am no longer anything to do with the Imperial family. I was nothing to them long before the Princess's death! I served as a member of her train along with a succession of other young girls. Why do you now single me out?"

"Because," Quintus began calmly, "You have this." He waved a hand at a pile of Julia's toys and blankets in the corner of the room. His hostess had only very reluctantly allowed them inside, if only to prevent causing a scene out in the street. Julia was next door in the care of a neighbour.

"What about my child?" the young woman spat, standing a little more still in her well-rehearsed façade of innocence. "What possible interest can you have in her? She is mine."

"Madam, you may stop this now," he commanded casually. "We know everything. Now we have seen the proof, we both can benefit from this discovery."

"What discovery? There's nothing to discover here. Years have passed since I left the Palace. You have no right whatsoever to come to my home and spout innuendoes about my past and my daughter! You make no sense!"

Didius fidgeted, painfully nervous, as he stood beside Quintus. The opposition they made was almost comical. The older man knew what he was doing, why he was here, but left all the guilt to his manservant, him having relayed the rumour in question in the first place.

"Please be seated, Madam. You do not look well."

"I will not be told what to do in my own home. Neither will I be patronised."

Quintus shook his head, staring at her. She was stronger, more beautiful, than what he remembered of her: the ruined little foundling of the benevolent Princess. Always anxious to please, to be of service, but most of all to hide from prying eyes. Did she isolate herself even now?

"How bold you are now, Diana. How honourable. It must be a strange feeling for you, having to be so upstanding and pure. Do you have a lover now? How many more fatherless children have you produced?"

Diana felt her stomach lurch and her face flame up. She wanted to scream, to hit out at this man with both her fists. To kill him. She had never felt so scared and so angry at the same time before in her life.

"You know nothing, sir. Nothing. Now get out of my home."

He did not appear to listen. "Do not think you will be overlooked because of your dubious history. Though I believed at first that the child you returned with from Greece, that splendid specimen of royal progeny, was your own bastard, I do not so now. I firmly believe, though I did not always, that Lucilla did give birth to her. And that the General Maximus is her father."

Diana gasped loudly. "They were lovers?" she said, despite her rage. It was news entirely to her.

But it explained so many things, so many qualities in Julia that were plainly not her mother's, though Diana could not quite pinpoint them at this moment.

Quintus laughed. "Of course, you knew nothing. What a fool I was to think that the lady would have enlightened you! Soiled your already tainted honour even more!" His laughter continued until even Didius smiled gleefully.

Their hostess was now so angry that it hurt her to breath. She clenched her fists until they stung. "Get out of here. You will never take my child away from me." Tears welled in her eyes as she realised that these men did know the truth, and that they meant to have Julia. Terror and grief at the thought built inside her until she seriously thought she might burst.

"Oh, Diana, we will not take her yet!" Quintus said, feigning charity. "We will give you time, a few days, to say goodbye, you know. Pack up her things. On Tuesday morning, my man here will be around to inspect the child. Send him back with a time convenient for us to come and collect her."

Frozen with horror, for a moment Diana was able to do nothing but stand and gape. As the door was closing behind the two unwelcome guests, she began to wail. Starting to follow them, she stopped again, quietening, checking her behaviour. Already there would be gossip about those men coming into her room. She did not want to incriminate herself any further – to draw even more spectators to her deception.

Moments later, having reclaimed Julia from next door, they held one another for a long time, both crying softly. Diana tried to breathe in enough of the girl's scent so as to keep it forever; absently, she thought of cutting a piece of the toddler's silken hair, before catching herself.

"I'm so sorry, darling," she sobbed onto Julia's tiny shoulder. "I'm sorry I let those men in. I won't let them take you. I won't ever give you away."

"Of course you won't," the child answered, bewilderment reverberating in her sweet high-pitched tones. "I'll never go with them. You're my mama. I'm not going to leave you."

Diana held her tighter, feeling the baby's little arms around her neck, letting herself think of Lucilla. Before the lady had died, her handmaiden had been certain she would never be able to truly love this living bequest – certain that she would never be a good mother. She'd been so unprepared for the strength of her feelings for Julia. It had taken this danger for her to finally realise them in full.

I won't fail you yet, my lady, she vowed silently. That bastard will never have your child; the child you entrusted to me to love and protect.