Author's
Note: I
want to take time now and thank the many people who've helped this story come
along as far as it has: Freddy, Marxbros and Yedi, your knowledge of this era
and helpful suggestions could not have been more appreciated! I'd also like to
acknowledge a few friends and admirers, namely Heather, Clare, Michelle, Adam,
Sarah and Gemma, without whose support I could not continue writing. Sorry this
acknowledgement has been so long in coming!
* * *
By the morning following Didius's visit, Diana could barely stand up, let alone continue plotting their escape. The hot weather had come around again, yet it was not merely the merciless sun beating into the small, humid space of their apartment that left her indisposed. In the small hours, nonetheless, after managing a few snatches of dry, restless sleep, she lay planning still, consumed even now by the hatred, anger and fear of the previous day.
Sitting up, dazed, in her bed, she quickly threw some cool water over her face and hair in an attempt to revive herself further out of sleep. It hardly had any effect, as if the air was heavy with some invisible substance as well as oppressively hot. Failing that, she hurriedly ate a few morsels of fruit and cheese, even though she had no appetite whatsoever – rather, she felt very sick. Her headache soon returned, and her nose began to run. Julia, dressing herself atop her own bed, stared worriedly at her mother, but said nothing, not wishing to trouble her any further.
They walked out together to fetch water that day, walking fast, Diana talking almost to herself as she voiced the decisions and strategies she had settled upon.
"We will go to Lanuvium to begin with – someone will show us the way there – and then we will decide where next to go. We cannot take any risks, and therefore we must not keep still for very long. Oh, Julia, this is all my fault. I'm so sorry I could not protect you…"
"But you are protecting me, Mama, or else why are we running away? I know you'll keep me safe."
Diana bit her lip. At least Julia's health and sanity seemed safe, no matter what they were about to go through. But was hers?
Walking back, laden with pails of water which Diana planned to conserve for their spontaneous journey, the distraught young woman continued to talk until she found herself rambling incoherently. Even the ever-unruffled little girl at her side seemed increasingly nervous, her childish breathing becoming deep and wheezy, and her little feet moving more quickly.
Her mother stumbled when they reached their home square again, almost falling flat on her face. Her strength had run dry, she realised, her head swimming with exhaustion. The world began to spin all around her.
Julia turned to stare, her eyes flashing with shock as she saw Diana gradually falling onto her knees, even in her illness thinking to place the buckets of water down carefully so as not to spill any. Palms down on the sand, she coughed dryly, her eyes closed tight, sweat pouring down her cheeks.
"Mama!" Julia cried, encouraging her to stand back up. The suddenly ashen shade of her mother's skin frightened her more than anything ever had. She could see that Diana was about to vomit.
"I'm all right, baby," she said determinedly, swallowing hard. "I'll get up now, and we'll go home…" Concentrating all of her remaining energy into her legs, she managed to stand again, only taking Julia's proffered hands once she could support herself again. Tears of anger sprang up in her eyes as she leaned upon the little girl as lightly as possible, the surrounding area still blurry and her stomach suffused with nausea. She had promised to safeguard Lucilla's child, not the other way around.
And no little fever was going to stop her fulfilling that promise.
* * *
Having slept on the events of the previous day, Antoninus had begun to think the better of his rash decision. Perhaps he could still have Diana as his wife – whatever events in her past had caused the interest of some impudent stranger, she was still a sweet and honourable woman now whom he had grown to know and love. Still, however, there remained some great secret she had yet to share. Because of this, he knew he could never look at her in quite the same way again.
Overwrought with tension at coming to visit her again, he mulled over what the stranger had implied about mystery men going to her apartment. Was it a malicious lie, as Antoninus dearly wanted to believe, or was she truly in some kind of trouble with powerful figures in the more affluent sections of Rome? He needed to know the answers to these many questions before he could commit himself to her once more.
His love for her, nonetheless, stubbornly prevailed. How could his sweet, clumsy Diana be capable of such things as may displeasure the rulers of the Empire? At times he saw the ludicrousness of the matter, but then the question of the strange visitors returned, presenting another awful possibility – that she had another lover, or worse, lovers. This is what caused the most pain, more than any of the others.
Consequently, he delayed going to confront her for three days, before he could not endure the torture any longer. Taking a gift of a richly bejewelled bracelet, passed down through generations of women in his family, he set off for her building early in the evening, the usual time of their previous trysts.
A short distance from the building, he noticed a strange sound – a high-pitched kind of scream. Worried, even though he guessed it had nothing to do with him, Antoninus ran forwards. A couple of feet from the small building, he discerned, with a surge of fear, that the sound was a little girl's voice – coming from Diana's window.
Later, he was to remember nothing of the next few minutes, save banging on her door, and seeing it open to reveal her apparently lifeless body laid out across her bed. Her face was perfectly still, and drenched in perspiration, her mouth and eyes slightly open. Every inch of her visible flesh was white.
Horror-struck, it took a moment for Julia's continued screams for him to help her mama to reach his ears. Stumbling across the room, he fell by Diana's side, pressing his ear to her chest.
"I didn't know what to do!" Julia cried, stroking her mother's hair. "I though she would be all right…she was very ill at first but she started to get better, then today she went like this…"
Dazed, Antoninus muttered something to reassure the little girl, wondering himself what he should do. His Diana seemed dead. Paralysed with shock, he inwardly prayed that it was not too late, and cursed himself for not coming to her sooner. If he had lost her because of his cowardice, he would die himself. He was sure of it.
* * *
Quintus was consumed with anxiety for the future of his latest enterprise. He had had to force himself to sit still and think rationally; not to storm about his house for days on end, feeling sorry for himself and half-heartedly plotting his next strategy. No, he told himself. I have dithered for five years – that will be enough.
Even though the idiot, Didius, had delivered the news that the surrogate mother Diana would not give up the child, he had forgiven him. Eight years of loyal service, not to mention companionship, would not be thrown away lightly. Nonetheless, however, Quintus's fury was so great he could almost taste it. This was too good an opportunity to let go on the insistence of a woman. He would have Lucilla's child, if he had to snatch her himself.
Didius's entreaties to the contrary fell upon staunchly deaf ears.
"The child does not belong to her any more than it does to me," his master insisted. "But only I can put her in her rightful place."
"Sir, I must beg you not to do this," his manservant pleaded. "I fear you know not what you are doing! This is immoral and cruel!" Didius longed to tell his master that he was making yet another disastrous choice, but secretly he pitied him too much to do so. Always, Quintus had seemed, recklessly, to do the things that would be of the most material advantage to him, no matter how harmful the decision might prove later – to himself or to other people.
"I have to act quickly, Didius, to secure her future. It is as simple as that." Quintus smiled smugly as he spoke. Nay, to secure my future.
Helping the older man into his cloak, Didius felt so exasperated that he actually began to shake. "If you must do this, then, you must be certain that you will not regret it later. Are you certain?"
"I am. I saw that child. I saw that there was nothing of the handmaiden in her."
Then this is out of my hands, Didius mourned silently, remembering Diana's face as he had revealed his master's intention. He watched his master walk briskly out into the Roman night to retrieve his prize, trying to suppress the image in his mind of the frightened brown eyes, and thin, trembling white fingers clasping her daughter, so unaware that there was little the manservant could do to prevent Quintus from acting on his terrible ambition.
A strange chill had descended upon the city, which Quintus was certain had little to do with the weather. His step was confident as he traversed over the darkened streets, though his feelings were not. For days he had been purely optimistic, allowing himself to picture times to come when his motivation would finally be justified. Now, however, he could not seem to hold on to this hopefulness.
Apart from a few voices and sounds of animals in the distance, the area was strangely silent. He tried to distract himself by mentally rehearsing the tactics he would employ in wresting young Julia from her guardian's interminable grip: firstly, admonitions that giving her away would be the right thing to do for the Empire, then firmer reassurances that if Lady Lucilla had not been so 'indisposed' before her death, she would have blessed this particular course of action. Mulling over this last, Quintus suddenly froze.
She
will never believe that, he realised, becoming more nervous. Who was
closer to her at that island than the wenches she took there with her? Oh,
these are treacherous thoughts, terrible thoughts…
Feeling light-headed all of a sudden, he could not fight off the remnants of his memories and buried feelings for the tenacious princess. He caught himself smiling dreamily, remembering every feature of her face, figure, voice and posture that had tantalised him so. Not only the sexual attraction, however much he would fain have ever admitted it out loud; her wisdom and shrewdness, even her manipulations. All of it had made him love her. He had loved her.
"Lucilla…" he muttered, trying to walk on, refusing to turn back.
The night air seemed to be making him drunk – its effect was more potent than the strongest wine in the world could have been. Rather than making him feel guilty for what he was about to force himself to do, the memory of Lucilla seemed to be making him even more determined to claim her daughter, as if he felt some responsibility for the child…that child that he dearly wished had been his own, even though he knew the Princess of Rome would never have let him enjoy physically. She had never shown him any affection beyond common courtesy.
"I'm going now, my darling," he said, regaining his bearings. "I'm going to get our little girl. Our little empress!"
Reaching Diana's building, he hurried, swaying, up the stairs, struggling to find the right door. When he finally did, he managed to stand staidly, and knocked three times. The door swung open by itself, revealing that the room was empty, and clearly recently vacated. No belongings remained, save a few old items of clothing strewn on the bare floor.
* * *
Diana was a girl again. A gangly teenager, fourteen years old, treading the marble floors of the Imperial Palace with the bearing of a woman twice her age, remembering her etiquette training dutifully. Once she could no longer hear voices in the rooms nearby, however, and confident that she was alone, she began to run.
The apartments of her mistress, Lucilla, Princess of Rome, seemed to beckon her with their promise of sanctuary and warmth in the presence of the good lady. Lucilla had been a goddess to her young handmaiden ever since she had been placed in her service just over a year before. Almost the whole world was unfriendly to the girl, and rightly so, since she had shamed her family so badly. A life as a servant girl had been meant to be punishment.
To Diana herself, it had been a miracle beyond all her fondest hopes.
Lucilla was sat at her desk, writing on parchments, when the girl slowed her pace to walk sedately into her bedchamber. The ladies in waiting had been ordered to stay at the other end of the palace, awaiting the arrival of Prince Commodus in their mistress's stead, but Diana alone had been told that she was welcome to return any time she liked. "I will be lonely," the lady had said, "and I'd hate to think of you getting bored welcoming my brother. I know he is not the most interesting man in the world." Diana had giggled, loving their little conspiracy.
Raising her eyes to where the teenager stood, the princess smiled warmly and stood, holding out her hands, which Diana gladly took.
"Well, my dear? Is my brother happy to be home?"
The prince was just barely older than Diana, and had clearly been feeling rather neglected since his beloved sister had married Lucius Verus, a favourite of their father's. Diana did not like Commodus one bit, and avoided him whenever she could, especially on homecomings such as these.
"He seemed very irritable, my lady. He pushed past his own servants and completely ignored us. He didn't say hello to anyone. I think he was unhappy because you were not there to meet him."
Lucilla rolled her eyes, placing an arm around Diana's shoulders and leading them to her magnificent bed of state, where they both sat down. She offered the girl some fruit from a nearby table, which she accepted with thanks. Diana was her favourite, her foundling, the daughter she had not yet had. Wherever possible she was treated as such, not like a maidservant. However she had shamed her family, her mistress forgave her, being barely more than a child.
"What about you, cara," Lucilla said to her quietly. "How are you lately? Now we can talk properly without anyone listening, I want to know how I can look after you. Come now, tell me everything." She gave the girl's waist a gentle squeeze of encouragement.
Diana smiled up at the lady's affably smiling face, her own smile falling a little. "If I am truthful, my lady, things are terrible. I've been very irresponsible, and yet as much as I try to be a better person, I can't seem to stop getting things wrong…" Tears filled her eyes as she rolled a large apple in her hands, suddenly not wanting so much to eat it.
"Shhhh," Lucilla tried to sooth her, resting Diana's dark head on her shoulder. "You're doing the best you possibly can. Don't think I haven't been watching you. You're everything I hoped you'd be, you know. Not a single day goes by when I don't feel tremendously proud of you. You do everything right, Diana."
"Then why is everything going so wrong?" the girl sobbed.
"Because of bad men," Lucilla said simply. "Selfish, unscrupulous men. Nevertheless I trust you, my dear, and I know that you will be fine. Not all men are so terrible, you see."
Diana shuffled slightly away, turning to face the princess. "Antoninus?"
"Yes."
"He truly cares for me? And Julia?"
"You and Julia. He stayed away for a while merely because of some lies told to him – lies he knew to be untrue. He loves you with all of his heart. You will be happy with him. Be happy, cara."
"And what of Julia? Am I a good enough mother to her…can I protect her from all the evil in the world?"
Lucilla nodded slowly, her smile becoming a little sullen. "You are a wonderful mother. As far as you can protect her, you will." The lady stood then, gazing reassuringly at her 'chosen one', who saw only an angel bathed in ethereal light, as she always seemed did. "You must promise me only one thing."
"Anything."
"Never let my Julia have to face what she is."
Before Diana could ask any questions, her mistress placed a finger over her lips. "Not now – later. You have your duties to attend to now. Go back, go back. I will see you again, my dear." In one movement, the Princess of Rome smiled, turned and left; within seconds, it seemed, she was gone.
Perplexed by the odd command, and disappointed by her sudden departure, strangely Diana felt more contented than she had in a long time. Taking a deep breath, she contemplated the 'duties' Lucilla had spoken of, and felt newly determined to do as she had said. Yes, my lady. I will attend to my duties now.
