That night, not far from where Diana and Julia both tossed and turned in troubled slumber, Quintus found himself unable to sleep at all. He stared at the ceiling of the room where he had been born, the emptiness inside him seeming to increase slowly, painfully, just as he had begun to get used to it after these thirteen strange, aimless years. In the bed beside him, his mistress Cassia enjoyed perfectly undisturbed rest, her sumptuous fair hair tangled around her dewy face.
Staring at her, Quintus reached over a hand to feel her ivory skin, moving it down briefly to graze the swell of her bosom above her nightgown. His fingers paused before they touched her, however, and he turned his back to her, oddly disgusted with himself.
Cassia had lived with him since,
five years before, he had been dismissed from the service of Emperor Septimus
Severus as a spy, a vocation he had chosen half-heartedly after giving up
trying to locate Diana and Julia. It was at that time that the sheer
pointlessness of his existence had truly hit him. He had started to drink, then
stopped, at Didius's urging.
Quintus had surmised, though he shared the fact with
no one, that if there could be no life for him in serving the Empire, then
there could be no life for him at all. He had retired quietly to one of his
family's country estates, a comfortable distance south of Rome.
By then Cassia, no more than
twenty-five years old at the time, had been his lover sporadically for several
years. He did not have the necessary feelings for her or require her assistance
enough to marry her, but thankfully, she did not seem put off by this fact,
happily removing herself from her own home in the great city to follow him to
the unassuming stillness of the countryside.
Until Quintus had experienced the
gentleness of her voice and hands in soothing his aching head and less and less
vigorous body, he had not realised what a pleasant and useful creature a woman
could be. Cassia, sharp green eyes displaying intelligence her lumbering
actions belied, gradually wormed her way into his trust and confidence. He
would comb her blonde hair while she sat advising and counselling him, feeling
his affection for her grow.
Tonight, however, he thought he felt
something missing. For several days, a strange and disarming dream had returned
each night, making him rethink his new situation.
The battlefields of his glory days
alongside the General Maximus…the pair of them riding and talking through cold
foreign land recently conquered. This was the wonderful part, when the
incomparable feeling of pride as Quintus basked in the other man's power and
greatness would fill him once more, making him feel young, and valued, once
again.
Then a figure up on the horizon, the
figure of a frail lone woman. As the distance between the stranger and the two
men closed up, Quintus would realise with a surge of horror and disbelief who
she was. Her red hair ragged around her pale shoulders; her skin white and
grey. Her fine clothes torn, spots of fresh blood flecked across the front of her
skirts.
She would start to step towards
them, raising her hand as if to make them stop. Quintus would pull
automatically on the reins he held, turning his head to see Maximus's reaction.
The General would always have disappeared.
Turning back to Lucilla, terrified,
Quintus would see her falling to her knees on the ground, cradling her fine
head in her hands. When she raised her face to his again, it had changed, but
only for the briefest second. Her hair fairer, her features somewhat younger.
Eyes large and horribly familiar, piercing shades of green against amber.
Then he would wake, an odd coldness
running up and down his spine. The beautiful lady, fallen. Damaged somehow. No
longer the strong, hard-nosed, spellbinding creature she had been. Quintus felt
a terrible certainty that what he had glimpsed had happened to her in real
life. But who had done that to her? Who had had the power to break her so
quickly and easily, and why?
* * *
Antoninus rose early, before the sunrise, feeling elated as normal. His wife and stepdaughter remained abed, the only sounds coming from the house those of the young Spanish maid Catalina fussing around the kitchen. Sounds of normality and harmony never failed to please Antoninus – he was a man who, all his life, had hated change. As a child, he had much preferred watching his mother caring for his younger sister, than hearing his father voice his great ambitions for his son.
He was absolutely sure that these
times, in the countryside, would be the happiest times of his life. First,
however, there were a few uncertainties to deal with.
Diana had been worrying him lately,
her skin turning pale, as she often disappeared by herself for long periods of
time, and emerged looking only slightly healthier. In their bed she was as
loving as always, her soft body feeling like a second skin beside his own. She
had been born to be his wife, he was certain. Now, his fervent hope was that
her illness and malaise was due to her being with child. They had certainly
been together often enough to make a baby; now he prayed that his suspicions
would prove well founded after three blissful, though barren, years marriage.
Blissful, though not completely.
Julia, an endlessly astonishing and pleasant child through all the years
Antoninus had known her, had changed upon the advent of her womanhood.
Now nineteen years old, and a fully-grown adult, she
was of an odder and more difficult temperament than any creature he had ever
known. Most times, her stepfather would simply brush aside her moods, offering
her a sympathetic ear that she consistently, though delicately, refused. Such a
lady, without fail. None of Diana's endearing inelegances – so purely and
effortlessly graceful. The girl's elusive father must have been of noble
blood.
The most distressing aspect of it
all, however, was the manner in which Julia's mere presence these days seemed
disquieting her mother. Once Diana had doted upon her child with an
extraordinary (and to Antoninus, unfathomable) intensity. Now she seemed almost
to crave liberty from having to care for Julia's welfare any longer.
Turning a piece of fresh bread over
in his hands, and thinking with increasing protectiveness of his wife, he
checked himself. Of course it could not be that. Diana was no longer a young
woman, but still surely capable of bearing him his own children, however
satisfied he had been seeing Julia grow to maturity. Her sadness could not
possibly be due to her daughter's upsetting as much as he feared.
Mulling over this, Antoninus did not
notice light, languid footsteps joining Catalina's in the building behind him.
A soft, clipped exchange took place between the two young women, the maid's
high-pitched voice responding to Julia's more modulated tones. Then Catalina's
disappeared completely, her quick footsteps sounding out to where Antoninus sat
as she left Julia alone. Aware now of her presence, her stepfather stood and
cautiously entered the small pantry where she lingered, wandering around as if
looking for something.
They needed no words. She smiled
warmly at him, a potentially heartbreaking expression in her haunting, luminous
eyes. As she turned back to her search, he took a seat at the small wooden
table one or two feet from where she stood.
"Are you missing something, Julia?"
She turned slightly towards him.
"Pardon?"
"Have you lost something?"
"No…I'm fine." She appeared to stop
looking then; as usual, an intensely private girl, she was deeply abashed of
being observed. "I think I will go for a walk. I shan't be long."
Before Antoninus could protest, or
keep her talking for longer, she left the room and hurried out of the building.
Secretive, he thought to himself, though not in quite the same way as Diana
could be. Diana wore her worries like amulets around her neck; Julia's preoccupations
seemed to elude even herself – as though she knew that a secret was being kept
from her, and spent every waking hour fretting over what it could possibly be.
"Did
you see anything interesting on your walk today, my dear?"
Antoninus looked up at his wife,
smiling at the first words Diana had spoken since they had sat down to supper.
Even Catalina had tried to engage her mistress in conversation as she placed
steaming boiled meats on her plate, reflecting just how worried everyone in the
household was lately. Only Julia did not seem willing to speak at all, only
opening her mouth reluctantly to answer her mother's question.
"Nothing while I was out, Mama. But
I did come across something interesting when I came home. I was looking for my
needlework…"
Diana lowered her eyes, quickly
swallowing the small mouthful of food she had taken. Her hands started to shake
slightly as she cut her daughter off in mid-sentence with, "What did you find,
exactly?"
"A jewellery box, full of gold and
with some paper in the bottom. I only glanced inside; I would never rifle
through someone else's belongings."
Diana barely comprehended the fact
that Julia had invaded her privacy anyway by finding the box. She only watched
the girl's face, increasingly disturbed by the small smile pulling the corners
of her mouth – Lucilla's mouth – as surely her memory of those rich things
filled her mind.
"Oh, Julia…" Diana began, thinking
fast, though barely able to as a headache began throbbing at her temples. "I
know you love things like that…and, well…your stepfather and I would give you
all the luxuries in the world if we only could. But do you remember what I told
you when you were a little girl? You may aspire to live as those wealthy people
do, but it is a hollow world they inhabit."
Julia did not break eye contact with
her mother once as the older woman spoke. A small furrow appeared between her
beautiful eyes as her lips curled downward slightly. "I understand."
"But anyhow…" Diana continued,
"Those jewels are yours."
Antoninus almost choked on a
mouthful of vegetables. "My dear, why did you never tell me?"
Julia smiled broadly, as if the
moment were a triumph for her. Perhaps it was.
Diana felt a knife-like pain cut
through her forehead – guilt manifesting itself as physical pain. She turned
towards her husband, reaching for his hand. "I did not think it important
enough to trouble you with. I had a cousin, the wife of a senator, who was
particularly fond of Julia when she was a baby, and so bequeathed the jewels to
her when she died."
"I have wealthy relatives…in Rome?"
the girl said, her eyes gleaming.
Julia tried to smile back at her.
"Indeed you do." Not a complete lie.
She could hardly contain herself as
she looked from her mother to her stepfather. "May I please be excused?"
"Not yet, my dear," Antoninus said
firmly. "Finish your dinner. Your mother and Catalina do not slave away cooking
for you so that you may starve."
As she dutifully continued eating,
Diana felt an odd feeling stirring inside her, almost as if she had been
falling. Shaken, she turned back to her husband. "I am afraid I must be excused
for a moment. There is something I must do."
Antoninus's having gestured his
assent, she rose from her seat and walked swiftly out of the room, trying to
still the beating of her heart.
Julia
had never been taught to read or write – the only education she had ever
received had been in basic housekeeping. As much as Diana wished to share the
learning she had acquired from Lucilla's good teaching, Antoninus had assured
her repeatedly that there was no need – even saying that such a quality as
knowledge would make her unattractive to potential husbands.
Diana agreed completely with this.
Above all, she wanted only a normal, respectable life for Julia, and a Roman
woman's first step to respectability was to marry, and marry well.
And yet in spite of all this, she found herself rooting out the
jewellery box, however reluctantly, and removing Lucilla's diaries. The first
time she had read them, only respect for everything that had once been the
Princess's had prevented her from burning them. Why did she want me to find
out? she had asked repeatedly. Then she had realised. Julia was so
temperamental, and so confused. At least with understanding of the horrid
truth, Diana could have some idea why.
There is so much royal blood
coursing through her, so many good and bad qualities forced together…she can
actually feel it. She looks around her and does not see the world where she
belongs.
Diana had heard stories of children, produced
by incest, having many things wrong with them. Yet Julia was perfection, at
least on the surface. Perfectly sound of mind, and so intelligent, yet
underneath all of her beauties, there was such turmoil. Finally, Lucilla's
favourite handmaiden understood why the jewellery box had been placed in her
care along with the child such an unthinkable situation had produced. Unnatural
fruit indeed, yet one that might yet be salvaged, and made right, if nurtured
in just the right way.
The diaries had been for Diana. The
jewels, each stone and piece of precious metal imprinted with a royal past,
were meant for Lucilla's child.
Steeling herself, she took it up
into her hand. It was ice cold. Fearing she may drop it, she put it down
quickly upon her bed. Her eyes filling with tears, she rethought what she had
planned to do. She walked back to the door.
"Catalina! Could you fetch Julia and
tell her to come here, please?"
* * *
There was another world somewhere, perhaps beyond the clouds she could stare at for hours when she lay down on the fields every day. Her mother and stepfather worried, she knew, and talked between themselves about what could be troubling her so badly. Only she couldn't tell them about this – about this world she knew must exist, invisible, untouchable, until a person died and they went there themselves.
Turning over in her bed, Julia
smiled to herself, thinking what Diana or Antoninus might think if she told
them. They already think I'm strange. So do the neighbours. If I share this
with them, they'll definitely give up on me.
Antoninus had already spoken to her about her
future, about whether she was interested in any of the local boys who called
for her frequently, usually to be told that she had gone on one of her extended
wanders around the fields. That was the only place where she did not feel
stifled, or like a useless member of the household. Apart from perhaps being
rich and living in Rome, the situation she longed for above anything else, she
would have liked nothing better but to have been able to stay in the fields and
never come back. Marriage, she did not think of at all.
It was unheard of for a young woman
to ride out a long way by herself, so she was not allowed to take her horse,
and was constantly chastised for venturing out too far, either by her mother or
that uppity maid, only two years older than Julia herself.
Only when she lay on her back,
smelling the vegetation all around her and staring at the perfect blue sky,
could she really relax. The countryside itself, apart from the obligations of
life on the farm, held an irresistible charm for her. It was here that the
theory of the other world had first come to her. All she had needed then was
confirmation that such a place was real.
It had first come to her in the dreams.
At night, whenever she slept deeply enough, she saw people and places she had
never before seen in real life. Images she fought to keep clear in her mind
once she awoke, for she was certain they had some significance – that they
might point the way for her to escape the monotony of her life at present, to
attain that which she knew she was truly meant for.
The jewellery box beneath her bed
would be her window to that world.
