Julia woke late the following day, her stomach roaring with hunger, and her mind thoroughly refreshed

Julia woke late the following day, her stomach roaring with hunger, and her mind thoroughly refreshed. She had dreamed vividly, of her soldier, though her memory was frustratingly fragmentary. Moreover, it was difficult to retain the recollections she had in the face of the attitudes of the rest of the little household.

Antoninus, despite the hideously early hour, had disappeared completely, leaving behind only a terse list of instructions passed on verbally by Annia, who could barely look her young mistress in the eye. The only way Julia knew how to respond to the situation was through obeying nonchalantly. She could not contemplate yet how utterly tedious the days to come, confined as she would be to the villa, were going to be.

She began to miss her mother terribly. Growing their own food in the gardens, however much she tried to encourage the plants, was difficult and reminded her constantly of Diana's graceful domesticities. Julia tried to imagine what she would be doing at this moment or that, in between her daydreams. When she did not think of her mother, thoughts and memories of her anonymous, ghostly visitor filled her weary mind. She wondered if he truly were her father, or if not, who it was he could possibly be.

She and Antoninus spoke to each other little over the coming weeks, though he did not cease bringing her small gifts and oddities he collected around Rome after the long days he spent trading in the great city. Sometimes he would deliver them to her himself, silently and occasionally with a grudging smile, however mostly she would discover them lying atop her bed, if they were not passed to her via Annia.

Each time this happened, Julia fought inwardly not to let herself dwell for too long on how cold her normally warm guardian had become. He could hardly bear to look at her, she understood, because he had no way of knowing what had happened to her the day she had found herself in Quintus's home. The thought was galling to her in the extreme; for to her stepfather, she was no longer an innocent child. She was soiled property, as far as he was concerned.

One afternoon, after she had spent many dreary hours collecting fruit from the trees directly outside their home, she found a stack of parchments upon her bed. Turning to Annia who, on Antoninus's instructions, followed her mistress around as both carried out their duties, Julia gave the girl a quizzical look.

"Did my stepfather leave these here, Annia?"

"Yes, Miss."

"Do they not belong to him?"

"I think not, Miss, or else he would not have left them in your room, I'm sure." The servant, not waiting to be dismissed, turned and pretended to walk down the passageway, when she had every intention of remaining within earshot of the other woman's activities.

Julia touched the bundle of papers, bearing no sign that anyone had marked them yet. Then, a number of pieces of charcoal, wrapped in a small scrap of cloth and placed beside them, caught her eye. Had Antoninus given her this so that she could write? Of course not; he knew her to be illiterate, the same as most other Roman women bar the privileged few she envied so much.

He wanted her to draw, to ease the awful boredom his restrictions upon her had caused. So he was aware of her growing frustration and building anger, though he had so far not attempted to console her in person or reduce the harshness of her punishment.

Thinking of him with sudden gratitude, she unwrapped the charcoals and almost laughed out loud as the blackness smudged onto her fingertips. She would draw away her ennui, and she decided in that moment what she would draw: the images, fascinating and bewildering, of her dreams. The faces of the nameless figures: the beautiful lady in all her finery, and the soldier whose presence had already spilled over into her waking life.

* * *

Quintus, since the day he had first laid eyes on Lucilla's exquisite progeny grown into a fine young woman, had been living in an abyss of shock and revulsion. From his first sight of the girl, all of the certainties and plans he had been accumulating for so long had been completely crushed.

From that indescribably horrible second he had known exactly whose daughter Julia was. Not the General at all – everything about her screamed out to him that she had not a drop of Maximus's noble blood inside her.

For every part of her that was not her great mother's was her true father's. Most of all her eyes, framed in inky black lashes; they were too large and bright, and showcased too volatile a soul to have originated anywhere else. Quintus had not wanted to look directly into them for more than an instant, and yet had not been able to tear his own horror-struck gaze away from them. They were every bit as mesmerising and dangerously seductive as they had been the last time he had seen such eyes all those years ago.

Commodus. No one else. By no miracle could she have come from any other man.

The most loyal of menservants, Didius had taken the revelation with a shudder of aversion, followed by a long silence. The room in which they sat had been hushed for what seemed an eternity, the atmosphere punctured only by the stomping of Quintus's feet as he paced back and forth across polished marble, his contained rage as palpable as if he were breathing fire.

"Why would she carry her brother's child?" he barked suddenly, the tension in the air breaking suddenly like a taut rope. "She was dying, and she knew it. I am certain she did, oh, the sweet…" He paused abruptly, having no idea whether Didius knew exactly what his master's feelings for the lady had been, but having no wish to betray his long-held secret out loud.

Didius did not raise his eyes to meet the other man's, merely waiting for him to finish unloading his mental burden.

"Oh, the bastard, the bastard…" Quintus spat, thinking of the late Emperor with white-hot hatred. He had never forgotten what the villain had looked like, or the sound of his voice, or how he had terrorised the leader of his Praetorians and indeed everyone unfortunate enough to live under his rule. Now he knew how evil Commodus had truly been, and the depths to which he had sunk in his brutality.

Raping and impregnating his own sister, surely the closest thing he had ever had to a friend and ally.

The idea that Lucilla could have been a consenting partner in the union was unconscionable, unthinkable. She had been violated. She had loved Maximus! Quintus had wished with all his heart that she could have loved him…

Hot tears welled in his eyes which he strove to hide. Didius, thankfully, seemed not to notice.

"It is an appalling truth, sir, but a truth nonetheless," the manservant corroborated what Quintus already knew, his voice soft.

The other man's heavy footsteps slowed to a halt. "It is. It is…" Shaking his head, and suppressing the urge to collapse into tears, he continued pacing the vast chamber. "But she had to nothing to gain by bearing the child…"

"And nothing to lose," Didius interrupted faintly.

Quintus considered his words with an open mind and a generous heart. Turning, he looked him squarely in the eye. "I agree, but why? Why cast a child, not only a bastard but born of incest, into this brutal world?"

"I merely speculate sir, but to a fallen and broken woman, I imagine a child, any child, would be welcomed as a gift from the Gods. The girl was never to know her father anyway."

"A gift from the Gods," Quintus repeated, barely audibly. "She did not need to bear the infant. There are ways to…prevent the necessity for birth when an unwanted child is conceived. She must have had a reason…and I do not see why it should not have been that: the desire to for comfort, and a legacy untainted by the past."

Didius felt some small satisfaction at his constant ability to pacify his master with a few well-chosen words. His concealed his fears, however, of what he would do next, having finally found what he had given up searching for so many years ago.

Quintus's eyes widened slowly, as though he were visualising some fascinating object far into the distance.

"May I ask what you are thinking, sir?" Didius enquired, not really desiring to know.

His only reply was a broad smile. "I am thinking that there may yet be hope for this Empire, Didius. Not only for us. Not this time!"

* * *

The great stone construction, an arena of some sorts, terrified Julia to the core of her being. Just looking at it, even from her vantage point some distance away, was enough to make her heart race and her breathing turn ragged. It was enormous, magnificent, by far the largest building she had ever laid eyes on. She hadn't thought it possible for such things to exist, to be built by men's hands. She knew Rome to be full of such grandiose creations, but still, this particular edifice very literally took her breath away.

Before she even realised she was moving, she found herself within the sandy grounds of the construction itself, surrounded by an immense auditorium, bereft of any actual people. Julia's hand went to her throat and pressed against her flesh as sobs threatened to escape – she was petrified, though her fear was mixed with exhilaration. Harsh winds beat about her face, bringing flecks of sand against her face and into her eyes. Brushing them away, she noticed the rose petals, in their thousands, strewn all around the expanse of the ground.

Rose petals concealing huge pools of blood.

She stifled a cry of disgust and fear. This was a place of mass killing for the delights of an unscrupulous mob; the auditorium encircling the arena told her that. A place of entertainment by violence and death.

Her own imagination was far too vivid. Grasping at once that this was yet another dream, she wondered with building trepidation whether it could be an insight into a time long past. Or whether, as she dreaded, it was possibly a message from another level of existence – even a warning. But a warning against what?

The memory of the blood-and-petal-scattered arena remained crystal clear and acutely terrifying in her mind. The moment Annia's hawk-like gaze was removed from her, Julia retired to her chamber and took out the papers and charcoals, vowing to rid her mind of the ghastly images by committing them to paper.

Within minutes, the first sheet of plain white parchment, clearly expensive, was covered with heavy black smudges as Julia trained herself to compose the lines and shading exactly as she recalled them; every detail of the monstrous construction she could call to mind was included, until the entire picture lay before her eyes. She wiped moisture away from her eyes, feeling a small part of the void in her heart finally filled.

Still, one figure remained branded on her mind: the face of her nameless soldier and guardian. She spread out another sheet of parchment and readied a piece of charcoal, closing her eyes to picture him as clearly as she could.

Footsteps elsewhere in the villa called her back to hostile reality. Hastily, she pushed the first picture beneath her bed, holding it reverently as though it would be ruined with even the lightest touch to its blackened surface.

Seating herself demurely down on her bed, she steeled herself from a haughty reminder from Annia that she was needed to complete some or other tedious chore somewhere in the household. The girl's shrill tones, however, were nowhere to be heard.

Instead, the boy in charge of the horses and cart leaned tentatively through her doorway. His childish face, suntanned from spending most of his narrow life out of doors, wore a look of pure admiration welcomed by his young mistress.

"Miss? There is the servant of a gentleman here to see you. He would not tell me why; he insisted he must speak to you alone."

"Oh." Julia's heart rose to her throat and then sank back painfully. The only gentleman who both knew of her existence and employed a manservant was the very same who had turned her from his home that awful night; an experience that still cut her to the core whenever she chanced to remember it.

"What should I tell him, Miss?"

She forced a smile to her numbed features. "You need say nothing. I will see him myself."

The boy's innocuous brown eyes widened, aware as he was of the rules, handed down by his master, regarding Miss Julia's need to be sequestered from the outside world and the influence of strangers. "Are you sure that is wise, Miss?"

Julia stood, tilted her head coquettishly and grinned. "Quite sure, my dear. Where is Annia, do you know?"

"She is at market – she left only a few moments ago, and will be gone most of the day. Are you in need of anything, Miss?"

"Oh, no thank you. I will be a few moments at the door."

The boy stood aside, smiling dreamily in her direction, as she passed. At the doorway, she faced Didius with an expression of forced, adverse civility.

"Good morning, Madam. My master sends his regards and sincerest apologies for the way he has treated you. I, too, must express my regrets."

Julia could not conceal her surprise. The downtrodden manservant had wasted no time in pinpointing the purpose of his visit even with the commonest courtesies, and now could barely look her in the eye. His face, already withered with years, was grey with fatigue and strain, and everything about his admission of guilt was unmistakeably truthful. The anger she had cultivated since their last fateful meeting all but evaporated. Now she hadn't a clue how to deal with the situation.

In a desperate gesture of peace, Didius clumsily extended a hand to take one of her own. She obliged without hesitation, pursing her lips as he bowed earnestly over her fingers, afraid she would say something her nature would not otherwise have permitted.

"…Your apologies are accepted, Didius," she finally said, her voice shaky.

He raised his head, smiling his gratitude. "I thank you, Madam, from the bottom of my heart. Will you accept my master's apologies?"

She frowned, sighing deeply. "No. I don't think I can."

She should have been enraged, she knew, that his master had left her to fend for herself in the streets of Rome as night had fallen. To find her own way home in darkness – and to the dubious advances of strange men. She might have died out there...were it not for her soldier. All because of Quintus.

Didius's look of anguish deepened. He turned away slightly, obviously thinking, before taking a breath and facing Julia squarely once more.

"Will you do my master and myself the honour of returning to our house, so that he may ask for your forgiveness himself? Even if you will not grant it, Madam, we will be eternally grateful for your willingness to listen."

She instantly prepared her reply of 'No', though the word seemed to die in her throat. It was proving impossible to vent her underlying fury to this humble pawn of a wicked man – the real object of her hatred. How satisfying it would be to cut Quintus down to his face! Her smile, genuine and full of anticipation of this pleasure, rejuvenated itself upon her lips, used to grimacing in recent days.

Glancing over her shoulder, she sensed the emptiness of the villa, apart from the sounds emanating from the pantry of the stable boy pottering around and helping himself to food. The child would certainly be willing to distract Annia from noticing her mistress's absence, should the shrewish maid return early from her errands.

"I will be delighted to listen to your master apologise, Didius. If you will excuse for a moment first, I have some arrangements I must make first."