Julia had so far failed to guess, Antoninus decided, that the gifts he often brought her were his way of apologising for the necessary severity of her punishment. Lately he had been wishing that he could have found some more lenient way of controlling her wilful behaviour, however after long hours spent in a dusty Roman market earning the money he required to keep her, his perpetual exhaustion of mind and body made dreaming up an alternative all but impossible.
This evening, making sure around the villa that the servants had done their duties as instructed, he felt unable to resist peering into his stepdaughter's chamber, if only merely to see if all was well. From outside the room, no sound could be heard. He wondered if she could possibly have retired early.
Quick, feminine footsteps caused him to glance over his shoulder before he knocked on Julia's door.
Annia smiled and bowed her head as Antoninus stared at her quizzically.
"Has Miss Julia retired so early, Annia?"
"No, sir. She was here when I returned from the city, looking very pleased with herself, if I may say. I believe she is in the kitchen."
Striding swiftly towards the other end of the villa, apprehension heavy on his heart, Antoninus half expected to find that room empty also. He sighed audibly with relief at the sight of her slender figure, golden blonde waves spilling over her shoulders as she bent over a mass of bread dough, kneading it with some wooden implement he could not name.
"You may leave that to Annia, my dear, if you wish."
She shot him a look of undisguised contempt, flecks of green glittering menacingly in her eyes. "And leave me with no distractions from the tiresomeness of this place? I shall go mad if I cannot do something."
He closed his eyes, exasperated, toying seriously with the idea of taking her straight back home to the countryside and her mother.
As if she sensed his desperation, her swift little hands stopped what they were doing, and her shoulders slumped. "I am sorry, truly I am. I get so frustrated living under Annia's tyranny and with that stable boy fawning over me."
Antoninus started to smile, though the expression fell immediately as his eyes came to rest on Julia's wrist. He almost gasped out loud.
Upon it was a heavy bracelet of bright, polished gold, glittering vulgarly with a number of fat, bright gems. He had never before seen it, either worn by her or in the jewellery box gifted to her by that highborn cousin – of that, he was absolutely certain. His heart began to thud as innumerable bewildering possibilities invaded his brain as to how she could have obtained it.
He had not given it to her; even as he frequently wished he could lavish such treasures upon her, he would surely never be able to. Jewels resembling this one could seldom be bought; only inherited. Some stranger, therefore, and certainly one of the patrician class, was responsible.
Moreover, this present had been made within his home, for Julia could not have gotten out, not under the noses of the servants he had expressly ordered to keep her within the villa's walls.
"Is something wrong, sir?" she questioned him, slapping her palms down with irritation upon the worktop.
"No…no, my dear. I will see you later."
A baffling sense of impotence forced him to hold his tongue. As he strode towards his own chambers, his brain threw up several excuses for his foolish silence. She is not hurt, and her character remains the same. She can have done no terrible thing. Of course she has friends. How could anyone fail to be fond of her?
Late that night, as was the case every night, he thought of Diana. It had been several months since their last meeting. He found himself praying fervently then, as he had not done since his childhood. Praying that soon he would see his wife again, and see Julia off with a suitable husband.
He loved the girl to death, it was true, yet she was equally capable of inspiring in him deep resentment as passionate adoration. Absently, he wondered whether she had yet discovered the extent of her powers of manipulation.
* * *
It was the same each and every night. The heat of the day cooled as the sky turned purple, followed by rich, opaque blue; only then could Julia be absolutely certain that every living creature in and around the villa, bar herself, was sound asleep.
Antoninus retired early without fail, as much to avoid having to speak to his stepdaughter as from tiredness. The servants ignored her out of duty. Leaving the house in secret was possible at certain times during the daylight hours, however the risk was obviously much smaller under cover of darkness. That was what she had told Quintus, countless times, since their acquaintance had begun.
Leaning out of her chamber window, she smiled at the earthy and sweet aromas rising from the vegetation lining the ground below. Peering out with pleasure across the land she loved and despised in equal amounts, she silently prayed for Didius's arrival. His company was no so tedious as she had once believed it to be; he always had many interesting tales to tell of life as manservant to the wealthy, and of inhabiting such a fine residence.
Those were the topics of discussion she liked best, and indeed, the only ones she cared to tolerate, so exhausted and tetchy had she become, taking these nightly jaunts.
At long last, the far-off figure of the gentleman she had been waiting for materialised, stepping out from a thicket of trees. The sky glimmered with orange streaks as the sun disappeared completely below the horizon, the brightness hurting her eyes. She barely felt the pain, so intoxicated with expectant adrenaline had she become.
* * *
Quintus, once he had set his sights upon a goal, had never been known to give up his pursuit easily. The promises he made to himself, at least, he never could bring himself to break. Emotion very seldom figured in the decisions he made, however much he admired or became involved with the people with whom he dealt in his intrigues and ruses. He had never been in doubt of any of these things – which made the progress of his friendship with Julia all the more absurdly confusing.
He knew without a shadow of a doubt that there was no possibility of Maximus having sired her, and yet this evening, as he conversed with the girl, he found himself thinking of the battle in Germania decades before.
The memories – all of them glorious, exhilarating, horrifying and impossible to forget – were as lucid as they had been seconds after the event. Quintus smelled the blood, felt the freezing air, heard the screams and, best of all, saw his master, as sharply as he had at the time.
"People should know when they're conquered."
The General's eyes, full of compassion and intelligence (two qualities Quintus dearly wished to possess in greater quantities) alongside pride and strength, staring into his own. Oddly soft and benign, though immovably full of resolve and honour. Of course the Lady Lucilla had been devoted to him. There mustn't have been a part of him she did not love.
"Would you, Quintus? Would any of us?"
Sense. Quintus's father had never ceased reminding him that, unlike his brother Marcellus or even most of his sisters, he had not a jot of common sense. These judgements, however, far from belittling him, had made him ever more determined to prove all of his critics wrong. As Maximus's second, he had completely believed that his ambitions were fulfilled. With the General dead and gone, an awful void and developed, and remained gaping and agonising until this very day.
Julia coughed, having taken a too-large mouthful of strong wine, and jolted her host out of his reflections. He blinked in her direction, raising his eyebrows.
She promptly flushed a dark crimson, hastily wiping the spilled beverage from her chin with a tiny wrist. "Oh, the Gods, I am hopeless!"
"Don't be silly, my dear. You would be worshipped in society, were it only feasible for you to mingle with those of our class."
She frowned, the look of hurt overshadowing her beauty, and Quintus instantly wished his words unsaid. Not only were they lofty and imprudent, they were untrue; the girl was of the very highest class, much higher than his own. He moved quickly to take a seat opposite hers. They were alone, sequestered beyond the reach of the endlessly prying servants, and even Cassia, given plenty to occupy her time.
The elegant parlour was candlelit, a more romantic atmosphere than Quintus had intended. Julia shuffled uncomfortably, her wine discarded, obviously fighting the urge to yawn and betray her distractedness.
"Sir, am I not mingling with one of your class at this moment?"
"Indeed, you are. What we must do is find a way to raise you to your proper stations." At that moment, he could muster no possible plan, so quickly shifted the subject to safer ground: "Do you like your bracelet? Did your stepfather question where you obtained it at all?"
Her eyes lit up and she extended her arm to admire it in the golden light, patently liking it very well. "It is heavenly! I have never expected to own anything quite as lovely. My stepfather, whatever he thought, did not question me. I think he knows better now than to doubt my honour." Her eyes flashed with derision.
Quintus noted the straightness of her back and confident tilt of her head. Anyone who had never seen her before would believe her raised as a princess, despite her shabby clothes. No doubt, strangers wondered at her origins. Her sharpness of tongue was her mother's, and Julia would know, as Lucilla had, when to keep her comments to herself. The shrewd, ruthless manner lived on in the girl.
For him, it was an indescribable thing to behold. If only he had never learned the truth of her paternity, the picture may have been perfect. She seemed to embody the grace and intelligence of the ruling class of the Empire – albeit unadulterated by the corruption and intrigues bred within the Imperial Palace.
Her accepting all of his apologies, though not without a fair measure of coaxing, was one of his proudest achievements to date. Now he never wished for her to leave his company.
Taking a long draught of wine, it occurred to him that he had neglected to answer one of her questions. "You asked me for a favour a few nights ago, didn't you?"
"Yes. What do you think?" Her gaze turned hopeful.
"In truth, I have never known an educated woman. But I believe that certain aspects of education are essential to everyone. I would be delighted to educate you, on the condition that you will agree to take frequent lessons."
Her smile was breathtaking; bright and sincere, with a lady's restraint of her emotions. This was Julia's moment of triumph – the opportunity she had been awaiting all of her young life.
"Tell me about the Empire," she said softly, not raising her eyes from the scroll laid out in front of her. She had not taken a sip of the small goblet of wine he had allowed her, though her tone professed drunkenness of a kind. Her exhilaration at finally being able to read, if only a number of small, uncomplicated words and phrases, had gone straight to her head.
Quintus smiled, proud and enchanted by her intelligence and innocence. "That is a very broad subject to be explained all in once evening, my dear!"
"Oh, I want only to know about how it was before…things changed. My stepfather sometimes speaks of the Empire being in the hands of a lot of…oh dear, but he calls our leaders imbeciles!"
"That is the truth of it," Quintus said matter-of-factly. "Your stepfather is a very wise man."
"I would not know. I have lived all my life in the countryside, except for very brief visits into the city, like the ones I pay to you." Picking up a quill pen, she dipped it into a nearby inkpot, as she had seen Antoninus do a thousand times, and started to scratch upon a fresh piece of parchment. "Tell me about the times before these imbeciles. Tell me about the days of Marcus Aurelius's rule. Please."
Her host watched her eyes covertly as she cast them this way and that, looking intently at the marble statues of his ancestors. Her irises, like pots of molten gold full of floating emeralds, swam with dreamy fantasies of an opulent, long-passed era. The days of her own family's greatness, he acknowledged with a fresh pang of wonder and dull sadness.
"Well, that is a time I do know something about. I was a green recruit to the emperor's legions. It was the best time of my life, Julia. I enlisted only because my father insisted, but I never looked back. They were great times for all of us."
Julia's smile remained. Absently, she had begun making small sketches upon the parchment alongside her infantile attempts at writing. "Did you meet the emperor? Was he a good man?"
"'The philosopher'…I met him only one or two times, though I do not think he acknowledged me. Ruling the Empire was a duty from which a god might shrink, and anyway…he saved his true favour for better men than I. As so many others did."
She glanced upwards briefly, frowning slightly as she noticed the gentleman's bitterness. For the moment, however, she ignored this, lifting her chin as a signal for him to continue.
"The emperor had two children, a daughter and a son, his only heir. They were beside him almost constantly, at every state occasion, every warlike campaign, being reared and prepared for their duties. I believe that this was the start of both of their problems. The Prince, you see…"
"Commodus!" she interrupted, unable to keep her knowledge of the name a secret, so proud was she of possessing it.
Quintus smiled, a little irritated at her impertinence, though willing to let the slip-up pass.
"Commodus succumbed early in his youth to the influences of vice and corruption within his father's court which, owing to the emperor's unfailingly moralistic rule, had not yet risen to prominence. Yet the young man found it of his own volition, or should I say, it found him."
Julia feigned a revulsion to this information she did not honestly feel. Her host could read buried fascination in her reactions. Curiosity, he suspected, which was to be expected of a sheltered country girl never before exposed to scandalous behaviour of any kind.
"What of the Princess?" the girl enquired, self-consciously lowering her narrowed gaze back to the papers on the carved marble desk before her.
Quintus needed to swallow, a crystal-clear image of the splendid woman pervading his mind's eye, before he could reply. "She was a marvel. Spirited and good, the most upright and honourable lady I ever had the privilege of serving. Her father worshipped her, and could never deny her anything. He married her to one of his favourites upon her coming of age, a gentleman she was very fond of. The Lady Lucilla was everything her brother had failed to be, and continued to be until her death, I am certain.
"Marcus Aurelius died of natural causes during a military campaign; the very one I told you of, wherein I was Second to our General. Prince Commodus was not yet twenty years old, and now our ruler. He was entirely unready, and inept in the extreme when it came to matters of State importance."
"I am almost twenty," Julia cut in, her voice quietened with surprise. Quintus avoided looking at her, feeling unable to do so as he recounted the story of her parents, calling to the fore many of the memories he had resolved to bury forever that black day when the General and the hated sovereign had fallen.
"The new emperor was barely sensible in his decisions. He horrified the senators and his advisors with his schemes and proposals. One of those proposals was for one-hundred-and-fifty days of games, beginning at his arrival in Rome. There was barely state finance enough to cover this, disregarding the entire city's other expenses. It was disastrous. Yet the people devoured it."
He glanced briefly in Julia's direction, seeking to gauge the intensity of her concentration. She was proving a model pupil – waiting with wide eyes upon his every word. He resisted a jubilant smile.
"Are you familiar with the concept of gladiatorial games, my dear?"
"Somewhat, from what I have been told. No one would go into much detail, for fear of offending the ears of a lady." Sarcasm rang clear in her tone.
That sufficed as a request for further information. Quintus's own remembrances of the games were catastrophic enough to sour him against speaking of them for the remainder of his life. He was willing to do anything, however, for Lucilla's child.
"There is a structure, within the heart of Rome, built specifically to accommodate these spectacles. It is among the grandest constructions ever created by men, Julia, I am certain. Circular, with a ground of sand in the centre to soak up the blood of the slaves who would fight to the death within its walls." He paused, peering down at her again, and was startled to see that her face had turned deathly pale, her lips parted slightly as she visualised the thing he described.
"Have you ever seen anything like that, child?"
She was unable to reply for a long time.
