The dream of Lucilla returned to Quintus in all its ghastly glory

The dream of Lucilla returned to Quintus in all its grisly glory.

The lady's body, once strong and fine, seemingly protected from harm by her sheer physical presence and vitality, fell to the frozen ground before him. Her white skin a map of injuries and violations – only this time, he was aware of where the greatest brutality had been dealt to her. He almost fancied, with a morbid, perverse fascination, that he could see through the bruised skin of her stomach to the cavity wherein Julia nestled, a barely-formed little life in her own right.

Lucilla lay in the dirt, before her lover, the General, and his horror-struck Second, powerless as they somehow were to assist her. Quintus tried to breathe, though his innards were stiffened with shock. She is not real…the General is not real. They are dead; their pain is long over.

He glanced desperately in Maximus's direction, only to see that the Spaniard was no longer there. Quintus was alone, in a strange, alien country, watching a raped and broken woman suffer inhumanly as she died a slow, lingering death.

Lucilla screamed, clutching her belly, as large splashes of blood began to cover her gown, which had been torn to shreds. Torn by her brother so that he could take his evil pleasure ever more quickly. "Commodus!" she shrieked. "Commodus, Commodus!"

"My lady!" Quintus called out to her. "My love!"

In that instant, the screaming dissolved into silence. Her long legs, no longer exposed or dripping with the blood of a savage attack and an unwanted, unnatural birth combined, lay relaxed and covered with clean linen.

She sighed contentedly, sitting up and blinking her eyes at him. Different eyes, and a different voice. Her body had changed; she was well-fed and healthy, her stomach and small breasts rising and falling naturally, calmly.

"My lady?" he repeated, his voice no more than a rasp of disbelief as he took in the golden blondeness of her hair and the boisterous glint in her large, almost supernaturally bright eyes.

Julia drew her knees up to her chest, holding his gaze with an immovable poise, as if she expected him to say something, or do something, though he knew not what.

Didius, in recent days, had behaved as if he had suddenly acquired a great deal of self-confidence. He spoke up to his master so often, and with such great insolence as far as Quintus was concerned, that both could barely inhabit the same room without angry, unsaid words simmering in the silence between them. Neither was fond of arguments, and as a result the volatile silence only increased as several long days passed uneventfully.

"Sir, Mistress Cassia would like to know where her jewels keep disappearing to. She would like to wear them to the wedding of her youngest sister."

"I…do not think a matter such as that concerns me. If Mistress Cassia has taken to misplacing her possessions, is it suddenly my place to reimburse her?" Quintus returned his attention to the parchments in his hands, covered with Julia's deft first attempts at handwriting. He smiled broadly, causing his manservant to groan loudly, no longer willing to try and conceal his emotions and grievances even before his employer and superior.

"You will not spare a single thought for the lady who has been more dutiful to you than any legal wife could ever be? Who has never said a word against yourself or spoken out of turn at all, even as you treat her more shabbily than a slave! Did you know that she curses the day she trusted you with her mother's jewels, nay with her own person? She believes you have given her treasures to your new minx."

Quintus swung on the other man then, recognising the slur on Julia's honour even after ignoring almost every other word in Didius's spiel. "Mistress Cassia will close her eyes and shut her damned mouth, unless she wishes to be cast back into the cesspit where I found her. You may tell her that, seeing as the two of you are now so close. You may also tell her that in the evenings she may not wish to leave her chambers from now on, seeing as she finds my choice of guest so disagreeable."

He had nursed a hope, albeit a pathetic, cowardly one, that Cassia would leave of her own volition, thereby releasing him from these vague yet distressing feelings of guilt. Yet she had been a fixture in his life, not merely his bed, for so many years that there was not a chance she would ever choose to do that. His only hope was to cast her out of his house by force.

"I know nothing of the whereabouts of her jewels, Didius," he lied, his mind conjuring various pictures of the said treasures by now adorning Julia's perfect, unlined skin. Gifts, keeping her happy and buying her silence at the same time. Some of them Cassia's – there, the blame was his. The rest of them – rings, hair ornaments and necklaces – had been Maria's. The only joys she had known during her short, isolated life, and too painful in any case to remain in her brother's possession.

"I think you do know something, sir, and I will find out what that is. Good night to you." Didius began a haughty retreat, pausing at the alcove leading out of Quintus's study. "But first…"

"What?"

"You should be told that your pursuit of that girl is entirely improper." The manservant's voice and body shook with equal parts rage and humiliation. 'Improper' was a dreadful understatement. He would have liked to call it an abomination.

The other man laughed out loud, the first real amusement he had enjoyed in a very long time. "My pursuit, you call it? Do you think me so irresponsible as to take for my lover a child I treat as if she were my own? And who, if I need remind you, will be of immeasurable value when the time comes to raise her to her proper place?"

"Her proper place! You know nothing of her, aside from that she is beautiful and prodigious and furtive. In due time you will tire of these plots and schemes, sir, and realise the true reason for your keeping her in this place night after night as though she were a strumpet! Her stepfather will learn of this."

This caused the first twinge of alarm his servant's words had ever been known to cause in Quintus. His back straightened. "And will you be the one to inform him?"

With that, he stood and approached Didius swiftly, his footsteps echoing loudly. His voice shook with tremulous control. "Do as you will, Didius, if your wish is to see Mistress Julia injured so, and by your own hand. You cannot deny that you care for her, now, can you? So the choice will be yours. Protect her, or see her ruined, and leave this house yourself."

Didius closed his eyes and stood stock-still. "Very well. But know that as I protect the lady now from the harm you may do her within these walls, I have every intention of continuing to protect her in the future, even should you try to put her in her 'proper place'. While I remain in your service, she will remain safe from that."

Very aware of the fact that he could not simply turn Didius out of his home, however much he now wished to, Quintus retired to his chambers with a great weight upon his heart. Cassia's slow, regular breaths, stillness and silence as she lay across from him in the huge bed indicated that she had long fallen asleep, no longer bothering to wait for him to join her as she once had.

He leaned over, touching the platinum-blonde curls gathered at the nape of her neck, and wondered wearily why he felt so confused. The situation with Didius was barely even a problem; while Julia continued to frequent the villa, he would never willingly leave his post. In any case, Quintus could not do without his manservant's assistance in escorting the girl. He could never do it himself – no prominent, wealthy citizen could afford to associate with a girl born to poverty, no matter what the truth about her was.

Julia, Julia. The arrangement was absurd, he knew – an old man and a young woman of nineteen, being one another's only true friend. Yet her company was far too intriguing for him to simply give it up. Her reactions to the stories he told her, mere episodes from his own life, were as astonishing as her beauty; each time he spoke of them, she listening raptly and with captivating gratitude. Almost as if she had seen for herself the people and places of which he spoke.

He had given her everything she could possibly want: jewellery and fine linens, exquisite meals served in the villa's dining hall, and most importantly of all to the girl, the beginnings of an education few women could hope to receive. She could now read and write excellently, as she had always wished to do.

And even after receiving all of this, when he could give her nothing new materially, she returned to him time and again, always eager to hear of those experiences Quintus would rather have forgotten forever.

There seemed to be no reason for her to risk social disgrace by visiting him any longer. They were on good terms, and he knew where she resided, so when the time came to present her for what she was, the granddaughter of Marcus Aurelius and last known product of the Antonine dynasty, it could not be any easier to do so.

The perfect solution finally occurred to him as though a lightening bolt had struck within the darkness of his chamber, lighting up his murky thoughts and clarifying the answer perfectly. He pressed a hand to his chest, trying to still the pounding of his heart, as the notion fleshed out within his mind. There was a way that would all at once secure Julia's place in society, her place in his life, and both of their futures in precisely the place where, more than anything, he longed for them to take place.

It made absolute sense. He smiled to himself in the cold blackness enveloping him, all of his previous melancholy dissolving as the realisation of his true feelings dawned. Lucilla's child had been placed on this earth to belong to him, and him alone, so that they might rule the Empire together.

* * *

Julia tried to contain her mirth, and preserve her modesty, as she mounted the pony Didius had brought for her. All morning, she had been overcome with nerves, waiting for Quintus's manservant to collect her. Day, she was certain, would be an even more dangerous time than the night to be seen out of doors with a man. When he had promptly arrived, on horseback and leading a smaller steed beside him, she had almost laughed out loud with surprise and joy.

He smiled bemusedly as she pulled herself atop the placid grey, settling herself gracefully into the saddle and looking expectantly at him as a signal to lead the way. She made small talk cheerfully, more talkative than she had ever been in the company of her introverted companion. He answered her only briefly, tersely, letting her know that today there was a reason for his aloofness.

"Do the servants know that you are leaving them in charge, Mistress?" He almost spat the word 'mistress', though Julia was far too preoccupied to detect it.

"Oh, they no longer care whether I am there or not. My stepfather forbade them to let me leave their sight, although it is I who should rightfully be supervising them, is it not? They do as I tell them, even the maid, who hates me so."

A short silence followed, during which Julia coloured, realising that he had not taken a word she had said seriously. She shuffled in the saddle, a feeling of discomfort and apprehension blighting her good mood.

"My visit with you is to be a short one," she confessed quietly. "I am to return home before the servants will note my absence."

Didius turned to face her suddenly then, making her cower slightly with surprise. He swallowed several times, his eyes wide and unblinking, as if wanting desperately to tell her something.

Men had looked at her that way before. The stable boy, no doubt picturing his young mistress on his arm, as his wife. She had caught Quintus peering at her in this fashion many times, thinking her innocently incapable of fathoming his adoration. Thankfully, however, Quintus only wished for her friendship, which she gladly gave in return for the irreplaceable gifts only he had the means to bestow: rich trinkets, and education.

Moreover, however, Antoninus often stared at her as though in pain, which disturbed her. Almost as if he expected her to take flight one day and leave him, and he completely unable to do anything to stop her. She tried to forget all of these things for the moment, preferring to relish this rare pleasure of travelling in the daylight hours, the prospect of a few stolen hours in Quintus's opulent abode ahead of her.

"Sir?" she enquired worriedly of Didius. "Is everything all right?"

His gaze snapped back to the road ahead of him, his brows knitted together with either anger or deep thought, or both. "Of course, Mistress."

She ate greedily of the sweetmeats Quintus had his servants place before her, abandoning some of her manners for probably the first time in all of her nineteen years. The spiced wine, she found, was far too strong and potent for her taste, causing her to regrettably leave the silver goblet untouched. Her host, having not removed his eyes from her for a second, signalled promptly to a young serving maid to bring her something more suited to the palate of a lady.

So far, she had not asked him why they were spending her visit outside his home, within a small, exquisite replica of a temple built to host such outdoor gatherings. The question, she decided, could not be ignored any longer.

"May I ask, sir, why we are dining here today? I have no objection, you see, but I would like to know the reason."

He laughed a little at this, though continued to look lovingly in her direction. She smiled back, enjoying afresh the now familiar feeling of commanding his constant attention and protection from those things that discomfited her. Such as her stepfather's neglect, and Didius's strange actions.

"I merely thought you might appreciate this setting, seeing as it is the daytime, and that after this day we may be back to meeting in the evenings." His jovial expression fell a little. "You are quite sure, now, that your stepfather will have no knowledge of this? I would never wish for your reputation to be spoiled, not ever."

Julia eyed him with curiosity, realising that she need not have answered, for somehow he appeared entirely confident that her reputation would never be spoiled. She looked to Didius as she accepted a goblet of some mystery beverage proffered by the maidservant, holding his expression of pure, terrifying anguish at the same time as raising the cup to her lips.

"That is better?" Quintus asked brightly as she sipped almost robotically. She nodded, forcing a smile, wondering why a sensation of nausea had begun to rise within her. Groggily, she began to get up from where she sat.

"I must…I must walk a little, get some air into my lungs. Would you escort me, please, sir?"

Instantly he was by her side, holding her arm as gently as though it were made of clay. Absently, as they walked a small distance into the land surrounding the estate, she turned to see if Didius or the maidservant were following. Neither was anywhere to be seen.

She exhaled loudly, the sickness subsiding, as they reached a low wooden fence sectioning off Quintus's land from his next neighbour's. Leaning on the structure, she smiled gratefully at her friend, inwardly berating herself for taking such an odd turn. She had no reason to. No reason she could identify, at least.

"Oh, I love this land, and this city, Quintus!" The words seemed to rush out of her mouth before she could suppress the urge to speak. It did not occur to her at all that she had addressed him, for the first time, by his name.

"I used to despise the country, and everything within it. I hated my family for bringing me there to grow up. You see, even when I was a child, I knew that Rome was to be my home. But when I returned, I longed for the country again. I got so confused, being homesick no matter where I lived. I love both this land, and also the great buildings, life and movement of Rome, so much. I adore it all."

"Do you, my dear?" He stepped closer to her, his strides long and urgent. "Well, you are born to Rome, of course. It is your spiritual home. Your ancestors were born here to be rulers, and if Providence continues to work her magic, you will rule also, and so will your children…"

These words left her dumbstruck, so that as he fiercely took hold of her hand, bringing it to his lips, all she could do was gasp.

"Leave if you wish too, my precious Julia, but you will always be drawn back. You belong to Rome. Rome belongs to you!" With his fingers, he separated hers so that each lay flat upon his palm. Then he bent to kiss them, though not passionately, as she had expected, though with a measure of reverence and forbearance due to a queen, not the daughter of a pottery seller.

"Oh, no," she began to sob as he fell on one knee, her hand still resting atop his, limp and still. He had kissed her so tenderly, that the very last thing she had felt was offence! A wave of misery overcame her as she recognised why she had not yet responded properly to him.

She wanted him to kiss her again like that, or even open his arms and embrace her with that pure love she knew he felt for her, had known since the first day they had met. Antoninus had never embraced her or kissed her hand; neither had her mother, that is, once Julia had changed from a child to a woman. No one gave her the kind of love she craved so terribly – warm, respectful, unashamedly affectionate – but Quintus.

"It will belong to us one day, my darling, if you will only have me. I love you. I was placed here by the Gods to love you, I swear I was! I have done no worthy thing with my life until now because I was meant to do such beside you. So be my bride, my lady. Give your consent, and we may marry this day if you wish!"

She let out a loud, frenzied wail. It was not, after all, that kind of love. Never could she be his wife, never anyone's wife, until someone had loved her entirely without carnality, self-interest, or suspicion. The way she was certain her father, her soldier, would love her, if only he walked upon this earth and not only inside her dreams.

When she ran, Quintus did not chase her. He only screamed her name, over and over, like a madman, his voice piercing her own sanity until she had come far enough for it to fade into the distance, into blessed silence.