3
"Where are you staying the night?" Leander asked him, as they stood after the meal. Agrippa appeared agitated at the question.
"I do have a villa here awaiting me, but it will not be ready until the morrow." Leander clapped his hands, and Kalyca appeared once more.
"That settles it, Agrippa. You will stay with us until your lodgings are ready." To the servant woman he said, "Please set a room in order for this man. He will stay the night with us—make sure that he wants for nothing." Agrippa bent himself into a stiff bow—he could not remember how long it had been since he had done such for less that the emperor. Doing so almost forced the bile into his throat.
"I thank you deeply for your kindness."
"What is wrong, my Love?" Leander asked his wife that night, as he settled her into bed. Her green eyes were troubled, and her brow was furrowed in thought.
"I cannot say for sure. That man…that soldier…he troubles me, Leander." The young man looked at her in surprise.
"I'll admit that I do not particularly like the man, Calliliana, but he seems harmless enough." The young woman could not help laughing at this.
"Harmless? A centurion?" A thought, sudden and horrifying, quickly came to her mind. The young woman grasped her husband's arms in earnest. "Leander…he is a soldier of the emperor. What if…oh, what if he will betray our faith?" The eyes of the young Roman jumped in his suddenly whitened face.
"I will admit, I had not thought of that." Maximinus forced a smile on his lips to try and comfort his wife. "Do not worry, Love, you have nothing to fear while you are with me." He placed a light kiss on her forehead, then tenderly rubbed his hands along her swollen belly. "Sleep well, dearest." As he moved to go, Calliliana reached up and threw her arms around his neck once more.
"Kiss me once, will you?" The man laughed at her and leaned down to place another kiss upon his wife—this time, with more force and greater precision.
Although the room was lovely and the bed comfortable, Marcus Agrippa found himself unable to sleep that night. He tossed and turned upon his pillow, attempting vainly to descry what had disturbed—no, angered—him about Maximinus and his household.
His wife was lovely, that was true, and it was no secret the centurion's mind that the woman was everything he wished for himself. The villa was extraordinary, that was undeniable, while that of Agrippa was still lacking. The man smothered a cry of frustration against his pillow as he thought of all that the young man, young enough to be his child-brother, had accomplished where he had failed.
"No sleep shall come this night," he murmured to himself. Marcus stood, pulled a thin robe over his sleep tunic, and rubbed his calloused hands across his face. He opened his door slowly and cautiously, so as not to wake anyone within the household, and looked down the hall. Now, which was the door? He had heard from the peasant woman about the famed beauty of Maximinus' gardens, and he thought that he might wish to lay eyes upon them himself. Perhaps that would cool the fever in his brain.
Quietly, the trained soldier slipped down the stairs, opened the door silently, and crept out into the gardens. Even he, the centurion who had witnessed countless battles and had hardened his heart against nearly all but feminine beauty, could not restrain a slight gasp at the magnificence around him. The scent of the garden's numerous flowers was borne on the wind—the same wind which ruffled his bed-tousled hair like so many caressing fingers. Agrippa walked about, losing himself in the serenity of the grounds…until his eyes lighted on a female form near the gate.
Though her back was turned to him, the wealth of golden hair that covered her told Agrippa that this must be no other than the wife of Maximinus. He felt hot desire flood over him, and his feet moved as if of their own accord towards her. His breath caught in her throat as he reached out a hand to lightly touch her shoulder.
"Oh!" she cried out in surprise, turning hastily to face him. There were roses of shock in her cheeks, an obvious terror in her eyes, and her whole body was rigid. For the first time in years, Marcus Agrippa of the army of Commodus felt a hot blush rise into his face. Who was he to go about startling innocent girls in the middle of the night?
"Forgive me, Lady. I only wished to discover why you are also sleepless this night." The woman smiled at him, although the fear did not quite leave her eyes.
"Please, call me Calliliana." She hugged herself with her arms, and Agrippa noted the thin robe that covered her. The maiden's stomach seemed ready to burst then and there, so greatly was she with child. "The child gives me such pain at times—and it is worse by far when I lay down. I did not wish to wake my husband, he is so very weary…so I thought I would simply steal out here and walk until the pain left me." Wild thoughts raced through the mind of Agrippa as he stared at her lovely face, which cast a spell about his senses in the surreal moonlight.
"You are a soldier of Rome," he thought to himself, his body tensed and at the ready, "you could have her now, here. There would be no one who could find out until you are so far gone that…" Without realizing what he was doing, Agrippa struck himself a hearty blow to silence the thoughts. He saw Calliliana's emerald eyes go wide with astonishment.
"What is wrong?" she asked, her voice quiet. He shook his head and stifled a groan.
"Nothing." He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at her, shivering now in the cool night air. "You are cold, Calliliana. Shall we walk a bit?" She nodded, though Agrippa thought that he sensed she wished he would leave her to her peace.
The Greek maiden showed the Roman about the gardens, naming each of the flowers they came across, and informing him as to their meanings. As they walked the perimeter of the grounds, the centurion found himself focusing more and more on the fact that there were no statues from the religion of Rome littering the place, as there were in every other household or villa he had ever been within. "Come to think of it," he thought to himself, "there was no altar, either." He turned to the girl, stopped her in mid-sentence. "What religion do you and your husband follow?" Marcus was surprised to see a hot blush once more cover the maiden's face, and a look of sheer terror fill her eyes.
"Why…why…we…" she stammered. "What can I do?" she thought to herself. "If I tell this man, he will most likely have myself and my husband imprisoned…perhaps killed! What of our child?" She stood there before him like a whipped child, her eyes downcast as her mind sought to weave an answer that would not be a falsehood, yet would not divulge the greatest and more precious secret of her family.