For Jo, for her birthday January 18th

By Atonia Walpole

She laid a hand on his chest. “You won’t be going away again?”

“No. No, I won’t be going.”

“I prayed you would come and yet…not...for I knew what it would mean. You have suffered much.”

“I would suffer a thousand deaths. It was only a small step.” He took her hand and walked out onto the grass.

“He rides well, our son.”

“You taught him well. You see he keeps his heels down.” She looked into his face. His eyes met hers for a moment. A quickening of the heart.

“It’s been replanted and this time I shall see the harvest.” Maximus raised his chin, looking over the fields surrounding his home.

“All is as it was. We only waited.”

“There is a different air here. It is clean and pure ,no smell of dust or…death…blood.”

“Only the sweet smell of earth.” She took a breath and his arm.

“No conflict here. I will admit, Joimus, that it will take some getting used to.” He smiled slightly. “But it is what I dreamed of for many years. You will never know how I longed for home.”

“I think I might. It could be no more than I longed for you to come home. The days were long and the nights longer.”

Maximus held her close for a soft kiss.

She pulled away and he caught her hand.

“Come. I have prepared a feast for you. For your homecoming a special wine.”

“You are the only wine I drink.” He pulled her back into his arms and kissed her deeply.

“You’d better save your thirst for the bedchamber.” She teased him and pulled him along with her to the terrace where cool wine and savories waited.

He drank the wine and sampled the food while she watched.

“You were a great man, Maximus."

“I once was in the presence of greatness, Joimus, but it was not mine; it was Marcus Aurelius'.  I do not believe his like will see Rome again. I served him to the end. I think he would have understood how it had to end.”

“No more talk of Rome. You will not be leaving as a soldier again.”

“No,” he smiled, “I am at last a farmer.” He sipped the wine. It was cool and crisp on his tongue.

No more soldiering and no more battles to fight. No smell of dust…no arenas of blood and death. Only peace with the woman he loved, the woman who shared his very soul, his flesh and his child.

“Is it still the same?”

“Is what still the same?”

He looked into his cup with a little smile and a light in his eyes. How could she know where his mind had traveled? “The bedchamber.”

Joimus smiled. “Shall I show you?”

He looked up at her, suddenly remembering, “It is your birthday and I have no gift.”

“You have come to me at last. That is my gift. Do you think trinkets and baubles could ever turn my eye when you are here?”

He rose from the bench. “Come and I will show you the true meaning of my gift to you.”

A quick intake of breath and she rose with him. “I am ready to receive it.”

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