It was one of those nights that are so cold the air almost burns when it rushes into one's lungs and the stars dance in a black sky, looking close enough to touch. Maximus stood alone on the portico of his house, wrapped in his heaviest winter cloak, the wolfskins tickling his neck where they were gathered close to his face. Another sleepless night, and he was walking the corridors and surrounds of his house.

"I at least know them in the dark," he muttered to himself. He was tired, but could not sleep. His body was weary, but he could not turn his mind off or control his thoughts, which - more and more - seemed to dwell on the small, capable form of one Lady Joanna. He told himself it was want of a woman - any woman; that desire, long held in check by grief, circumstance, anger and later, illness, had finally reasserted itself despite what he himself might want. "It's blind concupiscence," he thought, lust for lust's sake, with no particular target. But why, then, could he not rid himself of the images of Joanna that seemed to fill his mind?

He began to walk along the portico, his booted feet almost soundless - the naturally cautious walk of one used to caution for the sake of safety after years on various fronts with the armies of Rome. It happened more and more frequently. He'd be reading over a scroll of the latest accounts with his steward, and there she'd be, standing in a corner of his mind, her smile as bright as a summer's day, distracting him from the neat columns of figures. He didn't think he was consciously trying to dwell on her, but - there she was. He growled in frustration.

"What you need, my friend, is a woman." He had to restrain himself from actually going to the stable, saddling a horse, and riding hell-for-leather over the neighboring hills to her villa. That would not do at all! He stopped and stood, fists clenched in the heavy wool of the cloak, stomach taut, loins tight with the blood pulsing there, and wanting to howl at the moon.

Joanna didn't pace the halls of her villa, nor did she stand on her terraced portico and clench her teeth in frustrated lust, but she did find herself thinking of Maximus at the most inopportune times. Just that day, for instance, she had been blending perfume in her little herbalist's chamber, and a sniff of ambergris had suddenly brought the image of him into her mind. She had almost dropped the vial of precious oil in surprise, the impression he was right there in the room with her was so strong. She had managed to finish blending the scent, but knew every time she wore it from now on it would be associated with her neighbor - her childhood idol - and it would be disturbing.

He didn't seem to look upon her as a woman. Not an attractive woman, anyway. Perhaps he thought of her as one of those asexual females who live for their horses, hawking, hunting and other masculine pursuits and who were disinterested in anything to do with romantic activities. "Romance!" she chided herself in a whisper, "What you want, my girl, is a hot romp in the General's bed - and he totally unaware of your lust. Shame on you."

Her self-lecture did no good, however, because the image of Maximus didn't fade from her mind, instead, she found herself picturing him in all sorts of activities - everything from riding his horses to leading his soldiers into battle to even, heaven forbid, fighting in the arena clad in the rags of a slave-gladiator. That he hadn't been killed there was a miracle. She knew the former emperor had tried to remove his rival from the world of the living but hadn't succeeded thanks to skillful doctoring and care from people who loved him. "I care about him," she said in a soft voice. "I cared for him." She had - when he was ill and forced to stay in her house earlier in the winter, she had nursed him herself, seeing that he received the best possible care. And, she admitted, gazing at him with barely concealed hunger.

"I thought I was past that," she said to the glittering moon overhead. "I thought I would never want a man in my bed again - and now - Maximus." There was no answer to her plight forthcoming so she drew her warm cloak around her and continued to study the sky above her head. "Maximus," she whispered, and the wind carried her words away into the night. If only they could reach his ear, tell him she thought of him, wanted him. . .but, that was wishful thinking and of no use in real life.

"Maximus!"

He sat straight up in bed, startled out of sleep by the voice that had spoken directly in his ear. "Gaius?" he called out, thinking his manservant, a retired but young legionary who had served under him in Germania, had called him.

Gaius, upon hearing Maximus' voice, came on feet made awkward by sleep, rubbing tired eyes, but dutiful as always. "You wanted me, sir?"

Maximus smiled, waving a hand in apology, "No - no - I was dreaming is all. I thought you called me. Go back to your bed, but stoke up the fires first - it's cold as ice in here."

"Aye, sir," the younger man said, and went to do as he was asked. If he wondered at Maximus' dreaming, he said nothing. After all, with the life he had led, the General must have many dreams to trouble him. "And maybe some not so troubling, eh, Leo?" He scratched the ears of the big wolfhound that always slept at the door of Maximus' bedchamber, then went to add charcoal to the braziers. The sooner he did that, the sooner he could return to his bed.

He hoped there would be no further interruptions in his sleep that night; his bed was warm and comfortable, and he hurried so he could get back in it.

As for Maximus, after a short, restless interval, he returned to his somewhat troubled sleep. That voice, he thought, as he fell towards his dreams again, a woman's voice after all and not Gaius - and Lady Joanna's image popped into his mind's eye, brilliant as real. And she was smiling at him warmly. Before he could think of what that warmth meant, he was fast asleep.

Maximus Decimus Meridius - 184 AD Click on his photo for Chapter Ten