©2001 by WILDBEARIES

This story is based on characters created in the film, "Gladiator" and in no way intended to infringe upon those characters or the story of that film. References to real people are strictly the product of the writer's imagination and meant to entertain the reader.
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Maximus was so furious with Lucilla that he stayed out of the house until sundown forced him indoors. He spent the time working in the stables, cleaning out the old, neglected stalls and helping replace the burnt roof timbers. The stable building itself was not burnt, being of stone, but most of the roof was gone, burned in the Praetorians' revengeful fires the day they slaughtered Selene and Marcus. When the workers began eyeing him askance, he glanced around and realized it was almost dark, well past the hour they would normally have stopped work. They were only continuing because he was working, taking out his anger on the ruins of the building.

"I apologize," he said sincerely, "go to your quarters, eat heartily and rest an extra hour in the morning to make up for my temper." He wiped his filthy hands on a rag, sighed deeply at the prospect of facing his unwanted guests, and trudged up to the kitchen door. The cook and kitchen maids looked up in surprise as he came in, hastily giving him respectful nods, but obviously shocked at how dirty he was. He could hear them twittering behind him, something about "dirty as any common slave, for shame," which made him laugh to himself. He could tell them that he'd been far dirtier than this when he was a slave in Proximo's gladiator school, but why bother - they would probably not believe him anyway.

He walked down the rear hall, hoping he wouldn't run into Ana because he knew she would be annoyed with him for disappearing and leaving her to deal with their royal guest. Safe for the moment, he took off his soiled clothing in the little room adjoining the bed chamber, dropping them into as neat a pile as he could, given their muddy condition. He poured water from an ewer into a pottery bowl and washed off the mud and dirt, changing the water twice before he was finished. A bath would have been far preferable, but he didn't want to trouble Ana to have someone fetch warm water for him, especially since he suspected she would have given him the sharp side of her tongue. He pulled on clean trousers and shirt, choosing the ivory garments he had worn in Rome. If he was going to be late into the dining room, he was at least going to look decent.

Maximus sat down on the side of the bed and wrapped the trousers with the leather strips, crisscrossing them from calf to upper thigh, tying each strip at the top of his thigh and tucking the ends of the strip under neatly. He put on his best boots, then pulled on a tunic made from the finest, softest wool, the hems decorated with embroidery in gold, silver and blue. He put on his best belt, buckled the gilt buckles, then, as an afterthought, hung the Felix Legions medallion on its heavy chain around his neck. He neatened his hair with his tortoiseshell comb, peering into the polished steel mirror. He felt of his stubbled chin, but shrugged. Drusus was no longer acting as his aide, and he hadn't expected visitors during this personal time. Lucilla - former Augusta, possibly wife to some up and comer? - would have to endure his unshaven countenance. He was doing her enough honor by dressing as he had.

He put on his wide silver gilt cuffs, turned and came face to face with Ana, who had apparently been standing silently in the doorway for some time. "Ana, I'm sorry that I . . ."

She lifted a hand, forestalling him from further speech, "I know what you were doing, and I understand, but you left me to deal with her, which is not very kind of you."

He sighed, nodding, "I know, and I am sorry - but I cannot deal with her without anger, Ana, so I spent the afternoon working in the stables."

She moved nearer and sniffed him, "I don't detect any aura of horse or mud on you now." She reached up and touched his nose, "Except for this smudge." Ana fetched the wet cloth he had used and removed the offending bit of mud. "There, now you're perfect." She returned the cloth to the anteroom before turning to face him. "And if you ever leave me alone in a situation like that again, Maximus, I will dump a bucket of mud and manure over you myself."

She whisked out the door, leaving him gaping after her. He followed along, laughter welling up as he realized she had wanted to do just that now, only then she would have been alone with Lucilla even longer. He shook his head. His pocket Venus had a temper. It would not do for him to forget that too often.

He could hear the earnest young voice of Lucius, no doubt conversing with his mother about something. It gave him a turn for a moment - he could almost imagine little Marcus speaking so, only he had never reached the age Lucius was now. He tamped down the emotion the brief thought caused and entered the triclinium. "Good evening," he said politely, as though he hadn't been absent all afternoon and was just coming in the room on time.

As was his habit, he chose to sit in a chair rather than recline to eat, and when the servant would have filled his cup with wine and then added water, he instead chose to have only water. It was cold and clear, and he drank half of it off, not having realized how thirsty he was. He noted Lucilla looking at him from the opposite side of the room and set the cup down, his face impassive.

Lucius was staring at him, looking somewhat overawed, but when prompted by his mother, he nodded solemnly to Maximus, who nodded solemnly back, then grinned, causing the boy to grin in response. The boy bounced in his seat, missing the quelling look from his mother. "Sir, your horses are wonderful!"

"I am glad you enjoyed seeing them." Maximus was distracted by the server, who held the platter of roasted meats for him to choose from. He took several slices of the succulent roast pork and one of beef, then waved the man off. He broke the small fresh loaf of bread beside his plate into three pieces and dipped one in the meat juices, looking up to find Lucius' eyes on him. No doubt the boy had watched his every move, and Maximus realized the boy - his son - was suffering extreme hero worship. "So you still have a fondness for horses?" he asked Lucius.

"Oh, yes sir, I do!" the boy answered, eyes shining. "I want to raise horses some day myself - maybe even race them!"

"Lucius," his mother chided in a low voice, "let the general eat his food in peace."

Maximus gave her a look across the u-shaped arrangement of couches and small tables. "He isn't bothering me," he said firmly. He gestured to the server that he wanted some of each kind of vegetable he was offering. "And the apples," he added in a low voice. He looked up at Lucius, who was slightly red in the face from being admonished, but who wasn't really looking very repressed. "I will allow you a short ride on my horse Scarto tomorrow, if you wish."

The boy's eyes blazed, very blue in his fair-skinned face. "Oh, sir - is that not one of the horses you thought were lost to you?"

Amazed at the boy's memory of a discussion over a year in the past, Maximus nodded and smiled, "Yes, but it turns out my soldiers had him all along - he is hale and hearty."

Lucilla handed her son more bread and turned to speak to Ana, "Boys seem to love talk of horses and riding - and when they're older, they still love it, only then they ride to battle on them as well."

Ana nodded, keeping a polite smile pasted on her face when all she really wanted was to ignore all good manners and ask Lucilla, point blank, why she was there. She had wanted to do that all afternoon, but had kept her questions to herself, getting more and more annoyed with her husband, who had conveniently absented himself, until she had to practically sit on her hands to keep from yanking the former Augusta's precisely coiffed hair out by the roots.

"I'm sure it's difficult for you when Maximus - the general - rides off with his cavalry," Lucilla went on.

Ana didn't miss how she changed from calling him by his name to calling him by his title, a subtle way of reminding Ana of her previous acquaintance with Maximus, no doubt. She knotted her linen napkin, then noticed her husband's amused aqua gaze over the rim of his cup as he drank. She relaxed a bit and ate some of the delicious food on her largely untouched plate before answering. "So far, he hasn't ridden off with them. In fact, I've been with them since we left Ostia, and ridden at the front of the column with him."

"But not in battle, surely!" Lucilla exclaimed, somewhat sharply. It was clear that she thought the idea quite unsuitable.

Ana nodded, smiling happily, "Oh, yes, actually, I was in a battle with Maximus and some of his cavalry - in the woods of northern Hispania. It was very exciting."

Maximus almost choked on the bite of meat he was chewing. Exciting was, he supposed, one word to describe the fight to leave the captivity of the rebel legionaries that morning in the woods. He would have used some other terms to describe it - like dangerous, bloody and nerve-wracking. The latter because his wife was in the midst of the fracas. He managed to get the meat down without actually coughing, and covered up his actions by drinking more water, gesturing to a servant to refill his cup. Lucilla didn't appear to have caught it. Ana, however, sent him a brief, highly amused look. Trust her not to miss anything.

Lucilla turned to him just then, an inquiring look on her face, "Tell me, Maximus, how do you justify having your wife exposed to such danger? A battle in the woods of Spain? I would have run away screaming."

He quite remembered several times when they were both much younger when he had heartily wished Lucilla HAD run away screaming and not insisted on some headstrong course of action that got herself and him, her sometime escort and supposed protector, in hot water with her father, Marcus Aurelius. "I seem to recall some incidents in Germania," he said quietly, "when you insisted on being in the thick of things instead of staying back, out of danger."

Lucilla's eyes flashed, but she controlled it swiftly. "I was very young then," was her excuse.

"Ten years ago, you were twenty, hardly a child." Maximus said, somewhat impolitely revealing her age. Ana stifled a grin in her napkin while Lucilla's lips pressed together in a thin, aggravated line.

"And you were a gauche provincial centurion," she retorted, slapping her empty wine cup down on the table and gesturing for a server to refill it.

"Indeed," Maximus said, "I have never claimed to be other than that, Augusta." He turned and included Drusus and Antoninus in the conversation, since they, as the next senior officers at the farm after himself, were having dinner with the family and the guests. "Antoninus, anything interesting happen today?" He made it clear by changing the subject that he was not going to engage in a warm, friendly reminiscence with Lucilla. However much he may have loved her in the past, he was long since over it. In fact, love seemed to have changed into what could only be called impatient annoyance. Tomorrow, he decided, listening with one ear to his officers' description of some wild boar they had tracked and the number of former workers on his farm who they had passed through to seek jobs with him once again, tomorrow he would corner Lucilla and find out what she was after.

They closed the dinner with pears in cinnamon pastry, then Lucilla excused herself to escort her son to bed. The two centurions exited also, leaving Maximus alone for the moment with his wife. "I cannot abide her," Ana said when the room was empty.

"I realize that," he answered, "and I feel much the same way, now."

Ana rose from her place on the couch and came over to his chair. He gathered her into his arms and seated her on his lap. She stroked the soft fabric of his clothing. "You look very handsome tonight, Maximus. You look like an emperor to me."

He sighed, "Never that - though once Marcus Aurelius might have thought it. I would have hated it. I look very much like my father, actually - my mother always said he was blessed with looks but cursed with a bad temper."

She rested her head on his breast, toying with the fringes of his sleeves. "Tell me about him, you've never mentioned him."

Maximus tried to think of something nice to say about his father. Most of his memories of him were of angry eyes, an even angrier countenance, and a voice raised in furious insult to both Maximus' mother and himself. "He had a loud voice," he finally told Ana. "He rode well, and he treated his horses well."
Ana tipped her head back to look at him. "That's all? He was your father - did he not have affection for you, and you for him?"

"I don't believe so, no," Maximus answered honestly. "He was a - difficult person." With a strong right arm and a quick temper, though he only thought that, he didn't voice it.

Ana sat up slightly and turned his face to hers, palms against his cheeks. "Maximus - did he - did he abuse your mother?"

"Yes," he answered shortly, wishing she had not started this line of discussion. "Ana, I'd rather not talk about him, if you don't mind." He tried kissing her, hoping to change her mental gears. It did not, of course, work.

"He abused you as well, didn't he?" She fingered a tiny, hairline scar on his left jaw - one that had obviously been there since his youth. When his eyes shifted and he took a second longer than normal to answer, she knew she had hit on the truth. "Never mind, then," she said, "I see that it was so. You may look like him, carus, but you are not him. You are a good and kind man, and even if you did leave me alone with that woman today, I forgive you for it."

"Magnanimous, as always," he teased her. He got out of the chair, lifting her up and setting her on her feet beside him. "I'm worn out, is there a bed in this house for me?"

Ana took his hand and led him out the door and up the main stairs. "Yes, your own bed, my lord. I've put our visitors in the second best bedroom - they came unannounced so they can jolly well sleep in the only other bedroom ready for occupancy."

"Queenly, aren't you?" he teased as they shut their bedchamber door.

"In my own home, I should hope so."

Maximus grinned, liking how fast his farm had become his darling little wife's "own home". "Come here then, little queen, I have a royal scepter wanting to get acquainted with your hand."

Ana actually fell for his ploy, and when she allowed him to take her hand, squealed with laughter when he swiftly darted her hand under his tunic and onto his shaft, which was straining against the soft flannelled trousers.

"A royal scepter indeed," she said, giggling. She allowed him to hold her hand in place, but when she leaned up on tiptoe and began kissing him, stroking the thick, hard shaft with her strong fingers, it was shortly very clear just who was going to control any kingly - queenly interaction that night. Indeed, it was the owner of the scepter who knelt to the woman holding it, and he who capitulated to her wants. After all, the giving was so pleasurable, why quibble over who was on top?

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Copyright 2001 by wildbearies

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