Awakenings

by D. Hinson

c2001 all rights reserved

Page 1

"I've sometimes thought the saddest words in "Gladiator" were "A long time ago..." In recognition of the conflict between Lucilla's renewed love for Maximus and her terror for her son, and the horrific choice she was forced to make, and because there is some part of me left kneeling alone in the dust and grieving both because my love isn't enough to make him stay, and for what will now never be, I offer this to make amends...

For Maximus and Lucilla...

Because they deserve a second chance.

Part 1

Lucilla slowly followed the party into the maze of dank rooms and halls under the Colosseum, and watched as they lowered Maximus' body onto a pile of straw. She looked one last time into the white still face, then turned abruptly away, her grief and sense of shame rising, reproachful and barely controlled, in her throat. To gain a moment's composure, she turned her back and glanced back out into the blazing sunlight of the arena. Commodus still lay there in a pool of blood, and the stands were emptying of spectators filing away in a stunned silence. She looked down, sensing a patch of wetness on her skirt. Her golden stola was smeared with dirt and blood. She turned her head and realized with a start that most of the men were looking to her for further instructions.

Quintus was shifting his feet nervously. She glanced at him.

"Send an honor party to bear the Emperor's body back to the Palace."

He looked relieved. "Yes, Domina." Then he turned to the Praetorians, snapped a terse order and marched them back out into the sun.

Gracchus, usually as fastidious and immaculate as a cat, also had fresh bloodstains on his sleeve and shoulder. He hurried over to her, anxious and shaken, as she had never seen him before. "Lady, we must hurry to the Senate. This needs to be discussed. Who can take over Caesar's role? Your son is young, there is much heavy responsibility to shoulder and he will need expert guidance..."

With an effort she focused her attention on the senator. "My son is indeed far too young to assume such a post."

Gracchus' eyes widened in alarm. "Highness, I beg you to consider! Your son is the only remaining heir of imperial blood and..."

She interrupted him. "No, Senator. He is not negotiable as a candidate for Emperor, and I won't tolerate such a proposal. I will not have him be a pawn between you and the Praetorians..."

All that filled her mind was Maximus' dead body lying in the dirt. Clenching her jaw she wrenched her attention back to Gracchus, who was speaking again, and cut him short.

"Senator, I am retiring to my country villa to grieve for the death of the Emperor my brother. I will send word to you when I wish to discuss the future. In the meantime, you and the Senate must restore order to the City."

He looked at her set pale face, bowed wordlessly and left.

Her attention was straying now to a small ritual that seemed to be taking place in the background. One by one the freed gladiators had begun to file past the body on the straw. Each, as he passed, stooped to murmur a few words or simply to touch the breastplate of the man who lay there.

The last to approach was Juba. He searched Maximus' face intently, then lifted his left hand to his chest and said softly, "Strength and Honor, my friend. We will meet again..." He paused a moment, then turned and strode for the door. At that moment Lucius yelped in astonishment and Juba, at the door, froze in mid-stride.

"The Spaniard... the... the General..." stammered Lucius. "I saw his hand move!"

He looked up at his mother in amazement as her fingers suddenly dug into his shoulder. Lucilla's heart gave a painful lurch, and an incredulous hope sprang into her eyes. As Juba turned back, she moved swiftly to kneel by the quiet, crumpled figure on the filthy pallet of straw. The Spaniard's hand was groping, blindly and uncertainly.

"Where is Galen?" Her voice was fierce and peremptory. "Fetch him. NOW!" Her maid had followed her down from the box, and she turned now and ran back to fetch the Imperial Physician.

While she waited with rising desperation, Juba joined her. Together they knelt and unbuckled Maximus' armour, pulling it clear, then carefully rolled him over onto his right side. The gray blue tunic was soaked with blood from waist to knee, and Lucilla knelt in a small pool.

Juba looked up at her and said in a flat, expressionless voice, "Your Emperor stabbed him when he was chained, before the fight."

Lucilla stared at him in shock. Galen arrived carrying his medical bag, knelt beside Maximus, and felt for a pulse on his throat. He looked up and shook his head.

"Dead men don't bleed. There is a spark of life, but it is feeble. Part of him has already crossed over..."

Lucilla demanded harshly, "Can you save him? We need him, Rome needs him..."

Galen replied severely, "That will be up to him... I think he is exhausted physically, emotionally, spiritually. You say he was a slave? Can you convince him to live?" He glanced at Lucius, who was gazing at Maximus in mingled awe and horror, and sighed, thinking that Caesar's daughter and Caesar's only grandson were not to be denied.        

"But of course I'll try..." he added reluctantly. He turned back to the body on the straw and slapped Maximus' face lightly. There was no response, and Galen forced a few drops of brandywine from the bag between his lips. Maximus drew a gasping breath, and his eyelids fluttered, but he did not respond any further.

Lucilla stood up and reeled slightly. Lucius took her hand anxiously in his and squeezed it. She looked down at him, took a deep breath and forced herself to smile reassuringly. She turned to Galen.

"Cover his face. Take him to the summer villa in my litter, and stay with him."

Galen quickly bandaged a thick wad of dressing to Maximus' back, then the wounded general was lifted into Lucilla's litter by Juba and another gladiator, smuggled out of the Colosseum and hurriedly borne to Lucilla's summer villa in the hills outside Rome. Lucilla and Lucius followed in a second litter, and when she had alighted she paused for a moment in the atrium as she sent Lucius off with his tutor and gave instructions to her steward. Her eyes followed the litter as it was carried down the hall to a room off her bedchamber.

"...And admit no guests here at all, unless it's Galen. None. I want an armed guard at the gatehouse and in the grounds. See to it."

The steward bowed. "Highness..."

She turned and hurried down the hall. Dusk was falling, and the east-facing room, which looked out over the vineyards and orchards of her estate, was already growing dark. Her maid went to the window to draw the curtains and then moved quietly around the room, lighting the oil lamps and braziers against the falling chill of an early autumn night so that the room was soon full of clear golden pools of light. Juba and Galen were bent over the still figure on the couch in the middle of the room. The discarded blue tunic had already been cut off and kicked into a corner, where it lay in a stiff, bloody pile. Maximus lay on his right side, covered by a sheet.

Lucilla knelt beside the couch. His face was gray and impossibly remote beneath the golden tan, a kind of peace smoothing over the cheekbones, his breathing shallow, faint and erratic. The short-cropped dark hair was matted with sweat, dust, and dried blood, the bruise high on his left cheekbone a livid purple and yellow stain. She glanced at his marked hands; his right hand was clenched, with Commodus' blood dry and brown on his fingers. Juba had begun to unbuckle his wrist guards and as they came away he glanced at Lucilla. She stifled a gasp. Both wrists were chafed raw from his chains the night before. Maximus moaned once, softly.

The sound of his pain, faint as it was, seemed to shatter her frozen disbelief and unleash instead a quick hot fury in her. She turned to her servant and snapped, "Bring us hot water, towels, bandages. NOW!"

Galen was binding Maximus' wrists with ointment and linen. Then he took out a long, very slender blunt blade. He glanced at Lucilla and said, "I'm going to have to probe this wound. Do you think you can hold him down?"

Lucilla looked at him, appalled. "Must you? He's already in pain..."

"Yes, I must know how deep this is. I can give him poppy crushed in wine later." He bent over the crumpled body.

She had hoped Maximus was unconscious, but at the probe's first touch, he gasped and his eyes flew open in shock. He looked dazed, as his blue-green eyes searched her face without recognition and his hand tightened fiercely on her wrist.

"What...?"

She stroked his soaked hair back off his forehead and whispered, "Maximus, it's all right...you're safe here..." but she heard him catch his breath on a sob of anguish as he stiffened, turned his face against the pillow and fainted. The coarse-spun under tunic had been driven deep, and pulling it free had opened the wound again. Blood welled slowly from the puncture. Panting and shaking with anger, she cried out, "Stop it, that's enough... Are you trying to kill him again?"

Galen grunted. "It's all right; I know now how deep it is, and the point didn't break off. They often do..." He straightened with an air of finality; he had seen many such cases. "Well, he's lucky - it hasn't pierced anything vital and it just missed his lung, Domina. But the next few hours will be critical – the blade was certainly poisoned, he's lost a lot of blood, and he's already fevered..." He looked across at her rigid face and added more gently, "I fear he has no will to live longer..."

Something long repressed was kindling in Lucilla's heart. Endless months of wariness, fear, and subterfuge fell off her. She stood up and looked down once more at the maimed and bloody body of the soldier on the couch.

"No," she snapped, with a flash of her father's imperious will. "You WILL save him…"  And he WILL live. I'll not lose him again."

Galen blinked and bowed his head silently in assent. As the old Greek physician swabbed and dressed the stab wound, Lucilla began to gently wash the dried blood, sweat and dirt from Maximus' scarred body, and cleaned and bandaged the deep slash on the back of his right leg. Galen left at midnight to return to his house for fresh ointments.

"Keep him warm - he'll fell chilled from losing so much blood. And try to get some water into him," he had added, turning to Juba. "You seem to be good at that..."

Juba nodded wordlessly, his face set.

Lucilla turned back to the couch. Maximus' bruised face, stark in its masculine beauty, was half hidden, and cushioned on his bent right arm, the dark lashes still on his cheeks. She soaked her softest cloth in the fresh steaming bowl of perfumed water beside her and, cupping his face gently in one hand, turned it toward her and began with infinite delicacy to blot away the marks of dust and dried sweat, trailing the cloth over the soft short beard and the moustache bracketing his parched lips, then slowly trickled the warm water through his hair and toweled it clean and dry again. Finally she rocked back on her heels, wondering what she may have forgotten. She sat for a long, long moment, watching his face, fevered and half drowned in shadows. New streaks of sweat gleamed on the clean lines of his throat and chest, and his hair lay dark and damp on the clear, high brow. She mused on how long she had known him, and realized with a start that he was still only 35. She felt lost and bemused by the world-weary eyes, the strong yet perfect oval of his face, and the beautiful, trained hands. She whispered, "Lucius is safe. The day is over... don't leave me alone in the night..."

An eternity seemed to have passed since they had met the evening before. She remembered the tenderness in his eyes, the touch of his hand on her cheek.

"I have felt alone all my life, except with you..."

Something in him had answered back to her then, surely. Had there had been some small corner of his heart still reserved for her after so many years?  She closed her eyes, shaking with silent tears.

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