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Awakenings by D. Hinson c2001 all rights reserved
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Part 2
Birdsong, and a waft of fresh air over his cheek, air not like that which he remembered from the Colosseum, or Proximo's compound. That had always reeked of animal dung, ancient sweat, and dried blood. This was different...cleaner...
His eyelids felt too heavy to bother opening. Pain that arced and dissolved and recrystalised with each breath he drew seared through his back. Dreams, memories, images flitted, confused, through his mind - the white-hot shock of Commodus' stiletto, the heavy jar of sword blows down his arm, the warm blood dripping down his leg, the taste of dust in his mouth and the sound of his own panting loud in his ears... Commodus slowly crumpling between his hands, his face a frozen, harsh mask of hatred and surprise... his sense of relief, a burden laid down... Then a slowly tilting world, Lucilla's face as she ran toward him, Lucius' silky brown hair gleaming in the sun, just behind her... the door in the ancient stone wall...and the welcome relief of finally falling and not feeling the ground rise up to meet him, and knowing with an absolute clarity there were no more decisions to make now, nothing was important anymore... except...
Except...there was something else...
The sound of his name, a dazzlingly blue sky, and Lucilla's face wet with tears bending over him. Why was she crying? Lucius was safe... She used to laugh more... but she had said, "Go to them," and his family was waiting... So he had nodded to her, and she had said something else then, her hair an aureole of golden fire against the glaring pitiless sky, and he had meant to smile at her and tell her he couldn't hear her but... but now... now he was too tired to understand anymore, or know anything except the last fleeting impression of the heavy breastplate crushing down like a scalding iron fist on his chest, a field of wheat, and a road ahead, and the feather touch of her fingertips on his eyelids.
Golden wheat, each perfect ear alive and dancing languidly in a warm breeze... his hand trailing through, the sensuous touch flicking over his palm, between his fingers... the teasing giddy sound of children laughing, oddly muted... He had always loved the harvest time. Ahead, at the foot of the sloping field, was the familiar road to his home, the poplars black against the sky. And on it, walking slowly, those two beloved figures.
His wife and his son... The teasing, backward glance of her face, framed by her long black hair, her supple grace as she bent to the boy, tore through him with a dizzying sense of yearning.
The suffocating weight off his chest, as his breastplate was removed, and the deep grateful gasp of air he had tried to draw, which had been met only by a searing anguish in his back. Then the world seemed to contract even further to a jolting endless ride in a litter, more pain as something... someone...probed the wound. He remembered someone's hand, and a face, but the pain had risen up so high he had given up trying to fight it and fainted again. Then a long, long sense of time passing in that tranquil wheat, with Selene's voice hanging in the still golden air...
"Life is for the living, Maximus. We love you... we will always love you and we will always wait here for you. Our time was stolen from us, but you still have your life to live. We will wait for you..."
And then a thunderbolt crashed in an explosion of white light beating against his eyelids. The bird singing again, and the scent of Persian roses and his own desperate thirst... He was suddenly aware of another voice, from another time, long ago, one once almost equally beloved... the second voice breaking in...
A seemingly endless night had faded slowly into day, and the dawn was rising up over the hills and orchards. Lucilla had changed to a simple dark blue robe and stola, her hair loose and her face older and etched with grief. She had been unable to sleep, tired as she was, but had been slowly pacing back and forth like a caged lioness. Juba was asleep on the floor at the foot of the bed. Maximus lay on his right side on a white sheepskin and propped by cushions, so that Lucilla could change his dressing every hour, but now she was crouched by the side of the couch.
"Maximus..." The word was barely uttered, barely breathed out of the depths of Lucilla's heartache, as she bent over his still hand. "Maximus... by all my ancestors, you must come back to us..."
As the wheat spread tawny and serene around his confused, uncertain footsteps, he faltered and listened.
"We will wait for you...your time is not yet..."
And Selene's voice, grave and kind, faded into nothing...
"Maximus..." The second voice again, full of an aching tenderness and pleading.
Through her despair, Lucilla sensed a subtle, deep-lying change. There was a sudden shudder, his hand stirred, and he took a deep breath ending on a gasp. His eyes opened - sunken deep, dark shadowed and fever bright. The look of distant peace on his face had fled; now there were harsh lines etched on his forehead and around his eyes, his mouth clenched in a kind of weary endurance.
"What...what has happened...?"
Her heart contracted at the dazed exhaustion in his voice. Galen's last words echoed back to her. "I have done as you requested, Domina. But I don't think he will be pleased..."
"You said go to them." His voice was hoarse, ragged, and almost inaudible.
She smiled down at him and said, trying to put a lightness in her voice she did not feel, "You are safe now, Maximus. Safe with me. We couldn't just… leave you there in the sand..."
He tried to push himself up but his eyes closed as he winced in sudden pain and he arched his back slightly, gasping, "Why not? You said go to them! I was home. For a time... and then..."
She gently pushed him back down on the pillows and retorted, "Maximus Decimus Meridius, General of the Felix Legion, my father would not have given you leave to abandon your post and your duty to Rome."
She slid her arm beneath his head and held a goblet of water to his lips; he drank slowly and with an effort for several moments before closing his eyes again.
"Why didn't you let me go...?"
She said urgently, "Listen to me, Maximus. Rome may need you more than ever. The Senate... None of that is important! I - Lucius and I - need you! Not all those who loved you in the past are gone. You have a life ahead of you - worth the living..."
He lay still, his head cradled and heavy on her arm, as though marshaling all that remained of his strength. He finally forced his eyes open again; she read only rejection in them. He whispered in numbed despair, "Do I? I have nothing left..." And he turned his head away. "Why didn't you let me go...?"
She said strongly, "No, you are wrong. You have so much left, so much to live for..."
He was silent, then a look of bewilderment crossed his face and he whispered faintly, almost wistfully, "Selene said it was not time yet..." and his eyes began to drift shut. She saw he was fading back into unconsciousness.
She called to him softly, "Maximus, Maximus, Selene is right - life is for the living - and you belong here still..."
He was silent. In the gray dawn light a movement caught her eye. With a faint start she realized Juba was watching her.
He said simply, "Lady, if you love him, you must let him go..."
She choked, looked up at him and replied, "But I do love him, I want him to live... not die, like... like this."
He studied her face and then said very gently, "He is not yours to hold on to... You must let him decide for himself."
She carefully pulled her arm from beneath the dark head and made sure the pillow was comfortable beneath it, then went to the window and threw the shutters wide to let in the pale light. The rose bush next to the window was shedding its blooms; the dark red petals lying loose and dead on the stone made her shudder. Clenching the marble railing she fought down her urge to weep. Finally, she lifted her chin and turned back to Juba to sit next to him.
"Tell me how you met him..?" she asked simply.
***
It was later that day, and late summer threw its heat down onto Rome like a hammer on an anvil. Juba looked out over the shimmering, empty expanse of the Colosseum. Near the Imperial Box, two rust red stains still marred the white, burning expanse of sand. He whispered, "Now we are free..." Then he turned back to run lightly down the back stairs into the deserted holding chamber beneath the lift and began to search. The empty chains and manacles hung mute, swaying slightly in the fetid currents of air. Two shifty animal keepers, recognising him, watched furtively and whispered to each other, but broke apart and moved away when he straightened up and glared at them. Finally he found what he was looking for, a small leather bag lying scuffed and dusty in a corner. He picked it up and shoved it into his robes with a pleased smile, turned and left.
Even in the airy hills two miles outside the vast city, the villa felt the oppressive heat. It was mid-afternoon when Lucilla returned to the room from spending half an hour with Lucius. Maximus lay soaked with his fever, the sheets damp and tumbled in his restlessness. His eyes were open but blind, his hand cramped around a fold of sheet. He had not uttered a sound since he had regained consciousness briefly that morning and his mute, lonely suffering tore at her heart more than anything else.
Galen was bent over him checking the stab wound. He looked up, his usually suave and cheerful face concerned. "I need to change the dressing. This poultice isn't working."
Lucilla looked at the wound. The area around it was bruised with the force of Commodus' blow, but the clean-edged wound itself was slowly welling with blood. "Can't you give him something to make him more comfortable?"
"I can give him poppy. It will make him sleep, but it won't help the fever. That must run its course."
"Then do it," she said and turned to her maidservant. "Anna, fresh sheets and cushions. And more water. Cool, this time – I think..."
Galen was busy at the small table. He turned now and brought over a goblet of wine and infused poppy, and tried to get his patient to drink. But Maximus turned his head, and dazedly sought to push the goblet away.
Juba, a dark and serene presence, spoke up. "Come, let me do it..." Lucilla looked around in surprise; she had not even heard him enter the room. He slid his arm beneath Maximus' head. "Come, my friend. This will help you sleep." He forced some of the warm drink between Maximus' lips, who choked weakly. Juba lay his head back on the pillow, reached into his own robe, pulled out the tiny pouch, and slipped it beneath Maximus' hand. "We are free now, my friend. Our lives are our own again, and a gift of the Gods." Voices broke through Maximus' dark mist of despair and grief.
"We will wait for you...your time is not yet..."
"Selene is right - life is for the living - and you belong here still..."
"...a gift of the Gods."
But there were no Gods, surely...
Nothing made sense, but at least the fierce agony in his back was slowly ebbing away into a dull ache. He lay still and let the thick grey fog roll over his confused mind.
Part 3
"...These were the wishes of Marcus Aurelius..."
She had been awake for most of the past seventy-two hours, and Galen had sent her off to bed impatiently a short time before. He had promised to awaken her if his patient required anything, but as she swept anxiously into the room, she saw by the single small oil lamp guttering away that he too, was fast asleep in his chair, and looking quite disgracefully comfortable. She moved to the side of the couch. Maximus' eyes were open, glittering feverishly bright and unseeing. She bent and murmured his name, but he did not reply. She touched the back of her hand to his forehead; it was icy and damp. She turned to the small brazier and bent to wring out a cloth in the bowl standing there. Good, the water was still warm...
Galen, who prided himself on his ability to catnap, opened his eyes and watched Lucilla as she softly turned back to the wounded general and gently bathed his face and hands. He had known her for years since she was a child, and had tended her dying husband. Her dedicated and affectionate nursing of Lucius Verus had impressed him during his last long illness. But her behaviour now moved him on a deeper level. Where there had once been patience, and a kindly love, now there was a passion, dedication, and tenderness in her every move.
Maximus muttered something and moved uneasily. She bent again and held her hand softly to his ashen cheek, whispering to him. He turned his head as if to seek her hand, sighed and closed his eyes. After a minute she straightened, gently moved her hand away and unclasped her heavy velvet cloak and laid it over him, arranging a fold to brush his face where her hand had rested.
Galen arose and walked over to her. She was shivering now slightly, rubbing her bare arms briskly. She turned and smiled wanly at him and he smiled back, resting his hands kindly on her shoulders.
"Go to bed, child. I promise I will call you if he needs you...!"
She said, rather bewildered, "I think he just did!"
He removed his own mantle and wrapped it around her shoulders. "He needs you now to be strong and well for him. You can't help him if you are overtired and ill yourself!"
She smiled in gratitude at him but then sighed, her eyes turning back to the couch. "I don't know what I can do for him. His heart is burdened with too many deaths..."
"And his body has been tortured and wounded. Yes. Whether he pulls through depends on his will to live. There is something - still - holding him to life. Something in him that does not want to die, not yet. I don't think he knows it, himself." He glanced at the couch thoughtfully. "It is the finest of threads, but you will have to find it and twist it into something stronger. I think you know what that is..."
She bit her lip, twisting her hands together, and said anxiously, "I cannot make him want to stay with me. If I can only persuade him he has a future as well as a past..." She made a despairing gesture. "Can love alone bring him back?" She looked at Galen, suddenly very young and earnest. "Have you known it to happen before?"
The old Greek physician kissed her forehead. "Yes, I have. And I think if it is at all possible in this case, than you, my dear, can do it. And I am here to help you any way I can. Now go to bed. I mean it, Domina. Now!"
She chuckled faintly at his familiarity, went softly back to the couch and bent to kiss Maximus' forehead, then left the room for her own bedroom, clutching Galen's cloak around her.
Galen shivered and then went back to the bed to check on the wounded general. The clenched, tense expression of suffering around Maximus' eyes and mouth had eased, and he seemed to be sleeping more comfortably than earlier. Galen reflected that perhaps the cycles of fever and chills had finally broken. The morning would tell. In the meantime, he blew on the embers of the brassier until they glowed red. There was an untouched bowl of broth on the table. He placed it on the brassier to warm through and went out to the atrium to pull a blanket off his slumbering servant. Snugly wrapped up again, he quietly finished the bowl of warm soup and settled back to catnap until dawn.
***
Another day, another night passed by slowly, wearily. Galen was disappointed in his hopes, for his patient remained lost in fever and restless delirium. But at dawn on the fifth morning, he murmured for water, his voice a barely audible whisper. Lucilla had been standing at the window, watching the dawn light strengthen across the hills. The birds were beginning to sing, and the scent of her favourite roses was stealing into the room. Outside in the stables and farm buildings there was the far-off muted sound of men getting up to go out to the fields. Harvest would be soon.
Hearing the faint murmur, she hurried back to the couch, slipped her arm beneath his head and held a goblet to his lips. Maximus drank slowly, and his hand cupping hers trembled. She gently stroked his cheek and said softly, "Maximus, you must listen to me. The dagger was poisoned. This is the poison in your body working now. The doctor says you will be better soon, but you must let me look after you. Do you understand me?"
For the past four days Maximus' life had balanced on a knife-edge as the poison burned through his body. For what seemed like an eternity he had wandered alone over the dark fields of wheat. The light had faded, and neither Selene, nor his son was there. He felt only confusion, loneliness and a numb weariness. And still hanging in the air, like a dim echo, were Selene's last words. "Life is for the living, Maximus... you still have your life to live. We will wait for you..."
But gradually, imperceptibly, at the edge of his consciousness, as though just outside his direct vision, he had become aware of another constant presence, one that was vibrantly loving and gentle, with red gold hair and the tenderest of hands, someone who brought cool water, changed his dressing, eased the dull persistent agony in his back. Slowly, slowly, miraculously, he sensed a shift in the starved and barren landscape he had wandered alone for so long in; Selene's love and his desire to join her had faded from being the door in the ancient wall to something more like the wall itself. Her love was ever-present and eternal, like that wall, a bulwark and a support behind him. It would be there for the rest of his life. And he sensed there was a dawning new light on the horizon. He somehow felt that Selene herself would not have disapproved.
He could feel now the long forgotten softness of velvet against his cheek and beneath his left hand, the familiar touch of the little leather pouch, and his fingers tightened around it. He did not know how long his eyes had been open, did not even remember opening them. But gradually as his sight cleared there swam into focus a face, that same face he remembered against a blue sky, crowned with red gold hair, and he knew his right hand was cradled between her own. He realized she was speaking.
"...but you must let me look after you. Do you understand me?"
His blue-green eyes rested on her face, and finally he whispered, "Yes. I thank you..."
She bent and, kissing his forehead, said gently "You're too weary to fight anymore, my general. You must let me do it for you now."
He murmured, "Don't go..." and his fingers moved to curl around hers with a sudden strength that surprised her.
She replied, "Not as long as you want me here..."
He repeated, "Don't go... don't go..." with such an underlying note of quiet desperation she caught her breath. She sank to her knees beside him so that their eyes were level and said softly, "Maximus, I'm here! If you want me here, I'll never leave again..."
His eyes searched her face wonderingly.
"It was you... in my dreams."
She nodded wordlessly with tears in her eyes. His fingers strayed among a fallen lock of her red-gold hair.
"You brought me back..."
She had to ask the question that had tormented her for the past days. "Was I wrong?"
He was silent for a long moment. A slow smile was dawning in his tired eyes, and he finally breathed, "No..."
She smiled back at him. Her sense of relief was so overwhelming a tear ran down her cheek, and he raised his hand slowly to brush it away. She rested her cheek on the pillow next to his and he closed his eyes momentarily in a long sigh of release. After a moment, she heard him murmur, his lips against her hair, "Lucilla, what do I have to give you? I have too many memories..."
She raised her head, gently opened his hand and kissed its palm, whispering, "We can make new ones of our own, Maximus. Only let me try!"
The last fleeting shadows of doubt and uncertainty finally began to fade from his face, and the smile was curling quietly at the corners of his mouth. He whispered, "Perhaps we'll both try..."
"Hush now... You are safe here; nothing will harm you. Go to sleep..."
His eyes, still on her face, gradually closed and he finally slept.
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