Awakenings

by D. Hinson

c2001 all rights reserved

Page 3

Part 4

It was late morning. Galen walked soundlessly into the small room from his usual stroll in the herb garden. The room was drenched with sunlight - something unusual to him, as it had been kept dark and quiet over the last five days. The Lady Lucilla had even ordered straw lay down in the courtyards to keep down the clatter of hoofs and wagons. He paused in the doorway.

Lucilla and Maximus were both asleep. The look on his patient’s face was one of tranquility and peace, and the tense, strained look had faded away. Lucilla was sitting on the floor; her head cushioned on the edge of the bed, and with Maximus’ lean hand cradled against her cheek. His fingers were still entwined in her bright hair.

Galen walked forward, and bent over her to touch her shoulder. A quick, searching glance at the sleeping general had told him all he needed to know, and he felt a sudden surge of professional pleasure, but for now he wanted to get the exhausted Lucilla to her own bed. She was fast asleep and he needed to nudge her twice before she awoke. She protested sleepily but then let him escort her back to her bedroom. Her maid tucked a coverlet over her, closed the curtains and left her to sleep.

Galen returned to the antechamber and his patient. Maximus was watching him, the reserved blue green eyes under their level brows patient and distantly amused. Galen sat down, drew his mantle around him and surveyed him clinically. He still looked slightly fevered, his dark hair tousled and damp but his eyes were clear, and the bruise on his cheekbone was fading.

Galen leaned his chin on his hand. "I am Galen, Court Physician to his late Imperial Majesty, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius."

Maximus nodded once courteously.

"So, how do you feel?"

Maximus drew a careful breath, and smiled faintly. "I’ve felt better..."

Galen laughed. "It could have been worse, I assure you."

Maximus looked away, his lashes drooping and a faint look of wry disbelief on his face. Finally he spoke again, his voice low and rasping. "I’ve been in enough army hospitals to know when not to argue with a doctor." There was a long pause, and Galen waited. "How long..?"

"Four nights ...nearly five days. We almost lost you. "

Maximus looked out the window at the hillside and fields, the look on his face unfathomable, then surveyed the velvet cloak and lavish brocade cover on the bed, and raised a quizzical left eyebrow at Galen.

"The Lady..?"

"The Lady Lucilla has hardly left this room for the past five days.

Maximus was silent again and then said in a quietly musing voice "I owe her much..."

"Indeed, you owe her much... Now, let me check you over..." He rose and gently but implacably pushed Maximus on to his side. The weal marks on his shoulders were fading. Galen removed the dressing on the stab wound and sniffed it and then prodded the wound. Maximus flinched with a harsh intake of breath, but the old Greek doctor was smiling in satisfaction.

"Good, that last dressing worked well! It’s finally starting to knit together. It took a few days for me to find the right poultice..."

Galen eased him back on the piled silk pillows. The sharp thrust of pain had exhausted the last reserves of Maximus’ concentration, and the room was beginning to tip and slide. The old man’s voice was echoing from a great distance.

"Well, we can get rid of these, at any rate..." Galen continued. He pulled out a small razor-sharp knife, slit the bandages on Maximus’ wrists and removed them. "For now - you need rest, food and drink. You’ve lost a lot of blood, and you’ve eaten nothing for almost a week, I’d hazard a guess..."

Maximus murmured drowsily "I’m not hungry... maybe later. But no soup..." Unbidden, the memory of Lucilla’s lips kissing his palm came flooding back. He smiled to himself in bemused relief and then slid back into sleep.

***

There was a cold wet... something ... thrust into his open hand. A big shaggy head pushed under it and he heard a plaintive whine. He opened his eyes with a start to see a wolf leaning against the side of the couch, brown eyes gazing anxiously into his face. The wolf gave an ecstatic shiver when she realized he was awake and squirmed, tail thrashing, in delight. There was an alarmed gasp and a voice whispered "Oh, Lupa! Get DOWN!!"

He focused with an effort on Lucius sitting on the floor beside the bed in a pool of sunlight. The boy scowled at the wolf and ordered "Lupa, go sit!"

The wolf slunk away to a corner and lay down morosely. Lucilla’s son was cross-legged and, with his tongue sticking out in concentration, busily polishing an all too familiar breastplate. He looked up and smiled cheerfully at the gaunt figure on the bed.

"I’m sorry, sir, that Lupa woke you up. My mother told me Galen says you are over the worst. So I thought I’d clean this up for you! " He struggled to hold up the unwieldy, heavy armour for inspection. "How does it look?"

A sardonic smile glimmered obscurely at the corner of Maximus’ mouth. He murmured, "and where did you learn to clean armour, young man?"

"From Quintus" came the reply.

"Ahhh, of course..." said Maximus, and was silent.

Perplexed by his noncommittal answer, the boy turned back to the breastplate, thinking hard. After a few moments he said, "so this one is Argento and this one is Scarto. Who was your favorite? I have a white pony, too! I can canter bareback now."

His face clouded momentarily as he examined a recent scrape on his elbow. "Well, I did fall off last week..."

A faint chuckle came from the bed. "You should keep your heels down!"

Lucius sighed ruefully, "I know, that’s what my father used to tell me all the time!" He rubbed a little harder on the scrape, then looked up with a conspiratorial air. "Would you like some fresh honey cakes? Mama has had to go into Rome for the past day or so, and I know the pastry cook and she always lets me steal some in the morning!"

Maximus considered this gravely and was surprised to find himself hungry. He said, "I'm starving! I’ll have one if you do." Lucius beamed happily and ran out the curtained archway leading onto the terrace, followed by the wolf.

Maximus lay back on the couch, eyed a small pile of clothes - sandals, a tunic and a mantle - on a chair by the window, and lazily tried to work out what day it was. All his senses seemed extraordinarily acute and vivid - the touch of the coverlet on his body, the breeze from the open window lifting his tousled hair, the sound of a wood dove calling plaintively in a tree near the window and a horse stamping in the distant stables. But somehow his mind refused to stay focused. None of this was a surprise - there had been wounds enough from half-forgotten battles for him to find it very familiar. That spearman in Gaul... Selene had been appalled when he returned home unexpectedly on sick leave. But her memory now no longer brought that inconsolable wave of grief he had known for the past two years. He smiled tenderly at the thought of her and drew a deep breath of the clean fresh country air, trying to clear the muzziness away, only to grunt in exasperated discomfort as the healing wound in his back pulled. Suddenly sleepy again, he decided to doze while waiting for the boy to return. After all, who knew how far away this mythical cook and her kitchen was?

But a drift of Persian rose wafted across his nose. It was deeply, hauntingly familiar, and he opened his eyes again to see Lucilla walk quietly into the room, followed by a servant with a tray.

Lucilla had been standing in the door away for a few moments watching him. His face was turned to the sunlight. His mouth suddenly tightened impatiently, and he closed his eyes and turned his head away from the light to doze. But even as she watched him, his eyes suddenly opened again to look straight at her and, to her own disbelief, there leapt into them a look such as she had not seen for ten years - a look of such vulnerable yearning and love that she drew a deep breath herself. There had been moments in the last six or seven days when she had felt as though she was moving, dazed through a dream of terrified and powerless love. And now? Automatically she beckoned the maid to place the tray down and leave.

Maximus forced himself higher up on the pillows and held out his hand. She took it and he drew her close to kiss it softly three times.

She cradled it against her cheek and he eased back against the piled cushions. She caressed his face with both hands, as she had not dared do since the evening he had been brought to the villa, tracing a finger down his jawbone, tenderly brushing his soft beard and tracing over his mouth. He closed his eyes, almost as if in disbelief, and his lips parted in a quick intake of breath. She kissed his lips, and his hand moved to her shoulder to pull her closer still. She was half-sobbing, half-laughing, with happiness, tears sparkling in her eyes, but pulled back.

"No... Stop! Galen will be furious with me if I tire you!"

He chuckled and dropped his hand. Flustered, she turned away to fuss over the tray for a moment, then turned back, tilted her head and surveyed him.

"Would you like something to eat?"

"I can only remember soup lately", he said with a wry grimace.

"I can’t say you’ve been a model patient over the last day or so! Or so I’ve been told. I’ve got some cakes, cheese and cider."

"You’re a very good nurse," he stated simply.

"I had a lot of practice... Lucius’ father was very ill for a long time before he died." She poured him a cup of cider and placed a plate of honey cakes within his reach.

He smiled and observed, "If those are the same cakes Lucius has gone raiding for, he’s going to be disappointed."

As he slowly began to eat, she wondered how much to tell him, how much to let him know. The Senate was disintegrating into squabbling and fractured groups, and Gracchus had failed in trying to bring them together. She felt his eyes on her and looked up.

"How is Gracchus faring?"

"Do you really want to talk about this now?"

"Yes."

"Not well... Septimius Severus may well be our last hope to restore any sense of order."

He pushed the plate away and was silent for several moments, then said, "I’m getting up later."

Momentarily horrified, she blurted, "No, you are not."

"Oh yes I am ", he growled, and his chin came up in that old defiant gesture she remembered from ten years before.

She glared at him for a moment, and then decided to change the subject. But he was already ahead of her.

"You have Lupa," he observed.

She had not wanted to grieve him with that subject. "Cicero asked me to take her."

"Cicero..." his voice softened. But after a moment his eyebrows shot up in surprise, and he repeated. "Cicero?"

"Oh, yes, I’d met Cicero before! He came to me in Germania after my father...died, and asked if I would take your wolf. The whole legion had sent a delegation to him. With you suddenly missing they feared for the wolf. You know soldiers - how superstitious they are. He asked me to keep the wolf safe. So I brought her back, and now she only listens to Lucius." She smiled wryly, adding "And I have something to give you".

He looked puzzled as she left the room, and he heard her call to her servant. A few moments later the servant returned with a large bundle. Lucilla turned back to him.

"I sent to Cicero’s quarters in Ostia for his belongings. Somehow I had hoped that..." Her voice trailed off as she opened the bundle.

There lay his parade armour from the Vindobona camp, with the deep russet fur-trimmed cloak on top.

return to top