Chapter Text
Imperial Palace, Rome, today.
Slowly, as if waking from a long, deep dream, Lucilla opened her eyes. She blinked a few times until the multicoloured glass mosaic in the vaulted dome above her came back into sharp focus. The golden light of the afternoon sun refracted in the countless shards, bathing the damp vapour drifting lazily under the ceiling in a surreal play of colours.
The echo of her memories still reverberated through her mind; of the dogged struggle for a shared future with Maximus, her bitter defeat, and finally the shocking revelation of Commodus' feelings for her.
And now, that which was unthinkable at the time had actually come to pass: Lucilla had lost control of her brother, had overstepped the mark, had squandered his favour. And just as she had feared, he now wanted to and would finally force his long-awaited, triumphant entry into her bed. With Lucius as leverage.
Just thinking about it, Lucilla involuntarily balled her hands into fists under water and clenched her teeth so tightly that they gnashed.
Commodus' desperate need for love and praise had not diminished one iota in all the years since Corfu, no matter how much attention Lucilla had given him. It was as though he were a bottomless pit, his heart an eternally hungry, greedy maw.
His craving for applause was so obvious by now, not only to Lucilla and the Senate, but even to the common people, that it was pitifully pathetic. This Emperor was willing to do anything to earn Rome's goodwill; if only he would finally be adored by 'his children'.
Lucilla snorted cynically. Commodus was truly a figure as glorious as he was miserable, who was perishing bit by bit from being unloved. But unfortunately, not fast enough: she had been too optimistic about his downfall; despite all the coup attempts, her brother had prevailed.
And now she no longer enjoyed the protection of his infatuation, which had hitherto protected her from the other, darker facets of his personality: from his single-minded, ruthless ambition, his moral coldness and his crystal-clear sense of power. As pathetic as Commodus could be on the one hand, he could be fearsomely dangerous on the other; for despite his insane need for recognition, he was and still remained the most powerful man in the world.
And Commodus was fully aware of this.
With a mixture of anger and hopelessness in her heart, Lucilla slid off the curved bathing lounger, swam silently to the marble steps and emerged from the water. Although the pool was heated and the lemon oil-scented water was still pleasantly warm, she had more than exhausted her bathing time.
She quickly reached for a towel and wrapped it around herself before the Praetorian in the adjacent resting room could even get the idea of wanting to check up on her because of the quiet splashing.
"Cassia!" she called out audibly.
Immediately, there was a rustling of cloth next door, and a moment later her body servant came rushing in with fresh clothes over her arm.
"Here I am, my lady," Cassia bowed demurely, and as she helped Lucilla slip the robe on, she whispered softly in her ear, "The guard has gone to relieve himself in the hortus."
"May Sterquilinus bestow him richly," Lucilla returned with a small sigh, feeling her shoulder muscles relax a little again; every minute that Commodus' lapdogs were out of sight and earshot granted her a merciful moment of respite from her brother's constant surveillance.
She settled down in front of the small dresser on which a wide range of tinctures and essences for hair and body care were lined up, and Cassia reached without hesitation for a comb with which she divided her mistress's damp curls into strands and began to braid them. One strand after another lifted from Lucilla's shoulders and was artfully piled on top of her head with fine hairpins.
Lucilla, who had been staring pensively at the mirror on the wall for a while, suddenly frowned. Her critical gaze wandered from her hairstyle down her increasingly exposed neck until it abruptly caught on the dress.
The delicate gown of gold-interwoven silk damask with the translucent saffron-orange veil had been a gift from her brother. He had given it to her only a few months after her husband's death, and even then Lucilla had recognised the subliminal symbolism of this gift: the deep, luscious yellow strikingly mimicked the traditional flammeum - the bridal veil.
Yet, true to her plan, she had not let on; on the contrary, she had accepted the gift as gracefully as if she were simply tired of the black crape and did not find it in the least offensive to accept such a garment from her brother.
And now, of all her dresses, Cassia had chosen this very special one. Add to that the lemon oil in the water, the advantageous updo that allowed an even better view of her bare shoulders than Commodus' favourite dress already did - it was not difficult for her to put one and one together.
"Cassia," Lucilla whispered in a quivering voice, "are you trying to dress me up for my brother?"
Cassia's fingers faltered, and for a moment the mirror images of the two women stared at each other, each with their own reproach in their eyes. "Please, Lucilla," the servant finally pleaded urgently, "he is the Emperor. You must try to make him lenient. Who knows what he will do to you otherwise."
Fear for her mistress was written all over her face.
'If only you knew,' Lucilla thought bitterly. 'I know exactly what he will do to me, no matter what I look like.'
But although her self-consciousness rebelled in fierce contempt at the very idea, this time Lucilla kept silent. For if the past had taught her one thing, it was that Cassia meant no harm; befitting her standing, she had simply learned to accept any lot imposed on her as a simple necessity, calm and without moral distortion.
Cassia interpreted her silence as agreement and hurriedly continued to put up the last strands of hair.
Meanwhile, with her eyes downcast, Lucilla stared at her hands in her lap. What choice did she have? Once again she had to submit, whether she wanted to or not; if not for herself, then at least for Lucius. To protect him.
"Your Highness," the Praetorian's voice suddenly sounded smugly from outside. "I would hate to have to return a shrivelled date to Caesar."
Lucilla gave Cassia one last look in the mirror. The braiding was finished, only the golden laced bodice of embroidered brocade lay untouched over the back of the chair. But she could well do without this figure-hugging, constricting accessory.
Without answering the Praetorian, Lucilla rose, straightened to her full height and strode out of the bathhouse back into Commodus' chambers under his watchful eye.
Cassia watched her go, feeling deeply unhappy. Lucilla was a good mistress, but especially when it came to men, she was unfortunately inclined not to listen to her servant. With a deep sigh, she sent a quick prayer to Fortuna and then slowly began to put the vials and jars on the dresser back in their proper places.
A thousand thoughts flashed through her mind. If only there was something she could do, someone she could turn to. But who would still dare to rush to Lucilla's aid under these circumstances? Who, who had not already risked everything and either lost their life for it or rotted in the dungeons of the Colosseum, would now still stand by a doomed woman?
Even Maximus had initially refused to support her, although Lucilla had taken the enormous risk of personally seeking him out and begging him for help, no sooner had his miraculous survival in the Colosseum's opening games been revealed. It had taken the stubborn buck two full months after that to change his mind - and a valiant visit from Cassia, of which her mistress, however, had never known.
***
Rome, two months earlier, on the 4th day of Antioch
Cassia had realised immediately that something had gone terribly wrong. Lucilla had returned from her clandestine meeting with Maximus under the cover of night, with bruises in the shape of gripping fingers at her throat and red-rimmed eyes from crying. As she mixed herself a strong sleeping tonic with a trembling hand, she quietly told Cassia of her failed attempt to win Maximus to her cause, and of the hateful rejection her first great love of old had given her instead.
As her mistress recounted with suppressed sobs, it secretly dawned on Cassia what must be the root of Maximus' bitterness: Lucilla had deliberately deceived him back in Buthrotum and, by means of a sky-scraping lie, had made him sacrifice his chastity to her - that she had done so with the best of intentions he had never known, and Cassia could vividly imagine what other base motives he had imputed to Lucilla for doing so. And how much he must despise her for it.
By the time Lucilla had fallen asleep a short while later, Cassia had already made her plan.
She grabbed her mistress's long, dark hooded cloak, threw it over herself, and after a final, checking glance into her purse, marched straight to the ludus where Maximus was currently spending his days. The name of his lucky owner, Antonius Proximo, had spread throughout Rome within a few hours of the brazen rewriting of the Battle of Carthage in the Colosseum today; the lanista was by now no less famous than his gladiator, the former General of the Felix Legion.
Proximo's training ground was located in the centre of the city, not far from the Palace and the Colosseum, so Cassia dispensed with the trouble of a palanquin and walked the short distance, albeit at a hurried pace. Rome's streets were never completely deserted, not even at night, and such a late walk could be quite dangerous for a woman without an escort.
But she kept to the main streets, and although she thought she felt appraising glances on the back of her neck a few times, she reached the large, heavy iron gate in front of the entrance to the ludus without incident. Sharply, she rattled the bars, startling the night watchman who was slumped on a wooden stool.
"Hmph... what's up?" he mumbled sleepily and clumsily struggled to his feet.
"Take me to Antonius Proximo," Cassia returned as condescendingly as possible. "I have something to discuss with him."
"Now?" snapped the man. "Can't it wait until tomorrow?"
"No," she replied firmly. "This kind of ... business ... has no place under Sol's burning gaze. And if you have even a scintilla of your master's keen business sense, you will open this door instantly."
She pulled a silver coin from her purse and held it up in front of the bars so that the moonlight reflected in it. The guard took a single glance at it, then tugged at the jingling bunch of keys on his belt and hurriedly unlocked the gate. Triumphantly, Cassia strode through and thrust the coin into his hand.
After he had quickly put it in his pocket with furtive sideways glances, he carefully locked the gate again behind her and signalled for her to follow him.
The two walked briskly through the deserted courtyard, where the gladiators bustled about during the day and completed their training. Cassia looked around as inconspicuously as possible: The ludus was a two-storey building. The white sandstone arcades on the ground floor were all barred and probably served as cells for the arena fighters, while Proximo and his household resided on the upper floor. Roughly carpentered weapon stands jutted out into the night everywhere; the gruesome instruments of murder stuck in them cast ghostly dancing shadows on the sandy floor in the glow of the fire bowls. A life-size bronze statue of Mars Ultor gazed silently down from its pedestal at the two mortals who were purposefully climbing the stone stairs to the upper floor.
Here, too, it was dead silent. Apart from the occasional crackling of burning logs, not the slightest sound reached Cassia's ear; she was a little surprised. She had expected the newly crowned crowd favourite Proximo to celebrate the brilliant start of the Games in a befitting manner.
"Master?"
The guard knocked on a door, and although he did not do so in a demanding or overly loud manner, Cassia's ears were ringing with the silence that surrounded her. When nothing happened, he knocked again.
"Master, there's a young lady here who wants to do some business with - "
Something slammed against the door from the inside so unexpectedly and violently that both Cassia and the night watchman leapt backwards in alarm. The next moment there was a clang, and a voice called gruffly, "What in the name of the thunder-god ... ah to Hades, never mind now. Come in, then, damn you!"
With his head bowed, the guard cautiously opened the door and entered, closely followed by Cassia. The first thing she saw was a slightly dented copper bowl lying on the floor amidst some scattered grapes. Then her gaze drifted further over a low dining table, which now held only an amphora of wine and a lone cup, to the only two people present in the room:
Sitting on an opulent divan, apparently having just hurriedly returned to his upright position, was an extremely sullen-looking Antonius Proximo. The lanista was a bulky man with remarkably azure eyes, stringy white hair and a long scar across his nose and cheek that still bore witness to his own time as a gladiator.
Thanks to her contacts, Cassia was always well informed about everything that was hot in Rome; and Proximo had been the epitome of 'hot' since this morning. The rumour mill concerning this man had gone into overdrive, whether it was information about his origins, his preferences or the size of his shoes. That was how Cassia knew that Proximo was one of the lucky few gladiators who had received the symbolic wooden gladius from Aurelius and with it, their freedom. But then the Emperor had stopped the gladiatorial fights altogether and thus deprived many a lanista of his livelihood. According to the gossips, Proximo had to go as far as the African Provinces, where this form of barbarism was still enthusiastically practised.
His sun-tanned, weather-beaten skin certainly seemed to confirm this thesis, Cassia thought, as she examined the man closely. And he was showing quite a lot of that skin, albeit rather involuntarily: the purple pallium, gathered by a fine gold braid over his linen tunic, was looking rather rumpled and exposing more of his hairy chest than could have been intended.
The obvious reason for this was lolling in the cushions right next to him, her legs still wrapped around his hips: a picture-perfect young woman with long black curls and clearly too little fabric on her body to be anything other than a pleasure slave. Her black-rimmed almond eyes regarded Cassia with unconcealed curiosity, and no shame.
"So?" Proximo's impatient question drew Cassia's attention back to his mesmerising blue eyes, which fixed her with a hard stare. "Now, what business does the lady wish to negotiate?"
"I wish to use the services of your victorious gladiator," Cassia replied, disregarding his condescending tone. "The one with the promising name of Maximus."
Something flashed in Proximo's wary eyes, and his voice softened instantly.
"Oh, I see ... Well, good woman, as I'm sure you know, he's had a hard day at the Colosseum, and you're not the first to call for his services tonight either." He clicked his tongue apologetically. "I really should give the poor man a break."
He reached for the wine cup and sipped. "But, how about Hagen instead? A true Goliath of a man, muscles upon muscles. A genuine Germanic barbarian; I wouldn't normally offer him at all, but at the moment he's defenceless and limited to lying on his back, so you could do with him whatever you feel like. Or my Nubian! A fascinum like a bull rhinoceros, I tell you -"
"Proximo," Cassia interrupted him, smiling sweetly. "My dear Proximo. I'm sure all your men have their merits, but I didn't come all this way in the middle of the night to be fobbed off with anything less than the General."
She reached under her coat and pulled out her purse. Let that crafty crook think she didn't see through his engineered price gouging; fortunately for her, money wasn't the issue.
"I am quite prepared to pay adequate compensation for his - extraordinary hardships."
And with these words, she slowly and ostentatiously placed first one, then another, and finally a third gold coin on the low table. As she did so, she watched Proximo closely: as if hypnotised, he stared at the shiny coins, and even a seasoned businessman like him could not quite suppress the telltale twitch of greed at the corners of his eyes.
Triumphantly, she reached into her pocket once more - and added a fourth gold coin on top.
"I'm afraid I'm not up to date on current market prices," Cassia purred with a twinkle in her eye. "But I think that should be enough, don't you?"
In one fluid movement, Proximo rudely pushed the strumpet's thighs off his lap, lunged forward and snatched the small fortune. "I will personally see to it that the General learns what riches await him if he proves himself. Marius, take this lady to the private chambers!"
"Yes Master," bowed the night watchman, who had witnessed this unusual business all the while gawking, and escorted Cassia out with newfound reverence.
Meanwhile, Proximo marched energetically towards Maximus' cell. Again and again, his hand wandered into the pocket of his tunic and felt for the four aurei, as if he feared he had only been taken in by an illusion. But the coins - not half the size of the usual sesterces, but worth a hundred times more - were still there.
'Not up to date, my ass,' Proximo thought and snorted angrily.
He would bet his beard that this wench even knew very well. Without batting an eyelid, she had just paid him far more for a few minutes of lustful pleasure than Maximus had cost him back then in the slave market. No one who had to earn their own money would throw it around like that. And then there was her self-confident manner, the fine coat ...
Once again he snorted out all his contempt. He was not struck with blindness and stupidity at the same time! This pretty young thing certainly belonged to the Palace. Perhaps she was even the young Emperor's mistress?
In any case, extreme caution was called for, Proximo was aware of that. He already had a sword of Damocles hanging over him since the incident in the Colosseum this morning.
The Emperor had tolerated the unexpected rewriting of Roman history with patronising humour, but that did not include Maximus' disrespectful, even challenging words. True, the vote of the audience had left Commodus no choice at that moment, which had saved his fighter's life, but that could change quickly.
It would therefore not be wise to make yet another enemy in the palace. Proximo really did not need any more trouble from this direction.
Once again, he rubbed the reassuringly hand-warm precious metal together in his pocket. All the more important that he took everything he could now - in case they had to leave Rome again sooner than he had planned. Every sestertius counted.
Arriving at the slave wing, Proximo took an iron ring full of keys and a pair of handcuffs from a hook on the wall and strode towards the door behind which Maximus and Juba shared a cell.