©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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A long, dark tunnel led deep underground to where the air was heavy and dank with moisture. He stumbled along it, holding himself up, limbs trembling in exhaustion, half blind from fever and blood loss. The slash on his leg was a stinging reminder he was still alive, but the tiny stiletto wound in his flank was numb. If anything, the numbness was more frightening than the pulsing sword cut. His legs gave way and he fell onto the rough stones, knocking the wind out of himself. His sight darkened and he began to believe he would die there. He fought to catch his breath, fought to push back the gathering mist that fogged his brain.

Once he had craved death as a road to be with his family, but no longer. His teeth flashed in a brief, painful grin at the irony of it all. Until he had nearly died, he hadn't realized how much he wanted to live. Maximus Decimus Meridius, once Commander of the Northern Armies, General of the Felix Legions, was about to meet his end, bloodied, covered in muck and filth, lying in a drainage pipe under a Roman slum.

He lay still, listening to the rasp of his breathing, the squeak of rats scurrying in and out of small openings in the brick walls, the distant trickle of water rushing toward the Cloaca Maxima - the main sewer of the city of Rome. He clawed for purchase against the slimy wall and managed to bring himself to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall. His strength was ebbing, run out of him with his blood into the sands of the arena, and now, in the persistent hot flow down his side. It dripped from the hem of his filthy blue tunic, and he watched, fascinated, as a rat came out and sniffed at his boot where the red gore had congealed. "Get!" he said harshly, and the rat fled back through whatever secret bolt hole he had come out of.

"Better I flee with you, little rodent," he whispered, and resumed his painful forward movement. He needed to reach that rushing water if he was to escape. Soon enough someone would come to the morgue under the Colosseum and realize the body of the Spaniard, killer of the Emperor Commodus, was gone. They might think the body had been stolen, but he knew eventually his bloody footprints exiting the room would give the lie to that. The Praetorians would want him, if only to make sure he was really dead so they could put their own choice onto the throne as emperor. They had no love for him, the upstart provincial farmer turned general, despite his success with the northern legions. He was not a political man, or hadn't been until dragged into the plot to kill the emperor by his own thirst for vengeance and the need to protect Lucilla and her son. He rested, leaning against the wall again, the rush of water much closer now.

Lucilla thought him dead. He knew that. Another irony: he hadn't realized he still loved her until she said the words in the arena that allowed him to go to his dead wife and son. And he'd had no breath to tell her he no longer wanted to go, so she was no doubt grieving him somewhere in the depths of the imperial palace. Which was better, he wondered, dragging himself ever closer to the water. Which was better - to allow her to continue thinking him dead and lost to her, or to somehow find her and endanger her and Lucius by exposing them to whatever plot the Praetorians would no doubt be hatching? He couldn't think straight. He only saw her face, the grief in her eyes as she had whispered, "Go to them!"

"No," he whispered, blinking to clear his vision, "I'm not gone, Lucilla. Not yet, anyway." Was it lighter or were his eyes tricking him? He took a step, then another. It was lighter. Another half dozen painful steps and he was right at the junction of the Cloaca and several smaller channels that joined it in its headlong rush into the Tiber.

There should be a boat waiting. But that would have been hours ago, ridiculous to think anyone would wait so long for him, even someone from his own troops. He peered into the gloomy light that filtered down through gratings high overhead and saw movement, just there, off to his right. A small lantern lifted and a low whistle reached his buzzing ears. "Cicero?" he managed, then shook his head at himself, no, Cicero was dead, murdered in the night trying to smuggle him out of Rome. He could no longer see, so he took slow, halting steps, feeling his way.

"General Maximus," he heard, and turned to his right, not quite sure who it was. "Cassius?"

"Aye, General, it's me. I'm coming for you, wait there."

Cassius, the centurion of his personal cavalry. His former personal cavalry, he reminded himself in some amusement, amazed that he could laugh at himself even now. His foot slipped on the wet stones and he pitched forward, unable to stop his headlong plunge, and not just onto the floor of the sewer this time, but down and down until he splashed into the rushing icy torrent of rainwater that flooded down from the streets above. He surfaced, coughing, lungs on fire, and realized it was over. He was simply too weak to swim, still, ridiculously, weighted down by his armored breastplate and sword belt. "By the gods," he thought, "I would have liked to see the sky over my villa one more time." He flung out his arms, reaching for that sky, but he was too late. So blue . . .blue as the waters closing over his head. The current spun him around and he fell into blackness.

The centurion watched in horror, then raced back to the small boat and rowed to where his general's body had disappeared. He was quickly joined by another small boat, this one manned by another Spaniard, a centurion of the Wolf's Bane cavalry cohort. "Antoninus," he called to him, "do you see him?"

The dark haired officer, deceptively slight in appearance, but fearless and lethal on horseback, shook his head, then pointed excitedly and kicked off his boots. He steadied himself in the prow of his boat, took a deep breath and dove.

"Blasted idiot," Cassius grumbled, thinking he would probably lose two friends today, but then Antoninus' head popped to the surface, and he was pulling something along with him, something bulky and clad in the remnants of breastplate and tunic that identified him as Maximus.

"Throw me a knife," Antoninus panted, then caught it in mid-air and began to slice the leather straps that held the armor on the unconscious man's body. With the straps cut, he could drag the armor off him so they could lift him into one of the boats. The cuirass spun away on the tide of icy water and between them, they managed to bring Maximus into Cassius' boat. He was blue with cold, limp, and probably lifeless, but they were damned if they would leave him to the uncertain mercies of the Cloaca. No, he would go with them down river to Ostia and be buried secretly, but at least with honors, by his own soldiers. They tossed some furs and Cassius' own warm cloak over the general's body. Better not to be seen rowing a boat along the Tiber with a body in it.

Antoninus scuttled his boat and climbed in with Cassius. Together they rowed, emerging into the Tiber at the base of the Palatine Hill, then moving south with the current, south toward Ostia and the camp of the Felix Legions.
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The physician, a talented man from Alexandria trained by the Greek physicians of the Egyptian royal houses, pursed his lips as he probed at the small wound in the unconscious man's flank. "I believe the blade was deflected off a rib and did not puncture anything vital," he informed Cassius. "Else he would have been dead long since."

"So why hasn't he awakened?" Antoninus wanted to know. They were bathed, garbed in fresh clothes and had eaten, having arrived at the encampment at dawn. They had left Rome thinking they ferried a dead man downriver, only to learn from his fevered thrashings and gasping breath that he was still alive, although desperately ill.

"Shock," was the answer, "Loss of blood, and no doubt the blade was envenomed, knowing Commodus' penchant for trickery."

"Can you heal him?" Cassius asked. He didn't recall ever seeing his general so weakened, so beaten down by a wound, although he had seen him wounded several times when they fought in the north countries. Damn it, Maximus was his friend, not just his general. He had saved Cassius' life twice - once at Vindabona and before that at some nameless shit hole in northern Gaul where outlaw deserters from the Tigris Legion had turned on them and fought a fierce, though quickly contained battle on the banks of a river.

"I can but try," Erato answered him honestly, "perhaps it is not yet this one's time to pass on, who knows? He has beaten the odds already, just by surviving this far." He beckoned to where his daughter stood in the shadows. "Come here, girl, we must wash him all over with hot water to remove the dirt, then I must probe this wound to be sure there is no cloth or metal in it so it does not turn putrid."

A smallish, slightly built girl stepped into the lantern light. She carried a basket of rolled bandages and a wooden chest that held medicines and unguents. Opening the chest, she began setting out the bottles and flasks Erato would need. Antoninus watched her, fascinated at her quickness of movement and her slim- fingered white hands. And she was no child, he realized that belatedly. She was a woman grown, though small in stature. When she felt his eyes on her, she looked up at him with eyes the color of the sky, and then dropped her gaze in confusion, red color staining her cheekbones. A shy one, he thought, and how lovely she was for an Egyptian. He had not known they could be fair skinned.

"My daughter," Erato introduced her, "Anataten."

"Ma'am," both officers said at once, nodding to her respectfully.

She blushed deeper, but nodded and said, "Sirs," before turning back to assist her father.

"And now, I must work, " Erato said, chasing them out of the tent. "Send that hulking fellow, Varrus, to me. I may have need of him if I must cauterize the general's wounds."

Both centurions blanched, knowing what it felt like to have part of one's body barbecued with the flat of a knife blade, but better that than having the wound turn pustulent and mortify. They left rapidly, leaving Erato chuckling in their wake. "Brave men," he commented to his daughter, then had to snap his fingers to get her attention off the tent flap the men had just exited. "Ana, we have work to do, attend me."

"Yes, father." She brought heated water from the brazier, dipped cloths into it and began to bathe the body of General Maximus.

He was mostly clean, the rainwater of the Cloaca having washed most of the mud and blood off him, but she bathed him carefully, exchanging the water for hot when it cooled, using several of the clean, boiled cloths her father insisted upon. He was nude, lying on his belly, helpless as a baby, though his body was certainly not that of an infant, far from it. She was fascinated by the way the muscles in his arms seemed to push against the skin, and how his strong back was so handsomely proportioned to his wide thick shoulders. When she washed lower and had to remove the linen sheet that was draped over his lower body, she had to force herself not to just stare. She hadn't realized how much the sight of muscular buttocks and legs would affect her. She felt her cheekbones redden again as they had when she had caught the young centurion staring at her.

"Turn him over," she asked Varrus, who lifted and turned Maximus as if he were a child. Unfortunately, in doing so, the sheet was tangled beneath him, so when he lay on his back, he was completely nude. Gods, he was beautiful, she thought, looking her fill while her father was busy measuring out medicines and tinctures. The strong shoulders she had admired from the back were equally impressive from the front, swelling into his muscular chest and down to the strong abdomen and the belly ridged with muscle. He had a narrow waist and hips, strong, muscular thighs and at their juncture, to her wide-eyed gaze, he seemed made like a god.

He was a Greek statue come to life - Hercules or Alexander - and a warm heat pooled in her lower body that felt both wonderful and embarrassing at the same time. She could not stop looking at how the relatively sparse hair on his chest arrowed in a fine line down his stomach onto his lower belly where it was more abundant around his genitals, which were surely larger than any she had ever seen in the course of working as her father's assistant.

She chided herself for gaping like a silly girl, and swiftly finished her task, carefully washing the area around the stiletto wound and his leg wound twice over to cleanse them thoroughly. "I am finished, father." She dumped the dirty water outside and gathered the damp cloths together in a bowl. Varrus, who had not missed her scrutiny of the general, covered his midsection with the linen sheet, winking at her. She rolled her eyes and smiled despite her embarrassment.

The general stirred slightly, muttering something unintelligible when her father probed the wound in his side. She put a cold compress on his face, holding it to his forehead, brushing the damp dark curls with her palm. Lovely hair, and his beard was neatly trimmed against his tanned jaw. She wished to see his eyes, but they were closed, dark lashes fanned across his cheekbones. His breath tickled her hand when he moaned under her father's touch. "Shhh," she said soothingly, "you're going to be fine."

"Lucilla. . ." he mumbled, then groaned harshly when her father's probe struck deep into the stiletto wound. His whole body recoiled, and Varrus held him down until her father finished and he was still again. Sweat beaded his skin and Ana swiftly wiped his face with fresh cool compresses. As her hand passed over his brow, his lashes brushed her palm and she looked down into glittering blue-green eyes. "Lucilla?" he asked again, his voice the merest whisper.

"No, I am sorry, General," she answered him, wondering who the lucky Lucilla was. She passed fresh compresses to her father, who was using his sharpest surgical knife to extend the small stiletto puncture so he could clean it better.

"Stop," Maximus asked them, "stop. . .burning. . .hurts."

Erato worked swiftly, finished with his knife for the moment. He took a glass dropper and siphoned up most of the contents of a small vial of purplish fluid, then carefully dropped that fluid into the incision until it was all gone. Maximus thrashed weakly, cursing at them in a mixture of proper Latin and the vulgar Latin spoken by the common soldiers; his whole body trembling as the liquid burned into the wound. Erato ignored the cursing and the movements, merely nodding to Varrus to use more of his considerable strength to hold his patient down.

Then Erato took a green viscous liquid and poured it into the wound. It hissed when it touched the raw flesh and Maximus shouted and cursed, trying to get away from them, though Varrus managed to hold him on the cot. The wound cleaned and medicated to his satisfaction, Erato left it to Ana to apply several soft, thick linen pads and then fasten them in place with long strips of the same fabric around and around the general's body.

That task finished, he turned to the leg wound, a deep sword slash that went diagonally across the outside of Maximus left thigh. He cleaned it the same way, standing back when Varrus had to apply his considerable strength to hold the thrashing man down. "This must be cauterized," he announced after studying the depths of the wound. He sent Varrus for more help, and he was soon back with Antoninus. "I said help, couldn't you have found another large fellow like yourself?"

Varrus blinked, "Nay, there aren't any. The centurion is very strong, he'll be enough."

Erato made an exasperated face, but then shrugged and bade them take some of the bandages and bind Maximus to the frame of the camp bed so he couldn't thrash too much. Antoninus protested, feeling it wasn't right to bind his general, but he capitulated under Erato's calm stare. "I like it not," he said, "the man was chained as a slave, it's cruel to bind him now."

"You will not think so if we leave him loose and he knocks you on your ass getting away from us," Erato told him.

"It's true," Ana added softly. She was wiping Maximus' face with cool water again, dribbling some of it onto his parched lips. With the blood loss and fever, he would need liquids. The tip of his tongue came out and he licked the cool drops off his mouth. She gave him a bit more, stopping when her father nodded that it was enough for now.

Antoninus sighed and stood by the head of the cot, holding Maximus' bound hands in case he managed to break loose. Varrus held the general's legs, and Erato took a large dagger from the red hot charcoal brazier and laid the flat of the blade against the long wound in Maximus' thigh. She had expected a scream - indeed the strongest of warriors sobbed like babies when touched by the heated steel - but Maximus went totally rigid under their hands, uttering a sound such as a man would make who had no voice left at all and could only gasp deeply and raggedly. He went completely limp before Erato lifted the blade from his burned flesh and pronounced himself satisfied with the wound. "I will pack it open with herbs and linen strips so it does not fill with pus, then we will bind it loosely with linen pads."

Ana and Erato did just that, while Antoninus, who had turned a bit green during the cauterization, returned to his normal healthy color and Varrus went to fetch them more fresh water. They made Maximus as comfortable as possible, piling cushions around him to prop him off his wounded back, and covering him with fresh linen sheets and a warm blanket of red wool. "He'll have more fever," Erato said, knowing that was a given, "and he may have water in his lungs, we must watch for inflammation of the chest, it would most likely be fatal."

Ana nodded, already knowing all of this, but dutifully making notes on a wax tablet of what they had used on the wounds and describing each wound in case another physician should happen to treat the patient for some reason, although at that point, nobody but the people directly involved even knew that the former leader of this army was lying, wounded and ill, in the tent that once was his own.

Ana watched over Maximus, sponging his burning body when the fever worsened, giving him liquids, drop by drop, when he panted, begging in a whisper for water. His eyes were often open, usually unfocussed and clouded by the fever but once in awhile, when the fever would drop and give him a respite from alternately shivering and burning up, she would see that he was aware of her. The general's blue-green gaze followed her when she moved about the tent, and when she bent close to wipe his sweat-soaked hair or give him water, a slight smile curved one corner of his mouth, making her heart beat erratically. But he called her "Lucilla", and even though she assured him she was not that lady, when he took her hand in his much larger one, she didn't have the heart to deny him that comfort, and so when he again asked, "Lucilla?" she answered him, "Yes, I am here my darling, rest now."

And he did.

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Copyright 2001 by wildbearies

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