©2001 by WILDBEARIES

Maximus Decimus Meridius
"The Spaniard"

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.
-------------------------------------------------

Maximus was furious. “How in the name of Hades did he get close enough to the house to send an arrow into your saddle?” He stood almost nose to nose with a red-faced Antoninus, while Drusus and several other officers stood nearby, all trying to fade into the walls, knowing their general’s furious blue gaze would shortly be aimed at them.

Antoninus swallowed, wishing he had some water, “Sir, the man obviously is adept in the very kind of tactics we are just learning. He must have worked his way onto your property and made his way up to the house without revealing his presence.”

“That much is apparent,” Maximus shot back. “I want to know why nobody was paying enough attention that he was able to do it.”

“I don’t have an answer for that, Sir,” Antoninus said in total honesty. “We failed you.”

Maximus blinked. “Your honesty is disarming, Antoninus, but it's no excuse.” He looked around the room, transfixing each man with his fierce look. “I want no further failures of this kind. Beginning tomorrow, the men who have been helping with the rebuilding of my stables will return to patrol and training. I want watchfulness and attention to their jobs to be paramount in their minds, gentlemen. There will be no further laxness just because we’re at my villa and not in Emerita. Is that clear?”

“Clear, Sir,” the officers answered in chorus.

“And next time - if there is a next time, which there had better not be - any of you sees Master Lucius Verus headed off on foot or on his pony without myself or another man in attendance, you will go after him and bring him back. I want no further endangerment of that child because of his own foolishness. Is that also clear?”

The men again agreed that the matter was very clear. Maximus dismissed them and they filed out swiftly, clearly relieved that only Antoninus had received the direct force of their general’s displeasure. As for Antoninus, once he got his racing pulse under control and realized his head was still on his neck, he breathed a bit easier and walked outside to stand in the cool darkness. He pulled at his breast plate where the metal was chafing his collarbones. He was sunburned. That and the press of the steel didn’t go well together, but he supposed he deserved to be uncomfortable. No doubt that was why Maximus had insisted they all be in full regimentals for this meeting. He sighed.

“Lucius could have been kidnapped today,” Maximus said, startling him.

Antoninus turned, “Sir, you are as cat-footed as that unknown man this afternoon.” He rubbed his face, “And I apparently am just as unaware as the others.”

Maximus smiled, touching his officer’s shoulder reassuringly, “I forgive you - for this offense, anyway, but I won’t be so generous should today’s fiasco be repeated.”

“I know, Sir, and I understand.” Antoninus stifled a yawn, fiddled once more with the lorica, and excused himself to return to the small encampment where the soldiers were quartered.

Maximus settled on a small marble bench, unbuckling the lower straps of his armored breastplate. He, too, was chafed by his armor, but felt he deserved it for allowing his men and himself to be so lax that someone sneaked onto his farm. Then there was the matter of Lucius. He sighed, echoing Antoninus' earlier disgust with the whole situation.

“I imagine that sigh bears the name Lucius Verus,” Lucilla’s voice broke into his thoughts.

He glanced up, nodded, and apologized to her again, “It should never have happened, and will not happen again.”

“Stop berating yourself over it, Maximus,” she said, seating herself on the bench’s twin. “He’s at a willful age and he thought himself a brave soldier chasing after the enemy.”

“And if he had been kidnapped or injured, would you be so forgiving?”

Her mouth turned down, but her words were still free of accusation, “Maximus, he’s a boy testing his limits, I’m sure you were much the same at his age.”

“I was not heir to the Empire at his age.”

“Neither is he, now.”

Her words stunned him. Maximus turned to stare across the few feet separating them. “Of course he is - how can he not be?” But he knew how, he just couldn’t credit the fact that she might have actually removed her son - their son - from the succession by the one means that would have been possible besides the boy’s death. “You have told Pertinax that he is my son?”

She nodded, “I have sworn it - in writing as well.”

He rose from the bench and paced back and forth, the light from the oil lamp in the atrium shining out the open door and glinting off the beautiful lorica Pertinax had presented to him. “Why would you do this?” he asked, turning to face her.

“To save his life, why else? If he’s no longer heir, they can have no reason to fear him.”

“But you have told them he’s my son! That makes him my heir, Lucilla, and in just as much danger.” He couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen that.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she snapped, gazing up into his furious face. “Pertinax doesn’t consider you a threat any longer.”

Maximus snorted, “If he told you that and you believed it, you’re a bigger fool than I thought, Lucilla. He may not say he worries I might decide to bring Felix III into Rome after him, but the Praetorians certainly do.”

Lucilla rose to bring herself to a more equal height, “You have gazed into a crystal ball to see this?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, any fool could see it. Why else do you think they’ve sent me to govern Spain for them but to keep me too busy to think of marching on Rome and claiming my rights as Marcus Aurelius’ heir.”

“You have no rights on that score,” she said flatly, although she wasn’t totally sure of it.

Maximus grabbed her wrist and started into the house, dragging her along with him. “Don’t hang back,” he encouraged her snidely, “there is something you should see.”

The former Augusta kept up with him, despite the white hot fury that infused her whole being, and she kept her mouth shut - not from any fear of him, but because she was so angry that anything she said at that point would be almost incoherent with rage. She managed to jerk her arm free of his encircling fingers, but only because they apparently had reached his goal. It was a smallish room containing a table with maps, several baskets of rolled documents and scrolls, and some chests. One of the chests was open, revealing folded red wool cloth - his cloak, by the look of it, and some other garments, perhaps tunics, in red wool and in white linen. He ignored that one, however, to unlock the lid of a smaller chest, a trunk, really, and lift some scrolls out of it. He sorted through them and she saw that all bore the dangling seals of her father’s imperium.

“Here, read that one and tell me I have no rights,” he said, slapping a large scroll into her hands. When she started unrolling it, he began unbuckling the lorica, suddenly unable to stand the press of it any longer. Other fingers joined his, and he looked up in surprise to meet his wife’s eyes. He hadn’t been aware of her presence, but he supposed he hadn’t been exactly quiet arguing with the princess outside and then dragging her into the house. He mouthed an apology to Ana, but she only shook her head at him and finished undoing his buckles. Once it was unfastened, he took off the armor himself and set it onto its stand. Ana, sensing she wouldn’t be welcome in the room, melted into the shadows of the atrium to blow out the lamps and close the front door.

Lucilla finished reading and dropped the scroll onto the map table. She was white about the lips, her fingers trembling, “I never knew he put his plans in writing,” she finally said in a low voice. “You could go to Rome and throw the whole lot of them out based on what’s in that scroll.”

“Ah, but you see,” he explained, sitting on the edge of his work table, “I won’t do that. Apparently I said that with enough conviction that Quintus believed me, and he knows I won’t do it. On the other hand, with Lucius openly acknowledged as my son, bastard though he is,” he saw that point hit home as she flinched, “I have a double claim now, and that means I’m more dangerous than they thought.”

“Because?” Lucilla knew that well enough, but her brain was refusing to absorb that her actions, so well thought out, and, she had assumed, fool proof, had actually made her son more of a target than he was before.

“Because he’s the son of a general they fear and because his mother is the daughter of Marcus Aurelius and the former Augusta, widow of Lucius Verus. You damned meddling fool, you’ve made things worse than even I thought you could possibly do!”

“I, a meddling fool?” she exclaimed, drawing the folds of her palla around herself, “I was trying to save my son!”

“It didn’t work, did it?” he fired back, shoving away from the table to pace around the small room.

Each time he passed her, the embroidered hem of his tunic brushed the fine silk of her palla. He was unaware of it, but Lucilla was not. As much as she tried to convince herself she was immune to him now, and that the strong body so close by didn’t affect her, she knew she was deluding herself. He was, if anything, more beautiful now than when he had been a silky-skinned, newly-bearded youth, all blue eyes and coltish awkwardness. Of course, she had been even younger, and he had seemed like a young Mars to her. Now he was much less god-like and much more attractive. She tamped down on her feelings and drew herself out of his path so even the touch of his garment didn’t tease her. “No,” she finally said aloud, “it didn’t work. As most of my fine plans don’t.”

He stopped pacing to face her. “I’m pleased to hear you admit you’re not perfect - I’ve waited years for that.”

“Twist the knife,” she commented, turning to go.

He stopped her by grasping her elbow, “I’ve no desire to twist the knife, Lucilla, but how in the devil am I to straighten this coil you’ve got us tangled up in?”

“Us?” she echoed, turning back to face him once more. When she looked pointedly down at his hand on her arm, he let loose of her. “What ‘us’ is this, Maximus?”

“You, Lucius, Ana - all of us. You’ve dragged us all into this by your actions. And if Pertinax or the Praetorians - gods knows if any of the pretenders to imperial power take it in their minds that we’re in their way, we’re all at the top of the list of obstacles to be removed.”

“Obstacles,” she repeated, shaking her head. “Yes, I suppose we are. And all I wanted was to keep my son safe.” She resumed her walk down the hall to the guest room she was sharing with Lucius.

“As do I,” Maximus called after her, but she was already out of range or had decided to ignore him. “Bah,” he expostulated and poured some wine into a cup. He caught a movement outside the door over the rim of it as he took a sip, and then Ana came in. “I wondered where you’d got to.”

“Just across the hall,” she admitted. “I heard everything.” She accepted his cup, watching as he poured wine in a second one. They drank, regarding one another in silence for a bit. Finally, Ana spoke, “So she has admitted that Lucius is your son and not Lucius Verus’, thinking that would protect him.”

“Yes.” Maximus felt the frustrated anger build up again at Ana’s words and forced the feeling back down inside himself. It would do nobody any good for him to take his rage out on his wife, who had nothing to do with the problem in the first place.

“Well, she had to try. I might have done the same, in her place.”

He looked up at her in surprise, “Are you sympathizing with her?”

“Of course, I’m a woman - I know what she was trying to do. Not that I like her any better for it.”

“Bah, illogical mother hens, the both of you.” He slapped his empty cup down on the table and stalked out, headed upstairs for his bed.

Ana smiled to herself and blew out the lamp before following him, nodding to the steward as she passed that he could retire for the night. Maximus had unbuckled his belt and was pulling the embroidered tunic off over his head when she got to their bed chamber. She reached out and helped him untangle himself when his medallion caught on the neck opening. “Thank you,” he remembered to say, shaking out the garment and laying it carefully over the back of a chair.

“I live to serve,” she teased him, and began undressing herself. She heard his indrawn breath and knew his temper was still raw from his dealings with their imperious guest. She hid a smile, turning her back to him to place her stola where her maid could get it and see to any needed cleaning or pressing. Stripped to only a knee length thin cotton under tunic, she kept her back to him while she removed the decorative combs from her hair and shook out the long locks.

“I don’t ask you to serve me,” he finally muttered, having been casting about for just the right comeback. When she didn’t answer, but just kept working on her hair, now running her ivory comb through the shining waves - she knew the crackle of the comb through her hair drove him to heights of lust, she was doing it on purpose! “Stop it, that won’t work,” he growled.

“Stop what?” she inquired lazily, still combing, now untangling the ends of her hair, smoothing it down over her bosom, which was as fully revealed in the thin tunica as if she had been naked. For good measure, she took in a deep breath to make her breasts even more prominent. Maximus’ eyes fastened on that part of her anatomy as soon as she did it, which she had thought they might. Casually, she stretched her arms up over her head and forced herself to yawn, displaying herself even more. Was that a low growl from him?

“You little vixen,” her husband finally said, advancing on her. He was stripped down to his boots, and he kicked them off as he stalked her across the room. “Come here, wife,” he called, beckoning to her with one large, long-fingered hand.

Ana shook her head, flung down her comb and dashed to the far end of the room, laughing. “I don’t think so,” she answered him, pressing against the far wall, knowing she could go no farther, and not really planning to do so anyway.

Maximus advanced on her, teeth bared, obviously in rut, his intentions plain. She didn’t run, but stood her ground, meeting him look for heated look as he pressed his body into hers, flattening her hips against the wall, her breasts against his chest. “Vixen,” he breathed, and caught her hands when she would have clasped his waist, lifting them instead to rest against the wall over her head while he rubbed his body back and forth against hers. “I’m going to take you right here,” he whispered.

“Do it,” she urged, tilting her hips to make it easier for him.

He let go of her hands, although she kept them where he’d put them. He took hold of her by the hips and lifted her into the right position, ordering, “Put your legs around me.” When she did, he thrust immediately into her body, shoving her hard against the wall. He groaned deeply and began pumping his body into hers, taking her as if it was she he was angry with and not Lucilla. He said nothing, punctuating his thrusts with grunts of pleasure and exertion. Ana was ready for him, had actually wanted this, and had spurred him into it, so she gave as good as she got - squeezing him tight with her internal muscles, reaching down to tease his testicles with knowing fingers, pressing her hard nipples into his chest. “Harder,” she urged him.

Caught somewhat off guard, Maximus paused for a moment, breathing harshly. “What?” he questioned, panting. The night wind blew in the opened wood shutters, cooling his damp skin.

“I said, fuck me harder,” his little wife repeated herself. Her large blue eyes were wide open and filled with passion as she looked up at him and Maximus realized he’d been maneuvered into pleasuring her exactly how she wanted to be pleasured.

“You little devil,” he grated out, grinning down at her as he resumed his activities. “Now you’re going to get what you wanted.”

“Yes,” Ana urged him, sliding her hands around onto his buttocks to squeeze the firm muscles. “Harder,” she said again. When she felt him about to finish, she boldly slid her right index finger into his anus to spur his prostate.

Taken totally by surprise, Maximus uttered a loud shout of pleasure and pounded into her, flooding her with his seed as she convulsed around him. When he finished, his legs wouldn’t hold him up any longer and he staggered back onto the bed, where he collapsed with Ana on top of him, taking in air in long, harsh gulps. “What was that?” he asked when he finally had breath enough.

She regarded him with innocent eyes, “A reward, did you like it?”

He groaned, rolling onto his side so that his sex came out of her to lie against his thigh, glistening with her juices and his. “Like it? It felt as if you struck me with lightning.” He pulled the sheet up over them both and got comfortable, spooning her up against him so her round buttocks pressed against his loins. “Yes, I liked it,” he finally admitted in a sleepy voice, resting his face against her shoulder.

Ana laughed softly, more of a purr. “I thought you would, although you were very noisy.”

He lifted his face, “Yes, I was. It’s a good thing there’s nobody in the chamber next door.”

Hand over her mouth to stifle laughter, Ana nodded. As her husband’s body relaxed against hers, she thought that it was a good thing, although, she was sure their guest, ensconced as she was in the guest chamber on the floor below, had probably just gotten an earful. Exactly as she had wanted her to do, as she could not fail to do with their window open, and, right below, her own equally open to the night air. Sometimes getting even was such fun.
 

-------------------------------
Copyright 2001 by wildbearies

Click on "More" for the next chapter.