©2002 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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Thirty Four

“How long are they going to be our ‘guests’?” Ana asked Maximus at breakfast the day after he arrived with Lucilla and Valerian.

Phrasing it carefully, he allowed as how Lucilla and Valerian might have to be there for a while.

“A while?” Ana questioned. She sighed. “All right, I’ll try to be gracious, but I really don’t like her and I don’t like the idea of a prisoner being housed where we live.”

“Short of turning them out in the street, we don’t have much choice,” he informed her.

“I know that!” she snapped and slid her chair back, exiting the room. She left a ringing silence behind her, and a husband who gaped at the empty doorway wondering what was going on.

He sighed, finished breaking his fast, and went off after a bit to the office where he ran the affairs of the province. Since the previous governor had left his offices a shambles - taking furniture, cabinets of official documents and more with him when he left - some, presumably to be burnt to hid his less honest actions, Maximus worked out of his campaign tent set up in the center of the military encampment.

Maximus enjoyed the military part of his work as governor, it was some of the other duties that rankled. The social duties, for instance. He was invited to every banquet, party, wedding and funeral, particularly if the person doing the inviting had political aspirations of any sort. He decided that, rather than go to them all, or decline them all, he would send senior officers in his stead to all but the most important occasions, and those he would attend himself. He outlined his plans to his staff, noting some unhappy faces, but not feeling much sympathy for them.

“That’s it for this morning, gentlemen,” he said, dismissing them to their tasks. Drusus brought him that day’s dispatches, newly arrived from the coast. There weren’t too many, thankfully, and he handled them all by midday. Mounting Scarto, he rode back to his house at the edge of the encampment. He really did not relish facing Ana if she was in the same mood as that morning at breakfast. To his surprise, however, Ana appeared with a big smile on her face. She met him at the door to the triclinium and acted as if the burst of temper that morning had never happened.

They had a nice midday meal, after which she rode Pulcher back to the Praetorium with him before turning to ride down to the town market. Maximus looked after her, clearly puzzled by her abrupt change of mood. Drusus caught the expression on his face. “A problem, sir?”

“Drusus, do you understand women?”

The cavalry officer, who was totally fearless in battle, nonetheless admitted that not only did he not understand the workings of the female mind, but they rather frightened him. “They’re much more fierce than I was led to believe - don’t you find that, sir?”

Maximus had to agree. “We must remember, Drusus, that the lioness does the hunting and the lazy King of Beasts lies around taking all the credit for it.”

“Indeed, sir,” Drusus said, “And the praying mantis bites the head off her mate after they copulate, although that’s a rather extreme example, I suppose.”

“Extreme, yes. Truthful, also yes,” Maximus joked. "Only imagine if humans did that - there would be headless bodies strewn from here to Germania.”

Drusus pondered that, “You think most men would still have relations despite knowing they’d be decapitated?”

“Oh, of course,” Maximus affirmed, “we men are so egotistical, I’m sure we’d all think our own particular charm and wit would spare us.”

They laughed off and on over that the rest of the afternoon, adding onto the joke by embellishing it. “Bodies stacked as high as the roof of the Flavian Amphitheater,” Drusus said, deadpan, “and still, Senator Marcellinus would insist on bedding his latest conquest.” Marcellinus was a profligate famous for his numerous affairs and a long series of marriages and divorces.

“In his case,” Maximus responded, “I would hope that age and debauchery would have slowed him down so that the unfortunate woman could put him out of her misery.”

“Her misery!” Drusus whooped, and had to be pounded on the back when he choked from laughter. He had once guarded that very senator and had to fend off his advances since the man apparently would bed anything of any gender. “Everyone’s misery, sir, more like.”

By sundown, Maximus was through for the day and he made his way home on foot, stopping to talk various people as he passed row upon row of tents. It was full dark when he strode up his front steps and into the atrium. A servant took his cloak and unbuckled his leather breast plate, relieving him of that weight and restraint on natural movement. He stretched appreciatively and went to find Ana.

He heard her voice from down the corridor where the guest bedrooms were and headed in that direction. Just as he got to the door of the room occupied by Valerian, he heard Ana say, “But you have to tell him - it’s important.”

“He has to tell me what?” Maximus asked, entering the room. Both Lucilla and Ana were there with the “prisoner”, and they both looked up guiltily when he asked the question. “Come now, what does he have to tell me?”

Valerian sighed and sat up, looking harried. Maximus didn’t envy him having both women riding herd on him. “I think you don’t recognize me, Sir, but your wife does.”

Maximus glanced at Ana in surprise, “You know this man?”

“Yes, don’t you remember? Lucullus - he was the leader - well, one of them - of the outlaws who kidnapped me.”

Maximus examined the face of the man in the bed, but had to admit he didn’t recognize him. “Perhaps he’s lying,” he said, “playing on your sympathies.”

Ana shook her head impatiently, “No, no - it’s him, I’d recognize him anywhere, although he is a lot cleaner now than the last time I saw him.”

“Which was exactly when?” her husband wanted to know. He had no memory of this Lucullus person at all, but he’d been struck over the head and otherwise injured as well, so that wasn’t all that surprising.

“The morning we were rescued - but he left just as your men attacked. I didn’t see him once they came charging into the camp.”

“I left because I hadn’t completed my assigned mission,” Valerian - or was it Lucullus? - explained. I hid in the woods until you all left, then came back and gathered up the few remaining outlaws. We headed in the opposite direction from you, sir.”

“Brave, hiding in the woods,” Maximus mocked the younger man, who at least had the grace to flush at his words. “Still, I can understand why you would do that - it either means you were doing as you say and hiding so as to continue your secret mission, or you were too much a coward to take your chances fighting my men.”

“I’m no coward, sir,” Valerian claimed. He sighed, “but I have no way to prove what I say without the word of my general.”

"And that general is?" Maximus asked in a tone that would brook no prevarication.

Valerian and Maximus looked at one another for a long moment. The two women figeted, finding that, for once, they were on the same side - worried about the tempers of the two men in the room. When Ana made as if to say something, however, Maximus merely raised a hand, palm towards her, and she bit her lip. Lucilla rolled her eyes and Ana found herself stifling a laugh. Big men's business, she thought. She folded her hands demurely in her lap, catching sight of Lucilla biting her lip to keep from giggling herself. Ana glanced up and into her husband's silver-blue gaze, smiling innocently.

"Come now," Maximus said to Valerian, "who is this general?"

"Gaeta," Valerian finally answered.

Maximus gaped. "Licinius Gaeta? He was head of the Praetorian Guard when I was still in diapers - this is your mysterious general?" He had to be at least ninety, Maximus thought.

"No, no," Valerian was quick to correct Maximus, "Licinius Gaeta Iunior - his son - he was Prefect for the last two years before Commodus became Emperor."

"Ahh, yes - I was in Germania. I'd not been to Rome as yet." He pondered that, "So this Gaeta Iunior is in favor of the restoration of the Republic? I find that hard to credit."

"Not that so much as he hated Commodus - an emotion shared by many," Valerian glanced at Lucilla, "Your pardon, my lady, but you know it's true."

She inclined her head to indicate that no insult was taken.

"You are uncharacteristically quiet," Maximus commented to the two women.

Lucilla and Ana both gazed up at him, hands folded in their laps. Lucilla spoke first, "It was clear to me that our opinions, being merely the thoughts of lowly women, were not wanted."

He gaped at her, then caught a flash of the grin his wife barely managed to wipe off her face. "I never said that," he informed the two of them. "I did not want any interruptions, was all."

"If I write to this Gaeta Iunior, do you think he will answer me honestly about you?" he asked Valerian.

Valerian, who was growing tired, nodded and sighed, shifting uncomfortably on the bed.

Lucilla stood up and pronounced him too weary to answer further questions, "That's enough for now - write to Gaeta - write to the Goddess Diana for all I care - just let the man rest."

Ana rose to her feet as well, smoothing her linen stola, "Yes, let the man rest, carus, he is, after all, a guest in our home."

Maximus raked his hands through his hair - still not trimmed since his return from the country - and wondered if he would ever understand women.

Very late that night, upstairs in their bed, he lay with his hot-blooded little wife astride his hips, riding him for all she was worth. She had barely waited for him to get to their bed chamber before she was on him trying to remove his clothing and have her way with him. "To what do I owe this gift of passion?" he had asked her with a laugh when she pushed him back onto the bed and climbed on board.

Ana had merely shaken her head, her long auburn tresses tumbling down over the pointed nipples on her lush breasts, "I want you," was all she would say. She had leant forward and kissed him passionately, then grasped his erect phallus in her hands to guide herself down onto it. Thereupon she commenced a heated interlude of the kind of sexual behavior that usually left her pleasantly sated, sleepy and smiling. Only on this night, she had barely finished with him once - taking his spurting seed deep into her body, when she started all over again.

"Ana," he had protested, "you have greater faith in my powers of recuperation than I do, cara."

"Bah," she had responded, and bent to take him into her mouth, quickly giving the lie to his claim of disinterest. When he was achingly hard and ready to fling his concupiscent little Venus down on her back and just fuck her mindless, she forestalled him by barking, "Lie still!" in as good a tone of command as he had heard on the parade ground many times. He was so startled, he obeyed. Of course, obediance brings its own rewards, so later, when he was too tired and sore to move, he just lay and wondered what had brought on his wife's surge of passion.

"I'll never understand women," he mumbled to himself, falling asleep almost before he completed the thought.

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Copyright 2002 by wildbearies