©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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Something was bothering Maximus. Ana couldn't quite put her finger on what it was, but ever since the new baby's arrival, he had changed. She didn't think it was because of the baby - the gods knew he was the best little fellow, sleeping most of the night without waking, hardly cried, no colic - but it was definitely something that had happened on the day of Aurelius' birth. She knew she had to get to the bottom of it. Anytime anything worried her, particularly something involving Maximus, she needed to get it resolved. It would not do to be overly stressed while nursing this beautiful last baby of theirs.

"And do you look like your papa?" she cooed to the wide-eyed infant as he suckled at her breast. She held him, wrapped in a soft shawl of her own weaving, again marveling at how fine-looking he was and how sweet. "You do - maybe even handsomer." She patted his round, thickly-diapered rump and rocked him. When he was replete, he stopped suckling and blinked sleepily a few times before burping loudly. Her women laughed with her, and Marcella came to tuck him into his cradle. "Such a sweet little boy," Ana commented.

"And why not?" Marcella wanted to know, "he already has dozens of full grown adults at his beck and call."

"I suppose he does," Ana agreed, straightening her stola. She got up and decided to walk outside since it was a nice day. The cold had not yet set in and the air was sparkling clear, the skies blue. She went out onto the front portico and glanced around to see if her husband was anywhere in sight. Ah, there he was, down by the new stable building, talking to the stone masons. She went down the steps and walked in that direction. Maybe he would actually talk to her today.

He looked up just as she drew near and his face froze. She tamped down her irritation and smiled as if she hadn't noticed anything. "Good morning, Maximus," she called, and smiled at the workers who greeted her as she passed. She walked up to him and shaded her eyes against the sun. "I've just fed the baby and thought I'd get some fresh air - will you walk with me a little bit?" She could see he didn't want to, but he could hardly refuse in front of the stone masons and the other workers.

"Of course," Maximus said, and held out his arm for her. She tucked her hand under his elbow and they walked slowly down the stone path between the young olive trees. "Is the baby well this morning?" he asked her when the silence had stretched beyond comfort.

"Yes, judging from the loud burp he just uttered after his breakfast." He actually chuckled at that and she felt encouraged to ask him, "Is there something troubling you, Maximus? You seem so - detached lately."

She felt the muscles in his arm tense. What on earth, she wondered, was going on? "Maximus?" She stopped and turned to look up at him. He had the marks of more than one sleepless night on his face, and lines of tension around his mouth that had not been there before.

"Nothing is wrong," he finally said, but his eyes slid away from hers.

Ana studied him for a moment. "You know I read you like a scroll - and I know when you aren't telling me everything." She stopped just short of calling him a liar because that was something totally unfamiliar in their dealings together. Still, she felt her stomach clench and a cold fear washed over her. He finally looked down at her and his face told her there was something decidedly wrong and she wasn't going to like it. "What is it?"

Was it something one of the children had done? Was Decimus perhaps tumbling some lusty kitchen maid again despite all his promises to be more circumspect?

"Is it one of the children?" she asked when nothing came from his tightly clamped lips.

He shook his head, "No, cara - would that it were that simple." He sighed and hunched his shoulders against the tightness in the muscles there. He couldn't sleep, food soured in his stomach, and he couldn't turn off the guilty thoughts that plagued him day and night. He had been unfaithful to Ana, his beloved wife, and for no better reason than momentary lust and a convenient place to assuage it. He clenched his eyes shut, then opened them. Perhaps if he confessed his guilt, threw himself on her mercy, she would understand. "The day Aurelius was born something happened."

She tried to remember anything beyond being in labor and having the baby, but couldn't - except . . ."Lucilla? You were angry with Lucilla?"

"Yes, she's the reason." He should have known she would guess. Before he could say anything further, however, Ana launched into an apology for having Lucilla there.

"I wanted her midwife, Tamara, to be there in case I had need of her. I know Lucilla aggravates you and I'm sorry. . ."

He talked right over her, "I went to swim and she followed me down there - I had no idea she was watching me."

Ana stopped, startled by what he was saying. "What?"

"She was watching me swim. I was nude, of course, and when I came out of the water she importuned me."

"What?!" The cold sensation swept up her back and into her belly.

"Lucilla - she is having some sort of difficulty with Valerian - she wanted me to oblige her."

"To - to oblige her?" Ana couldn't wrap her brain around what Maximus was saying. His eyes were so full of misery it confused her. She'd never seen that particular expression on his face before. "Oblige her - you mean, have sex with her?" She began to laugh at the ridiculousness of it. "As if you would!" she gasped out, laughing so hard she had to sit on the closest bench. She whooped, not noticing at first that he didn't join her in her hilarity. "She never changes - oh, this is rich - she asked you to oblige her. And I bet she used just those words, didn't she?"

Maximus blinked. Hadn't she heard him at all? "Ana," he finally said, breaking into her chuckles. "It isn't funny."

"Oh, I'm sure it wasn't - knowing you, I'm sure you were mortified." She looked up and saw that he only looked more miserable than before, if that was possible. Her laughter stilled. "Maximus? What is this all about?"

"She - handled me. I threw her hands off me and started back to the house, but then I realized she had walked down to the pond. As it was almost evening, I was forced to offer her a ride back on Leo with me. On the way, she got very bold with me - she fondled me, asked me again to oblige her and so I stopped before we got back, dismounted and pulled her off the horse to give her a good talking to. She wasn't happy about that."

"I'd guess not," Ana murmured. A terrible feeling had taken root in her stomach. "What happened?"

He shook his head, paced back and forth with agitated steps before finally facing her. "I did it. I obliged her. I don't know why or how it happened - it just - happened." He stopped in front of her, unable to meet her eyes, totally wretched. "I broke my vow to you - and I have no idea how to go about making it up to you."

Very calmly, she thought, Ana clarified what she had just heard come from the lips of the man she had loved for the past two decades. "You obliged the Augusta's whim to have you, no doubt to spite Valerian - that poor man - and by 'obliging' you mean to tell me you had her sexually?"

He nodded, answering in a low strained voice, "Yes." He wanted to sink into the ground.

"After all this time, you fucked Lucilla - and on the day - during the very time I was laboring with our child? Is that what you're saying Maximus?" She had risen to her feet without even being aware she had done so. She wanted to kill Lucilla. More, she wanted to kill Maximus. No, that was too quick - she wanted to hurt him, she wanted him to die slowly and painfully.

"Yes, I did that. I don't even know why - I took no great pleasure in it."

"What an unfortunate experience - you swived her and yet took no pleasure in it? I'm so sorry, husband mine, permit me to express my disappointment to her on your behalf."

"What?" he looked up, startled. Her face was pale with red flaring over her fine cheekbones and her eyes flashed hot blue sparks at him. He swallowed, realizing he may have misjudged the moment to confess. Perhaps he should look around for an escape route.

"Yes," she nodded, "Lucilla is coming to dinner this evening - fool that I am, I invited her myself so she could see Aurelius - he is, after all, a month old today." She laughed harshly, "I didn't realize it was an anniversary of sorts for you two - should I have the cooks prepare a special dessert?"

"Ana - what? Dessert? I don't want dessert - I don't want her here, either." Now he knew he needed that escape route. She was moving closer to him a step at a time, backing him up against a tree.

"Oh, I think she might like this dessert - your testicles on a platter with apricot glaze - or maybe plum - which do you think, husband?"

"You don't mean that," he said, although he thought she just might. His back was against the trunk of the olive tree now. He could run right or left, those were his choices. She was directly in front of him and her eyes were wild. "Ana," he began.

She darted out a hand and snatched his dagger from his belt. "Hmm, very sharp - just as I would expect from you." She tilted the blade this way and that so the sun flashed off it.

Maximus stared at her, keeping enough presence of mind to wonder if she would actually try to relieve him of the manly parts she had just mentioned. "Ana? Give me the dagger, cara."

"Darling? Darling, is it? What a joke - you actually had sex with Lucilla and thought I wouldn't mind?"

"That wasn't what happened at all - I didn't plan it - it just happened."

"That's what I'll say if anyone asks - I didn't mean to cut off his cock and hangars, it just happened." She raised the dagger and pressed it into his belly. "Shall I start here, love, or lower - relieve you of those troublesome testicles first?"

"Ana," he protested, wishing the tree wasn't at his back. If he shifted left or right, she was liable to slash him whether she meant to or not, the blade was razor sharp. "Let me have the knife, Ana."

Her eyes snapped up to his and he saw the hurt in them as well as the red-hot anger. "Don't tempt me," she said flatly. She dropped the dagger on the ground and crossed her arms over her breasts. "You will never share my bed again, Maximus - I don't even want you to sleep in the same house as I do. I don't care where you rest - it just won't be in my house." When he started to say something, she held up a silencing hand, "I won't make you leave the farm, I won't humiliate you in front of our people, but I will not be a wife to you ever again. Maybe you can move in with Lucilla - if she'll have you."

She turned and started back toward the villa. "Ana, wait," Maximus said when he'd gotten his voice and his wind back. "I don't want Lucilla - I want you, I love you."

She stopped and turned, her face cold. "Yes, that's the hell of it isn't it? I love you, too. Or I did until five minutes ago. Now I just want you gone."

"It's my house," he said, absurdly stating the obvious.

Her laugh was brittle. "Yes, I suppose it is. Will you cast me and my poor little son out to sleep in the stable?"

"Of course not - you're being ridiculous." He scowled at her.

"Ridiculous?" She questioned him, "Did I hear you aright - you're calling me ridiculous when it was you, my fine if aging stallion who couldn't wait to dip his rod in that fine princess' cunt? If that isn't ridiculous, I don't know what is."

He felt his face go red, but what she said was at least partly true. He had mounted Lucilla like any mindless, randy stud horse. Twice. "I said I did it - I did. I didn't want to do it either time - but somehow, it just happened."

Ana blinked. "What did you say?" Her head was whirling and the temper she'd been fighting to keep leashed was about to be let loose. "Did you say 'either time'?"

Stupid! He told himself. "Yes, I did." Gods, how could he be so stupid? He asked himself and there was no answer.

"Twice? You fucked her twice? While I was having our child?" She shrieked in fury and sprang at him, managing to surprise him. She raked her nails down his face and beat him with her fists. She managed to knock him off his feet onto the cinder path. She pummeled him and kicked and scratched him while he tried to fend her off.

"Ow, Ana - stop it!" he shouted, trying to get her to come to her senses. He heard shouts of consternation and the approaching crunch of feet on the path - no doubt the farm workers come to see who was killing the master and mistress in their own olive grove. Ana was crouched over him, auburn hair out of its elegant coiffure, eyes wild, blood from scratching him on her hands, her stola torn in several places. He was sure he looked a sight as well. He tried to roll to one side and overpower her which gave her the leverage to bring her knee up between his thighs with much more force than he would have thought possible from such a small woman. It thudded home directly into his genitals and he suddenly had no thoughts to spare for who was coming at the run to save them from whatever intruder was daring to attack.

He let go of her and got to his hands and knees, groaning harshly before vomiting into the grass. Cassius and Drusus Iunior came pounding up thinking that at the very least, murder was being done. They both stopped in confusion when they saw the mistress in total disarray standing over General Maximus, who was clutching his privates and moaning in agony. The mistress, that sweet and gentle lady, held the General's dagger in her fist and was threatening to remove the parts that were paining him. The two men stared at one another, aghast. "Lady Ana?" Drusus - the younger and more daring of the two finally ventured, "Could we help you with something?"

"Get the dagger, " Cassius mouthed to Drusus, who shook his head. He knew better than that - she would likely relieve him of his own manhood should he dare that.

Meanwhile, several more people came up - including Marcella, drawn by the commotion. She looked at Ana, then at the still coughing Maximus and immediately surmised what had taken place. "Mistress?" she said clearly, "The baby is fretting for you - will you come?"

Ana stopped screeching at Maximus, who didn't hear her anyway being sunk in nausea from his bruised private parts, and turned calmly to Marcella. "I'll be along in a moment," she said quietly. She cast the dagger aside, got to her feet, smoothed down her torn, grass stained dress, and walked down the path to the house with what dignity she could muster, heedless of the fact that her hair streamed around her in a tangled mass of auburn waves. As she passed Cassius, the senior steward of the farm, she told him to see to Maximus.

Cassius, in fact, couldn't take his eyes off Maximus, who was now on his side by the cinder path still clutching his injured genitals, his face bleeding from deep nail gouges, his pristine white tunic torn, dirty and bloodstained. He walked over to help him, "Sir?"

Ana didn't hear what Maximus answered, if he even did. She continued her way into the house where she had Marcella help her bathe the dust and gore off her fingers, put on clean clothes and repair her disordered hair. After that, she bade two servants to pack all of Maximus' things and move them to the downstairs guest chamber at the back of the house, "The farthest one from here." After all, she had decided on the way inside, with winter coming, she couldn't very well have Aurelius' father sleeping in the stables. He should at least not catch pneumonia - a long-held worry she'd harbored ever since she'd first worked to save him after the Coliseum - she had no intention of running the farm as well as mothering his son and their other children.

The servants all exchanged baffled looks after she went to the nursery to see to the baby. No explanation was forthcoming, however. Not that day, anyway.

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Copyright 2002 by wildbearies

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