THE PRISONERS IN THE PALACE

Part Eleven:

She knew it was out of his sense of lostness that he returned her kiss and took it for

what it was, not pressing further.  Her respect for the kind of man he was was too

profound to ask for too much too soon. But it was hard, very hard, she found to settle

back onto the maple leaves.  Her whole being had been stirred by the touch of his lips

and she was almost vibrating with longing for him. 

He lay silently, his eyes seeking the shapes of familiar constellations, then ran his tongue

lightly across his lowerlip, finding the taste of her lingering there. He closed his eyes,

wanting very much for her to be real.  Turning at last on his right side, he studied her

in the moonlight.  She lay on her back and seemed to be staring at the stars herself.  With

his left forefinger he traced down the length of her nose, around her lips, up the line of

her jaw, then curled his hand back, leaving it hovering there between them.

"I know," she whispered, lifting her head just enough to kiss his knuckles.

"What is it you know?"

"How hard it is for you to...want...when you are not free."

"Am I not free?"

She turned her head, her eyes meeting his. "Not yet, Maximus. One day possibly.  But

not yet." She looked at him very seriously. "Sometimes there is a certain destiny we are

headed for and it is all we want, all we know.  But if it is changed, if our path is altered

beyond all returning and we come to understand this, then we may know freedom of a

new and different kind.  One can only...wait."

"You are waiting for some thing, Brianna?"

She turned her gaze back to the stars.  "I am."

"A freedom for you?"

"No, for someone else."

She closed her eyes and he remained on his elbow, watching the night shadows of the

branches play across her face.  "Who are you, Brianna Lachliel?" he breathed almost

silently, then lay back himself.

I am the woman who loves you, Maximus Decimus Meridius, she replied in thought,

pulling the wolf fur drape up under her chin. 
 

"Turn around!" he said, chuckling as she stood on a small rock the next morning,

showing him her outfit. He'd never seen a woman in tights before. 

She did a quick pirouette, almost falling until he caught her arm and, looking up at

her face, grinned, "So this is what archers in Britannia wear?"

"Only Robin Hood," she laughed, hopping down.  "Though with this long, straight blonde

hair I imagine I look more like Legolas."

"Legolas?  Another archer?"

"Yes, another archer, only not in Britannia.  In a far away place called Middle Earth."

She saw his puzzled look, was expecting it, actually. "It's not real, Maximus.  It's just a

tale in a book."

His smile faded and he looked around. "A tale in a book? Is that what we have become?"

"Would that be so terrible?  It's better than death in the arena."

"Whose death in the arena, Brianna?"

She pressed her lips together.  "Lots of people die in the arena, Maximus. It is better that...some...of them should live."  How many times had she seen his final topple? She

would not see it again.

"Come!" she said, taking his hand. "It's a new world. Let us be off...to strive, to seek, to

 find, perhaps even, to conquer."

He smiled again.  How much better it was today with her beside him once more. Much

better than his long, solitary walk through the blue forest yesterday.  "And which way

does this new world lie?"

"I don't think it matters. Let's go, um, that way."  And she pointed to where the dawn

shown more brightly through the trees.

A little snort of breath escaped his lips.  She was right. He didn't think it mattered, either.

And so they headed off, the two of them, the General of the Felix Legions and his faithful companion, Robin Hood.  She found it rather amusing.  And a full quiver of arrows on her

back, well, that was downright comforting. 

They walked through the forest for well over an hour when the sky began to darken with gathering clouds and a brisk wind kicked up.  The woods behind them seemed to dissolve somehow in the lowering sky and they found themselves at the edge of a promontory

looking out across a vast expanse of  land so dark they could discern no features what-

soever. The sky beneath the clouds was deep grey, streaked with peach, and the

charcoal-colored clouds themselves had a torn look, big ragged pieces of them hanging threateningly down.  Maximus did not like the look of it.  There was no shelter anywhere

and bright, jagged streaks of lightning began cutting down from the clouds to the black

plain that stretched to the horizon.

Brianna, at his side, shook her head.  "All we need is Mount Doom and the Eye."

"I am afraid to ask," Maximus commented.

"Middle Earth again.  Scary place."

"Could we be there?"

It was her turn to snort. "Given what's happened so far, we could be.  We really could

be."  She looked up at him. "But I doubt it." No, this was something Sid had created

just for them. He would be a lot less merciful than Tolkien. "I think we need to be very

careful, though."

"I think you are right," he agreed, letting his hand rest on her shoulder.

As they watched, the distant edge of the cloud settled to earth, completely blocking all

light but for the flashes of lightning.  They were making their way down the steep slope

of the bluff, moving forward only when the lightning briefly lit the scene.  Maximus was

uneasy. There was no way of telling what lay on the plain below.  Entering an unknown

territory in pitch blackness was a soldier's nightmare.  How could you fight or even avoid

what you could not see? 

"Watch for loose rocks," he cautioned, handing her down a four-foot drop off, the sound

of sliding shale reaching his ears. "The land here is not firm."

Feeling with her foot, she discovered she was on a narrow ledge with no idea how far it

was to the one below. "I can't see, Maximus," she called up, "and there's very little room

where I'm standing." 

He was lowering himself and dropped beside her. Lightning flashed and he saw their

ledge continued for some way to his left.  "This way," he said, taking her hand.  Under

his breath he muttered, "I hope."

The ledge narrowed until they were forced to move along it, their backs pressed against

the sheer rock behind them. It sloped downward and began to curve. 

What possible programming can you be getting from THIS, Sid? she wondered as they

made their way, step by careful step on the loose shale that covered the top of the ledge.

You want to know how he finds his way in the dark?  What?

The lightning flashes stopped. They waited, unmoving, for a long while but no more

illumination came. It was impossible to continue in the heavy blackness that surrounded

them.  "Let us sit a while," he suggested, "and perhaps we will see our way before much

time has passed."

Very, very carefully they lowered themselves until their legs hung off the edge and their

backs rested on the rock.  The ledge was about a foot and a half wide.  He was to her left

and she leaned her side against his. He slid his right arm around her shoulders, pulling

her even closer.  He could not see her, not even as close as she was.  The arm was his

contact with her.  The drop below them could be five feet or five thousand.  There was

no choice but to sit and wait. 

The air was thick with moisture and low rumbles growled through the clouds from time

to time, but it didn't rain and the lightning did not come again.  It was very...odd...

somehow, this sense of utter isolation, not knowing where they were, surrounded in

blackness, just the two of them.  Sid obviously wanted the General to feel that. 

"It's like sharing the womb of the world," she said softly. It was, indeed, as if no one

existed anywhere but them.  There was not even any real sense of up or down, all

dimension was lost, swallowed in the darkness.  She leaned her head into the side of his

neck and after a long moment, felt his cheek come to rest atop her hair.

"What do you want, Brianna?" His voice was soft, low in the blackness. "From life.

What is it you want from your life?"

No one had ever asked her that before. No one had cared to know and she, herself, had

not stopped to put it into words. What did she want?  She was silent a long time and he

made no move to hurry her into speech, so she searched through the hidden corners of

herself, wondering what it was she wanted.  As she looked, she found long years of

aloneness.  Always alone.  Even when she was training, even when she worked for Mikol. 

She saw that she had always been on some ledge of life, just as now, only he was not

there and she sat alone, separated from every- thing, everyone.  It was how she protected

herself, how she survived the ruthless environment in which she had nearly always lived. 

'A citadel unassailable'...that was how Mikol described her.  It was, she knew, what had

first attracted her to Maximus in his movie.  He was alone, even in the midst of others,

he was alone.  Like her. 

Now he was beside her, close beside her, and the feel of his length along hers had

breached her walls. "I...," she began, her voice tentative at first, unused to expressing

deep personal matters, "I want...to...belong."  Yes, that was it. That was the word.

He was surprised at what she said and thought about it a while. He had...once...

belonged. To a family.  To a land.  To an army. To Rome.  But all of that was gone.

Every bit of it. "I have lost my own belonging," he whispered, suddenly pierced by

the truth of that.

"I know," she said.

He had no idea how she knew, but he believed that, somehow, she did.  "Your belonging

was taken, too?"

"My belonging never happened."

Her words moved him deeply. "Never?"

She couldn't answer and when he understood she could not, his arm tightened around

her. "Brianna," he began, "is there some place you belong more than right here, right

now?"

He felt the shake of her head under his cheek. 

"In this moment," he continued, "with everything I knew taken from me, all reason,

all understanding of anything turned upside down... as I sit here with you,  I have an

unexpected sense of quiet peace that is mine only because you are here.  And if this is

where you belong in this moment, then I think that it must be where I, too, belong.  I

do not even know why. I only know that when I say it, I feel the truth of it."

Though he could not see the tears that began to track down her cheeks, he could feel

the tremors that went through her body and turned his lips into her hair. 

ON TO PART 12

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