THE PRISONERS IN THE PALACE

Part Nine:

Sid patted Brianna's head, then squatted to look into her sightless eyes. "Well done!"

he smiled. "Well, done, indeed!"

He was pleased.  That Mikol had sent Brianna Lachliel into Gladiator was turning out

to be the biggest favor his hated rival could have done for him.  Then  he stood, glancing

back at the door with a frown.  Terry, Bud, and even John were turning out, however, to

be real pains in the neck.  Constantly they tried to figure out how to breach his security

and enter this private area.  It was distracting.

He looked back at Maximus and Brianna and their uneaten meal.  When they were aware,

he had to keep a close eye on them.  Terry was making that well nigh impossible of late. Originally he had thought to bring the General and his lady back to awareness here in

between the programmed episodes.  With all the interference, though, he had changed

his mind and decided just to let the program run. 

He smiled, touching Maximus' shoulder as he passed.  It might turn out even more

interesting this way, in fact, as well as taking much less time to get the input he needed. 

He paused at the door, studying their immobile forms. "Yes, my pretties," he purred,

"let's just let it roll."

As they walked through the woodlands, Maximus cast quietly admiring looks at Brianna.

"You had training?" he asked. "With the bow?"

She had slung the bow over her shoulder, not wanting to leave it behind despite having no

more arrows. Her lips curving, she nodded in reply to his query.

"Is this usual for the women of Britannia?"

A low chuckle escaped her. "No, not usual. It was always just something that interested

me, that I wanted to know how to do."

He tipped his head in that way he had of acknowledgement. "You do it well."

Maximus found her more and more intriguing, as well as puzzling. She had come to him

at the gladiator pens in Rome, warning him that Tigris would kick sand in his face.  He

wished to know about that. "You...," he began, but his question lay unfinished, forgotten

when the fog suddenly lifted and he saw the field of wheat spreading out before them. A

small pathway cut directly through its center.

Brianna stopped, wondering why Sid had presented them with this, but Maximus walked

down the path a bit further, his eyes studying the crop intently.  Slowly, he wandered to

the side of the path and reached his left hand out, letting his fingers hover over the tallest

stalk of grain before permitting them to lower, touching it lightly, almost reverently. He

cocked his head, watching the movement of his own hand as though entranced.

Brianna, watching him, WAS entranced. It had been his hands that she first fell... um...

admired.
 

Suddenly Maximus realized he had walked on without her and turned back, almost
stumbling when he became aware he was now attired for the arena in Rome. Sweat
broke out on his brow and under his moustache. Tipping his head, he lifted his eyes to

the sky, sucking in great gulps of air.

Brianna seeing him almost lose his balance, sprinted up beside him. "Are you all right, Maximus?" she asked, concerned.

"The gods..." he said, wiping a hand across his eyes, "I think they are playing some
game with me." 
 

Brianna bit her lip. "Or someone who thinks he's a god," she murmured.

"What did you say?" He was gripping her arm.

She hadn't meant for him to hear. "It's just that sometimes there are men who manipulate

the lives of others as though they could play at being gods."

"But," he said, indicating their surroundings, his attire, "what man could do...

this?"

She met his eyes, wanting desperately to say what she knew. "There must be... someone,"

she replied in the only way she could think of, "with power beyond what we know."

He turned, snapping off the tall seed head of wheat, running it through his tight fingers,

letting the grains scatter and fall. "Even Commodus cannot create fields of wheat that are

not there," he growled. And, yet, had not the wheat felt entirely real to his hand? Again,

the thought that he was dead came to him. What other explanation could there be? But

why, then, was she here? Nothing...absolutely nothing...was as he had thought it would be.

Suddenly his heart felt sick with it and he moved so that she could not see his face, staring

at the line of trees on the horizon, blinking rapidly to control the threatened wetness in

his eyes. How could he have been so terribly, terribly wrong? But, then, he had been

wrong about Rome. All his life he had believed it to be the light...and it was not. Was

there nothing left to him that he had believed in, not even...this? His eyes scanned the

field, the grain ripe and nodding in the breeze. "In three weeks time I will be harvesting

my crops...." He said the words like some litany of death. The wheat nodded, golden and beautiful. A single tear survived his blinking, overbrimming and tracking down his cheek.

She moved up beside him, resting her hand lightly on his upper arm. "Maximus," she said

softly, "when there is no understanding of a thing, we must simply walk through it as best

we can."

He closed his eyes. "I know," he sighed. "Truly I do."

Together they walked toward the line of distant trees. His hand brushed against hers and

he curled his fingers around it, glad for the touch of something real. At least he hoped she

was real. He was no longer sure of anything.

Something moved in the wheat off to their right. Brianna saw a single, long horn, a dark,

bulky shape behind it. Ridley had thought of having a rhino in the arena. She knew

storyboards had even been drawn for it. Sid. Sid would know that, too.  He had put a

rhino in the wheat field!

She dropped his hand, reaching over her shoulder to where her quiver should be. Only

there was no quiver. "Damn you!" she spat. How could Maximus bring down a rhino with

a gladius? "RUN!" she shouted, pointing toward the trees.

 
He hesitated, his eyes straining toward the oncoming form. "What...?"

"It's a rhinoceros, Maximus!" Brianna panted. "The trees! We must make for the trees!"

His eyes widened. She grabbed his hand again. "Hurry! RUN!" she urged.

They had crossed nearly 3/4 of the field. The distance to the tree line was not more than

50 yards. He took off, still holding her hand.  She, used to loping for hours across hills,

kept pace with him, stride for stride, a long front slit in her blue dress allowing her legs

freedom of movement.

The rhino, seeing dimly their movement, headed diagonally across the field, his head

lowered. She turned her head once to judge its distance, lost her footing and fell hard

on her knees. He pulled her up almost without breaking stride. She was limping, slower,

so he dropped her hand, circling her body with his arm, taking some of her weight onto

himself.

They could hear the pounding of the rhino close now, the loud wuffing sound of its breath.

The trees were a matter of feet away. She stumbled again and both of them fell forward

under the shadow of a giant elm. She lay there, his arm still around her back, gasping

for breath, expecting the rhino to be atop them any second. Silence. A robin sang in

the branches above them. She turned her head, looking for him. He was raising his head,

a streak of dirt across his forehead where he'd impacted the path as they fell. Together

they turned their heads back the way they had come. The wheat field was gone. The forest stretched behind them as far as they could see, tree after endless tree. The rhino was gone.

He lay his head back down on the path, closing his eyes. He'd been right. The wheat was

not real. None of this was real.
 

She saw him close his eyes, thought he'd been hurt, and put her palm on his cheek.

"Maximus?"

He lay there quietly and reached his hand up, laying it atop hers, just keeping it there.

"Are you real, Brianna?" he finally whispered.

"Yes, Maximus, I am real."

"How am I to know?" he sighed, letting his hand fall.

She picked up his hand and kissed his palm. "I will not be gone. Not like the snow, nor

the wheat, nor even the rhino. I will stay wi...."

She disappeared entirely.

ON TO PART 10

BACK TO LIBRISCROWE

BACK TO PART 8

BACK TO INDEX