Resident Light
By Palinurus
August 24, 2000
The small oil lamp had magically appeared one night, an unexplained small mercy. Without it, the darkness would have been impenetrable, and relief even harder to find. It sat so low on the floor that its feeble yellow light was partially blocked by the scattered straw. Although the thick air in the dungeon was still, the flame flickered and spluttered, casting jerky shadows on the rough sandstone wall facing the cells. Occasionally the grotesquely enlarged silhouette of an insect would crawl over the dented stones. The air was eternally dank, a musty, earthy smell that suggested mold and drowned out all other smells; and although it was cool during the day, the humidity made it seem stifling at night.
He rested his forearms on one of the horizontal bars of the wooden grate that confined him to the cell, and leaned his head against another bar to watch the struggling flame. He stared at it intently, trying to keep his mind empty. There were small sounds around him: little rustlings in the straw, the quiet breathing of his cellmate, soft snoring from another cell, grunts, coughs, occasionally a moan from someone dreaming. All men locked in the dungeon had their nightmares.
He focused on the flame with bleary eyes, watched its erratic movements with as much concentration as he could muster. Lately, these movements had begun to remind him of grain bending with the breeze; which swiftly led him back to where he didn't want to go. His shoulders tensed involuntarily and he squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head before he opened them again, as if he could shake off the images like drops of water. The chill of the dungeon suddenly touched him, and he was cold enough to shiver. He grabbed the wooden bars, unconsciously clenching his fists on them as he watched the broken, burned bodies of his wife and son, swaying in the breeze.
A touch on his arm startled him so much that he almost jumped. It took his mind a second to return to the cell, and only then did he glance over his shoulder, without letting go of the bars. A futile gesture: there was only one person in the cell with him.
"What are you doing, Spaniard?" The voice was soft, to avoid waking anyone in the other cells.
"I'm thinking."
"You think too much. You should sleep. You need to be strong tomorrow."
"I can't sleep."
"Like yesterday, and the day before."
He hadn't even considered the possibility that the other might be aware of this; Juba always seemed to be fast asleep, lying on his back, breathing evenly. He turned his face back to the light, dismayed by his inattention, angered by the other's presence.
"I don't know what your pain is, but it must be bad."
The words made him feel deeply threatened. In the back of his mind was the irrational notion that as long as he kept his nightmare to himself, he might some day find that he had made it up, that in spite of its stark daylight quality, it hadn't really happened. While as soon as he told anyone else about them, that very fact would make it real and irrevocable, as if he pushed it into the world. He wouldn't ever be able to talk about it. His hands were tight on the bars, and he turned his head as far away as he could.
After a small, almost surreptitious caress on his left bicep that made him set his jaw, he was relieved to hear Juba move back to his cot, apparently abandoning his quest. For a long time he stood motionless, shoulders tense, waiting impatiently for the other to go back to sleep. But minutes later, there was more quiet rustling; Juba got up again and stood behind him.
A dark voice from a different world. A world of frivolous words and gestures that had no relevance to his own.
"I've been watching you disappear, Spaniard. I've seen it before. People stop looking around. They eat, they fight, but only out of habit." The hand on his left arm was back, one finger trailing over the tattoo just below the tender skin of his healing shoulder. The other held his right elbow.
"When they have disappeared, they always die quickly. They just let themselves be killed. As if it doesn't matter anymore." Juba shifted to his left, turning him by his shoulders to look at his arm in the light before tracing a light finger over the scar. The feeling was peculiar; a slight itch that moved inside and spread out tendrils through his torso. His fingers turned white on the grate.
Juba's hand moved up to his elbow, then his forearm. Following the touch, he was surprised to see two dark rivulets of blood running down his wrist. Juba pried his hand loose; it was bloody. He turned it to the light, revealing a large splinter lodged in the base of his thumb. It was painless. He watched with detached interest while Juba tried to pull it out between two long fingers. There was a sliver of pain as he finally succeeded.
Maximus stared as Juba sucked up the blood that trickled from the wound.
"We fight together, Spaniard. You are a good fighter. If you die, my chances are not good. I don't want to watch you disappear." The voice dropped to a whisper. "I won't let you. Not while we're fighting together." He put the hand back on the grate and touched what was left of the SPQR tattoo again. "I heard this means you're a Roman soldier."
"Not anymore."
"But you were. Until you made a mistake."
A mistake. He suppressed the urge to laugh, didn't answer.
"My mistake was to wander too far, to the wrong place. A small mistake. But now I'm here, and I will never get back."
Juba's right hand rested on his ribs. It seemed a small point of contact, the warmth a stark contrast to the chill of the cell, and he suppressed a shiver. The feeling, or the echo it evoked in the confused, neglected chaos of his body, seemed almost surreal. With abstract surprise he found himself stretching his right side a little to expand the contact area, to enlarge the warm spot it created.
"I don't believe you were a common soldier. You are too good for that."
The warm breath against the small hairs on his neck made him suppress a shiver. The skin of his arms was crawling with gooseflesh in the damp air.
"The way you fight... You don't just fight. You look before you start. You think. You judge. You're good."
"It's none of your damned business."
Two hands now lay flat on his ribs. They moved back to his spine, met there, then pushed up toward his shoulders. The coarse material of his tunic was pulled taut, held down by the wide leather belt he always wore. Juba leaned against him and whispered, "I won't let you disappear, Spaniard. I need you. I will never find a better partner. And it's too early for you to die." The hands came to rest on his shoulder blades, fingers spread, the thumbs moving between them, exerting an even pressure, up to his neck. "Don't move."
He had no intention to move. He could refuse to acknowledge Juba, his presence, his insistent voice; if ignored long enough, he would go away. Maximus stood still as he felt Juba's face come closer and tilt, and squeezed his eyes shut during the long, slow kiss on his neck that followed. His jaw ached as he tried to ignore the glow in his groin, unwilling to recognize his interest, to deal with its consequences.
The pressure from Juba's hands increased against his sides. The hands that held him, cradled him... He felt something inside himself give in, suddenly yield to the forces pushing against him, like a waterlogged sandcastle collapsing into a gentle wave. It was suddenly hard to hold his head up; his arms were heavy, and it was an effort to keep his hands on the grate. If he wasn't careful his eyes would fall shut. He was light-headed with the desire to not be alone. To feel warm, secure, comforted by the presence of someone his demons had no hold on, just for one night. To sleep in someone's arms, to not think - and for once, maybe, to wake up rested.
"Juba..." It was barely more that a whisper; he cleared his throat.
"What?" The other held still, waiting for more, until it was clear that there wouldn't be more; then resumed the slow rubbing of his thumbs. The hands crept up further, then slid into the oversized armholes of his pathetic tunic, touching bare skin. He suppressed a strong urge to stretch, to lean into the caress, to trap the hands between his chest and the grate and not let them leave again. They roamed over his flesh, briefly touching his nipples, descending to the edge of his ribcage, pushing against the resilient flesh below, where the leather belt stopped them. There they settled into a hypnotic stroking rhythm, back and forth, over and over, as if they intended to make the rest of the world disappear.
"I'm not going to..." The words were too sluggish to be convincing.
"I know you're not. I'm just making sure you won't disappear. I need to keep you with me."
Maximus held on to the grate and did his best to keep still under the growing rush of arousal that threatened to wash him away.
It made him sad to feel the hands retreat, and he prepared to stand on his own feet again, and tried to think of something meaningless to say so the episode could be safely forgotten. But on their way out of his tunic, Juba slid both thumbs up into his armpits. The thumbs were curled into fists, a presence that was more intimate than anything he had experienced after the disaster, too intimate to be overlooked. He felt the fists turn, fingers down, the soft skin on the upper hand rubbing against the hairs in his underarms. It embarrassed him and made him uneasy, but when Juba finally leaned against him and pressed his face against his neck, it caused a deep shiver that made him realize he was committed; after this, there would not be a safe way out.
Juba put one of his immensely strong forearms around Maximus' midriff and held him up. "You're not very steady on your feet, Spaniard."
His head was filled with mist, a warm, moist, light vapor that hid the sharp outlines of reality. His mind was finally still, empty of the haunting images, and he was careful not to think about their absence, for fear of accidentally conjuring them back. Instead he mentally followed Juba's movements, sketching an image of their combined silhouette based only on the sensations his skin passed on. There seemed to be nothing left inside of him: no substance, no density, nothing to pin him to the earth, to the past. Just a body for Juba to push around, pliable, ready, willing.
The arm, curled underneath his ribs, warmed him, heated him, and the chill of the night was far away. The other hand passed slowly over his thigh, pushing up the cloth of the tunic, until it once again ran into the barrier of his belt. Then it moved laterally, crossing his stomach, pressed flat against his skin, inducing a tight clenching of tension and anticipation. When it changed course again and moved down, reaching his rapidly hardening cock, he took a shaky breath and shook his head slightly to try to clear it a little. Two careful fingers found the base of his cock, followed it up to just under the head, and began to slowly jerk him off, the rhythm methodical and precise; and after five or six of the sharp tugs his felt his knees buckle.
"Nice," Juba said with an audible grin. "You're not dead yet, Spaniard." He withdrew his hand and slowly released the pressure of his left arm, making the other stand on shaky legs before he pulled him over to the back wall of the cell. There, behind the bunk beds, was a modicum of privacy, if they stayed low. "Lie down," Juba ordered superfluously, and made a detour to his cot before he too lay down in the narrow, sheltered space.
In the back of the cell, aside from the grayish-blue of his tunic not much of Juba was visible; planes of his black skin reflected the dull sheen of the oil lamp, and the white of his eyes occasionally glinted. Otherwise he was almost as dark as the surroundings, and only the rustling of the straw on the floor indicated his movements. Maximus stretched out his hand and reached for the vague gray plane, touched what he thought would be Juba's chest. A hand, black shadow outlined against the cloth, took his, held it for a while, tracing the bones of fingers, hand and wrist.
"Don't move, Spaniard."
His passive acceptance of whatever the other had in mind was part cause, part consequence of his slow trance. It was a fragile state of mind, one that could be shattered by too much movement, too much thought. And he had no desire to endanger it. The temporary absence of the smell of burnt flesh was enough. He kept his body still, his mind shallow.
Together they hid in the shadow of the cot, Juba's camouflage far superior to his own. His hand was lifted, and he felt Juba's lips on its back, then his tongue. He stayed still as a live wire grew between the spot on his hand and his cock. The hand that stroked his thigh was visible only as a dim outline against his skin, and disappeared as soon as it was lifted away. Juba finally undid the three buckles of the leather belt, letting it fall to the floor. Then the hand came back, lay flat against his leg, moved slowly up to his hip, pushing up the cloth of his tunic. He lay still, eyes almost shut, his throat constricted with arousal. Juba's thumb brushed against his cock, murmuring approval when it twitched.
"Definitely not dead yet." Leaning on one elbow, Juba opened the little vial. The pungent smell identified it as the murky grease they used to keep their weapons free of moisture and rust. "Scented almond oil," he announced, a smile in his voice.
"Where did you get that?" He was genuinely curious.
"I have it... I keep it here," Juba replied, reluctantly. "I... use it, sometimes."
"Oh." It came out sounding as sheepish as he felt. He had occasionally heard Juba use it, but had been too caught up in himself to pay attention or devote any thought to the finer details. "I never smelled it on you." A clumsy attempt to undo the damage of his dumb question, which didn't make things any better; but more explanation would cause more harm.
"I didn't mean I use it for perfume," Juba replied, now clearly close to giggling, and Maximus felt a blush creep up his neck. "Better shut up, Spaniard. Your mind isn't working. Spread your legs."
Lying back, he gave up any thought of trying to participate, and closed his eyes to concentrate on the sensations. Juba was careful, slow, considerate; from time to time, when his erection showed sign of flagging, Juba would bend over and suck him back to full hardness. After a while he lost all wariness, opened himself wider, and slowly dissolved under the steady, pulsing pressure of the fingers moving inside him.
"This must be standard practice in the Imperial Roman Army," Juba remarked after a while.
Maximus smiled a slow smile and replied, "Disappointed?"
"Maybe. A little." He probed deeper, and stated, "I think you're ready, Spaniard. Front or back?"
It was an effort to turn around in the confined space, but he finally got onto his stomach, legs slightly spread. The weight descended on his back, then the presence of Juba's cock between his buttocks. He opened easily, shifting his hips a bit for comfort, and as the penetration progressed, he slowly felt his body relax to the point of total liquid uselessness. It was a familiar feeling, though it had taken a while before it had first happened. I must trust him quite a bit, he thought vaguely as the pressure increased. He lay, head turned sideways to keep his face away from the dusty floor, arms by his sides, hands curled into loose fists, listening to his eloquent body.
The last bit was slightly painful, but the pain seemed to enhance rather than disturb the experience. He grunted, and felt Juba tense. "That's all of it, Spaniard," he whispered, and they lay still, both panting. "I'm not disappointed," Juba added, making him smile again through the red fog.
After a minute the other whispered, "You'll need to move a little, so I can reach you..." He lifted his weight up a bit, supporting himself on one hand, and tugged on Maximus' hip.
"No need."
"You sure?"
It was too much of an effort to reply; he nodded, knowing the gesture was invisible, thinking Juba might feel it. They settled down again, and Juba slowly pulled back, then pushed in again. The friction was bearable, and after a few thrusts he settled into an unhurried pace, pushing in as deep as he could, pulling out almost all the way, with long, precise movements, keeping the rhythm with a drummer's accuracy.
After all these years, this was a state that he had never found another way to reach. He felt pleasantly drugged, completely relaxed except for the tight coil of tense anticipation building in his abdomen. Everything was loose and fluid, the world fitted itself to his needs, his comfort. He could lie there, wait, totally still, in the absolute certainty that he would get where he wanted to go, and that the road would be smooth, effortless, breathtaking enough to be worth traveling as slowly as possible.
Juba took his hands, one after the other, shifting his weight to hold himself up on one arm, and entwined their fingers; through the haze of his arousal, the gesture touched him. He is my friend, and I never noticed it before.
The tight rhythm was too perfect, and he felt himself pushed along a little faster than he intended, but slowing down was almost impossible. The coil wound tighter, he found himself rounding his back, attempting to curl up around the near-critical explosive charge inside him, and at the last possible moment remembered to bite down on his forearm to stifle the sounds he knew he would make. Juba's arms went around his shoulders while he moaned, struggling for breath when he quieted down. The arms tightened around his chest, and for a moment he felt the enormous power of that body, and heard his ribs creak when Juba came, explosively, but without a sound.
They lay in a panting heap, until Juba freed his arms from underneath their combined weight. After that breathing was easier, although it still took some strength. Juba's arms were now stretched out beside his body, next to his own, and he felt one finger caress his right wrist. When he felt Juba strain to get up, he grabbed his wrists and held him down.
"I'm too heavy."
He didn't reply, just held on until he felt the weight slowly settle back. Then he relaxed his grip, and they joined hands in silent synchrony. Juba's head lay high between his shoulder blades, facing left, like his. Every breath required some force, a pleasant strain on his ribs. He tried to feel Juba shrinking inside him, and clenched his ass whenever he lost the feeling; the first time the body on top of his started, the second time there was a chuckle.
"I'm gone, Spaniard."
He was almost gone, but not quite. Slowly the sounds of the world returned, the snores and grunts from the other cells, little rustles from insects in the straw on the floor. Finally Juba untangled his hands, shifted, carefully pulled out, and slid to the floor on his side, facing the other. He was quiet for a while, then whispered, "You must have had some good times. Just from the way you moved..."
After a pause, he replied, "I used to know someone."
When no more information appeared to be forthcoming, Juba said wryly, "I'm sure you did."
It had been in the second year after he'd joined the army. His century had been disbanded after a year of bad leadership and a multitude of discipline problems that had eroded his romantic dreams about the great Roman army. His section was merged with the remains of another unit which had been almost literally decimated in Britannia shortly before. The resulting troupe took some time to find its balance and resolve the informal hierarchy within ranks; but it was sent back into Britannia almost immediately.
Britannia was known to be a dangerous assignment, and it was one of the most unpopular ones in the army. While it was officially Roman territory, it had been in revolt for almost as long as it had been annexed, a theater of constant ambushes and attacks, an everlasting, small-scale, silent war. In Britannia there was no honor, no glory, and none of the amenities of traveling with an army; only a grim routine of skirmishes and discomfort and sudden death. Sending in a recently formed and untrained group was a gross tactical error, Maximus now knew. Within two weeks of their arrival, he had taken an arrow in the shoulder from an invisible source. It was like being downed by a ghost: he suddenly found himself on the ground, and didn't at first realize he'd been shot. It was the first time he got wounded, and the pain had been hideous, much worse than he'd ever expected. In spite of his resolve to deal with it in a manly way, he had fainted when the army surgeon had pulled the barbed tip out.
When he woke up, someone was leaning over him, staring down at him while idly stroking his hair with one hand. He recognized the man's face, though it took some time to place him and he couldn't remember his name. A quiet, reticent common legionnaire who mostly kept to himself, rarely participated in the discussions, the drinking games and the mock fights. Although he was stocky and strong, he was a not a natural fighter, and his reputation for being a coward in battle made most men in the group avoid him. He was tolerated only because he was an exceptional storyteller; in the long, chilly nights, when they often couldn't make fire because it would attract attention, his talents offered a welcome distraction from the boredom and the tension. He made up endless, intricately detailed fables that took many nights to tell, and he needed little persuasion to launch a new one. Stories about gods, about ordinary people in faraway (or nonexistent) places, about fat little men who lived in burrows under the earth and made magical axes, or about memories from his childhood; any event, no matter how trivial, was good enough to weave a story around. Sometimes he would carve tiny wooden images of the characters he spoke about, and pass them around to illustrate his tales.
With a soldier's superstition, Maximus would also have steered clear of him if he'd had a choice, as if Servius' lack of prowess in battle might somehow rub off on him. But since he was in too much pain to move around, and the same superstition that isolated the cowardly also kept people away from the wounded, he warily allowed the other to take care of him. It quickly turned out that, aside from a proficient nurse, Servius was also good company. Wise beyond his years, he had a mild, pensive manner that was rare in their boisterous group of legionnaires, and he was a patient and interested listener. As an extra boon, he would tailor his stories to what he thought, and later knew, the other would want to hear; and he really seemed to have unlimited material.
He was from Macedonia, which was so far beyond Maximus' horizon that he didn't bother asking about it. He made no effort to distinguish memory from fantasy, and for all Maximus knew his village could have been beneath the earth, with the little people who forged axes. As most non-Romans serving in the army, he had adopted a Roman name, Servius; his real name was an unpronounceable four-syllable sound. Like Maximus, he had joined the army at 15; unlike Maximus, he had been forced in, handed over to a passing band of legionnaires by his father, a widower who had four younger children to care for. He told Maximus that until he joined the army, as far as he knew he had been hungry all his life. Although he finally had enough to eat in the army, he hated the life of a soldier, and would have done anything to go home, back to his family and to a life of near-starvation. But desertion was impossible; the empire was too well organized and too tightly administered to allow a deserter to find refuge, let alone to go back home unhindered. So Servius had resigned himself to trying to survive the remaining fourteen years of his 20-year tour, and to bring home his pension, which would buy a modest living for the entire family. In the meantime he participated listlessly in the training, grew increasingly anxious and miserable when a battle loomed, and became animated only when he was talking with someone in his very personal way, or when he was weaving a story.
Within the space of a day, they had become friends, and lovers a week later. Maximus initially was reluctant; what he had seen and heard of sexual initiation rituals in the army didn't make him very eager to live through the experience. But Servius knew what he was doing, and with supreme diligence he kept the other in a dense, dark-red haze of breathless arousal for as long as he needed, which on that occasion happened to be several hours. It was that slow torture of endlessly sustained arousal, the feeling of being at the mercy of an ultimately benign but almost omnipotent force, that would turn out to be powerfully addictive. He couldn't wait for the next time, and the next one after that; and within a few days, life without Servius seemed unimaginable.
Only then did Maximus realize it was the first time since leaving home that he didn't feel unbearably alone. Sexual relationships were not only condoned, but quietly encouraged, because they fostered greater cohesion. Without any problem they shared assignments, meals, and a tent, and usually spent their nights apart from the others, talking, sharing stories, getting drunk when there was wine, and making love in so many different ways that every night seemed to have its own character. For years, Maximus had kept a wooden statuette of two lovers caught in the act that Servius had carved for him from a piece of white oak. Though barely three inches tall, it was true to life, and Maximus suspected they might both be recognizable. It was such an obscene little carving that it had embarrassed him, and he had never shown it to anyone. Eventually he had lost it, and regretted the loss for months; knowing there would not be another.
It had lasted for two years, until one day they were sent in a group of twenty to raid a village in a punitive expedition. The instructions had been vague and they didn't know the terrain; within a day they had lost their way in the dense forest. It was February, a cold, foggy day which lost colors and sounds as it progressed. They lost one man that day; the next, four others were picked off. One by one, they simply vanished. Servius was the third. His disappearance stunned Maximus; it was as if part of his own body had been stolen, and he found it almost impossible to believe the disappearance had happened unnoticed. He had stumbled along in a daze, unable to believe that Servius would not just show up again from behind a tree, announcing he'd been off for a piss, or holding up a piece of wood in a shape that showed the rudiments of a figure and would only require a little additional carving to bring out a person. And every few minutes, the shock of his loss would hit him anew.
No more bedtime stories. No more idle discussions about grand moral principles, or gossip about others in their century. No more enchanted nights under the stars, holding on to whichever object was at hand while Servius fucked him, so slowly that his arousal nearly blinded him before he could finally come. No warm body to hold when the winter fog enveloped their tent, and the starved wolves howled close by. Nothing left for company but the awkward stiffness of his fellow soldiers, aware of his loss, groping for awkward words of sympathy.
After the fourth man had disappeared, they had decided to go back, a haunting, harrowing journey, the fiery eyes of malicious spirits burning in their backs. That was when they found the body, tied backwards to the trunk of a large oak tree by the arms, legs dangling a foot from the ground. Servius' shoulder joints had been wrenched from their sockets, his legs had been amputated below the knees, and his eyes were gauged out. The first man to come upon it had shouted, "Keep the kid away!" But it was too late; the kid was third in line, and had good eyes. It was impossible to forget the feeling when he recognized the body. When Servius disappeared, he had known there was no chance of finding him back alive; but seeing the mutilated body replaced the flat gray of mourning with the bright-red horror of knowing what he must have suffered. For minutes, he was unable to breathe, and wondered why the idea of his own death still seemed so horrible. When the panic of suffocation was past, he could not stop himself from thinking obsessively about Servius' end; imagining what he had thought, how he had felt; convincing himself that Servius had hoped to the very end that Maximus would come to his rescue, would manage to save him from the horrible death he faced.
There had been others, later, for one or two nights. But he had sworn to himself that he would never get so attached again to anyone in the army, where life was so undependable; and he had kept his distance ever since. Until his father found a suitable wife for him and he got married. Wives were safe under the protection of the imperial Roman army. So it used to be.
The night turned a hollow black again. It was like physical pain; as debilitating, as inescapable.
"He died," he told Juba, feeling he owed him a bottom line.
"You loved him," Juba concluded, not expecting an answer. "Did you mourn him? Did you cry for him?"
He blinked in the darkness, tired of explaining. "The last time I cried, my father beat me. I was eight. He said I could only be a soldier if I stopped crying like a baby."
"That was foolish of him. You must cry for the people you love; you owe it to them. And if you don't cry, your tears stay inside you and go bad. Like the last water in a rain barrel - it turns green and slimy, and it stinks. Tears are the same way if you keep them inside. Not mourning the people you love can make you sick." He shifted and pulled the blanket down from Maximus' bed to cover them.
He sighed, exhausted, his head aching. "I can't cry anymore. I've forgotten how."
Juba's hand moved to his head, silently stroking his hair. "You will remember one day. I think soon. Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. The tears will not go away."
He closed his eyes, refusing to consider the words.
"So... what is it?"
"What do you mean?"
"What is haunting you? What keeps you awake every night didn't happen twenty years ago."
His jaw muscles began to ache. "I don't want to talk about it. Don't ask about it again." There was a noise in his head, a low humming, like the sound of a faraway earthquake. The smell of charred flesh was back and made his bile rise. He sat up quickly and swallowed several times until the nausea receded.
He sat with his back against the wall, folded uncomfortably in the narrow space. The silence allowed the sounds from the night to return, and Juba's breathing was audible, slow and deep. His peace of mind was shattered, but he couldn't make himself go back to his grate yet. After a while he eased back down again and pulled up his half of the blanket. Despite himself, he was grateful when Juba wrapped an arm around him.
He dreamed that Juba was holding him, muscular arms wrapped around him, immobilizing him while, further away, huge shapeless forms were bent over his wife and son, their screams raising the hair on his scalp. In waking up, he lashed out at the other in his frantic struggle to get out of the embrace, grazing Juba's face with his elbow. He stepped on Juba's leg, lost his balance, fell against the wall, and finally got away, reaching his grate, weakly sinking to the floor, waiting for afterimages of the nightmare to recede. When Juba knelt next to him, he noticed the gleaming trickle from one nostril.
"I'm sorry," he said sheepishly, reaching out to wipe off the blood.
"You will have to move on, Spaniard. There is only so much guilt you can use up. When that is gone you will have to start mourning." He put both hands on Maximus' shoulders and left them there for a second before going to his cot and lying down.
END
So far at least. Clearly, Max still has some work to do before he can win the crowds.
Don't forget to send much-needed feedback to palinurus@squidge.org
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
There were a few complications writing this scene. First of all, the name. How likely is it that "General Maximus" would refer to himself by the same name? His full name, according to Roman custom consisting of praenomen, nomen, and cognomen, is Maximus Decimus Meridius. Roman naming works much like ours; so Maximus would be his first name, used by himself, close friends and relatives. His 'last name', the name that would be used in public, would be either Decimus (like Publius Ovidius Naso) or Meridius (like Marcus Tullius Cicero). So Max could only be Maximus in this intimate tale, and he should have received a real name in the movie; "General Meridius" would have done nicely.
I've decided to entirely ignore his past romance with Lucilla, because realistically it is highly unlikely that it could have happened. Max has never been in Rome before. To be a general at 40 or so, he must have been a soldier all his life, so she could only have met him in an army camp. In those days, the territory of the Roman Empire was mostly consolidated, and the only serious military action went on very, very far from Rome. Travel was uncomfortable, extremely slow and frequently dangerous, and no one traveled without a good reason. And there just wasn't any reason for the emperor's only daughter to travel to a remote army outpost, and less to hang around long enough to have an affair. Even if she had, it must have been at least 10 years ago, unless it was adultery (unthinkable!) or Max got his wife pregnant years before they married (obviously not an honorable General's way either). In those days, at 25 years old, Max would not have been a general, but at best a lowly, dime-a-dozen centurion. She would most likely never have met him, and he would definitely not have been considered a suitable bedmate. It just doesn't fit, however it's turned. The affair is just a plot device to make her interest in and reliance on him more plausible; and if they hadn't devoted two-thirds of the movie to battle scenes, they'd have had time to come up with something better. Or, as a reviewer put it, it seems to have been written in only provide a suitable kiss for the trailer. Out with it! My scenario is by far the more plausible.
There is the complicated matter of the underwear. From what I understand, Roman legionnaire's underwear was made of linen, but boxers as such hadn't been invented yet, so it was some cumbersome drawstring or diaper construction. Other Romans commonly wore a tunic as an undergarment, which seems to often have been the first layer. It's hard to say if gladiators would wear the same garb, but there's no reason to assume they'd be more elaborately dressed than their non-slave contemporaries. Lastly, the scene takes place after bedtime; how many gladiators would wear underpants in bed? Actually, Max could plausibly have been naked (according to most sources gladiators would often fight naked too; one wonders how that information could have escaped Ridley Scott). We'll leave the matter of the gladiator's underwear in the same hazy realm as that of the Scots, who live in a much colder climate.