It was an education to me to understand that women, even high-born ones, were expected to simply exist for the benefit of the men in their lives: their father, brothers, husband and sons. For women to have any form of independence or financial control of their own life was virtually unheard of.
Thus when two attractive women repeatedly snubbed the Roman ideal of what women should be, we became something of a challenge and a turn-on. This would have been a problem if the discipline of the army was not as tight and absolute as it was. In other units, things might have been different.
To be entirely honest, I was not in any way reluctant to form a sexual liaison with any man who tickled my fancy. However, with Iona we formed a bond of companionship that meant we neither needed nor wanted men to interfere in our lives for the moment. We needed each other. I think she needed me more that the other way around. For her, having been severely hurt by men in her life, I was part protector and part healer. As for me, I was living out a fantasy that Ed Ryan had enjoyed for many years.
It was strange, for having a sexual relationship with a woman as a woman was a fantasy I had often enjoyed as Ed. I found the reality was not the perfect solution for a male transsexual that I once believed it would be. It might sound trite and odd, but there was something missing.
At the root of much of my disquiet, was my relationship with Roger, my husband in my previous life in the nineteenth century. As Jane, I had born him children, and in those moments of reflection my memory would naturally return to those days that were in my past, but were now far in the future. That past was dead to me now, and I grieved for it.
I suppose, if I had to be honest, regardless of what gender I actually was, or what I used to be, I actually firmly believed that a man should be with a woman, and vice versa. It wasn’t that I felt any antagonism or negative feelings towards those who were attracted to members of their own gender, but there was something basic, and I suppose in the natural order that a male and a female belonged together for the procreation of the species; regardless of the species.
Whether this is due to my education and programming in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, I have no idea, but even in many of those men who lived in an era of more liberal ideals towards sex, I found this a common attitude.
Gaius was one such man.
As time progressed, we often would find ourselves together. It became obvious that as military minds, we tended to seek each other out in those quieter moments, as we both felt some form of draw towards each other. We had a lot in common, and, as Iona pointed out to me one evening in a bitchy spat, I was obviously attracted to him.
I also found out that it is a mistake to sleep with your subordinates, for if you should fall out, then discipline goes to pot!
Iona was a fiery wench, but she held me in such awe and esteem that she was never willing to assert herself over me and my actions, which, although innocent, could have given her cause for concern.
It was on this march that our relationship changed. One evening, the weather was warm and humid, so I was reluctant to go into the stuffy tent. I sat outside by the fire and was lost in my thoughts of the past, no, the future. I missed Roger and the children. It had been a wonderful life, and although I had no regrets at all, I often wished that perhaps at the end, I should have refused to retain any memories of that life. It would have been possible, but they were such precious memories that I was reluctant to let them go. They were all I had of that wonderful time.
Too often, I’d think of those times. Too often, I’d shed a tear for what once was. My God, how I missed them.
Someone sat beside me. At first, I thought it was Iona, as she often would come out if I failed to join her in bed.
It was Gaius.
“Can’t sleep?”
“Not tired and too hot,” I replied. “You?”
“Too hot, beside the others snore too much. Damn tent walls don’t stifle the damn noise.”
I nodded, slightly put out with his intrusion into my mental journey into my past.
“Mind you, you’re the envy of many men, and she’s the envy of the rest,” he said with an earthy chuckle to detract from a suggestion that it was an insult.
I simply grunted, which made him chuckle even more.
“Had a domestic, then?”
“Gaius, sod off. It’s none of your business. No we haven’t, but we just need a little space every now and again.”
“I know what you mean.”
“How about you; no wife?”
“Came close on several occasions, but the Legion is not good for lasting relationships. It doesn’t do anyone good to have them traipsing around in the van, just waiting to see you hacked to bits or come home missing some limb or other.”
“Don’t you want children?”
“I used to, but what kind of a world is it to bring children into?”
“There is that,” I agreed. “But, if everyone said that, there wouldn’t be anyone to inhabit the world.”
“No, if I could, I’d buy my own bit of land, find a good woman and settle down and raise kids and horses. My problem is I’m not a young man and so my years are numbered. I’ll settle for a good woman. How about you; never want children?”
My hesitation said too much.
“Ah, so you had them and.... What happened?”
I shook my head.
“Too raw. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I understand. I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”
I nodded, staring into the fire and thinking of Roger; my soldier husband who fought at Waterloo.
“It wasn’t us, by chance, was it?” he said.
I wasn’t with it.
“Huh?”
“The legion; were we responsible for their death?”
“Oh, no.”
I lapsed into silence. I didn’t actually know how my children died. Perhaps they were still alive when Ed was born. I shook my head, as this was doing me no good.
“It’s the not knowing if they’re going to come home to you,” I said, almost talking to myself.
He nodded and although I wasn’t looking at him, I sensed him looking at me.
“So you had a....?”
“Yes, in another life. He was a soldier.”
“What happened?
I looked at him now, shaking my head.
“No, not yet. It’s still painful.”
He nodded again and took a stick with which to poke into the fire.
“How did you become a warrior?” he asked.
I grinned.
“I joined up, like so many do. How did you?”
Grinning he nodded again.
“The same; although I don’t know any army that signs up women.”
“Nah, well, you soon will.”
We sat, both of us immersed in our own thoughts.
“So, what are you really up to?” he asked after a long silence.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve thought about this a lot. You didn’t have to get captured, and you could have walked out any time you wanted to since you did. What are you really planning?”
He was even more astute than I had bargained for.
“You obviously spend too much time thinking about me,” I said.
He grinned, blushing slightly. Ah, I thought, he does find me attractive.
“Why do I have to be up to anything?”
“Because everyone is to one degree or another.”
“So, what are you up to?”
“I aim to retire, buy some land and find a good woman.”
“How are you doing with that?”
“I’ve found a woman, now I have to live long enough, save enough sesterces and find the land.”
I was surprised.
“Is she nice?”
“I think so.”
“Where is she; Rome?”
He chuckled, shaking his head again.
“Nope.”
“Gaul?”
“No, she’s sitting right beside me.”
I punched him on the shoulder a bit harder than I intended. He fell off the bench onto the ground, moaning.