The political ramifications of his promotion deeply troubled him. He knew that the Roman army was steeped in politics, though he had been able to avoid such things for most of his career up to that point. Now he was stuck in the middle of it. Every move he made would be scrutinized by those who felt cheated that he had been promoted ahead of them, as well as those who sponsored them. Such was the dilemma in a peacetime army. With no real enemy to fight, they ended up fighting each other. Artorius could only shake his head. In his idealistic mind, these things made no sense to him. But whether he agreed with it or not, he could not change the way the establishment worked.
He then looked over at his lady companion, who was passed out next to him, lying on her stomach. She was a pretty young woman, one he had not met before. Of course with the city expanding the way it was, there was a huge influx of people that Artorius did not know. He laughed at the visible bite marks on her neck. Some habits died hard, he guessed. He gave her credit for having been a sport regarding his deviant savagery, though at one time he thought that he had broken her in half as he thoroughly violated every orifice on her body. While she had been mildly satisfying physically, he found himself feeling hollow afterwards. He was constantly looking for distractions to help him ease Diana from his mind, and he by no means wanted his only focus to be his duties. So he had found a fetching young lady that he thought would provide a suitable distraction. Sadly, he had found her wanting, even from a purely sexual standpoint.
To his best recollections, aside from a high-class courtesan that he had spent a night with in Rome many years before, Diana had been the only woman that was ever able to stand up to him physically and sexually. Most women were overwhelmed by his immense size, brutal physical power, and savage veracity; and if he could allow himself a bit of vanity, it was not just his muscles which were huge, or so he’d been told. Yet, Diana had seemed to revel in it. She was aroused by the beast inside him, and she had constantly goaded him into delving deeper into the depths of his brutality; so much so that he had had to push himself to the limit of his physical and sexual fortitude. No other woman that he knew of was able to withstand his onslaught. He wondered if it had been brought on by severe sexual repression from years of forced celibacy following her short-lived marriage when she was little more than a girl. He allowed himself a slight chuckle. A lady Diana may have been, but when it came to sex she bore an aggressive and deviant streak that could almost match his.
He sighed audibly, rolled out of bed, and got dressed. He left the inn and decided to take a walk in a nearby meadow outside the city that he knew so well. There was a full moon out that night, and the ground was well illuminated. He found his favorite tree, the one by the stream that fed downhill to the mills.
“I thought I would find you here,” he heard Magnus say as he leaned back against the tree.
“Magnus, what are you doing out here?”
“Like you, taking a break from sowing some wild seed,” his friend replied with a shrug. Artorius laughed at that. Magnus then looked at him seriously. “In all honesty, I knew at some point I would find you out here. You always come down here when things are troubling you.”
“Been spying on me have you?” Magnus shook his head.
“No, but everyone knows it. When you cannot be found in your quarters, the gymnasium, the brothels, or any other place you spend time at, then everyone knows you are down here. So are you going to tell me what has been eating you up inside since the day you got back?” Artorius hung his head low in thought.
“You know,” he began, “I am a bit ashamed to admit it.”
“It’s Lady Diana, isn’t it?” Magnus interjected. Artorius closed his eyes and nodded his head slightly.
“What is wrong with me Magnus?” he asked. “I have never allowed a woman to inflict me so. After Camilla I became hardened towards women; not uncaring mind you, just not allowing myself to have any real feelings for them.”
“Face it Artorius, you love this woman,” Magnus replied.
“I do,” Artorius acknowledged, “and I did not want to.”
“Why would you say that?” Magnus asked, puzzled. “Diana is a wonderful woman. From what I saw, she treated you really well, she has class, social standing, is intelligent, and let’s face it; she is pretty easy on the eyes! We are all looking for something in life, Artorius; whether we admit it consciously or not. I think in Diana you found it.”
“I did indeed,” Artorius remarked. “The thing is we can never be together. She is obligated to run the Proculus estate, and I am stuck here on the Rhine. Besides, she is of the Patrician class, I am not. I don’t think I shall ever see her again, and I feel empty inside because of it…” His voice started to trail off as he stared into the churning water.
“You learned a hard lesson, old friend,” Magnus replied. “But don’t let it destroy all of your hopes about women. I see you still find them attractive at least in the physical sense.” Artorius waved his hand dismissively.
“I try to find a distraction wherever I can. I have a rather voracious appetite when it comes to the sensual pleasures of women if you haven’t noticed; although my tastes are certainly more refined than our friend Valens…well maybe not anymore.” He and Magnus shared a laugh before he continued. “You know, most women break under my strength and ferocity. Diana…she held her own.”
“At least you got some pleasant memories out of the whole thing!” Magnus remarked with a laugh. He then reached down and helped his friend to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go find some more distractions together and we will break that spell you are under!” Artorius laughed and walked back towards the inn, his arm around Magnus’ shoulder. They saw Praxus and Ostorius heading towards the inn, both men slightly inebriated and singing a song about a prostitute from Sicilia, while trying to hold each other up.
Artorius then remembered that he still had his room that he had paid for. He wondered if that little hussy would still be there or would she have run off into the night? It mattered not; she could be replaced easily enough. His friends, on the other hand…well, they were more than just his friends, they were his brothers, and they was no replacing any of them. They were his rock that he built upon, for they never let him down. And when he was down, they were the ones to pick him back up again.
Not since the death of his brother and mother had Artorius ever felt such pain of loss. He wondered if Diana was indeed the only woman he would ever love; that whatever future relationships he may have with women, all would leave him hollow and lost. He shrugged his shoulder and figured that love was but a fantasy told by poets. After all, one did not marry for love in Roman society; it grew after the marriage, if it came at all.
Chapter XXI: Sad Farewells
Isurium Brigantum, Capital of the Brigantes, Isle of Britain
September, A.D. 23
The Brigantes had been very kind to Milla since her arrival eight years previously. It was King Breogan — so named after an ancient king of legend — that had first found the young woman and her young son lost in the wilderness, terrified and half mad with hunger. He had recognized her as being of the people of the continent, but he did not ask any questions at the time. Instead, he took Milla and her son, Alaric, into his house. His daughter, Cartimandua, had taken to them almost immediately, particularly the young Alaric, who was but a couple years younger than she.
Breogan had no sons and had buried two wives; the second had died giving birth to his beloved daughter. As the years passed he had thought to make Milla his wife and adopt her son as his own, but Milla would not have it. Though she cared for Breogan deeply and had grown to think of Cartimandua as her own daughter, there was something in her past that she could not let go of. Breogan rarely asked her about it, seeing as how it upset her greatly. It was when a caravan of Roman merchants arrived that he guessed what in Milla’s past vexed her so. Normally the Brigantes did their trading with the Roman merchants at the eastern coastal towns; however, these particular merchants had elected to come to Isurium Brigantum itself. When Milla heard where the men were from she ran away, sobbing in terror. Breogan and Alaric would later find her deep within a grove of trees, curled up on the ground with her head resting in Cartimandua’s lap. The young woman gently caressed her hair and tried to console her.