I used to wonder where I would be when it came for me.  Mors.  Muerte.  Death.  The ultimate surrender.  The one thing I'd fought so hard to conquer, first as a soldier and then as a slave... and later in other places, and for far less noble a cause.  Fuck them.  I wanted to live.  What man doesn't?  But not many people wanted it as much as I did.  Not many people are willing to fight as hard, to endure the kind of torment that I have.  Back then, each new day, each painfully glorious sunrise was another day I won.  Another day I beat my captors the only way I could.  By surviving.  By not letting that blissful blackness take me.     

And there were times I was ready to let it.  Dark times when I gave myself over to the black beast inside me.  I have always been a soldier... but I wasn't a killer until then.  It wasn't something they made me into, however.  It wasn't because of them at all.  It was something for me.  Something that came out of me to protect the man inside when he was too tired to keep on fighting, when he was praying that each excruciating breath would be his last.  That black beast carried the man through some dark days, through some of the worst horrors imaginable and I've never been ashamed of that.  The truth is, there is much I owe the beast.

Commodus, Quintus... men of their ilk, they took many things from me.  My family.  My humanity.  At times, even my sanity.  I used to think they'd taken my future, too.  Used to think the things they'd taken I wasn't ever going to get back.  The sad truth is that some of the things they took are lost to me forever.  It is a difficult thing for someone like me to swallow.  I am never going to be the man I was before.  I will never again have that peace.  The sound of my son's laughter.  The scent of my wife's dark, sun-warmed hair.  The feel of her hand upon my face.  My body bears many scars.  My heart carries the worst of them.         

I know I am not the only man who has ever suffered.  No man has yet been born who has not been dealt a losing hand at one time or another.  No one has the Gods' favor forever.  Look at Marcus Aurelius.  He had his family.  A home.  People who loved him.  The respect (and the ire) of many peoples.  A lifetime of good works and successful campaigns.  And yet, he has had his share of poor hands as well.  Commodus the Corrupt will forever be his son.  A stain upon his honor.  On Rome's honor.        

There are times such thoughts help to put things in perspective.  And there are times such thinking only enrages me further.  I am aware I am not an easy man.  A good man on occasion, perhaps, but never easy.  I have too much of the black beast in me for that.  Too much pain.  Too much loneliness.  It makes me restless.  Unsettled.  It makes me wish to do nothing more than feel the wind on my face and a strong horse under me, to watch the endless ribbon of road disappear under his hooves.  And there are times it makes me want to shout down the sky at the unfairness of it all, even while I glory in the fact that I took every last bit they meted out and I am still standing.   

It makes me think, as well.  There are many hours alone in the night for those kinds of thoughts to wear away at a man.  I have slept in many places where the nights are cold and long.  Hours of darkness that stretch on forever before sunrise comes to chase away the demons.  I have lived for many years with my mind dwelling in this dark place, thinking about living, thinking about dying, wondering what fate the Gods have in store for me.  I am arrogant.  I have good reason.  What more could they do to me that has not already been done?

Still, I know that the Gods will not always look upon me with favor.  On those long dark nights, it amused me to ponder such matters.  A game played in my mind to pass those interminable hours between sunset and sunrise.  Chained in a cell.  I cannot abide being bound like an animal.  I endured it because I had to, but it took much will to override my intense dislike. 

In the beginning, my grief was too fresh to dwell upon my son's smile or the soft feel of my wife's body curled so sweetly around mine.  Those memories stayed safe, locked deep inside my heart, protected by the black beast.  Instead, I would dwell upon darker thoughts.  I knew I must do my duty... but I also longed to be with them again. 

In those days, my musings were dark indeed.  How would it end?  Is there a soldier born who hasn't contemplated that?  Where would I be when I finally had to give up the one game I never lost?  Would anyone miss me?  Would it be an honorable death?  Who would I be in those last moments?  The man who liked to feel the tickle of wheat against his palm or the black beast?  Would my Elysium be as I imagined? 

I thought about it often.  Dreamed of how it might be if I were free.  Would it come when I was alone?  Perhaps hunting?  An error, overconfidence that might make me the prey instead of the hunter?  I could accept that.  A natural death.  Nature plays no favorites.  Kill or be killed.  A fair death.  Had I a choice, it would not be so terrible a way to go.  Much preferable to dying like a dog, chained in a filthy cell.  I'd rather have my bones swallowed by the forest than fed to the lions.  It would be an easy death.  Peaceful.

Others in my imagination were not so peaceful.  Would it come in the arena?  Would I finally meet someone who swung a sword better than I?  I do not imagine that I am invincible.  There is always someone better.  Perhaps one day I would walk into the arena and never walk out.  I often wondered if I would sense it and be inclined to push them hard enough to cut me down.  Some nights, especially when things were bad, I would pray for such an opponent.  Played it over in my mind.  Saw myself standing toe-to-toe with the better man and having honor enough to stand my ground right up until the last moment. 

I am not a coward.  Pain and I are old friends.  I hoped for an honorable death.  To meet it head-on instead of it sneaking up on me like an asp in the night.  Surely with all I have forfeited, I have earned that much, earned an honorable death.  A soldier's death.

Dishonorable death- now that thought would keep me up at night, even when my body was screaming for rest.  Would I see it coming or would it take me without any chance of meeting it with dignity and honor?  There was a time when my honor was all I had left to me.  Honor and pride.  I might be harder to kill than most, given a sword and placed in an arena, but a phial of poison in my gruel and I would succumb the same as any other man.  The life of a gladiator was a pitiful existence.  And for a man who has as much pride as I do, it was humbling to walk with death the way I did then.  The men who owned me, they left me nothing- not even dignity... and that is something I will never forget.     

Poison is the worst death I can imagine.  I have fought too hard, survived too much only to succumb to such an ignoble end, writhing in agony as some black venom churns my insides and I foul myself like a squalling child.  Muerte.  Death: the ultimate surrender- those bastards will never have that satisfaction over me.  Not ever.  That is mine to give up, not theirs to take.  I owe the black beast that much, at least. 

My musings on death, they are not always so bleak.  I have occasionally wondered if it would be drink that took me.  Not an honorable death, but at least I would be warm.  There were times I contemplated it, staring into my cup.  I imagined I would feel the effects of the spirit and then I would feel nothing at all as the world faded to black. 

An easy passing.... though more suited to fools and pathetic old men than to a soldier of Rome.  Still, it might surprise some that I did entertain such thoughts in my darkest hours, as I imagine most men do.  But I have seen that death.  Seen men slumped in alleys and under bridges.  I would pray to the Gods that they went as I'd imagined it to be, all warm and no pain... but seeing their pathetic carcasses... I had no wish to be numbered among them.  I would not want a good man to pass me by and to see me in such a state.  My captors took my dignity.  I think I would not be willing to give it away so freely.   

I mused upon other easy ways.  Disease?  Illness.  The land is rife with it and it can strike down even the most noble warrior.  Would it truly be so bad to slip off to sleep and simply never wake?  Of course, with my dreams being what they are, perhaps that wouldn't be such a gentle passing.  Still, it far surpasses writhing in agony, chained like a dog in a cell as poison eats your innards.  At least in sickbed, I would be covered and warm with a cool hand tending my fevered brow.  

I cannot help but smile as my mind makes a leap from sickbed to another kind of bed entirely.  What man hasn't wondered what it would be like to find that sweet surcease in bed?  I don't suppose as hale as I am that fucking myself to death is a viable option, but it does number among the more pleasant ways to go, I suspect.  In my mind, however, it wasn't the act itself that made it so appealing, but the notion of comfort.  Of not being alone in those last moments.  I could slip over so easily, so gently with a soft body under mine and my head resting peacefully on a warm breast.  Hearing her heartbeat.  Feeling a soft hand stroke my back gently.  Making me feel safe.  Loved.  Would such a surrender be so terrible?  Could I not be weak just once with a woman holding me so tenderly? 

Of course, I imagine that if I was feeling all of that, I would probably not be so eager to give it up.  It was a long time, however, before I arrived at that conclusion.  In the beginning, that one was more about hoping that death would take me as I shed my seed; breathless, heart hammering in my chest and blood pounding between my legs and in my ears.... hoping that perhaps I might be permitted to have something that felt good in those last moments.  I have been at death's door more times that I can count- and all of them have been painful.  I think, perhaps, this one was simply about wishing I might get there just once without it hurting.

Well, such was my thinking in the beginning, anyway.  I have been with many women and any one of them would have worked for what I just described- simply a warm body under mine that made me feel good and gave me ease in my last moments.  I have only met one woman who has ever made me feel safe.  Loved.  And that is when everything started changing. 

Death and surrender still beguiled me - but no longer in the same way.  Not from the very first moment I saw her dark eyes flashing at me from across her father's table.  It has always been a source of amusement to me... how one simple look from a maid can lay a man low when the strongest enemy blade cannot.  Are we men really such foolish creatures? 

I think perhaps we are.  I didn't even know her then and my first reaction had been to extend to her my protection.  To put myself between her and the world.  It was something instinctive.  I don't even remember stopping to question it.  It just happened.  Kill or be killed became kill before something kills her.   

And as simply as that, everything changed.

To this day, I cannot tell you why her.  It is something that just... is.  Like the earth or the air or the great oceans that border the vastness that is Rome's long reach.  She wasn't the most sophisticated woman I had ever met, nor the smartest... or even the prettiest... but she was the only one who ever moved me in such a way.  I am not a stranger to instinct.  That black beast that keeps me alive possesses some fierce instincts of his own, but she alone had the power to quiet him.  Until her, that blind instinct had always put my safety first.  Selfish?  Perhaps... but how can I defend others if I cannot draw a breath?  

Of course, I didn't realize all of that until much later, until I was back on the campaign trail, far, far away from the sun-warmed stones of my home and the soft touch of my wife.  That is when I began to realize things were different, that my experiences with her had somehow changed my ideas of death and surrender.

Perhaps it is not all too surprising.  I am pretty hard to kill.... I think, at times, it is because I do not have the Gods' favor.  I touched death many times in the months we were parted.  Returned from battle, weary in spirit as well as in body.  I still remember the first time I returned to find a sweetly scented letter from my woman. 

It was as if my world had stopped.

The parchment crackled under my fingertips and I was suddenly home again.  The dreadful images in my mind of men writhing, limbless and cleaved, swirled away as if they were nothing but a dream.  I was again with her, standing together outside our humble home.  The wind smelled of herbs and sounded of my little son's laughter.  I could still taste her on my lips and feel her touch lingering under my tunic.    

I remember dropping her letter back to the table and feeling the bleak world rush back.  The stink of battle.  The dirt and gore ground into my very pores.  She was a sweet wind in the rank, stagnant field of 'honor'.  I was bloodied and battle-weary.  It had been a long time since I'd been as close to death as I was that night.  It touched my pride.  It had been a near thing... and afterwards, in the semi-privacy of my own tent, I was free to let the armor fall from my heart as well as my body.  I savored her letter over a cup of spiced wine and wished away the months to the time we could again be together.  

And I prayed, as is my habit..... asking the blessed Father to watch over them until my return, to whisper to them in their sleep that I live only to hold them again and all else is dust and air.           

The truth, however, is that I needed that time.  Time to learn about surrender and love and sacrifice.  I didn't realize it then, but the time I'd spent with her had changed me.  It was months before I realized I had stopped thinking so much about dying and had begun to think about living.  And after that, each time we met and parted, it touched me a little deeper.  I realized surrendering to death was the easy part.  It was surrendering to life that was hard. 

I might be a good general, decisive and sure, but with matters of the heart, I am slower.  More cautious.  It took me a little longer to realize I had been surrendering parts of myself to her since the beginning.  Surrendered a little of my distance when our eyes met across her father's table and a little of my solitude when we began exchanging letters.  Surrendered a portion of my freedom when we wed, and a measure of my wealth when I allowed her to set up our home.  Surrendered my privacy when she was finally old enough to take to my bed and surrendered my trust when I finally began to share with her my burdens and accept hers into my keeping.       

One might think that it would stop there- but it did not.  I surrendered my heart when we fell in love and my peace when I had to leave her quickening with my child.  How I worried those long months I was away... and when I returned and held them both for the first time.....  I knew I would be surrendering more than I ever had before the sun rose again.

I loved her fiercely that night.  She was so beautiful.  Riding me hard.  Taking me deep, as is my preference.  It was hardly the first time we had been intimate, but it was the first time since she'd born my beautiful son.  The feel of her, the scent of her... the thought of her slender graceful body giving succor to us both..... it drove me wild and gentled me all at once.

I was unable to get close enough.  Deep enough.  I wanted to devour her and crawl inside her at the same time.  It was raw and carnal and we were both left sweaty and panting.  She was holding my eyes and showing me what I did to her, as I let her see what she did to me.  I let those many months of loneliness bleed away as I poured myself into her and drank her in just as deeply.  We shook and strained and I knew it would be so good.  Knew I would give her everything, every last bit of myself, body heart and soul....

And when it happened, it was as if my world had stopped.

In that moment, I surrendered everything I ever had to give her... and afterwards, when we came back to ourselves and my head was cradled to her breast and she was softly stroking my back, I knew, without a single doubt, I would never again need death to find my Elysium.

Those years without her, I lived with only one purpose.  Duty and vengeance were the two sides of the sword I desired to bury in Commodus' breast.  And I endured much to have that opportunity.  My journey was painful and wearisome.  On the eve of my last sunrise, I hung in chains, beaten and bruised; a plaything for the false Caesar.  It is the longest night I have ever passed.  The black beast roared loudly within me, rising to protect the man one last time. 

The louder he raged, the wider the chasm between him and the man grew.  The man was already distancing himself.  The veil shading the afterlife was but a wisp.  Commodus taunted me.  His men beat me.  The black beast roared silently... but the man?  He felt the soft currents of air disturbed by my gentle wife as she hovered at my shoulder.  I felt my small son at my knee.  Heard him entreating me to watch as he ran in wild circles like the ponies of my homeland.  The blows of my captors rained down upon me.  I felt my wife's sweet breath, warm in my ear.  Maxime..... 

I felt the sharp bite of Commodus' asp beneath my arm.  My fingers and lips began to tingle.  A poison blade.  No honorable death after all I had endured?  I heard his mocking laughter.... and under it, my wife's voice.  Soft and low.  Whispering to me through the thin veil that separated us that Commodus had angered the Gods and I was the weapon they had chosen to cut him down.  All was as it should be.  I must only find the strength to last a short while longer. 

I smile thinking of it.  Such serious words.... and yet there was a hint of teasing in her voice.  I heard her soft laughter as it faded from me.  When we meet again, wife of mine, we shall see who lasts and who does not.       

I walked into the arena that day knowing death was there, waiting for me.  This time, I would not surrender anything.  Commodus stood before me in pristine white.  Had I the energy, I would have laughed.  He played the part of the noble hero and I got to play Death.  I got to see what he sees when he stalks me.  And if anything, it only made me less afraid. 

Death had no more secrets from me.

Kill or be killed.  He challenged me.  And I held my ground.  The black beast fought as he always does, with heart and a single-minded determination to win no matter what the cost.  He cut us and we bled.  I felt the man slip farther and farther away.  My blood ran and the more it did, the closer I came to touching my family.  The black beast snarled at the man for his inattention.  We finished it quickly and I gathered the last of my strength to speak the words that I knew I must to free Rome.

And when I did, it was as if my world had stopped.  

I fell hard into the ground.  I felt the earth warm under me... saw the blue of the sky above and closed my eyes.  The veil lifted and I still felt the earth warm under me... but now the blue was framing the faces of those I held most dear to my heart.

Muerte?  Hardly.

I was where I belonged.

And I was finally free....