Her mind
could not comprehend it. The words
swirled in her brain, as if attempting to be absorbed. Over and over she thought “Caesar has been
killed.” Sitting in her husband’s home,
she stared at her hands. All the sudden
she jerked and looked wildly around. “Marcus? Are you here?” her uncharacteristically timid voice
called. She found her slave and demanded
to be told where he was, only to hear that he left a couple hours ago to go to
the forum.
Panic filled her.
Any idiot could see that Marcus Publius Crassus the Younger was aligned
with Caesar when he was wearing his army uniform, which he would certainly have
worn to discuss politics and war at the forum.
If Caesar had not been saved, there was no reason to think that Marcus
would be unharmed. She went to the
external windows to search for him. A
small group of plebs ran through the deserted high class street angrily
shouting for friends of Caesar to share his fate. Fearfully, she closed and barred the wooden
shutters shut. She slowly walked to the
vestibulum. Calling to her slave she
requested a chair to be put where she could see the door. Sitting in the chair she stared at the door,
willing it to open.
“By the gods, this is when they reveal to me that I am in
love with him.” Aemillia whispered softly.
She thought bitterly, “As soon as I love him, I have to deal with the despair
of losing him. What if he dies without
knowing? All this time together and now
they could truly be happy.” She started sobbing.
As the hours passed she left her chair only to pray at the
family shrine built into the atrium. “Venus,
if you save Marcus, if you return him to me, I will make a grand sacrifice to
you.”
Soon after nightfall, someone urgently knocked on the
door. Without thinking of her safety,
Aemillia unbarred the door and looked at the man in the dirty tunic of a slave
in shock. Here was her love! Crying in relief, she dragged him
inside. As soon as the door was shut, she
threw her arms around him. Her face buried
into his shoulder, she mumbled “I love you, Marcus.”
He smiled through the dirt smudged on his face. “I’ve been waiting awhile to hear that. I love you too, Aemillia.”
