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"Can you see them there, by the side of the road,
not moving, not wrestling,
making a circle out of the space between the circles? Can you see them
pressed into the gravel, pressed into the dirt, pressing against each other
in an effort to make the minutes stop—"
(The Torn-Up Road by Richard Siken)
They had met in the forest alone, just as the snow began to fall in earnest. Two lions, they walked in circles around each other, crushing the fragile flakes under their boots, studying each other before daring to pounce.
Commodus knew his little training session with the Centurions would certainly attract the general's attention, but he hadn't expected to be challenged by him.
There was neither anger nor contempt in Maximus' eyes, only suspicion. He looked like an animal that, in complete denial of his wiser instincts, had walked into a trap because the temptation was too great. Only there was no trap, not this time—Commodus had hoped to attract the general, to show him he was not just a useless sybarite as his father described him, to prove that he had a fighter in him too despite appearances.
He was a lost case in his father's eyes and he knew it.
Something inside him hoped the general would see something else.
Thus began the dance, silent except for the sound of breaking ice on the Germanic ground and the swoosh of their swords cutting the air. Maximus was bare-chested like himself, and Commodus delighted in thinking that somehow the other man had found him a worthy match, and treated him as an equal. There was no unnecessary violence in his gestures, but his attacks were true. Any other soldier might have withheld his skills when fighting the Emperor's son, but Maximus did not play.
And Commodus struck back at him with elegant movements, more a dancer than a fighter, he knew, but dancers were deadly in ways soldiers did not expect. He had not attracted the general to show him was just like another soldier—he meant to show him he was capable in his own ways. He had learnt from his spies and prostitutes as much as he learnt from his teachers and masters.
They twisted and turned around each other, their swords meeting mid-air and then coming closer to their flesh, sometimes touching the skin so briefly as to leave a small cut, almost unnoticeable except for the small tear of blood that followed. Commodus could see the web they were spinning around each other and he knew, he knew their fates were invariably connected now and that only death could break this bound.
Ah, death. But no, he did not want his brother to die. Not yet.
No, he hoped he could entrap the general in a web akin to love and blind him to his father's lies.
You don't know me, his eyes said.
But the general responded with a wary gaze and a thrust of his sword, which Commodus evaded with a graceful swirl before attacking him again. Maximus parried it with his own weapon, and used his superior skills to try to slide his blade past Commodus defences.
He went for Commodus' heart and for a moment the young man almost let him, but in the last second he dodged the attack and took advantage of the general's awkward position to hit him in the arm.
It would have been a glorious, glorious victory.
But the pain was white and bright, like the Germanic winter, and just as biting. It took Commodus by surprise, making him drop the sword as the blood ran down his arm, mingling with sweat and dropping on the frozen soil. He watched detachedly as the pink flowers blossomed, becoming bigger and bigger as his blood fed them.
Maximus looked at him, sword dangling loosely from his hand, his own blood painting curious shapes on his wet skin.
"My brother bleeds," Commodus murmured, still in shock at having been wounded too.
Maximus smiled, a tiny unaccustomed smile, and for the first time his eyes were clear, free from distrust but almost full of a strange sympathy that made Commodus' stomach churn with revolt.
"You bleed too, Your Highness. Perhaps we should return to the camp?"
"Perhaps," Commodus answered, letting his body fall on the snow.
He had not wanted pity—he had wanted respect. A glimmer of hope, of brotherly acceptance from the man his father had preferred to the son of his own flesh. Yet… he supposed that after all his father had told the general about him, this is the best Maximus could give him.
But was it his fault that he had been abandoned to the silks and the superstition of women? Was it not his father the one who made a coward of him?
Commodus knew the answer, but it did not matter anymore; he would never be seen as an equal, as a worthy man, by any of them. How foolish he felt now, for trying to deserve the brotherly love of the warriors. He sighed as he watched Maximus walk away, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
So death is the only road for us, brother.
They had met in the forest alone, just as the snow began to fall in earnest. On the crossroads of love and death, one young lion sat licking his wounds after the fight. Seeing no reason to aim at love again, he decided to sharpen his claws instead.