TRUDGE TRUDGE
A distant rumble of wheels and hooves cracked through the silence—like a fracture splitting stone.
Chariots.
Horses.
The rain had now thinned into a gentle drizzle.
And fate—whether cruel or kind—was fast approaching.
TRUDGE TRUDGE
Then the drizzle ceased—unforeseen, unnatural, like a lie.
What remained was a silence so dense, it overwhelmed.
Above, the sky—heavy with sorrow—began to pale, dark gray peeling back to reveal a muted, mournful dawn.
A strange scent drifted on the damp air.
Incense.
Wet stone.
Low murmurs rippled through the gathering crowd.
As if the riders in those chariots were the ones they had been waiting for all along.
Lepidus, still on his knees, slowly lifted his head.
For a moment, he'd forgotten where he was.
Lost in grief.
Drowning in it.
Reality pressed in once more—like a hand closing around his throat.
He traced the crowd's gaze, eyes taking in the sea of somber faces.
They all stood in reverent silence.
Heads bowed.
Breaths held.
Black and gray cloaked every figure—mourning garb, without exception.
And then—
A name.
Whispered.
Passed from mouth to mouth like a prayer, a single word, heavy with respect.
"Germanicus."
Lepidus stiffened.
'Right. It was today.'
He had heard that name many times before.
Rome's golden son.
A soldier.
A hero.
And just recently—five nights ago—he'd heard it again.
He remembered it now.
The sting of a whip tore across his back.
One of his father's concubinae was lashing him.
Through the wall, Marcus Aemilius' voice—low and serious—slipped into the room.
"Germanicus' ashes will arrive soon."
At the time, Lepidus barely processed the words.
His body writhed.
His mind was elsewhere—
Full of worry.
Full of pain.
For his mother, who had been too ill to stand.
Delirious.
Her body, burning with fever, curled up in bed, unaware of the world around her.
But now—
The memory returned.
Germanicus.
The beloved general.
Adored by slaves, nobles, and commoners alike.
A man who had won Rome's heart—only to be sent East, to Antioch, they said, to secure fragile diplomacy in the provinces.
A move many saw as political exile.
He never returned alive.
And today—
His family was bringing home his ashes.
Lepidus glanced around.
He felt himself shrink, cheeks burning with shame—seaered by the truth that even the heavens themselves refused to grieve for anyone but Germanicus.
TRUDGE TRUDGE
The steady beat of wet hooves echoed through the streets, slapping against rain-slicked stone.
A luxurious chariot emerged from the mist—its presence regal and imposing.
Two majestic black horses drew it forward, their wet flanks glistening in the pale morning light.
Lepidus' gaze fixed on the woman at the reins.
Her face was hollow with heartbreak.
Her expression—on the edge of madness.
She cradled an ornate urn against her chest in one arm, holding it as though it were a living thing.
Her anguish was raw.
Undeniable.
Almost sacred in its intensity.
As her cortège moved forward, more people began to follow.
One by one.
Silently walking.
Solemn.
They formed a long, winding path toward the Mausoleum of Augustus—where Augustus and his kin lay in eternal rest.
'Pompa funebris.'
A funeral procession.
Lepidus rose slowly, sloshing water as he moved.
The rain had stopped, but his cape and tunica still clung to him, heavy and cold.
He probably looked like a half-drowned rat dragged up from the sewers.
"It seems the gods weren't even weeping for you, mother… they were crying for him…"
He watched the city's sorrow unfold.
The weight of devastation—his own and theirs—settled heavily upon his young shoulders.
"They favored him more than you."
The slow, deliberate pace of the march matched the dull ache pulsing in his chest.
The world was unfair.
"... always one-sided."
When his mother died, there was no spectacle of public despair.
No ceremony.
No crowd of mourners.
Only him, her cold corpse, and the man who dug her grave.
That man wasn't even sad.
He simply stood there, watching Lepidus cry his heart out—
Face blank.
Eyes bored.
He spat on the ground.
Why would he care?
It was only a job.
A single denarius for a hole in the dirt.
If not for that payment, he wouldn't have lifted a finger for the daughter of a slave.
A slave.
The lowest rung on Rome's brutal social ladder.
No rights.
No freedom.
No voice.
No name.
No nothing.
They were tools.
Furniture.
Property.
Bitterness twisted in his gut as he watched the mass of mourners swell in number.
Germanicus had all of Rome in tears—even the skies sniffled for him.
But Lepidus' mother?
She had been laid to rest in silence.
Her presence was already fading from the world.
Ignored.
Forgotten.
As if she had been nothing more than a figment of Lepidus' imagination.
TRUDGE TRUDGE
He clenched his fists.
Why did Germanicus earn such anguish, while Lepidus' own mother's death passed without notice?
'We're both the same. We're both people! Why are there statuses at all?'
This world was so unfair!
So cruel!
Who had the right to judge and divide people like livestock?
Who chose to measure a human's worth by bloodline and gold?
Who decided even sadness itself had a rank?
"Who?"
He looked up and questioned the heavens.
TRUDGE TRUDGE—NEIGH—SNORT—SNORT
The jarring clamor dragged his focus toward the line of chariots.
Behind the mourning woman came a wider and adorned chariot—its silence heavy, almost spectral.
Inside sat a cluster of Imperial children along with an elderly woman.
One girl caught his attention at once—wrenching him away from his thoughts.
Her beauty was striking.
Arresting.
Mesmerizing.
Long golden waves of hair framed a pale, delicate face.
Her eyes—piercing blue—caught the light and held it, clear but cloudy and unnaturally still…
As if they belonged to something… not of this world.
"—?"
A shiver crawled down his spine.
It wasn't just her beauty that unnerved him.
It was the emptiness behind her gaze.
She looked like a statue—perfect…
Lifeless…
A goddess.
And for a fleeting moment, her face overlapped with the memory of his mother's… after she took her last breath—
That final, indelible look that haunted him whenever he closed his eyes.
TRUDGE TRUDGE TRUDGE
Lepidus scoffed, trying to shake off the strange feeling.
'So what if she's that pretty?' he sneered, pushing off another wave of shame.
"I've seen better!"
Pride swelled within his chest.
'My mother was the most beautiful of them all!'
He whirled away, almost too quickly, as if fleeing the thought.
Trying to forget the likeness he had seen.
'I have to get out of here.'
He hated how easily such beauty could snare him, twist him, drag him away from his torment.
Then—
"Rome has lost its brightest star…"
"A hero… gone too soon."
"Even the gods weep for him…"
"A pity… so pitiful."
Those words cut deep.
'Pity?'
Anger suddenly flared.
'How dare they use that word here?'
The murmurs followed him as he shoved through the crowd, his shoulders ramming into the packed wall of strangers.
He didn't care.
Couldn't care less.
'Pity? You don't know what you're talking about!'
He ground his teeth.
'You know nothing.'
When his mother died, the world hadn't paused.
She had been his whole world!
And when your whole world crumbles—when you stand powerless, helpless, unable to do anything but watch—wasn't that the purest form of cruelty?
The most pitiful fate of all?
He had stopped living ever since…
Fresh tears welled, and he wiped them away with fury.
There had been no witness.
No ceremony.
No incense burned in her name.
Only a grave.
A lonely hole in the earth.
Only him, kneeling in the dirt, covering her body with mud until he couldn't see her anymore.
His fingers curled tight.
'Who?'
His thoughts boiled.
'Who dared say that?'
He wanted to hurt someone.
'Why?'
He even wanted to hurt himself.
'Why did Germanicus receive all this—'
The mourning.
The love.
The reverence.
'Pity?'
He wanted to laugh out loud.
'They pitied him?'
Was it because he was powerful?
A hero?
Important?
Noble?
Imperial?
'And what about my mother?'
She had been nothing.
A woman of slave descent.
A rejected wife.
A stain on a noble name.
So the world moved on.
Lepidus' pride burned like acid through his chest.
'Power… power decides who is pitied. It decides everything.'
Who is grieved for.
Who is ignored.
Who suffers.
Who thrives.
His breath came out shaky, his heart pounded hard against his ribs.
"If I had power…"
His voice was barely a whisper, but it weighed heavier than any scream.
If he had power, his mother's death wouldn't have been belittled.
If he had power, his father wouldn't have looked at him with disgust.
Power.
Blood!
That was all that mattered in this world.
Then—
A voice.
A melody.
Soft.
Melancholic.
Singing.
It wove through the air like a beautiful siren's lament, wrapping around Lepidus' heart with invisible fingers.
'What?'
His breath caught, he froze mid-step.
'Who was that?'
He turned, scanned the crowd, searching.
And then, his eyes fell upon her—
The goddess.
She was singing.
It was the loneliest tune Lepidus had ever heard—like a world keening alone.
"Who?"
His chest ached—
"Who are you?" he whispered to the wind.
The voice pulled him in.
THUMP.
It felt like his very soul was clawing to escape his body—just to follow that melody.
TRUDGE TRUDGE
Before he knew it, he stepped forward.
It felt like being sucked into an endless vortex.
THUMP.
He stepped on, uncaring of the scowls as shoulders knocked against him.
Then—urgency seized his legs.
His movements—fast.
At last, he staggered free of the crowd, breath ragged.
All his attention clung on the young girl, barely noticing her chariot rolling past, its wheels inches from crushing his foot.
The charioteer clacked his tongue, pausing for a moment.
THU-THUMP.
His heartbeat stuttered—she was right in front of him!
THU-THUMP.
Up close—she was even more breathtaking.
THUMP.
But she wasn't looking.
THUMP-THUMP.
'Why?'
The question slammed into him.
Why did she sing like that?
"Are you also hurt?" he wanted to ask.
Did she feel it too—
"Do you feel lost?" he wondered.
Like the world had ended?
"Just like me?"
The question hung in the air—unanswered.
He had a sudden urge.
An urge—to bring light back to those pretty eyes.
TRUDGE TRUDGE
'I wonder how it would look when full of life?'
The chariot moved, leaving him behind.
Without thinking, Lepidus stepped forward again.
THUMP.
Then again.
THU-THUMP.
Before he realized it, his feet were already carrying him after the procession.
THU-THUMP.
His exhaustion—
THUMP-THUMP.
His heartbreak—
Momentarily forgotten.
The rhythmic march of the crowd blurred into a steady drum of his own heartbeat.
THUMP.
His world started to stir again.
THUMP.
THU-THUMP—THUMP—THUMP.
**
INDEX:
Antioch—city in Roman Syria
Denarius(singular)/Denarii(plural)—silver coin/silver coins