The victory over Legate Galba's traditionalists had been a necessary cruelty, but Alex's attention was almost immediately dragged back to the other, more intimate war being waged in the west. A coded dispatch arrived from Maximus, and the news it contained was a testament to the success of their shared gambit, and a warning of its terrible, unforeseen price. Maximus's impossible counter-offer had worked. Lucilla had agreed. The hostage was being delivered.
The scene, when it unfolded, was one of cold, formal tension. A small, heavily guarded carriage, bearing Lucilla's personal standard of the wolf and eagle, rolled into the courtyard of the governor's palace in Augusta Vindelicorum. From it stepped a boy of about ten years, followed by the silent, watchful figure of the spymaster, Piso.
The boy was small for his age, with a wiry frame and a shock of dark hair that fell across his brow. He possessed his mother's sharp, intelligent eyes, but where hers burned with ambition, his were filled with a quiet, watchful caution. He was a child who had clearly learned early to observe everything and trust no one. This was Lucilla's son, her secret, her weakness, and now, Maximus's hostage.
Maximus met them in the atrium. He had steeled himself for this moment, prepared to play the part of the adoptive father, the loyal vassal securing his new dynasty. He knelt on one knee before the boy, a gesture of respect for his new heir and, by extension, his mother. "You are welcome in my house, my son," he said, his voice a low, formal rumble. "You will be raised as a Maximus, with all the honor and duty that name entails."
The boy simply stared at him, his expression unreadable.
The formal adoption ceremony was a brief, legally binding affair, witnessed by Piso and Maximus's own senior centurions. Maximus signed the documents that made the child his legal heir, binding the future of the great house of Maximus to this small, silent boy. He had won. He had called Lucilla's bluff and taken her most valuable piece.
It was only after the documents were sealed that Piso revealed the true price of his victory.
"The Proconsul is overjoyed by this profound display of your loyalty, Governor," Piso said, his voice a dry, silken whisper. "She is, of course, keenly interested in the boy's education. He is, after all, her blood. She would not have him grow up ignorant of the skills required to rule."
He gestured to the doorway, and a group of men entered the atrium. They were not the stooped, grey-haired scholars Maximus might have expected. They were four men in the prime of their lives, their bodies honed by years of training, their faces hard as iron. Maximus recognized their armor and their bearing instantly. They were Centurions from Lucilla's personal Legio I Urbana, the fanatically loyal soldiers who had followed her from Rome.
"The Proconsul has sent along the boy's personal tutors," Piso continued, a faint, mocking smile on his lips. "They will oversee his education in the martial arts, in strategy, in the proper way a leader must command. They will, of course, also serve as his personal bodyguards. The boy's safety is, naturally, the Proconsul's paramount concern."
Maximus felt a cold dread begin to seep into his veins. It was a Trojan horse. He had taken the boy as a hostage, and in return, Lucilla had sent him a cadre of her most loyal, most dangerous killers to be permanently embedded in the very heart of his own household, watching his every move, all under the unimpeachable guise of being the child's tutors and protectors.
But Lucilla's chess move was not yet complete.
"And, of course," Piso added, his voice dropping, "a boy's education is not complete without spiritual guidance."
A final figure entered the room. He was a tall, gaunt man, dressed in the dark, simple robes of a priest or a philosopher. But he was neither. He was unnervingly still, his eyes holding a placid, empty quality that made Maximus's skin crawl. And on the back of the man's shaven head, clearly visible, was the tattooed spiral symbol of the Silenti.
Maximus stared, his carefully constructed composure finally cracking. He had thought the cult of the Silence was a tool used by the Conductor, a thing of the enemy. But this man was clearly a Roman, and clearly in Lucilla's service. A horrifying realization dawned on him. Lucilla had not just fought the alien influence; she had studied it, co-opted it, and turned it into a tool for her own use. She had created her own, personalized version of the cult, a mystery religion for her inner circle, a source of power and control.
"This is Decianus," Piso said, gesturing to the silent priest. "He will oversee the boy's philosophical and spiritual well-being. He will teach the boy of the 'Great Silence,' of the peace and order that comes from a singular, unified will. The Proconsul believes it is a most… clarifying… philosophy for a future ruler."
The trap was now fully revealed in all its monstrous complexity. Maximus had her son, yes. But she had sent him an entire fifth column of spies, assassins, and a high priest of an alien death cult to raise the boy. He, Maximus, was now the boy's legal father and protector, but he was powerless to stop the daily poisoning of his mind by Lucilla's hand-picked agents. He had tried to seize control of her legacy, and she had responded by ensuring that legacy would be a monstrous thing, a future ruler of the North raised to be one of her fanatical, Silenti-worshipping puppets, all under Maximus's own roof.
He was no longer the master of the game. He was the boy's jailer, and the boy's entourage were his.
That night, the great victory feast to celebrate the adoption was a hollow, tense affair. Maximus sat at the head of the table, his new son beside him, the four "tutor" centurions and the silent priest, Decianus, seated nearby, their watchful eyes missing nothing.
Later, as Maximus sat alone in his study, trying to draft a coded report of this new disaster to Alex, there was a soft knock on the door. It was the boy. He stood in the doorway, a small, lonely figure in his new, formal tunic.
"May I enter, Father?" he asked, the word 'Father' sounding strange and practiced on his tongue.
Maximus softened for a moment, seeing not a chess piece, but a lost and frightened child. "Of course, my son. Come in."
The boy walked to his desk and looked at the maps spread across it. "You are a great general," he said, his voice a quiet, uninflected monotone. "You know the art of war."
"I know something of it," Maximus replied cautiously.
The boy looked up at him, his dark, intelligent eyes holding a chilling, placid certainty that was far too old for his face. "My tutor, Decianus, says that the war of swords and shields is a lesser art. He says the true war is the war of the will. He says that true strength does not come from the old, chaotic gods of Rome. He says it comes from the Great Silence, from the peace of a single, unified purpose."
He paused, his gaze unwavering. "He says my mother understands this. He says she is a prophet of the coming order." The boy tilted his head, a gesture of innocent curiosity that was terrifyingly out of place. "Do you understand it, Father?"
Maximus looked into the eyes of the child he had fought so hard to control, the boy he was supposed to be protecting. And in their depths, he saw the cold, alien certainty of the enemy looking back at him. His brilliant gambit had not just brought him a hostage. It had brought the enemy's ideology, its very soul, directly into his home, and placed it in the heart of the boy he was now sworn to call his son.
To be the first to know about future sequels and new projects, google my official author blog: Waystar Novels.