The Lady Out of Time

16 - Celebrate

When Augustus's arms loosened from around her and his hands drifted down to encircle her wrists, Julia stared ahead in stunned silence. Even after he took a step back to examine her face once more, her mind yet worked at breakneck pace to process what was happening. The body she inhabited right now, the empty shell that her mind had taken over after the young Julia's life slipped away - how could anyone have ever thought it belonged to the daughter of the Roman emperor?

It made no sense. Almost two decades of life on the island and knowing nothing else except the serene quiet and peace that was Pandateria, and suddenly the girl was lost royalty. How? Why? And how bitter that the girl's soul had died in suffering and pain, stolen away from her mother and everything she loved only to fade away in the dungeons. She had been so brave...

Julia clenched her teeth. She didn't understand exactly what was going on right now or how things had come to this, but she had no choice but to follow along. For one, she needed to navigate whatever muck she was now in so that she could last long enough to get back to her time. And secondly - her heart sank. The young girl who had fought so bravely and decided to go down swinging, to choose death over s*****y - she owed it to her. The brave little girl who had left her body behind for someone else to inhabit.

Well, if she couldn't get her happy ending, then Julia was going to accept it for her. If not her soul, then maybe at least her body could celebrate vindication.

"Welcome home!"

What? She turned her head to see that the noblewoman with the stray, billowing sash from earlier was now at Augustus's side. When had she gotten there? And where had that warm, feminine smile come from all of a sudden? Not only that, but when the emperor moved aside to make space for her, she reached over and grabbed Julia's hands in what was apparently was supposed to be a motherly gesture. But her hands were cold and sharp somehow, and Julia pulled away immediately.

"I wouldn't dare be so familiar with Your Ladyship when I was nothing but a humble slave until just a moment ago," she said as she looked up at the noblewoman with a steady gaze. "It must be a shock. You didn't even want your shawl to touch me. I'll be sure to wash up first before we get better acquainted."

An embarrassed pink flush raced over the woman's cheeks, and Julia took the opportunity to take in her appearance a little more thoroughly. She looked young, perhaps around her own age. Mid thirties, perhaps? The flawless skin and perfect makeup made it hard to pinpoint, but there was no denying her natural beauty. Soft and wavy light brown hair, tied back in a loose bun and decorated with several elegant brooches, pretty blue eyes and lashes so long and thick that she could have been a Maybelline model in the modern era. Sharp chin and regal cheekbones so high that they ought to have high altitude warnings posted on them.

Hm. Could it be...?

"You seem perfectly fine to me," the emperor said as he took another step back to inspect Julia from head to toe. "No need to wash up - let me bring you inside. There's so much that I've missed...The meeting will have to wait, this is more urgent."

He turned around to face the group that had come together in a crescent-shaped crowd behind him, they all stood at attention upon receiving his attention.

"I hope you all understand that this is of paramount importance to me. I will prepare lodgings for all of you for now as well as a meal, but I will have to postpone the discussion until tonight after I have had time to properly acquaint myself with my daughter. General?" He turned his head to look back at Agrippa, who gave him a stiff nod back in response. "Excellent. Then please allow my servants to take you to your rooms, my brothers."

Augustus's guests didn't seem disappointed in the least by these new arrangements, Julia noted as she let her eyes dart from face to passing face, committing them all to memory as quickly as she could. These were important men along with their wives, so trusted that they had been invited to listen in and give input on the new defendant system. And if she really was the emperor's daughter (or at least playing the part), then she was certain she needed to prepare to plunge into the politics if she wanted to survive.

She needed to keep her eyes open even wider now, never blink. She looked back at the pretty woman at Augustus's side who had been so contemptuous earlier but now put on a gracious, elegant facade. That one would be one of her biggest problems. She knew it.

"Daughter. Come this way. Marcus - with us, please."

She returned her attention to the emperor at his gentle address, but she sneaked another glance at Agrippa at her side. His face was blank. Too blank. That was his controlled expression, the one he wore when he was doing his best to lock down every emotion inside himself. She felt the urge to reach out to him with the assurance that all was fine - or would be, at least - but that would accomplish little. He was probably on the brink of convulsions. Who would have thought that his slave would be claimed by the emperor as a daughter?

Augustus guided her with a hand on her back down a hallway lined with more pillars, asking questions all the while. How she had come to be here in Rome, what indignities she had suffered in the meantime. She answered as truthfully as she could, drawing on young Julia's memories to fill the gaps when possible. But she made sure to offer nothing but glowing praise of Agrippa's conduct and treatment of her, how he afforded her greater opportunities whenever she desired them. The emperor smiled and nodded at his general, apparently unsurprised - but then again, that was his right hand man. He could never disappoint.

"I sent men to Pandateria to find you close to three months ago," he said as they entered a grand sitting room furnished with several plush seats and reclined benches. "They found your mother, distraught. She said you were gone and that no one knew where you could be or what might have happened to you. When I received news of it, I put all my resources into trying to track you down along with whoever might have taken you, but..."

Of course. It wasn't as if they'd had CCTV and surveillance equipment with all-seeing satellites in the sky in these ancient times. And Rome had been a massive empire in its day - it didn't surprise Julia that even a monarch could fail to track down a single lost girl.

"But now you have come to me in my own house. The gods smile on me and all of Rome this day. Sit, sit. Anywhere you like. Dinner will be served soon - while we wait, you must tell me everything."

It was jarring to be treated with such tender compassion and fatherly excitement in so long. Her own parents had passed away years ago, and a hot, prickling feeling simmered in her chest as she watched the great and magnanimous first patriarch of the Roman Empire pat down a seat for her to take with both hands. She tried to urge him to let her do it himself, that the chair was fine as it was, but -

"This is what little I can do for the daughter I haven't seen since she was born. Let me have this, my Julia."

And the wistful, regretful tone of his voice had immediately cowed her into submission. She was never one to back down from a fight against anyone unless it served her purposes for a later ploy, but she couldn't fight an old man's sadness. Hearing it, and knowing that she was unfairly collecting the love of a father on behalf of his little girl when she was already long gone - the guilt made her jaw snap shut and meekly allow him to fret over her.

"You!" Augustus called to the attendant waiting in the doorway. The young man stuck out his chest and stood at attention. "Send word to Pandateria, to Scribonia - that Julia is found. Quickly!"

The attendant disappeared in a flash, and he turned back to look at Julia with those tired, joyful eyes once more. Struck by the undeniable urge to take his hand, she did just that without any fear at all despite the fact that she really, really shouldn't have...and he squeezed her hand between his own before taking the seat beside her.

"You said something about - legal matters. That Marcus permitted you to work on something with him?"

Oh, God. Where to start? The documents that Agrippa was still holding under one arm, the defendant system that she had been prepared to help him present today just for a glimpse at the emperor's face and nothing more. That was all she had been expecting, the only prize she'd looked forward to. And to think that he was clutching at her hand now as if she were a lost pearl while Agrippa stared blankly at her from his own seat across the way...

And that noblewoman who had followed them as well, too. She was sitting next to the general with her hands folded primly in her lap, looking even prettier than she had before. Julia wouldn't fall for it. She had seen her true temperament peeking through already; putting on this false pretense now of being a gracious lady meant nothing at all. She also didn't like that she was sitting next to Agrippa, but that was probably besides the point.

Maybe.

She was sitting a little close though, wasn't she?

But she didn't have long to dwell on her growing concern about the scant few inches of space between them. Augustus tapped the back of her hand for her attention.

"Right - the defendant system," she said, wishing she could pinch herself for being distracted at such a time. "I helped with some things..."

As she explained her contributions to that as well as other projects to Augustus's growing delight, she glanced back to Agrippa over and over again, unable to deduce the hardened expression he wore that only became darker and darker as minutes passed. He was displeased. No, worried - about something. She found herself growing more and more on edge in response as if they were linked -

"Dinner, stay for dinner, Marcus!" the emperor ordered when someone arrived at the doorway of the sitting room to announce that their meal was ready. "You can't beg off of this one. You must stay and help celebrate. And Julia, you must be hungry. Come, come."

She looked at Agrippa again as she passed him by, her hand still in Augustus's eager grasp as he escorted her out toward the hallway. And this time, she saw something flit across his face as he stared back, dark eyes glittering with something unnamed and certainly unspoken until she had no choice but to turn forward again. Her heart pounded away in her chest, threatening to leap into her throat at any second.

But there was no time to think about that now, and she allowed the emperor to guide her away.