Aurelia || SERIES ROMANA I

Chapter 75 ~ Bellum committit

"How did they react?" Aurelia wanted to know, striving for a calm, casual tone. Nevertheless, she could not prevent her voice from trembling with fear. Effortlessly calm, she looked up at him and noticed him watching her intently.
"They have not dared to call me a tyrant or even a king," he said gravely. "But especially those who hoped to be appointed by me seemed very angry. Of course, they all praised my idea to the skies and feigned admiration for my intelligence and foresight, but it was only a hollow talk. I might as well have appointed my horse as consul, they would have reacted no less disparagingly. They will be surprised when they have to deal with you."
Again and again, she had told him that this idea was doomed to failure. Rome, Italy, the whole world was not yet ready for a woman to step out of the shadows and take an active part in politics. Although this fact symbolised everything, she had detested all her life, this society was elitist, racist and sexist. Fighting it could cost her head - and the heads of her family.
"Aurelia, we didn't just plan this campaign together," he reminded her gently. "Since we were married, not actually since you returned from Cosa as my fiancée, you have proven time and again with your courage, your intuition, your alert mind and your charm that you are up to the task. Without you, I could never have brought Macro down; without you, there would be no university in Rome, and without you, I probably wouldn't be alive. So please trust me and believe in yourself because I do."
Stunned, she stared at him. Like a fish out of water, she opened her mouth, but no sound came out of her throat. She was mute. The lump in her throat threatened to choke her. Tears gathered in her eyes. But Gaius only returned her gaze perfectly calmly and gently. While inside her various nightmares and excerpts from documentary series flashed past her again and again, Gaius held her hands gently, anchoring her in the real world. Insistently, he continued with solemn seriousness, "Julius needs you, I need you, but above all, Rome needs you. Perhaps they don't know it yet, but they need you as much as I need you, my heart. Only you can put those hypocritical, small-minded old men under your spell and see to it that no one takes our place while I am away. There is no one in this world I trust more than you. Only you are privy to all the things that are in my mind. I know they will try to make your life difficult, and representing me will take a lot of strength from you. Therefore, there is something I must show you before I go."
Gently, he led her through the corridors of the palace, and she tried to shake off her drowsiness. After a short while, they reached an area where they no longer encountered a soul, and the corridors were so cold and spider-woven that she was sure no one apart from them knew of their existence. Suddenly, Gaius stopped in the middle of the passage, let go of her hand, bent down and operated an invisible lever on a stone slab. Immediately, it lifted, and as he pushed it aside, Aurelia could make out a spiral staircase. Caring, he took her hand again and led her down. Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the dim light, but still, she clung to Gaius for support.
At the end of a long corridor, he suddenly lit an oil lamp, and for a moment, she was blinded by its light. Blinking, she looked around and saw nothing but a wall. They were at a dead end. Then Gaius placed her entwined hands on a stone and pressed gently against it. To her surprise, the stone slid effortlessly inside the wall and triggered a secret mechanism. The next moment, they found themselves in a room full of scrolls and notebooks. Open-mouthed, she marvelled at the abundance of reading material before her. Astonished, she inquired what this place was all about. Sadly, his gaze slid over the scrolls and wax tablets.
"These are all the transcripts from the trials of my mother and brothers," he whispered gravely. "When you first left Rome, I came here every night and read everything I could lay my hands on."
With a mixture of a wife's deep compassion and a historian's childlike enthusiasm, she let her fingertips glide over the files. Only in this way could she be sure that this place was real and that she was not just dreaming it up.
"I was wondering where they might be," she confessed quietly, her curiosity causing her not to notice his surprise at her reaction. "It was a brilliant move to make the Senate think that you had destroyed this overwhelming evidence against each of them. But if I now use their testimony against them, they will know that you only burned copies, and the originals are still in our hands."
His deep sigh caused her to stifle her admiration. Seriously, she turned to him and registered how exhausted and worried he looked.
"You will find a way to use this knowledge against them without giving away the secret behind the secret," he said with confidence. Then he took her hand, and together they crept silently back to their chambers. It was time to prepare for the last dinner before he left.