Laeta walked the worn narrow path down to the small village she had lived in for the past 20 years. It had grown a lot since their arrival, but her home was set off away from the others.

The home had started out as just a tent, and slowly Nasir, Agron and herself had built a stone building to ensure its security and safe given Lysander's arrival into this world. Agron had seen to it that a hiding spot was constructed in the ground to allow them to hide if the Romans arrived. He had added onto the structure over the years, making it larger and more impregnable. It was a fine home for them. She had always been grateful for Agron loyalty to her and Lysander. Agron, early on, lamented his injuries from his crucifixion would never allow him to fully recover all his battle skills. As the years had passed, he had not so quietly settled into a life of a farmer and tradesman. As Lysander grew though, Argon had taken great joy in the boy's education and well-being. Agron was a wonderful replacement for his true father, although Agron wished it were not so.

Laeta made her way to the stone structure she and Lysander called home. As she walked closer, she heard his laugh. Her son's laugh was deep and strong. It made her smile to hear his happiness, for she knew it might be a very long time before she heard it again. War was coming, and Laeta knew all too well, what that meant.

As she rounded the corner of her home, she saw her son standing with his friends, laughing and drinking. His friends saw her first and quickly quieted their conversation, undoubtbly regarding some latest female conquest of Lysander's, Laeta thought as they seem to correct their stances in order to greet her. Lysander, seeing the change in his companions, turned towards her approach. Laeta looked to his eyes and saw his father there once again. It always took her breath when he looked at her a certain way. Lysander, seeing his mother approaching, turned fully to her, a broad smile on his face. Laeta watched as the same dimples on his cheeks appeared as his father's. A tightness gripped her chest. He was dressed in full battle gear, a green and gray cloak draped across the back, a sword at side, a dagger tucked in at his waist. A striking figure he presented.

"Mother! I am glad you finally chose to come down off high to greet me before I leave." Lysander embraced his mother joyfully, commenting on Laeta's habit of climbing the hill often over the years to seek solace. "Have the gods given you assurances that I will be safe amongst my brothers?" Lysander teased, given the hills considerable height and his mother's advanced age, he often marveled at her ability to still climb the hill.

Laeta smiled at her son as he teased her regarding her habits. She never told Lysander of her true reasons of going up that hill, and she only took him up there once, when he was a babe. "I would have words with you Lysander. Upon yonder hill." Her request came out more harshly than intended, but she must speak with him alone and away from the others. Lysander's smile faded at his mother's harsher than normal tone. He watched as she entered the home had shared with her and his uncles his entire life. A few moments later she exited with a bundle held close to her chest, she gave him a look that gave him no quarter but to comply with her command. Lysander turned to his friends and with a lopsided grin, followed his mother back up the hill from where she had just come.

Laeta had reached the top of the hill more quickly than Lysander had, however local girls who wished to see him off properly had detained him several times. He had teased and explained he had pressing matters with his mother, but he would return later to accept their offers. Laeta stood looking over the mountains, the bundle she held place on the bench behind her.

Lysander attaining the top of the hill finally spoke breathlessly from the climb he had just completed.

"You are still fleet of foot for a woman of advanced years to attain such lofty heights so quickly." He jokingly smiled as she continued to peer out towards the mountains.

"Perhaps my journey was easier since I am not weighted down by the implements of war and battle." Laeta spoke quietly, looking back at her son, looking pointedly at the sword and armor wore.

"Mother, please. We have spoken of this…." Lysander knew of his mother's abhorrence of war and sword.

"Yes, we have. And I am not here to try to dissway you from the path you have chosen." Laeta saw the relief wash over her son's face that he would not have to argue his points of joining the campaign to his mother once again. "Yet, I would have you know…" Laeta paused, as she turned back towards the mountains far off in the distance, the sliver of the Italy just barely visible. She closed her eyes to take a deep breath and imagine she could see his grave, so far away from this place.

"Have me know what?" Lysander spoke as he walked to his mother's side, looking towards the place she looked so longingly at.

"Look out there. What do you see?" Laeta asked softly, gesturing to the place where she wished things had not ended as they had.

"The mountains?" Lysander spoke curiously.

"And beyond that?" Laeta queried.

"Beyond the mountains, is Rome's empire." Lysander spoke honestly. "Can you see it from here?" Laeta asked.

"I suppose. Just a bit." Lysander was becoming more confused as the time went by. Laeta turned to her son, and took a deep breath.

"Agron and Nasir are not your uncles. And I am not of the Goths." Laeta spoke the easiest truth first. Lysander laughed heartedly and smiled.

"Mother, I knew that. It is obvious Agron and Nasir are together, as much as they tried to hide it from me. And you, I knew you weren't from this place, you coloring and speech was always different. Even as a boy of 10, I knew this. But it does not matter to me."

"I'm Roman, Lysander. Cast from the republic as a traitor." Laeta spoke her lips shaking as she spoke the words she had not spoken since the day of the games to Spartacus. Lysander eyes widened in shock, but softened in empathy.

"Why would they cast you, my gentle and loving mother, from the republic? What crime did you commit to deserve such?" Laeta went to speak, but Lysander cut her off. "It does not matter. I understand why did not tell me. But it does not matter to me."

"I was cast from the republic for being part of a rebellion…..a slave rebellion. Your uncles as well, although they were not citizens of Rome….they were slaves." Laeta spoke in earnest, trying to tell Lysander the truth.

"Slave rebellion? Like the one that Spartacus led?"

"Not like the one he led…I was part of that rebellion, the same for Agron and Nasir. Sybil too. Many of us whom you grew up with as well" Lysander moved away from Laeta, contemplating what he was just told. Lysander paused and turned towards Laeta, as a question formed in his mind at these revelations.

"And what of my father? Was he too of the rebellion?" Lysander, his mind sharp as a whip, connecting the realities of the truth being revealed to him. Laeta was unable to speak, fearing her son's reaction at both her and Agron for lying to him.

"Your eyes tell me it is so." Lysander spoke with distain. "So what is the truth, Mother?" Lysander demanded, yelling in a voice Laeta had not heard directed at her ever in her life.

"You father was…a great man. A leader of men. A man like no other." Laeta spoke from the heart to the child she and that great man had created in a moment of heated passion and desire. A child she had never thought possible, but here he stood, a ghost of his father in his fury at her.

"A great man? Yes, he must have been to be part of the slave rebellion. Was he a slave and you is master? Did you own him? Command him at your will." Lysander shouted in accusation.

"If it had only been so, perhaps he would have been alive to see you born." Laeta spoke sharply to her son. "As it was not as you just described, he never even knew of your existence." Laeta's voice broke a bit at the end, her voice shaky from the emotions that welled up inside her. "I could more command your father, than I could command the winds."

"Who was he, mother? Tell me. All the stories you and the others told me of his greatness in battle, where they true? Or where they all lies…to silence a young boy desperate to know who he might one day become?" Lysander is voice shaking with emotion and desperation, grasping his mother's shoulders in pleading.

"The stories you were told were all true. He was a selfless warrior who thought nothing for himself. He only wish was to free those who had been enslaved by the republic, himself and his wife included."

"His wife? Were you his wife? I don't understand, if you a roman and he a slave…."

"No. You misunderstand. I was not his wife. The republic murdered his wife and he sought vengeance for it. His vengeance inspired many to rebel against the republic and wage a war to see it rumble." Laeta spoke as images of battle and war flashed in her mind.

"You speak as if the man Spartacus himself was my father." Lysander spoke remembering the lessons he had been given about the servile war defeated just before his birth, always admiring the leader, Spartacus, for his victories through cunning and skill, and his willingness to die for what he believed.

Laeta fell silent at Lysander's comment, which he took note of. His mother's eyes filled with tears and dropped upon her cheek as her emotions would no longer be held in check. Her sobs wracked her body in great heaves; Lysander guided her to the bench for her to sit as he held his crying mother in his arms.

"So it is him. Spartacus, who is my father." Lysander spoke as he held Laeta.

"Yes." Laeta spoke softly, peering up to her son's face. "We only wished to protect you from the republic by not telling you the truth of it. We feared an errant word from a young boy would set the whole of Rome down upon us. Please forgive me." Laeta pleaded with her son.

"Mother, there is nothing to forgive." Laeta gently placed her hands on either side of her son's face, holding it in her hands as she spoke earnestly to him.

"Your father would have loved you so greatly. Ours was not a love match, but I believe he cared for me and I cared for him. His greatest wish would have been for his only son to live as a free man."

Lysander's eyes filled with emotion, but did not spill over. He stroked his mother's hand and arm in comfort at her heartfelt declaration. How hard it must have been to keep a secret such as this for so long.

"Then you have done well, mother. For you have granted his wish. I am a free man." Lysander spoke as Laeta smiled at his forgiving tone and gentle touch. Laeta took a deep breath and sighed at the heavy weight that had been lifted from her shoulders. She turned to the bundle that she had carried with her so protectively up the hill. She placed it in her lap reverently before her son.

"When your father passed into the afterlife, there was no time for us to prepare a proper funeral pyre. It would have given to much notice to our position. However, Agron took a thing to remember your father by, so when our memories started to fade, we could glance upon it and remember the man who set us free." Laeta began to unwrap the bundle to uncover its contents.

"We did not know was his son grew inside my womb. Once discovered, Agron knew it was truly the gods who guided his hand to remove such a thing from your father's person before we lay him beneath the ground."

The bundle now unwrapped; it revealed a leather brace with an all-seeing eye on the back of hand and a snake that wrapped about the top.

"Your father wore this in his final battle against Rome. He died with it as well. It would be fitting for his son to have it." Laeta passed the brace to Lysander, who touched it in amazement. Laeta stroked the silver snake upon it, remembering the gentle hands that wore it.

"It has been my belief that you father has always watched over you from the afterlife. This brace shall forever link you to him, as you venture onto the battlefield." Laeta gently placed the brace on her son's hand as she spoke.

"But what of you. Surely a thing of such treasured memory would wound you deeply with its departure from your presence." Lysander spoke as he watched his mother part with the only thing she had of his.

"The brace's safe return, along with your own, with be a most treasured gift and will balm any wound from the memory of its departure." Laeta spoke as she smiled and touched the dimple in her son's cheek, which had appeared with his smile.

Lysander embraced his mother tightly, holding her close to him, feeling the love he had always known was there for him.

"I will return, mother. And when I do, I wish to know all about my real father." Lysander spoke soberly.

"Shall know all." Laeta promised.

Several Days later....

That was several days ago, and Laeta sat upon the hill, watching the massing of men where her son was among them.

The wind picked up as her soul reached out to him, to Spartacus. Praying to him to protect their son. Her eyes closed as the wind increased, picking up her hair in wild locks.

"He shall be protected." Laeta heard in her mind. It was the same voice, which came to her the night of his birth, and on the night, 10 years past, Lysander was sick with fever and she sat at his bedside for days praying for his survival.

A smile crept across Laeta's lips in happiness, as a gentle stroke of an invisible hand whispered across her cheek. It was a caress he had given her as she had kissed him one final time before the final battle. He was with her now, standing behind her, hand upon sword, silently watching and guarding as they both watched the column of men march towards uncertain fate. A bright light flashed before Laeta's eyes...

Laeta awoke suddenly. It was the middle of night; she looked around her trying to gain her bearings. She glanced at Sybil next to her. Her eyes locked with Agron, who sat up in solemn guard. He broke the glance and continued to stare into the flames of the campfire, pain visible upon his brow.

Laeta glance around looking for Spartacus, but he was nowhere to be found. She noticed the mountains all around them, it dawned on her that everything she had just experienced was a dream. A wonderful, heartbreaking dream. Spartacus had only been dead one day.

Laeta glanced to her flat stomach, touching gingerly, dare she consider the possibility of the dream being reality. A fat tear traveled down her face as she wished she had never woken.