‘Money and men,’ said Tullus. ‘I expect.’
Florian had been invited to dine with them, to reward him for his help and to console him. He had been silent until now. ‘I have something to tell you, my lords,’ he said. He had lost his appetite, and he seemed lost without Quintus, too, and his talk with the girl at the baths had deeply upset him, as had Brighid’s constant unavailability. So he told them what the girl had said and saw their knives being laid aside, one by one, their food left to grow cold while frowns reappeared and faces paled as the sordid facts emerged about Valens. The information about the disappearance of young men hit Florian and Brighid especially hard, filling their eyes with tears while Tullus and Lucan were stunned into silence.
‘Why did we come here?’ she whispered. ‘I knew it was not good. I should have listened to myself. Those graves, Tullus, are where Dora’s child would be destined if she’d not married Helm, so there must be some good in him.’
‘Yes,’ said Lucan with some cynicism, ‘and one must ask what inducement he needed to marry a slave girl who’s carrying his friend’s child. But what interests me most is this disappearance theory. Who are these young men, exactly? Are they all pilgrims needing treatment, given dangerous potions to drink?’
‘My lord is in the temple,’ Florian said. ‘Will they try to poison him?’
Brighid laid a hand over his arm. ‘He won’t be collapsing, Florian. He doesn’t intend to drink anything they give him. Don’t be concerned. He’ll have the place searched tomorrow, if that girl can’t tell us where to find him.’
She had found some comfort in sharing her recent alarming experience with her friends, which had reinforced the fact that her position as the Tribune’s healer was indeed a precarious one, since it had never been discussed or defined. Her blithe brave comment about living in the present had been enough, since her capture, to keep her mind focused. But now her relationship with the Tribune had shifted and, whether it pleased him or not, plans would have to be made for her future. If marriage to her was not a possibility for a man of the Tribune’s rank, then perhaps he would return her to her elder brother, the new chieftain.
That night, the bleak thoughts, and the disturbing ones, kept her awake for hours while her hand strayed into the cool space where he should have been, her mind tumbling and rioting through the lessons of love he had taught her that day.
In one of the narrow cubicles that encircled the Temple of Dreams, Quintus sat on the edge of his low bed to search with bare feet for his sandals. The horsehair mattress was obviously not intended for any sleep other than drug-induced, and though Quintus had spent the night in some very strange places as a soldier, he resented paying through the nose for the use of smelly pillows and two worn blankets. A small lamp burned on the table beside the bed, and an empty beaker, the contents of which had been poured down a wide crack between the wall and the tiled floor that a visiting rat would easily have negotiated. He had sent back the first drink of yellowish wine, complaining that there were stains on the rim. But after an hour of sacrificial rites and the mysterious ablutions of white-robed assistants, priests’ intonements and plodding rituals, perhaps they thought that such details would not be noticed above the pangs of hunger.
Eventually he and the other ten inmates had retired to their cubicles, stifling yawns, later to be visited several times by the aides who remarked loudly that his sleep appeared to be tranquil and that perhaps he ought to have been given something stronger. Sounds reaching him from the next cubicle told him that his elderly neighbour was putting on a better performance, mumbling and yelping in the throes of some terrible nightmare. He was also visited by the two large white hounds that had played a picturesque part in the earlier ritual, sniffing at him but leaving the curtain with a space through which he could see the temple lamps burning on the altar. Constant movements prompted him to investigate and now, sitting on his bed, he watched a man being carried from a cubicle on the opposite side, the aides returning empty-handed moments later. The transfer was so silent and smooth that Quintus assumed he had simply been moved to another bed.
Still groping blindly for his sandals, he realised he would have to get down on his hands and knees to retrieve them from some dark corner. They were at the far end, bringing with them a thick roll of filth that he shook off in disgust and pushed back out of sight. Then, to satisfy a sudden curiosity, he took the lamp down to floor level to see further under the bed where black lumps, the detritus of years, lay hidden. Holding his breath, he reached under to grab the largest piece, hoping it was not a dead rat, but determined to use this as evidence of the squalid conditions, so different from the spotless apartment prepared by the Lady Helena’s staff.
Clambering back up, he shone the lamp’s light upon the filthy trophy and saw that he was holding a stiff leather boot of a style quite different from his own, but astonishingly familiar to him. And when he blew off the top layer of dust, it seemed to prove what he already knew, that this had belonged to no other than his missing colleague and childhood friend, Alexius Tito Gaditanus. Other than Alexius, who had his own way of doing things, no one he knew had ever worn army boots of this style with civilian dress, for they were too heavy to look elegant. The upper was completely enclosed and cut with ties that extended from the same piece of leather, threading through slits in the ankle flaps. One could never lose one’s laces or suffer from cold feet, Alexius had said, ignoring all the teasing.
Quintus saw that his hand was shaking. Alexius, my friend, where are you? By Jove’s breeches, I shall tear this place apart till I find you. I swear it.
At home, Brighid had been used to venturing out at night to observe the moon and stars or to wait for the dawn to break over the hills. Her father had never forbidden her that kind of communication, for he had understood its importance to her. But now, both guards stood at the doors and she was confined as surely as she’d been in the cell at Eboracum, with not even her maid for company. She could, of course, have had Florian to stay with her, but he had agreed to take his misery and weepy eyes to Tullus and Lucan’s room for the night. He had been severely disturbed by what he’d been told at the bath-house that evening, and although together they had decorated their favourite shrines with flowers, for it was the Kalends of May, he would not be comforted.
At home, she mused, the first day of May was called Beltain, the night when all the young men and women would be dancing under the night sky, cavorting round the fires that would invoke fertility for crops and cattle, running off into the shadowy woods to make love, though nothing like as good as her recent experience she was sure. If only he could have been here now to do it all again.
A sound reached her from beyond the door to the terrace. Someone was whispering. Instantly alert, she sat up in bed, her ears straining to recognise the voice. Was it Valens demanding admittance? Like a hare in danger, she leapt out of bed and, without waiting to see who had opened the door just wide enough to slip through, she hurled herself at the tall figure whose head was hooded with the end of his toga. She heard the breath whoosh from his lungs and a sound like hah! that might have been a laugh, then felt the painful iron of his forearms blocking the rain of blows she hammered against him in the dark.
Wildly, frantically, sure of nothing except that this intruder ought not to be there, she writhed and kicked as his arms closed round her and lifted her as if she was weightless, and it was only then, when she felt the familiar tilt against him and breathed in the cold scent of the night air on his skin, that she knew she was mistaken. It was not Valens.
The dam of her relief, resentment, fear and frustration that had been deepening since yesterday burst upon him as if he were the one responsible for it and, instead of allowing his greeting, she scorched him with her indignation, calling him every insulting name in her own tongue, of which thankfully he could only guess at the meaning. Not only was he verbally assaulted but physically, too, for once he had tossed her on to the bed and tried to hold her there, her fists c
ame back to pummel at his chest and shoulders, her teeth to nip, her heels to drum against his wrapped legs. Panting with anger at her own helplessness, at his ability to govern her newly discovered desires, his control of her nights and days, liberty and restraint, she did everything in her limited power to pay him back for every uncomfortable change he had made to her life since her so-called release from capture.
‘Don’t you think you can …’ she railed at him ‘ … walk in here any time …’
‘Hush, lass. You can calm down now.’
‘.of the day … or night … and just.’
‘I can, barbarian.’ Taking her thick plait of hair in one hand, he closed in on her, stopping her tirade with a kiss that left her weakened and too breathless to continue. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘can I get a word in edgeways?’
‘No,’ she whispered. In the darkness, she felt his smile on her cheek.
‘What, then?’
No reply.
‘Is this how tribal women greet their lovers on the eve of Beltain?’
‘Remind me,’ she retorted, ‘what am I at this moment? Tribal woman or Roman or Briganti? Slave, healer, mistress …?’
‘Mine,’ he growled, ‘to do with as I please.’
‘I see. So you came back to tell me so, did you?’
‘Lass,’ he whispered. ‘Are you not glad to see me?’
With a sob, she threw her arms about his neck, burying her fingers deep into his tousled hair. ‘Have I not just shown you, Roman? Do you think I greet all my lovers like this?’ Steering his lips towards hers and slanting her face, she kissed him the way she’d done in those dreaming hours of restlessness when she’d had only memories to remind her, this time with the full length of his body over hers and his hands already searching over her skin.
At some stage, he paused to unwind the long toga that threatened to submerge them in its layers, coming back to her naked and warm, to make her whine with excitement at the masterful sweep of his hands that lingered, in tune with her cries, playing her like a harp. Once again, every part of her took on a new meaning, awakened to new sensations by his touch, by his lips and tongue. Her skin came alive even to the light brush of his hair that caressed her eyelids, the soft touch of his ears across her lips, the rough unshaven chin that met her breast. There were other ways of doing this, he had told her but, for her, the tender weight of his body over hers was the best and sweetest experience imaginable, the delicious waiting for him to move into her that provoked inexplicable contradictions of possession and permission, of being taken, and of wanting to be taken. Yet not once during their loving had he implied that she had no choice or that she was not being considered enough. Unlike that time in the bath-house when he had chased and caught her, there was no part of this episode that she did not welcome and want more of.
In spite of her earlier passion, she was greedy for the kisses she had missed. The loving that had been made brief by yesterday’s urgency was now lengthened by her need of his comforts, taking her mind into a void of sensations and well away from the evening’s dangers, of which he knew nothing. Then, when her body trembled with desire and her cries pleaded for release, he slid into her with a moan that revealed how much she had tested his discipline. ‘Oh … woman!’ he whispered. ‘Forgive me. I cannot be gentle.’
‘Yes,’ she breathed into his ear, ‘so be ungentle with your woman, my lord.’
‘But you’re still new.’
‘No,’ she teased. ‘I’m vastly experienced. And it’s Beltain night. A night for wildness. For abandonment, not gentleness.’
In her innocence, she had not realised that light-hearted banter could be a part of something so intensely serious, nor was this unfamiliar side of him anything less than endearing and exciting, when his usual demeanour was authoritative, and more laconic than chatty. She felt the surge of emotion rise up, closing her eyes as the power of it reached her heart, confirming what she already knew, that this was love, no less. To live without him, after this, would break her heart.
His lovemaking took her by storm, matching her mood with every vigorous thrust, timed to her timing, aware of her pulsating hunger, filling her with his completeness. Hardly expecting that she might achieve a climax again, as she had yesterday, he was jubilant when her cries of encouragement told him otherwise and, as he responded, their fervour rose to heights he had never experienced before with any woman, intoxicating and rapturous, utterly fulfilled.
‘Quintus?’ she said, stroking the thick hair above his ear.
‘Mmm?’
‘Are you alive?’
‘More than alive. I’m with the gods.’
‘Can you return, please? I need you.’
He turned his head to look at her in the first light of dawn that washed across the room. ‘Do you, Princess? For what?’
‘To tell me why you came back.’
Laughing quietly, he rolled with her in his arms, raking his hand through the mane of her hair that lay in tatters over her face, recognising the barely disguised need in her question to which a teasing answer would not suffice. ‘I came back.’ he said, kissing her damp throat. Because I could not stand that bogus nonsense a moment longer, because I don’t have time to discuss non-existent dreams all morning, because I need to find Math and Alexius, and because I need to speak with Valens, and possibly to arrest Helm, too. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘the thought of you being here alone, naked and desirable, was more than I could bear, little savage. And you would have torn me to shreds for my pains. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Brigantian women are taught to fight, my lord.’
‘Yes, well, it’s time Brigantian women were taught to distinguish between friend and foe, or they might all kill their husbands.’
‘It was dark and I didn’t expect you.’
‘Obviously not. Who else did you think would get past the guard?’
‘Valens.’
He sat up, looking down at her. ‘Tell me what you’re talking about,’ he said, suddenly very grim.
So she did, then wished she had not for, by the time she had finished, he was washing himself down and, if she had hoped for some reassurance from him of a very specific nature, she saw that he had other matters on his mind that claimed priority. Guiltily, she admitted that to find her brother was one of them.
He had, in fact, been more angry than solicitous, having just experienced how well she could make her displeasure known. Unfortunately, until they had Math, they could not leave the place. And until he had found out exactly where Alexius was, he could hardly go and strangle Valens, which is what he’d like to have done.
A solution to one of these problems came unexpectedly at dawn soon after the arrival of the two young men whose task it was to prepare their master’s clothes and to see him dressed presentably, to tidy the room and to collect food from the kitchen. Assuming that the shadowy figures in the doorway to the rear corridor brought the food for which he had been longing, Quintus became impatient with their delay. ‘Come on!’ he yelled. ‘Bring it in, for pity’s sake!’ Then he looked more closely, recognising Florian with an attractive fair-haired girl who, between them, supported the drooping form of a young man as far as the nearest chair before lowering him carefully into it.
With a cry, Brighid flew to his side, kneeling at his feet and gathering him into her arms. ‘Oh, my dearest! Oh, you’re safe! Thank the gods. Where have you been? What happened? Who did this? Oh … your head.’
Math’s dark hair was matted with blood on one side, and one eye had swollen too much to be of any use. He was covered, however, with a thick layer of dust, and the girl explained that she had found him tied up in a sack near the furnace that fed the hypercaust, the system of flues underneath the floors of the bath-house.
Quintus was intrigued, but suspicious. ‘How did you know to look there?’ he said, thinking that he might know the answer.
‘It’s warm down there.’ She grinned. ‘They take wood down there from the estate and there are sacks to sit o
n. And nobody looks there at night.’ She glanced meaningfully at Math. ‘But there was another young man down there with him, and he’s only just waking up in my room.’
The young man in the Temple of Dreams being carried out, last night.
‘You know it well, do you?’ said Quintus.
‘Oh, yes, sir. I know the whole place well by now. I can show it to you.’
They had been shown the furnaces and the hypercaust during their tour, but there had been no sacks of wood there then, only piles of it. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Thank you. We are in your debt.’ He gave orders, and soon Math’s poor cramped body was being stripped and washed, his head cleaned, salved and bandaged, his hunger and thirst lessened by his sister’s motherly feeding and Florian’s tenderness. Tidied up, he began to look more like the Math they knew, though what he had to tell them gave him centre stage for longer than he’d ever had before.
Producing the evidence as they pulled off his sweaty tunic, he did his best to smile. ‘Here it is, look! Bridie’s bracelet.’
‘But that’s the one I offered to Brigantia at the sacred well,’ she cried.
‘Yes, love. And somebody retrieved it and brought it here. It was in a basket full of gold jewellery, still wet with the water caught in the cavities.’
‘Is it yours?’ said Quintus.
‘Certainly it is. There’s no mistake. But why? And how?’
To have one’s valuable offering removed from a sacred well, the contents of which belonged to the goddess alone, was an act of abomination. Anyone who stole objects bearing the prayers of the supplicant would be fortunate to stay alive, if he were discovered. Brighid was shocked and sickened. The goddess would be very angry about it.
Quintus had a theory with which Tullus and Lucan, nodding their heads, agreed. ‘Valens has the contract to service the baths,’ he said, ‘so it looks as if he’s been sending his men in there at night with their toolkits and brushes, and no one ever asks what they get up to. It must be the easiest thing in the world to sift through the votive offerings and pick out the best gold pieces, leaving a few coins in place along with the pewter and silver. Once he’s got them back here, they can be reworked into bullion.’
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