by Nhys Glover
I lifted my left hand up, slammed it into my other wrist, and used the downward momentum to send our dagger arms off-kilter. I followed the arms down, with my left. When I was at the half-way point of the downward arc, I drove my left elbow into my enemy’s face. The sound of cartilage cracking was like music to my ears.
He drew back, reaching for his nose, but uttered no cry. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another man had joined the heap on the ground, and Typhon was now playing with the last man.
My focus must have remained too long on Typhon because, in the next instant, I felt a pain in my side. Through pain-glazed eyes, I saw my opponent up close, his broken nose touching mine, his blood splattering my tunic. The look of triumph in his dark orbs filled me with terror.
When the expression shifted to surprise my foggy brain could not understand it.
As I felt my legs give way under me, I saw my foe go down too. With what was left of my mind I registered Typhon standing behind him. He must have delivered a killing blow.
‘Good,’ I thought. ‘Good!’
Then the world went dark.
ACCALIA
We saw the fight long before we reached it. Asterius had increased his pace to join the fray. His legs were longer and his speed greater than either Phaedrus or I. The pace the men had set, up to this point, had been gruelling, and I was already panting. There was no way I was going to be able to keep up now.
Phaedrus looked from me to the fight ahead and back again.
“Go! You may be needed. Go!” I told him, holding my side where a stitch had started up.
But Phaedrus made his decision and shook his head. “I cannot leave you unprotected. I may be needed here.”
I knew how much it must have cost him to make that choice, and I appreciated it. Being left alone on this road might not be safe, even if I could see my men in the distance.
With Phaedrus’ help, I staggered on as fast as my short legs would carry me. By the time we reached the carnage, it was all over.
Typhon was on his knees with his hands over a bloody patch on Marcus’ side. Asterius stood over him with his dagger drawn, checking the fallen men. There were six of them, and none seemed able or willing to cause more trouble.
But my gaze passed over the bandits quickly to settle back on Marcus. His face was as white as bone and his eyes were closed, his chest rising too slowly for comfort.
“Marcus!” Phaedrus cried and sprinted to my friend’s side. The anguish in that one word told me too much.
“Accalia? Gods, what perfect timing!” Typhon said in the next moment, looking into my eyes and smiling fiercely.
No, it was more of a grimace, not a smile. From that one look I knew Marcus was in a bad way.
I took the last few steps on my own and fell to Marcus’ side, across from Typhon. Phaedrus was at Marcus’ head, which he had lifted onto his lap, and was brushing back his hair from his sweat-covered face.
“Will he live? Please, will he live?” Phaedrus asked. No prayed.
When Typhon lifted his hand from the dagger wound, I tore away the fabric to get a better look at the site. There was so much blood. But then there had been a lot when I healed Talos. And I had been in a far worse state than I was now.
“He will. Do not worry. He will,” I told Phaedrus, and believed it.
Typhon looked up at me, his smile this time calmer and more confident. “Then you better get to it, she-wolf. He is losing a lot of blood.”
I dropped quickly into my place of peace and sent my senses out in search of the Light that was everywhere. Once I had my connection, I turned to Marcus and placed my hands on his body. Immediately, I realised that this was more serious than I had suspected. An artery had been severed. That was why there was so much blood. He would bleed out in minutes!
Forcing down my panic, I focused on my breathing and the Light. Nothing was ever solved with anxiety and panic. I drew in the Light and sent it to the place it was needed most: the artery spewing blood. As was always the case, I lost track of time and even what was happening in my own body. All that existed was the Light and the blissful feeling that always came with it.
After what could have been a few moments or an hour, I felt the Light begin to ebb. I took that as my signal to sit back on my heels and remove my hands from Marcus’ body.
When I opened my eyes it was to find myself the subject of three gazes. Typhon and Asterius looked at me with pride. Phaedrus stared at me as if I was a goddess come to earth.
I hated it when people looked at me as he was doing. Awe was unwanted. Appreciation welcome, but anything more... no. It was not me doing the healing, after all.
“How?” Phaedrus asked. “Marcus told me, but I did not know you could actually do what the followers of the Christ are supposed to be able to do.”
“Christians?” I replied, interested to hear this piece of information. “They can heal as I do?”
“Their Christ could and some of his followers can do it too. Or so I have heard. But until this moment I thought it was just exaggerated stories. Now...” Suddenly he changed tack fast to focus back on the man he loved. “Will he be all right?”
I smiled, looking down at the site of the wound. The ugly hole was gone. Only the blood betrayed just how bad the situation had been.
“It was close. But I think he will live. Loss of blood is his biggest problem now. He will need plenty of ox blood soup and some herbs I know of which will promote new blood.”
“This’ll take the wind out of Orion’s sails. Now he can’t be angry I let you come,” Asterius said cheekily.
I shrugged. “He’ll still be angry. But he’ll get over it. If Orion is with the rest of my uncle’s men, where is Talos?”
“Following another man who spoke to the two we were following. Just in case.”
“What was Marcus doing here? Were these my uncle’s men?” I asked, looking around at the dead and wounded men around me.
Asterius went to a man with a severely broken arm.
“Who hired you?” he demanded, putting his sandaled foot over the arm threateningly.
Panicked, the man tried to scramble away. “No one. We were hiding in the woods when that Roman came along. An easy mark, we thought. That’s all I know.”
I was inclined to believe him and so, it seemed, was Asterius, who removed his foot and returned to my side.
“We won’t know the rest until Marcus comes around. Come on, let’s get him to the fort. It’ll be the safest place for him to recover,” Asterius said, as he and Phaedrus began lifting Marcus up under the armpits.
“No, no! Be more careful!” I cried.
Asterius exchanged glances with Marcus’ beloved. Without uttering a word, Phaedrus lifted Marcus up into his arms. The slave was not a big man, and though Marcus was smaller than most, he was no lightweight. I did not think Phaedrus would go long carrying his love in this way.
“We can take turns,” Typhon suggested, obviously agreeing with my unspoken doubts.
Phaedrus began staggering up the road in the direction of the town. He did not seem to have registered Typhon’s words. All his focus was on the man in his arms.
MARCUS
I came around to find a pair of beautiful brown eyes staring down at me. The lashes around those eyes were so dark as to seem kohled. My heart missed a beat as I recognised them.
“Phaedrus?” I croaked, wondering why my voice sounded so weak.
“Yes, Marcus, it is me. You are safe now. Do not worry.”
“Safe?” I tried to remember where I was and how I came to be here.
Glancing around me, I looked for clues. The room I lay in seemed stark and as ordered as a military fort.
Had I been in a battle? No, I was building a wall in Britannia now. That was where I met Phaedrus.
Then where?
The past flooded back into my head in one painful wave and I groaned beneath its weight. I had been kidnapped, escaped, and then stabbed by thieves on the road to Gesoriacum.
How had Phaedrus come to be here? Wherever here was.
A new, more urgent thought entered my foggy brain. Ennia! I had to get to Ennia before her uncle did!
I tried to sit up, but Phaedrus pushed me down.
“Lie still. You are still weak. You lost a lot of blood.”
“I have to get back to Britannia. Ennia Corvus’ uncle had me kidnapped to stop me marrying her. If I do not—”
“She is here,” Phaedrus interrupted gently. “Ennia saved your life with her healing ability. You were not wrong about her, my love. She is remarkable.”
“Ennia? Here? How?” I tried to grasp this news, but it seemed too impossible to be true.
“It is a long story,” Phaedrus said tiredly. “Just know that we outwitted her uncle and now you two can be married. Once that is done and you are well enough, you and I can return to Britannia.”
My mouth must have fallen open because Phaedrus smiled and pressed my chin upward to close it. His fingertips grazed my lips regretfully, and I felt a stab of all-too-familiar anguished desire.
“How can you be here?” I asked breathlessly.
He shrugged and looked away. “You do not think I was going to let your Wolf Pack have all the glory, do you? I wanted you to speak of me the way you do of them. If only to yourself.”
“But the governor...”
“Will be unhappy with me for running off, but it has been worth it. To save you.”
I reached up to cup his cheek in my palm. All the love I felt for him rose up inside me. Never had I felt like this about anyone. He was everything to me!
My feelings must have been plain because, in the next moment, he was kissing me, soft and tenderly. It broke my heart.
Someone cleared their throat and we sprang apart. I looked around to see Orion standing in the doorway.
“Glad to see you’re back with us, Marcus. Do you think you’re up to being married?”
“Now? But I am not sure I can stand...” I muttered, a little annoyed our kiss had been interrupted.
“It needs to be done before more mischief occurs. How did you escape? Were the men on the road sent by Etruscus?”
I shook my head. “No. The men on the road were bandits. The men who kidnapped me had a hut in the village to the north of town. I talked the woman with them into releasing me while they were gone. I need to find her and make sure she does not suffer for helping me.”
“I will alert the tribune. He will likely send men out after the culprits,” Orion said.
“You were always good at talking yourself out of trouble,” Asterius joked, coming to stand next to Orion with a big grin on his face.
“Talk himself into trouble, you mean,” argued Orion good-naturedly. It was the most relaxed and happy I had ever seen him.
Ennia came into the room then, by pushing her way between the two big bodies in the doorway. She was dressed as a woman. Only her hair, which was decidedly short and boyish—much as it had been when she ran from her stepmother—marked her as anything but the average noblewoman.
She grinned at me happily. “Oh, Marcus, I am so glad to see you looking better. You gave us all a fright. You bled everywhere!”
I laughed and then groaned as my side complained. “How inconsiderate of me. Did I get blood on one of your pretty gowns?”
Her grin widened. “Oh, do not worry about that. I have so many pretty gowns to choose from, what does one more or less matter?”
“I was asking if he’s ready to be wed,” Orion told her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder in a very familiar fashion.
She looked up at him as if all the stars in the sky were to be found in his face.
When had this happened? The easy affection spoke of intimacies I would never have expected the stiff and proper Orion to share with his mistress.
“The sooner the better, I suppose,” I said finally. There was only a twinge of resentment now.
“How do you feel about being a father?” Asterius asked me in a tone that would have been suitable for a discussion on the weather.
My shocked expression must have said it all. Phaedrus reached down and closed my mouth for me again.
“Father? I am... sorry. I thought you understood that I cannot...” I stammered.
Ennia rushed to my side and took up the hand that Phaedrus was not holding. When had he taken up my hand? It had felt so natural and normal that it had not even registered.
“I am with child already. No work on your part required. I wanted you to know before the wedding, in case you were not willing to accept a child...”
“Who? A Parthian? Did those bastards rape you?” I demanded furiously.
Ennia smiled and looked back over her shoulder. “No. They were leaving me for their prince. It is Orion’s. Though it might just as easily have been any one of the others.”
I stared at her, uncomprehending, for a moment. Was she saying what I thought she was saying? I knew she had always loved them, but to actually take all of them to her bed? They were slaves. And not just any slaves. Gladiators! They were considered the equals of prostitutes and players.
How could they disrespect her like that? How could they have taken her to their beds and shared her around between them like she was a common whore?
I turned my furious gaze on Orion, who blushed. Had I not been so angry I would have been amused to see such evidence of vulnerability in the previously stoic man.
“She is a Roman noblewoman! You were supposed to protect her, not turn her into a whore!” I growled.
“And they have. They have always protected me, as you well know. And they have not turned me into a whore. There was never going to be a love-match with a patrician for me, any more than there was ever going to be one with a woman for you. And I was never going to be able to choose just one of them. So we... Well, we agreed that this was what worked for us.
“If you cannot accept my choices then maybe marriage is not for you and me. We can go away. Find a place where we can live together. I hate to let my uncle destroy Pater’s legacy, but I cannot give up the men I love. Not after all we have been through.”
It was a shock. But did that mean I could not accept it, if it made Ennia and the Wolf Pack happy? They were five people I called my closest friends. No, more than friends, pack-mates. And if I did not fit into the model of the Roman patrician, then why should I expect Ennia to?
And it would satisfy Pater if I were to present him with a grandson. He would call me a man for the first time.
“How will it work? If we are to be parents? Pater would have to believe it is mine. He would not condone my wife consorting with gladiators and bearing them bastards. You will give birth too early.”
I know my words sounded ugly, but it was nothing that would not be said about us if it got out.
“I visited you at your first post, and nature took its course. That is what we are telling the witnesses we have gathered. They are happy enough to back-date the ceremony so that the birth is not questioned. As to your pater... I have been gone a long time. Surely we can come up with a timeline that allows for the possibility of you being the father. The babe may come early. And he knows I was taken by Parthians... maybe he will not look too closely at the timing if it means his eldest son can be regarded a man.”
I shook my head, too exhausted to even think this through any further. “Let us be done with it now and sort out the rest when I have more blood in my veins.”
“The marriage you mean?” Ennia asked.
“Of course, the marriage. Do you think I went through being kidnapped, escaping, and then being almost killed by bandits to now change my mind about marrying you? Stupid girl!”
Ennia grinned, squealed like the girl I accused her of being, and threw her arms around my neck. Until that moment, I think she really imagined I would reject her. How little she thought of me.
But then, had the news not given me pause? Had I not questioned their arrangement, falling back on my patrician thinking? I deserved to be doubted.
Phaedrus patted my shoulder. “You are a good man, Marcus. A very good man.”
That was the kind of praise I needed to hear from him. I looked up into his handsome face and saw all the love I felt for him shining back at me.
It broke my heart.
In short order, seven naval officers and a holder of the scales, were brought in to witness the manus marriage, which was an ancient form of marriage that brought the wife into the husband’s paterfamilias. This was the only way Etruscus could be kept from taking control of Ennia’s property. It was a simple and uncomplicated affair, much as it had been back in the past. It was rarely the form of marriage undertaken by patricians these days, but was still legally binding, especially when the contract had been drawn up and signed by both fathers, as the paterfamilias of their respective families.
There were no complicated rituals, no auguries checked for the most auspicious time for the nuptials. No grand parades from one home to another. A Roman marriage required none of the trappings to be legal.
Ennia sat on a stool beside my bed and took my hand in hers. “As you are Gaius, I am Gaia,” she said simply.
“As you are Gaia, I am Gaius,” I replied in turn.
I offered the scale-holder a coin which was placed on the scales. It was the symbolic purchase of Ennia by my paterfamilias.
One of the witnesses offered up emery bread for us to share. This was part of the more formalised ritual. It was not necessary, but I thought it was a nice touch. As we ate, Ennia smiled at me with shining eyes.
Suddenly I was glad our fathers had come up with this plan. And I was glad I had agreed to it. Ennia was the only woman I could ever call wife. I loved her as a sister and my dearest friend. And I knew she felt the same way about me. Marriages were forged out of far less.
The witnesses, official and unofficial gave a cheer, and I leaned in to kiss my bride’s cheek. It seemed oddly right, even when it was so plainly not. But my new wife and I would satisfy the wishes of our society and yet live as we chose. And Ennia would be happy.