The Adventures of a Roman Slave

by Lisa Cach

  Those had been my thoughts until I laid eyes on Maerlin, and all my self-persuasion that he was a misunderstood puppy ran yipping away into the forest.

  Maerlin was hunched over a worktable where he was carefully measuring a gray powder by scooping small piles of it into the brass dish of a set of scales. He tapped a dusting more of powder into the dish, not looking at me. “The chalice isn’t yours.”

  “Your stealing it from me doesn’t make it yours.”

  The scales shifted, coming into balance. He set down his flat scoop and straightened up, then took the dish and poured its contents into a ceramic jar. “It belongs to the Phanne.”

  “I am Phanne,” I said, coming into his large, airy workshop in the small building on a hill a half mile from Ambrosius’s villa. Rumor said the citizens of Corinium had driven him out of town after he’d nearly burnt them out of their homes with an experiment gone wrong. The servants at the villa hadn’t wanted him under their roof, either, given the peculiar smells and noises that emanated from his room, and one young woman too many who’d left his embrace in a sexual daze.

  I went on, my nervousness making me sound belligerent. I was scared of this man, who had so much more control of his powers than I did of my meager own. “And you are Phanne. Find me another Phanne in whose hands the chalice should be kept. There’s your mother and half sister, of course, but they’re on Mona. Maybe I should bring it to them there.”

  Maerlin capped the jar with a cork, shoving it into place with more force than necessary. “They long ago abandoned any right to call themselves Phanne.”

  “How so?” I came to the end of the table and set my fingertips on it, leaning forward and tilting my head as I looked at him. He was, in his way, an astonishingly handsome man, his features as smoothly carved as if he were a statue. He was as cold as marble, too. I felt a strange desire to prod him until he showed strong emotion—a foolish urge, given how dangerous he was.

  He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “You don’t need to know.”

  “I do. I’m going to Mona.”

  He finally slanted a narrow, green-eyed glance at me. “Why?”

  “I need to know if my mother is there, or if she was there.”

  “Send a message.”

  “And get the same nonanswer that Brenn got? No. I’ll go myself. And I want to meet other women of my tribe.”

  “I told you, they are no longer Phanne.”

  “Is that what they say? Or only what you believe?”

  He made a slashing motion with his hand. “Stop this! You will not go to Mona.”

  “You have no say over what I do.”

  He pushed up from his stool, and I stepped back in alarm, my hands coming up as if I could keep him away.

  Maerlin’s arms fell to his sides, and an expression of confused hurt crossed his polished white features. “Why do you not trust me?”

  “Give me back the chalice, and perhaps I will.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, then turned and went to a wall of shelves, boxes, and trunks. He took down a box, opened it, took out a leather sack, and removed the pink crystal vase and held it up. “Here.”

  The light from the open windows hit the crystal and refracted through it, casting shards of pink and white light over its surface and Maerlin’s face. I rushed forward and took it in my hands, a long coil of anxiety loosening its grip from my heart. “It’s safe,” I said on a rush of air.

  “Which it wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t taken it from Horsa’s hall. I told you to trust me, but you didn’t, did you?” He crossed his arms and rested his weight on one leg, and his tone turned almost petulant. “No one listens to me. I don’t understand it.”

  I turned half-away from him, cradling the vase in my arms. I still resented how Maerlin had treated me in Calleva: he’d made me feel of no value beyond as a way to get his hands on this chalice. “It would have helped if you’d explained yourself. You didn’t bother to tell me that you knew Fenwig and Wynnetha would free me, and that you’d send Arthur to take me from Fenwig. I thought you’d left me to Mordred.”

  Maerlin flung his hands out. “That’s what ‘trust me’ meant!”

  I walked away from him and set the chalice on the table, and ran my fingers along its rim, comforted by the feel of it. It had saved my life, more than once. I felt Maerlin approach behind me—though he moved silent as the air. I turned and found him uncomfortably near. “ ‘Trust me’ is not going to soothe a woman whose mind you’ve invaded and controlled, and whose powers you fed off like a tick,” I said. “And you did leave me to Mordred. I didn’t escape before having to welcome his cock into me.”

  Maerlin raised his brows, his perfect teeth showing in a relaxed, pleased grin. “Did you, then? I’m glad to hear it. At least you listened to me on that score.”

  My hand acted before I knew what I was doing and I swung it to slap him, wanting to hit him hard, right across that smirking mouth with its delicate, finely carved lips.

  He reacted more quickly than my eyes could follow, and I found myself spun around and my back pulled up against his chest; he gripped my wrists, holding my arms crossed tightly in front of me. My heart hammered in my chest as he said into my ear, in a voice no longer petulant but now thick with angry frustration, “I don’t understand you.”

  “Nor I you,” I gasped, and thrashed against his hold, and against the unnatural, cool-water pleasure of his touch. I could feel it seeping down my body, threatening to drown me in its languorous spell. I didn’t know if this sensation was some power of Maerlin’s, or if it would happen with any Phanne I touched.

  “Hush,” he whispered, his arms tightening as his face pressed into my hair. I felt his mind starting to push against mine, seeking entrance.

  “Don’t,” I whimpered, still straining against the iron bands of his arms, and that drowning coolness. “Please.” I didn’t know how to defend my mind from his, and he was strong as steel. Spoken words were all I had.

  He pulled his head back, and I felt the pressure against my mind ease. “You don’t know the first thing about it, do you?”

  “About what?”

  “What we’re capable of.”

  “I know what you’re capable of.”

  He made a sound somewhere between a growl and a moan, and dragged my hands down over my breasts, my belly, my loins, and then released them. For a moment he gripped me by my hips, his fingers digging in as he held me against the hard ridge of his arousal, and then his hands slowly loosened and he let me go.

  I spun around to face him.

  “I’m sorry that I frightened you in Calleva,” he said. “It was such a surprise, the power of connecting with you: I wasn’t prepared for it, and I lost control.”

  Though he no longer touched me, I could still feel the imprint of his fingers in my flesh, and the rigidity of his arousal against my buttocks. For a vivid moment I imagined him bending me over the table, hiking my skirts, and thrusting inside me, and a rush of desire went through me, leaving me lightheaded and weak-kneed. I leaned back against the table edge for support. “You must have touched other Phanne women; did it not happen with them?”

  The loose heat of anger and lust seeped out of him and he stiffened to a shard of rigid ice. “No.”

  I wrinkled my brow, wondering at what chord I’d struck. “How was it different with them?”

  He shook his head, and flicked away my question with the tips of his fingers.

  I blew out a breath of frustration. “You have an obnoxious habit of ignoring questions you don’t want to answer.”

  “And you’re any better? You tried to hide the chalice from me. You told me almost nothing of it, even though you knew how much I wanted to find it.”

  “You wanted to take it from me.”

  He flung out his hand toward the vase. “And there it is. Can you not
even try to trust me?”

  He looked so genuinely distressed, I began to soften. Had I misjudged him? Misunderstood him? Yes, certainly, on that: he was different from anyone I’d ever met. Not just different, but strange, and he was terrible with people. And yet he had his own logic for why he did what he did, and so far I had not seen him willfully bring harm to anyone, except in self-defense.

  I suspected that his incomprehension of the hurt he accidentally caused was a great burden to those who suffered for his fumbles. It would be so much easier if he were purposefully wicked, for then one could hate him. His wish to do kindness, and the look of childish confusion when he caused harm, made it impossible to stay angry with him.

  “I can try to trust you,” I said.

  He froze his hand in mid-gesture. “You can?”

  “I already trust your intentions. Your ends. That doesn’t mean I won’t disagree with your methods, or question you. I will believe your word, but I won’t follow it blindly. Trust in your intentions doesn’t mean obedience to you.”

  “It should. I’m always right.”

  “I have my own mind, thank you.”

  “But it’s ignorant, compared to mine.”

  I crossed my arms and heaved a put-upon sigh. “You could start relieving me of that burden of ignorance by explaining what you meant about me welcoming Mordred’s seed.”

  “In return, will you tell me how you came by the chalice, and how you used it?”

  “Do you not trust me to tell you in my own good time?” He scowled, and I grinned. “It’s the only piece of knowledge I have that you want. You can’t blame me for hoarding it. I don’t even know why finding one of the chalices was so important to you.”

  “A vision I had, of course. There was a cauldron, and a green stone.”

  I drew in a breath. “Like the one I saw while we were in Calleva.” I’d had a vision of Wynnetha walking over blood and bones to a great black cauldron, where she asked, “Whom does the cauldron serve?” On the other side of it were Mordred—who walked away—and Arthur, who answered, “She who feeds it,” and then took her hand and helped her into it. The cauldron then split, blood gushed from the crack, and when it had all washed away there lay a clear green stone the size of a duck egg.

  Maerlin nodded. “I don’t know what the green stone means, but I know it is important to all the Britons, and that it depends upon a Phanne chalice. I first saw the stone in a vision when I was only fourteen; it has appeared again and again, in different ways, ever since. Now the cauldron—in the form of a Phanne chalice—is here, and you had a vision of Wynnetha with both it and the stone. I can only think that the time of need for the chalice will soon be upon us.”

  “She took Arthur’s hand, in my vision. Does it mean they will wed?” I tried to find happiness for plans going the way that Ambrosius wanted, and for Arthur to gain lands of his own—and for Mordred to be thwarted—but all I could feel was disappointment. Arthur . . . was a man I wanted to know better. There looked to be no hope of that.

  At least, no wise hope. There was always foolish hope, but I’d had enough of that in my life.

  I caught Maerlin watching me closely, and tried to smile. “It would be best for everyone if they wed, wouldn’t it?” I said.

  “Would it? The future never works out as we expect.”

  “Least of all for those of us who tell it,” I muttered.

  Something like a smile touched his lips, and as our gazes met I finally felt that I was catching a glimpse of the real man. Maybe he and I could begin to understand each other, after all.

  “You’re fortunate to have Mordred’s seed in you,” Maerlin said, his words cracking the moment as thoroughly as if he’d smashed a clay pot on the ground. “You can use that in a way that I cannot. And I’ve tried.”

  “You tried? What do you mean? Did you try to get pregnant?”

  Maerlin’s eyes went round, and then he burst out laughing. “That would be more sorcery than even I am capable of.” He went to a table by the door that held a tray of food and drink, and poured two goblets of wine. He held one out to me, and after I took it he pulled up a stool to a brazier and sat, and gestured to a low chair covered with furs and cushions; it was surely his usual seat.

  I sat, pleased that he’d thought to let me have the comfortable chair—and then just as quickly felt a flash of fear as I wondered if he had a motive beyond courtesy. The low seat and soft cushions would make it impossible to jump up and flee; not that I’d have a hope of escaping him, even with a running start.

  Maerlin leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs, the goblet dangling loosely between his hands. The green of his eyes glowed with interest. “You took within you the essence of Mordred. Your body has taken it, and bound it to your flesh. Mordred is now part of you.”

  I grimaced. “Ew.”

  “If only I could do the same! Your body now knows Mordred. And so does your Phannic gift. You have a tie to him that you can learn to follow back to its source: his mind. With training and practice, you can learn to see into it. To see what he is seeing. To feel what he is feeling. To know his thoughts.”

  My mouth dropped open. “That can’t be.”

  “Every man whose seed you’ve taken, you can do the same.”

  “N-no.” I shook my head. “I would know it, if that were so.” Even as I denied it, a wild hope sprang up inside me that Maerlin was telling the truth. Could I really learn to see into Clovis’s private thoughts? What a gift, to see the secrets that he hid! To no longer wonder at what was sincere and what was not, and to finally know his feelings for me—or lack thereof.

  “It’s an advanced skill, one that doesn’t come without effort. It’s more easily learned while touching the man whose seed you hold; to practice it across a distance strains even the most talented of the Phanne.”

  “Every man I’ve been with? I could do this with every one?”

  “If he spent himself within you, yes.”

  I thought of Ragnachar, who had preferred arses to cunnies. “Even if he didn’t do it in the, er . . . usual place?”

  Maerlin bit his upper lip and frowned. “I don’t know. I know that no fluids or seed that I ever took from man or woman gave me the bond that a female Phanne can form.”

  I blinked at him. “So you tried all different ways to make it work for you.”

  “Of course.”

  “You bedded with a man?”

  “It was interesting for the novelty of it, if nothing else.” He shrugged. “But it didn’t get me what I wanted.”

  He was even more blasé about sex than I was. I wanted to laugh, and wished Terix were listening. Maerlin made me feel normal in comparison. “What if the man whose mind I want to see into is dead?” I was thinking now of Sygarius. So often, when in a difficult situation, I’d asked myself what Sygarius would do, and wished that I could ask him. Maybe I could.

  “The dead are beyond anyone’s reach.”

  I threaded a lock of my hair through my fingers, in and out, and thought about what he’d just told me. “It can’t be limited to men whose seed I’ve taken,” I said as an idea took hold and sent a growing wave of excitement through me. “I heard my mother’s voice, when I was dying of childbed fever. She spoke to me. She told me how to use the chalice to heal myself.”

  Maerlin’s face went slack. “She told you. That’s how you knew!”

  I nodded. “So the bond works with blood ties, too, doesn’t it?”

  “Unfortunately,” Maerlin muttered. “Yes, those Phanne with whom you share blood, the connections are there.”

  “Then she’s alive!”

  “If she reached you like that, then she must be. Tell me everything, Nimia—about how you came by the chalice, and how you used it.”

  I did so, running through the tale as quickly as I could. “I used the chant again, after my throat was
cut, and that’s how I was healed—even though the chalice was in Soissons, and I was hundreds of miles away. It must have done something to me, something permanent.” I shrugged. “Or maybe the chalice alone wasn’t enough and I would have died, without the chant.”

  “Can you teach it to me?”

  “I can’t remember it.”

  Maerlin made a rude sound.

  “I can’t! The second time, it came of its own accord and left as soon as the words passed through my mind.”

  “Your mother must know them.”

  “She must. Have you had mind contact with your mother or sister?”

  His face tightened. “I don’t allow it.”

  “But you can.”

  “I don’t want them in my mind,” he bit out. “And I don’t want to see what’s in theirs.”

  I put up my hands. “All right, all right.”

  A new thought swept through me, and my muscles turned to water and my eyes filled with tears of longing. “My son. Theo. He’s only a babe, but . . . If my mother could speak to me, then . . .”

  “You might be able to sense him. I doubt you’ll be able to speak to him, though, especially since he’s a boy and shouldn’t have Phanne powers. Even between Phanne, to speak to another mind across a distance almost never happens. It’s too difficult, and those who manage it only do so in dire circumstances.”

  “Like when I was dying, and my mother came to me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you teach me how to do it? Now?” I wanted to know what Theo was feeling. Was he happy? Did he feel loved?

  Did he remember me?

  “I’ll teach you to defend your mind.”

  “I want to see Theo.”

  “I can teach you to defend your mind. Let me guide you in that, and then if you want, I’ll lie with you and you can try to connect with me afterward.”