Victor laughed at her and tossed the long strands of her hair out to blow in the wind. “It’s Victor, unless you opt for the digging trenches bit. In which case, I’ll insist on master.”
She remembered her father from when she was young, or who her mother had said was her father. Even he had never laughed with her. He’d been a free man, the old master back then, and he beat her when she spilled a pitcher while serving at his feast.
Victor pressed his mouth to hers.
Soon after, when they reached the sanctuary of a villa, which promised roses and flowering trees once the sun rose, he finished the act.
Later, many long moments after Victor had blown out the candle, she rolled over under the blanket. Her skin touched his, and she froze, afraid she’d wake him and he would rage.
His arm came up under the woven blanket that covered them both and wrapped around her body, drawing her into the crook of his arms. She could feel his smile even through the darkness. “Shh now, dancing girl. No slave drivers here trying to get those trenches dug.”
As she felt his breathing slow into sleep, his arms still tight around her, she allowed herself to relax into his body. She fell asleep there, her head on his shoulder.
That month she had no turnips to wash, no carrots to cut, no roomful of men to entertain. It was just her and Victor. He introduced her to the private baths of a villa, magical places made not just to scrub off dirt like the wash basins at the inn, but to soothe away the world’s troubles.
Though she had to endure the unpleasantness of his touch at every turn, he also laughed with her, spoke kindly to her, and treated her as if she mattered.
The last day of the month, he saddled his horse.
“Please, Victor, I don’t want to go back. I want to stay with you.” She threw her arms around his neck, body pressed up against him as he liked. The only thing separating her from his bare chest was the linen tunica he gave her. Victor paused a moment, his gaze on her as if he too would like her to stay. Then he shook his head.
She hoped for too much.
“I’d love to wake up to this face every morning,” he stroked her cheek, “but there’s already a woman in Britannia who wants a permanent relationship and my father’s saying I need to marry to secure the connections for the next trade deal. So, I’m better off clear of other entanglements.”
Who was the woman in Britannia? Sometimes she liked to imagine the woman as a Celtic princess with gold hair blowing in the wind. Other times, she thought the woman might be a slave just like her — someone who never had anyone speak kindly to her before Victor.
She’d like to think that girl was happy now. She’d never been jealous really. What claim did she have to jealousy? She was just a twenty-eight-day gambling bet contracted by a drunk innkeeper.
“I’ll never forget you, Libya,” Victor had said.
She startled on the marble bench. “In truth?”
He leaned forward and kissed her. She hated kisses most. They always brought back that first night she became infamia and what the third man that evening forced her to do.
Stretching out his hand, Victor plucked a crimson rose. “Every time I see one of these, I’ll think of you.”
She clasped the rose, not caring that the thorns pricked her fingers.
“Now you promise too,” he said, a laugh on his lips.
She clutched the rose to her heart. “Never forget. I promise.”
With a shake of her head, Libya came back to the present. Reaching into her tunica, she pulled out the pouch at her neck. She stroked the crumbled petals of Victor’s rose. How many times she thought of that moment. How many times she imagined Victor would come back.
While she chopped carrots and diced celery, she wondered what he’d think of his son. The innkeeper had raged because she had to take months off dancing, but she adored Horus, even more because he was Victor’s. He had the same mop of unruly black hair, the same way of arching just one eyebrow, the same mouth.
If Victor had known about Horus, would he have come back? She looked for him at the tavern every day for the last six and a half years. She hoped if she could find Victor, he’d free Horus, her even, but who knew.
“Is that your son?” Aulia’s voice broke through her thoughts. Back stiff, Aulia stared through the tablinum entrance. The wind blew the curtain back.
Horus had scrambled on Wryn’s lap and pointed eagerly at a parchment. Wryn touched the parchment too, and his mouth moved as if he taught the boy something.
Aulia clenched her pale hand. “What’s he doing with Wryn?”
“I have no idea, domina. I’ll go fetch him.” Day and night now, Horus chattered about the master, and he told her Wryn taught him things, the learning of educated men that she could never hope to impart to Horus. Obviously, that would end when Aulia became the mistress of this house.
Aulia gave her a scathing look. “I’ll go to Tribune Paterculi. You make yourself busy elsewhere.”
She encountered the jealous vengeance of a master’s wife many times before despite her lack of consent to the incidents that created that jealousy. Unlike other women, Aulia had no reason for concern. Aulia’s man was above reproach.
Libya’s gaze lingered on Wryn’s face. His firm chin was tanned, his brown hair cropped close to his ears. His big hand surrounded her son’s around a stylus, making marks on a wax tablet. If she abandoned the cook’s task and entered that room, he’d talk to her, laugh with her.
Life would become entirely less pleasant when Aulia entered this villa as the domina.
Chapter 10
Wryn leaned over the map, pointing out the line of frontier garrisons defending the edge of the Empire to Horus.
“I want to be a soldier like you someday.” Horus gripped the parchment.
Wryn laughed. “Best keep practicing with that armatura sword.”
Skirts swished in the doorway. Wryn twisted. Aulia. His hand fell to the table. “I was supposed to meet you this morning.” He’d forgotten. If Aulia didn’t rage at him, Gwen certainly would.
Horus bounced on his lap. “Show me another garrison.”
“Can’t right now.” He pushed the boy toward the door and focused on Aulia. “Mea culpa. My wits abandoned me.”
She looked sad. Why? Visits to her mostly consisted of long silences where she appeared as unhappy as he.
He stood. “Tomorrow, can I come tomorrow?”
“Of course.”
“Wait, I have to report to the garrison early tomorrow.” To oversee the sanitation digging for the new latrines. Ever since he refused the legate’s daughter, the man had given him the most wretched duties. He needed to become a prefect and escape that garrison.
Aulia’s dark eyelashes drooped. Sadness again?
“I’ll come again soon. I promise.”
A hint of color tinged Aulia’s pale cheeks. “My father asked when you want to hold the wedding.”
The day he married Aulia, he’d become prefect. If he tarried too many more weeks, he risked Emperor Trajan awarding the position to another man.
“I….” He glanced out the window. Atrocious idea. Libya walked through the peristyle. Unlike that wool work dress, the saffron linen he gave her conformed to her every curve. Even darker than her skin, her lovely eyes shone. A celestial luster hung about her. He jerked his gaze inside. “I wouldn’t want to hurry you into something against your will.”
“You must choose the day that is most convenient for you. I’ll make ready.”
Marry Aulia? Live together under the same roof? The fish he ate at noonday swished in his stomach.
“I know the Paterculi villa well. I could take over the duties directing the house as domina with little disruption.”
Directing the house, managing household affairs, a marriage entailed a lot more than that. His gaze met Aulia’s blue-eyed one. A discomforted feeling quickened his pulse. He would marry Aulia, of course. She had everything he needed in a wife.
Unlike Libya.
>
Where had that thought come from? A woman of infamia with a child from another man, even a plebeian wouldn’t deign to join his name to hers. Roman law prohibited the grandson of a senator from taking any sort of freed slave as wife, though any man who saw Libya would wish to do many things, none of which required betrothal papers.
Any, but not him. Wryn forced away the images of her dancing in that tavern, or walking through the peristyle as the wind molded the linen to her body, or leaning over the dining table to refill a goblet, or — “I’ll think on picking a day.”
Something glimmered in Aulia’s eyes, but she bit her tongue. “I’ll tell my father.”
“Very well. Salve. I promise I will visit your house soon.”
She reached out and touched his hand. Her fingers trembled. Behold, she wasn’t ready for this marriage any more than he was. He did her a favor by not rushing her into a more intimate relationship.
“Salve,” Aulia said.
He held the curtain back and made to walk her to the gate.
“I can see myself out. I know you have work to do.” She smiled at him.
He nodded. Enough work to last until he left for the garrison at least, since for the last hour Horus had somehow convinced him to spread out maps of the Empire and explain troop movements of legions. The boy had the same keen mind as his mother. He should go to school.
The curtain fell back as Wryn took a seat at the table. He rubbed his thumb over the stylus as his gaze shifted down the row of tablets. According to this supply list, the garrison would need another hundred ligulas of grain shipped before the end of the month.
A footstep fell outside the window. His gaze rose. Not ten paces from his window, Libya stood sweeping dirt off the cobbled garden path. With each stroke of her broom, her dark arms moved, the linen of her tunica shifting. Her brushstrokes swayed her hips, which he’d seen almost bare at that tavern. They were the color of burnished bronze underneath her tunica, same as her legs. The neckline of her saffron tunica dipped, but not half as low as what she had, or rather hadn’t worn at that tavern.
The Savior had said that to lust after a woman equaled committing adultery with her. He wasn’t lusting; he was just noticing. Noticing the way the breeze conformed the thin linen to Libya’s hips. Noticing the way her tunica rounded about her chest. Noticing —
He grabbed for the paperwork on his desk. Accounts of all wine imported into the garrison in the last three-month. Not working. He grabbed another scroll. Weapons count, dull, monotonous. He could still see Libya in his mind’s eye.
Next scroll. Placement of sanitation and latrine devices. Due to excessive odor around the garrison, new sewage works must be dug.
All right, that did work.
Victor stood outside the brick apartment he paid for. The door
hung open, and Edna’s voice rose. Should he divorce his wife or take her advice about adopting an illegitimate son?
A scribe, a freedman he hired, stood by Edna, deep in conversation. “I’ve been treated like an object. I’ve been treated like an underling. One way I’ve never been treated is like a man. I’m thinking you’ve never been treated like a woman ought to be.”
Edna stiffened. “Why would you say that?”
“It’s in your eyes.”
Edna hugged her arms tighter to herself. “Victor is…considerate.”
The freedman rolled his eyes. “Yes, considerate as things go with a man to his mistress. Not like a wife.”
“He treats me better than his wife.”
“That sounds like Victor.”
How dare the man he hired use his name as an insult? Also, did this freedman make a habit of spending time with Edna?
Edna scrubbed one hand over the other. “I had the opportunity to be a wife.”
“To Victor?”
Edna shook her head, mussing her brown hair. “A butcher in Britannia.”
“What happened?”
This man asked much too personal questions. Victor gripped the doorframe.
“He despised me because of her.” Edna pointed to her oldest girl.
The door flung farther open as Victor strode through the doorway. “You’re discharged. Don’t ever come back here or to my house.” Victor pointed to the freedman.
The man had the audacity to glare at him as he left.
Victor looked to Edna. “A fling with a scribe?”
“No! How many times have I told you? I’ve never been with any man beside you.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.
His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. He feared needlessly. Edna was much too needy to take a lover. His wife had spoken truth. As long as a boy bore Ocelli blood, what did the mother’s birth matter?
Also, not divorcing his wife would save him a lot of money. “See it stays that way. Because if that child in your womb is a boy, I’m adopting him.”
“You are?” Edna’s eyes lit.
“My wife can’t have any more children, and I need a son somehow.” Victor turned. “Send for me when it’s your time.”
Chapter 11
Outside the servant’s quarters, the sun faded into the horizon. Sitting cross-legged by the low window, Libya rolled a ball to Horus.
He tossed it back.
She grasped the flying ball with both hands. “What were you doing with the master this afternoon?”
“He showed me a huge map of all the Empire.” Horus spread his arms. “Did you know Rome puts soldiers in all the garrisons and they march and fight wars? He showed them to me on his map. He taught me how to write their legion numbers on the wax.”
If only Horus could go to school. If only she knew anything at all about sums or letters so she could teach him. If she was free, she could earn money to send him to school.
Dropping the ball, Libya drew a bone flute from a bottom shelf. She’d found it in a storage closet. She lifted the flute to her lips. A tune rose, like when her mother had taught her so many years ago.
Knees under him, Horus scooted closer. “Play me the one you sang in the summertime at the inn, Mama.”
With a smile, she started the melody her own mother had often played. The last rays of light fell through the window, making shadows on her son’s handsome face. Horus leaned against the narrow bed. His dark hair splayed across the blankets. He looked so much like Victor.
A knock sounded on the plaster wall. “Horus.”
“It’s Wryn.” Horus jumped to his feet. She shoved the flute into the shelves by the doorway.
The curtain parted. Wryn’s body filled the doorway. “Oh, I thought you were still in the kitchen.”
Other masters had always sought her out, ordered her into their presence. “My company is so unpleasant?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Wryn looked uncertainly around the room. “Do you mind if I….” He still held the curtain back with his hand, as stiff as a statue.
Leaning her elbows against the window sill, her eyes danced with laughter. “I’d invite you in, but you own these rooms, not I.” Also, by all rights, she should stand in his presence. Yet, he sword fought Horus for an hour today in the gardens. He wouldn’t punish her for disrespect. She tucked her legs farther under her.
Might as well get away with all she could before Aulia entered this house as domina and brought down the force of the law. Aulia would change Wryn too. Masters’ wives always did.
“Yes, I guess.” Wryn ducked under the threshold. “See here, I found the map I told you about yesterday, Horus.” His presence brought a sense of peace into the room as if that voice which ordered armies could also order all ill to flee.
“The Dacian one? Show it to me! Please, please.” Horus grabbed Wryn’s hand.
Wryn’s presence filled the narrow space as he sat, his crossed legs reaching half the way from wall to wall, his body filling the edge of the room.
Uninvited, Horus scrambled into the master’s lap. His little head bent over the parchment as Wryn unfurled it. Wryn pointed to a spot on the map.
“That’s Dacia. Emperor Trajan’s building a marble column here in Rome commemorating his Dacian War success. It’s almost complete.”
“Trajan should carve you in the archway.” Libya rested one elbow on the brick, chin in her hand as she smirked.
He drew his eyebrows together, that perplexed look on his face again. “Why? I didn’t even fight in the Dacian wars.”
“I think you’d save the sculptors’ time.” Half marble already, one might have a hard time telling the carved Wryn Paterculi apart from the real one. A virile statue surely, but so martial. What would it take to make his stiff features relax into merriment?
His puzzled gaze ran over her.
“Catch.” Scrambling to his feet, Horus hurled his ball at Wryn.
Wryn captured it in one hand and lobbed the ball to her.
Horus’ little jaw dropped. “How did you do that? I can never catch it in one hand.”
Libya bounced the ball to Horus. “It’s a great skill, practiced for hours by legionaries and officers alike. When you observe soldiers on night duty, you will see them lobbing balls.”
“In truth?” Horus tossed the ball to Wryn. “I thought you practiced with swords and javelins.”
“A mere pretense.” Libya flicked her hair behind her ear. “Mostly they throw balls. Barbaric hordes flee in terror of these flying circular objects.”
Wryn cast the ball at her. “I know where Horus inherits it.”
“Inherits what?” The ball landed with a satisfying thwack against her hands.
“His utter lack of respect for authority.”
Heat rose across her cheeks as she tossed the ball to Wryn. “I’d never disrespect you, master.”
“Your ears turn red when you lie.” He flipped the ball to Horus.
“That’s because I’m not a statue.” She clapped her hand over her mouth. She’d gone too far. “Mea culpa. I didn’t mean that.”
His eyes narrowed. “That entire time about Trajan’s column, you were mocking me.”
Without Love: Love and Warfare series book 4 Page 12