“To who?” Victor’s gaze traveled down her tunica. He wasn’t unkind. He treated her more kindly than any master before him. To him, though, like the rest of Rome, the world divided into slave and free, plebeian and patrician. That divide was only to be crossed in the beds of the masters of the free world, leading to many children without fathers.
Libya traced the tile grout with her gaze. “Wryn Paterculi.”
“Wryn?” Victor grabbed her arm. Shoving the curtain to an adjoining room aside, he yanked her inside. “You say you serve Wryn Paterculi?”
She nodded, her gaze directed out the window to the setting sun. Was there any land which that sun hit where a human soul was just that, a soul with no talk of money or position, slave or free? Where a boy, like her Horus, had value even though he was the illegitimate son of a prostitute, not a legal heir?
“Does he talk of smuggling?”
She drew back.
“He does!” Victor’s gaze lighted. “What does Wryn say?”
She jerked her gaze away from the sun. Victor’s body tensed, his face directed in intense interest. Her shoulders stiffened. “I don’t know.”
“But you could find out?” His voice eager, Victor grabbed her hand.
She ran her tongue over her lips.
“Meet me next week in front of the temple to Fecunditas.”
Withdrawing her hand, she stepped back. “Wryn Paterculi has been kind to me and your son. Why would I spy on him?” Back straight, she held her breath.
“My son?” Victor jolted.
She nodded.
He clenched the shelf behind him. “How old is he?”
“Memory would tell you almost six years by now.” Apparently, that promise of never forgetting had not been quite as poignant to him as to her.
“You are sure he is mine?”
She brought her chin down. “Absolutely.” Now Victor just had to agree to free him.
“Bring him to the temple, too. In three days, not next week.”
Would Horus finally get to meet his father? Her heart pounded. “I will.”
“If you find out what Wryn knows about smuggling, I will help your son.”
Sweat built on her palms. “You’d free him?”
“Oh, if I’m convinced he’s my son, I can do a lot better for him than that.” A smile twisted up Victor’s lips.
“What do you mean?” She chafed one hand over the other. Reveal Wryn’s secrets to Victor? “And I don’t know–”
“You and I, a bond always existed between us.” Victor touched her shoulder. “Why side with this new master?”
She crossed her arms. “I’m sure you’ve bonded with many women since.”
He let out a cynical laugh. “More like one wife, over and over.” He glanced away. “I have guests to meet. Bring this boy to me at that temple.”
She watched Victor walk away, same as almost seven years ago when he left her at the tavern, bearing his child. Victor had to free Horus.
Last night, he’d identified a few more Viri men. Wryn scratched those names on the wax tablet.
“Wryn!” Gwen’s headache inducing voice split the tablinum. Outrage twisted her lips. “You never told Libya you were freeing her!”
Wryn blinked. He searched the recesses of his mind, the scorching air making all thought difficult. “I’m sure I told her.” Yes, he mentioned it when they went to look at schools for Horus. Then again, that time Libya spoke of earning six thousand denarii to buy her freedom, he said she needn’t since he’d free her anyway.
Red rose across Gwen’s cheeks. “She deserved to know that she had a free future with her son. Now, according to your cook, Libya’s gone and agreed to marry a random potter.”
For once, he agreed with every ligula of disdain Gwen put into that word. “Libya’s free to marry whomsoever she chooses.” But oh, he hated Jacob.
“You knew?” Gwen dropped her hand.
“Of course, I knew. He needed my permission.” Only seven more days. Seven days to hear Libya’s laugh. Seven days to watch her eyes sparkle. Seven days to talk to her by moonlight. A physical pain stabbed through his heart. He couldn’t think about this. Wryn picked up a garrison tablet.
“Jacob won’t suit her.”
Precisely. Yet he had no moral right to tell Libya “no,” much as he wished to exert his legal right to. She begged him not to prevent this marriage she wanted.
“Libya’s a rebel. She needs someone who can make her laugh. Jacob’s too stolid, like you.”
Wryn’s hand dropped to the table. “I’m not stolid.”
“How could you let this happen? You have no heart. Libya only did this to earn her freedom.”
Oh, for that to be true. “Do you think me a complete fool? I told Libya I’m freeing her.”
“You’re sure you told her?” Gwen’s gaze bore into him. “Actually, communicating things rather than barking orders is not a strength of yours.”
“I’m sure.” Seven more days with Libya, ever. He should visit Aulia today and set their wedding date. He didn’t have the heart for it.
Chapter 18
Wryn crossed through the courtyard, a pile of tablets in his hand. Pattering feet sounded behind him.
Horus grabbed his hand. “I want to build a bonfire outside the city. You promised.”
“I never promised that.”
“You can promise now.” Horus’ black hair slapped across his face. “Please, Wryn. Please, please.”
Libya rounded the corner. The lengthening sunrays sparkled against her ebony hair. Her tunica swished around her bare feet. Seven more nights then she’d join herself to Jacob.
Horus grabbed his other hand too. “Please, please.”
“Maybe someday.” Now to finish the Viri reports, write to Consul Julius, and review the ridiculous stack of garrison paperwork Legate Aemilli had assigned him to punish him. Scarcely his fault that the legate had a daughter or that he wished the girl wed, yet that Cyclops thought marrying her was somehow his responsibility.
“Tonight’s someday.” Horus yanked on his arm.
“I have work to do.” Tomorrow morning, Marcellus and Gwen would come to update him on Marcellus’ last meeting with the Viri. He needed his list of notes from the Viri dinner compiled before that.
“Working too much isn’t good for you.” Horus pressed his little eyebrows down. “Mama can come too. It will be so much fun. Please, Wryn.”
An evening with Libya? Wryn looked at her. Maybe they could have one stolen evening before Jacob the potter took her forever. The failing sunlight bathed her dark skin in light.
“Mama loves bonfires.” Horus threw his arms around Libya’s waist.
Libya’s eyes lighted in a laugh. So many expressions played on that face as if she was always thinking things she didn’t say.
Spend an evening alone by the Tiber with Libya, scarcely an activity Jacob or Aulia would welcome. Yet he’d been born a patrician male, and he didn’t have to answer to Aulia or Jacob the potter.
“I’m very good at collecting wood.” Horus grabbed a stick and swung it like a barbarian long sword. “If you bring an ax, I can cut down an olive tree.”
“Tonight, Libya?” Wryn touched his gaze to hers.
She smiled. “Should I bring food?”
“Mutton and porridge.” Horus ran a circle around an olive tree, looking ready to tear the sapling down. “I love mutton and porridge.”
Wryn wrinkled his nose. “Porridge is disgusting.”
“No, it’s not.” Horus hopped onto a rock wall. “I love porridge.” With a flying leap, he launched himself toward Wryn.
With an oomph, Wryn caught him. “You eat it then.”
The leaves of the olive trees blew gently. The smell of the river crept up the bank through the dusk as locusts chirped a melody around them.
Wryn held out a hand to stop Horus from crashing a log on top of the carefully-stacked kindling. Scraping flint against tinder, Wryn nursed a flame into light. As t
he first stars came out, the fire roared up, licking at the larger logs.
Grabbing a stick, Horus waved it high. “Now there’s a fire, we have to dance around it.”
“I don’t dance.” Wryn leaned against the smooth bark of an olive tree as the flames rose toward the heavens.
“You have to.” Horus closed his dirt-stained hand around his.
“You jump around if you like dancing so much.” Extricating his fingers, Wryn rested both hands on the dirt and leaned back further. Libya sat across the fire from him, her gaze pensive as she looked into the flames. He could never read her eyes, except when they laughed. Then the whole world burst into light.
Horus ran to Libya. “Dance with me, Mama Carissime.”
With a smile, Libya rose and took her son’s hands as if she’d done this with him before.
Wryn’s gaze lingered on her as she circled the fire with Horus. She didn’t move with the crudeness of those gyrations in the tavern, but with a melodic sway of flames, and light, and movement. She danced as gracefully as the water sprites pagans believed inhabited this river. Her dark skin contrasted with her light saffron-colored tunica as she wove in and out of the fire’s glow. Her voice rose in a song, foreign words from some far-off province as Horus’ off-key voice joined in.
Horus’ hopping grew wilder. Holding his little hands, Libya spun around a flaming log, and their laughter rose high above the smoke. Breathless, they tumbled onto the blanket on his side of the fire.
Horus collapsed on top of Libya, his little arms twisted around her neck. “I love you, Mama.”
She lowered her voice as she rocked him in her arms. Horus snuggled into her shoulder, his little eyes drooping.
Wryn’s gaze traveled over the two of them. “Where did you learn to dance?”
She smiled, a good memory then. “I used to dance with my mother.”
Yawning, Horus wiggled out of her arms and rested his mutton-stuffed belly on the blanket. His eyes closed. Libya shifted her gaze to Wryn.
“My mother’s people, the Celts, dance.” Wryn traced his finger through the dirt. “My father still tells the story of the first time he danced with her.”
Nestling the blanket around Horus, Libya moved closer to Wryn. Her knees almost brushed his as she sat, feet underneath her in the darkness. “My mother’s people in Nubia too. My favorite dance is called the heron.”
“What’s it like?”
“It takes two to dance that dance. I’ll show you.” She reached toward him.
“I don’t dance.”
She grabbed both his hands and sprang to her feet. “Let me teach you.”
Gaze on her, he slowly rose. Pray heaven this olive grove proved dense because if anyone ever saw him attempting the ungainliness of dancing, the jests would never end.
She spread her hands as she gestured over the fire. She lifted her tunica above her ankles as she demonstrated the step of the dance.
“Then turn like this.” She spun in the shadowy firelight, the saffron of her tunica one with the fire. She took his hand. Hot as any flames, her touch trailed across his arm.
He followed her into the circling dance step. She wove in and out, dancing around the fire. Two hands on his chest, she pressed close to him, then spun off, losing herself in the flames. Her voice rose in song, a mystical tapestry of foreign words and notes. She brushed his shoulder as they passed again in the heron’s wings. “Sing with me.”
“I don’t speak Nubian or whatever language that is.”
Her laughter trickled down, washing over her and him. “Romans don’t dance. Romans don’t sing. What do Romans do for enjoyment?”
He followed the rhythm as they spun back and forth between flames. “Fight glorious battles and write epic poems about their deeds of valor.”
She danced up to him, her hair swinging around her hips. “Lethargy inspiring.”
“Hardly.” Yet, in this moment, as the blood pounded through his veins, his gaze on her, the world of politics and soldiering seemed but a shadow. He pressed his palm against hers, and she spun away from him as they swirled out in the wings of the dance.
Halfway around the fire, they met again. She slid her hand in his as their feet pounded the waves of the heron’s habitat. The music of her voice stilled, yet their feet continued to move in the rhythm of the dance steps.
His gaze fixed on her. “I do know this song.” A long gone song Mother sang on starlit nights when he was but a boy rose to his lips. The notes moved across his tongue as familiar as if many years hadn’t intervened.
“You can sing.” Libya dropped his hand. “Well.” Her eyes shone.
Her voice joined his in the chorus, imitating the foreign words. As the song ended, their feet slowed too. She stood, the embers of the fire casting her body in shadow as she looked into his eyes.
Behind them, the fire burned low. He grabbed her hand. “Let’s jump over the fire.”
Her gaze flicked to the smoldering logs and she laughed. “You can’t jump over a dying fire. That means bad luck.”
“Not in ancient Britain tradition.”
Her hand felt so soft in his, her slender fingers crossing his palm. “What’s it mean for the Celts?”
Celtic lovers jumped over the dying flames to pledge their troth. “I don’t believe in bad luck.” Catching her up in his arms, he jumped across the embers. Her body fit next to him, her saffron tunica sliding over his forearms.
Laughing, she slipped from his arms. She flicked his chest with her fingers. “Now you’ve brought your bad luck on me.”
“Mea culpa.” He’d repeat his actions in the space of one racing heartbeat.
“You’re good at dancing.” Libya’s eyes glistened by moonlight.
“You’re being kind.”
“No, I speak truth.” The wind blew her hair, the moonlight shimmering in her dark tresses.
One lock blew against his hand. The touch sent tremors down his arm. Oh, to bury his fingers in those locks and touch his mouth to hers. To wrap his arms around her waist and kiss her in this abandoned olive grove until she banished all thoughts of marrying the potter.
She sat on the blanket by Horus. He slid down to a seated position resting against a tree trunk merely a pace away from her.
He should ask her if she wished to go back. As soon as they went back, she would head to the servants’ quarters, he to his room, not to speak again until morning. Only seven more mornings until she married Jacob.
Perhaps she’d change her mind?
Didn’t matter. Within days, he’d marry Aulia. The right choice, though just now it didn’t seem so. How he longed to run his fingers through Libya’s hair, stroke his hand down her bare arm, touch his lips to hers.
Dancing was a dangerous pastime, but oh, to do it again. He leaned against the tree. “The stars are bright tonight.”
She slid away from Horus, closer to him. She circled her lovely arms around her pulled-up knees. “My mother said when a star falls from the sky, if you wish hard enough you can ride it.”
“A nonsensical legend.”
“Don’t you ever pretend? Even for a moment?” She scooted back against his tree trunk and, leaning her cheek on the bark, gestured upward. “That one, that’s the one I’d ride.”
She sat so close her hair brushed his shoulder. He had to force his breath not to quicken. “I’d take the moon.” He pointed to the golden orb that dominated the night sky.
“Why?”
“Bigger. Can plow through the others.”
She tilted her head back, the music of her laughter rising in the night breeze. “You think like a soldier.”
“I am a soldier.” A soldier who needed a prestigious marriage alliance to earn a prefect post, advance, and bring justice to the people of Rome like Paterculi statesmen before him. Yet, his mind refused to acknowledge that.
Was this how Father had ended up married to a peasant girl after a starlit night dancing around Celtic fires? Mother had been a chief’s daug
hter, a thousand times above a woman of infamia. Legally, a man of his rank couldn’t marry a slave girl, freed or no.
“I know.” Libya’s bare arm brushed his as she swiveled, laughter in her eyes. “It’s why you can’t flirt.”
“I flirted splendidly at the tavern last week.” He kissed her three times, almost made it four, but the last drunk had backed away before he had a chance. He could make that fourth time now. Only a few handbreadths parted her mouth from his, or her body from his touch. His blood raced so fast lightheadedness overwhelmed his senses.
She laughed. “Only because I tutored you. Still, sometimes at the taverns, you look like you’re swallowing a dead frog when you’re forced to touch me.”
Forced? Had she no wits? “I invited you to go to Ostia with me. I can ensure you I was not forced.”
“I am an excellent spy, am I not?” Hands on her waist, Libya arched her lovely eyebrows.
“You’re the best, Libya.” Even her name felt magical on his lips. Whenever his lips touched hers that same magic spread through his body. What would her skin feel like beneath that whisper of linen covering her body? The moon’s glow made the fabric look thinner still.
“I like it, spying. I feel like it’s something I’m good at. Unlike baking or cleaning, despite that the cook tasks me with those things.” Libya made a wry noise.
His gaze fixed on her.
“Mea culpa, I’m boring you.” Her linen tunica, the one he gave her, rode up to her calves. The moon shimmered on her dark skin.
Oh, to run his hand up that leg. “You could never bore me.” With the way she danced with him this night and threw herself at him that night at the pool and the afternoon she cried, she’d welcome it if he kissed her here in the solitude of this olive grove. He could kiss her as long as he wished, unlike at the Ostia taverns. Perhaps then she’d realize she didn’t want the potter. Wryn moved his hand through the darkness.
“Will you tell me the story you told Horus about a starry night? Horus begged me to tell him it last night, and I didn’t know it.”
Without Love: Love and Warfare series book 4 Page 19