Roman

by Heather Grothaus

  “It is beautiful,” Isra said.

  “Don’t stop unless you are stopped,” van Groen said, his wistfulness vanishing as he turned to walk backward. Roman suspected he wanted to keep Isra in his sight for as long as possible. “If your conveyance isn’t equipped with . . . conveniences, and you must disembark”—he raised his eyebrows and gave a meaningful pause—“you’ll have to run to catch up. We mustn’t separate for any reason.” He raised his hand toward both of them, but his eyes were on Isra. “Until this evening.”

  She turned to Roman then. “Have we made a mistake?”

  Roman looked into her eyes for a long moment, wanting to reassure her but reluctant to lie. There was too much at stake for that.

  “I don’t yet know,” he said at last.

  She nodded once and then, to his surprise, she gave him a smile. It was a weary smile, but a smile all the same.

  “I suppose we shall soon find out.”

  He lifted Lou from his shoulder and onto the staff that had only yesterday held the censer, refashioned by Roman’s own hand with the scraps left over from the cart’s shelter. He hadn’t had time to craft a tether or hood, and now he didn’t think he would. Lou had proven that he was loathe to be away from Roman, flying all the way from Melk to find him. There was no reason to believe the falcon wouldn’t remain close to his side.

  Roman held out his hand, helping Isra up onto the driver’s seat, inexplicably glad that she would also be sitting beside him on their journey. As she stepped up, Roman caught a flash of white blonde hair, and he turned his head to see Fran, gaining the seat of a wagon close to them. She raised her hand to him before she took up her own reins.

  Roman waved and then hoisted himself up beside Isra. Perhaps joining up with van Groen’s group would turn out to be a mistake. But in this moment, Roman felt very good about the situation indeed. He smiled and shook the reins to spur their donkey.

  He didn’t see Fran watching them closely as he turned the wagon in a wide circle to join the line of the caravan.

  But Isra did.

  * * *

  It took no more than an hour for Isra to recognize that she was suddenly the happiest she had been since she was a young girl, when she had still been without knowledge of the realities of her life.

  She was seated next to Roman Berg in the crisp, sunshiny autumn air, for all the world to see. For the first several moments, the exposure made Isra anxious. She could not recall when she had ever experienced such blatant freedom, and the thought that anyone at all might look upon her—traveling with this man, in a cart as a wealthy woman might, as if it was her rightful place—was so foreign that she trembled.

  But then she grasped the edge of the wooden seat and leaned far to the side to look at the line stretching ahead of and also trailing behind them. She saw the top of Kahn’s tall wagon and imagined how frightened the tiger must have been and for how long. It was her place now to care for him, and the idea that she was responsible once more for another living thing beside herself calmed her, and also brought to mind the man next to her.

  “Have you eaten, my lord?” she asked.

  Roman chuckled. “No, my lady, I have not. I have regretted my sudden departure from our own camp this morning several times. In preparing our cart for travel, there was little time for a rest, and I’d wager you were too well occupied to notice your own hunger.”

  Isra nodded while her cheeks heated and then stepped over the seat to escape beneath the arch of the boldly painted canvas now covering the cart bed. She took a moment to slow her breathing, cool her cheeks.

  My lady. Our cart.

  What a wonderful fantasy that would be to indulge.

  But she pushed even the imaginings of it away as she looked around the newly fashioned interior of their conveyance. It was a marvel really how completely it made a shelter. Isra was easily able to access their hidden compartment and, thankfully, the supplies they’d left within had not been discovered when their cart had been stolen that morn.

  Likely the capable and determined Roman hadn’t given them enough time to explore the cart thoroughly.

  Isra wanted to change her gown, dirtied and damp from cleaning Kahn’s wagon, but the only other costume she had was barely any cleaner. She did don the other overdress, though; at least it was dry.

  After depositing several items in a turned-up portion of her skirt, she emerged back onto the driver’s seat. In but a moment, she and Roman were sharing the remainder of the dried fruit and cheese and wine. His grin in her direction meant more to her than the word of thanks he murmured.

  She had done well this day. Very well.

  It was midafternoon when the caravan began to slow. Isra craned her neck to see what might be causing the delay, but the trees crowding the curving road to either side prevented her from viewing farther than three carts ahead. Slower and slower they went, until at last they were around the bend, and Isra saw they must be joining the wider road to Venice, and there was a village at the crossroads.

  Isra leaned this way and that, trying to see ahead without appearing anxious as Roman drove their donkey around the sharp curve in turn. The hopelessly slender man from camp—Barnaby, Asa had called him—commanding the cart before theirs suddenly turned around and pantomimed a sign Isra didn’t at first understand. She looked to Roman, who held up both palms toward the man.

  What?

  Barnaby cupped a hand around his mouth and called back, “Moving through!” Then he pointed past their cart and waved his gangly arm again.

  “Ah,” Roman murmured and signaled his understanding. Then he adjusted his seat to lean around the side of their shelter and repeated the gesture to the wagon behind theirs. By the time Roman faced forward once more, Barnaby had gained his feet behind his donkey, the reins secured beneath one foot on the driver’s seat while he juggled what appeared to Isra to be brightly painted balls.

  Their artistic decorations caused Isra’s mind to turn to the blond-haired Fran, whose coloring so resembled Roman’s. The woman had watched their wagon as they’d left camp, and Isra had somehow recognized the longing in Fran’s eyes. She felt a shimmer of jealousy in her chest. How different would her life be now if she had been born of the same culture as the man next to her? Would he then look upon her not as a wretch in need of pity and rescue but as a woman of value? Thankfully, the entertainment ahead distracted her from such useless imaginings.

  The villagers standing to either side of the road appeared to be entertained as well. Somewhere fore or aft of their cart—perhaps both, by the sound of the jangled melodies—people began to play instruments. As the caravan crawled through the small cluster of buildings, Isra saw Barnaby reach up and snatch an apple out of the air. Without so much as a wobble, the fruit joined the airborne circle of balls and the people along the road whistled and clapped. A moment later, a roll of bread arced toward the juggler, and it, too, was included in the act, to the sound of roadside applause.

  Isra brought her own hands together in delight without thinking, and at her side, Roman chuckled.

  She leaned around the canvas to look at the wagon behind theirs and saw what appeared to be a large woman wearing a beard strumming a lute while she drove her wagon, singing along in a warbling, high-pitched voice. A moment later, she, too, lifted a plump hand to snatch some treat out of the air, tossed to her by the stationary audience. She gave a wave and a smile over her lute, singing all the while.

  “The villagers are throwing food,” Isra said to Roman.

  Roman glanced at her with a smile and a shrug.

  Isra looked to the faces lining the road: peasant men and women, several children bundled in woolen clothes but with blackened, bare feet. They looked at her with expectant faces and she gave her best smile and a hesitant wave.

  The face of a little girl closest to the cart fell into a disapproving frown and then stuck out her tongue at Isra, her attention going to the lute player behind them. Isra felt her face heat and she looked ahead, bu
t at her side, Roman again laughed out loud. She glanced at him, and the sight of his broad grin disarmed the slight sting of embarrassment she had felt. In a moment, she was chuckling along with him.

  “I suppose my performance needs some work,” she admitted.

  “It matters not,” Roman said. “We have supplies, and coin to purchase whatever else we need.”

  “Not enough to last us the journey,” Isra pointed out. “We were to sell the wagon and the donkey in Venice.”

  Roman shrugged. “Van Groen seems to think we will earn our share. I’m not worried.”

  “Do you ever worry?” Isra asked.

  “No,” he said. “I act. If I know my actions will have no effect, I do my best to forget about whatever it is.”

  Isra wondered if that was the reason Roman Berg had been so successful on his own—sold into hard labor when he was a boy, growing up without the love of a family, building a reputation for himself that had brought him much favor and freedom. Isra thought there was great wisdom hiding behind Roman’s brawny exterior.

  A man along the road caught her eye then. At first Isra thought he was waving to someone else, but as their cart rolled closer to him, it was clear his attention was for Isra alone.

  “Hello! Hello there, pretty lady!” he called, waving his arm in a wide arc. In the crook of his other arm was a small pile of what appeared to be bright persimmons, and he plucked one from the bunch and turned it in his fingertips, waggling his eyebrows at Isra.

  And so she tried again, smiling and giving the man a wave, and to her surprise, he tossed the fruit to her just as they passed. Isra huffed a breath of a laugh and turned to hold it up in triumph before Roman. Then she looked back over her shoulder at the man to give him a smile of thanks, but when she did, he grabbed his crotch and shoved his hips toward her, running his tongue around his mouth in a vulgar pantomime.

  Isra snapped her head back around, her heart in her throat, her stomach somewhere near the soles of her slippers as a sick, dirty feeling washed over her. She looked at the small, soft piece of fruit still in her hand. It was as if it had suddenly become a length of feces.

  “Aren’t you going to eat it?” Roman asked. “You earned it.”

  Isra could barely force herself to swallow. “No. I don’t want it. You may have it if you wish it, my lord.” She lay the fruit down on the seat between them, fighting the urge to wipe her hand on her skirt. “I would prefer to lie down now.”

  Roman turned to look at her, a frown across his usually open, handsome face. “Are you unwell?”

  Isra shook her head but dropped her eyes. “Only quite tired, my lord.”

  “Of course,” he said. “Take your rest.”

  She needed no more encouragement, and a moment later she was ensconced in the anonymity of the cart bed. She curled onto her side clutching her sack of borrowed possessions, her eyes wide and dry as she stared into the dim shadows of the rocking cart. A cold, heavy stone was in her stomach now, representing the weight of her shame.

  Everyone knows what you are. You can never outrun it. You can never change it. It is in your blood, and that man on the side of the road knew it the moment he saw you. You can play at being respectable all you like—in your cart with your handsome blond man—but he would never have you, and you are a fool for thinking any man would.

  Whore.

  * * *

  Roman kept the little donkey at an even pace as they moved through the village squatting at the crossroads. He enjoyed watching the faces of the inhabitants as the caravan lumbered along the road, how happy they were to simply watch the wagons and characters roll past, and wondered why van Groen had given the order to move through rather than stop and turn a goodly amount of coin into their pockets. But as it at last became Roman’s turn to pass the fringe of buildings marking the proper end to the village, he saw the cluster of men on horseback, several of them with bows resting upon the fronts of their saddles and all of them wearing wary scowls.

  The caravan was clearly unwelcome.

  Roman turned his face only slightly away from the men as he passed them, attempting to hide his face and at the same time not draw attention to the fact that he was attempting to do so. But the men were more interested in admiring the different decorations on the sides and canvases of the wagons—including his own—and Roman realized in that moment that Fran’s duty within the band not only made the conveyances beautiful to look at but also served as a distraction from the individuals within.

  It should not surprise him that such a ruse was so well thought out. After all, van Groen and many in his band had likely been living this life for years and knew how to go about it. He was reluctant to give the man any credit at all, remembering the way he looked at Isra, but it did make him feel better about following van Groen across the continent. It was clear the man was very careful about his actions and those of the people who followed him, and the last thing he would want would be to endanger their livelihood.

  And, although he truly didn’t want to admit it, Roman had to give nod to the idea that he much preferred traveling through this village openly as part of a group. It was unlikely that even one of the villagers would remember his face, but had he driven through alone, many might have recalled the large blond man in the small, plain cart.

  In monk’s robes.

  Ringing a bell as he went through.

  Roman chuckled to himself. Really, being part of the caravan or traveling as a monk transporting a diseased body were two sides of a coin. In both instances, Roman and Isra were hiding in plain sight. Neither ruse could be more obvious, and Roman thought Valentine Alesander would very much approve of this turn of events.

  Constantine, perhaps not as much.

  Roman did wish there was a way to send word to his friends at Melk to let them know of the change in plans, but relaying a written message was too much of a risk. Besides, informing the general that things were no longer following the agreed-upon strategy would only cause him to worry needlessly until Roman returned. There was nothing any of his friends could do to help; it was up to Roman whether he succeeded or failed.

  And that suited him very much.

  Acceptance of the situation at last settled in his mind for the time being, he allowed his thoughts to turn to the mysterious woman sleeping in the cart just behind him. He didn’t know what had upset her so suddenly and thoroughly that she had gone skittering beneath the canvas. Roman sifted through events leading up to her escape but could not identify the cause of her distress.

  Perhaps she had wanted the persimmon she’d won but felt she must give it to Roman? He rejected that idea; Isra Tak’Ahn didn’t seem the kind to pout or be inclined to stinginess. And besides, the fruit had been on the verge of rot. Roman had spat out the first cloying bite and then tossed the rest of the thing into the weeds.

  It was as if she was an animal, once domesticated and content, who had since been abandoned to the wild and forced to survive. She’d forgotten that not every situation was a danger, every person a threat. There would be an hour, perhaps two, when she seemed as though she was at ease, and then with little outward provocation she would retreat in an elaborate defense. As if some invisible demon tormented her without warning.

  The sun was sinking low in the sky, turning the gathering clouds heavenly shades of yellow and pink, when the caravan began to slow noticeably again. Soon Roman saw one of the men he had bested that morn making his way along the caravan on horseback, riding alongside each cart in turn.

  The man turned his horse from the cart before Roman’s and waited for him to draw near before urging his mount to walk alongside the driver’s seat.

  “Good day, big fellow,” the man said affably enough, although even Roman had to wince at his purpling eye and swollen, crusty nose. “How has the road treated you thus far?”

  “It is well,” Roman returned and glanced at the man. “My regrets for your nose.”

  But the man waved his apology away. “I’ve had worse. L
isten, pulling off soon. The boss bartered with a farmer for his field and pond. Pull all through and round, right?”

  Roman nodded. “Right.” He wasn’t sure what “pull all through and round” meant, but he was certain he could figure it out.

  “And get right to setting up. They’ll come about within the hour, I reckon.”

  “First thing,” Roman promised, not having any idea what the man had just said.

  “They call me Zeus, the Greek. Good to have you with us.” Zeus turned his horse away to wait for the next wagon.

  Roman adjusted in his seat and sat up taller, alert for the first signs that the caravan was leaving the road. It was only perhaps a quarter hour before he saw the wagons turning onto a rutted farm path. The rolling of their own cart dipping into the ditch must have woken Isra, for as the wheels rolled up and into the field, she emerged onto the driver’s seat at his side.

  He didn’t think she seemed at all more rested than when she’d disappeared beneath the canvas; in fact, her eyes were swollen. Roman was too unfamiliar with the moods of the gentler sex to know if her appearance was the result of a nap or weeping.

  “It is not yet night,” she observed, smoothing her hands up over her cheeks and into her hair.

  “Van Groen received permission for a field and pond. Perhaps he means to take advantage of a camp where no one need fear being tossed.”

  Isra shrugged and raised her eyebrows.

  They didn’t speak for several moments as Roman maneuvered the cart around the long pond, keeping in line. There was another of the brawny men directing the caravan, and Roman realized that the party was forming a single, enormous circle in the field. Even as he was halting the little gray donkey, people were spilling out of carts to the interior and exterior of the circle, bringing cooking apparatus and firewood to the center and setting up poles and awnings on the sides of the carts that fronted the circle.