by M. K. Hume
‘You cannot think to harm her, sir,’ Artorex tried to reason. ‘She is the mother of your unborn child.’
‘I will kick her to death if I choose to do so,’ Caius snarled, maddened beyond rational thought. ‘She is mine to do with as I choose.’
In his incoherent rage, he howled and attempted to throw himself at his sobbing wife once again.
According to Roman law, Artorex could not harm or even restrain Caius, son of the paterfamilias, yet custom and rule were only a perilously thin veneer over the instincts of a man like Artorex. He had no intention of standing aside.
‘You’ll only touch her again when you have passed through my body,’ Artorex promised quietly, in a voice as smooth and as sharp as a wire.
‘The prospect would delight me,’ Caius screamed and drew his knife. Artorex easily parried Caius’s blows, until a woollen mat brought him to grief when his foot slipped on its treacherous purchase.
As Artorex began to fall, Caius struck out at him, slashing his arm from shoulder to elbow. Still, he wouldn’t have passed had he not managed to throw a sleeping coverlet over his foster-brother that completely enveloped him in its folds.
Gallia sprang to her feet like a tigress and faced Caius as boldly as any soldier.
‘You’ll not touch her, Caius,’ she snapped. ‘Not if I can stop you.’
‘But you can’t prevent me, can you?’ Caius said, almost conversationally. He gripped her hair by the crown of her head and tossed her into the corner of the room like a bundle of wet rags.
‘Now, madam,’ he said in a voice so drenched with fury that Artorex struggled even harder to extricate himself from the suffocating folds of the bedcover.
‘No! . . . No! . . .’
Artorex heard the thin voice scream, as the sturdy body of Caius connected with another that was smaller and infinitely frailer. Lady Livinia had stepped between her son’s knife and her daughter-in-law. Both mother and son stared at the knife buried up to the hilt in Livinia’s breastbone.
‘Mother!’ Caius screamed.
Livinia crumpled at the knees, and Artorex had time to lower her gently on to the sleeping pallet that Gallia had used. He was oblivious to the orders of the three visitors, to the wailing of servants, to the sobbing of Julanna, to the sight of Gallia being carried bodily from the room, while Caius was physically restrained and dragged from the sleeping chamber by pen Bryn and Luka.
Only Lady Livinia existed. Her dark eyes were intensely alive and pleading - and they were fixed on Artorex alone.
Ector prostrated himself beside his wife and was sobbing uncontrollably as he cradled his dying wife in his arms. Artorex tried to extricate his arm from the death grip that Livinia had placed on his wrist, but all her considerable vitality was concentrated in that one small hand.
‘You must promise me,’ she whispered.
‘Anything! Anything, my only love,’ Ector replied brokenly.
‘No, not you. Artorex. He must promise me that when he is a great man . . . that he will care for Caius.’
‘But he has sorely wounded you, my lady,’ Artorex protested, brushing one hand across eyes that were wet. The wound was mortal although the blade was more decorative than deadly. Sheer chance had driven the short, slender shaft between Livinia’s ribs and breastbone, and into the region of her heart. She should be carried to her room, but any movement might drive the dagger through her heart and still Livinia’s voice forever.
‘Caius is just a silly boy . . . a foolish boy . . . a child who needs saving from himself. I forgive him. Do you hear me? My death is an accident. You must hear me - and swear to all that I ask. I have raised you to manhood, Artorex, and I beg you to protect my son.’
Artorex could feel the tears in his eyes begin to run silently down his face. In every way but blood, Livinia was the closest thing to a mother he had ever known. Even now, with her face as pale as bleached linen, and the thin blade alone saving her from immediate death, her Roman duty held true. She gave no indication of pain or fear, and her only expression was one of regret.
‘I can’t meet my ancestors in peace until you promise me, Artorex. I can’t go into the long sleep until my Caius is protected from himself. ’
Her voice wheezed through damaged lungs and a thin rivulet of blood ran from her lips, even as Ector fruitlessly tried to wipe it away.
Under the spell of those vital, pleading eyes, Artorex swore his oath.
‘I vow that I will keep Caius safe, and that I will endeavour to protect him from himself. I’ll carry him with me down whatever path my life follows. Rest, my lady, rest, for I promise that I’ll follow your wishes.’
‘Stand back now, Artorex. You must allow me to care for my wife,’ Ector ordered in a cracked and broken voice.
‘Thank you, Artorex.’ Livinia smiled painfully. ‘Now, my dear Ector,’ she breathed. ‘You must remove the knife for me, my husband.’
‘But you will die if I do, Livinia. What will I do without you?’
‘You will always be my strong, kind husband,’ she said softly. Livinia’s breath was now coming in fast and painful gasps. ‘Please, my dear. I’m bleeding inwardly, you must spare me my pain. I’d have liked to see my grandchild, but I know it will live. Care for it, my dear one, as you have cared for all my people in the past.’
She took one painful breath and generations of the hardy progeny of Rome seemed to stare out at the world through her calm, black eyes.
‘You must take out the knife. Now!’
Artorex watched from the doorway, for he couldn’t force his body to entirely leave the room. A weeping Ector put one giant hand over the delicate hilt of the knife, and Livinia wrapped her small palms around his.
Ector eased the narrow blade out of her chest. Immediately, a great gush of blood bubbled from her mouth and the narrow wound allowed more blood to spurt free. Livinia briefly smiled, like a tired little girl, and then closed her eyes.
Lord Ector began to wail as Livinia took her last breath.
Outside, all was chaos. Llanwith pen Bryn had taken Caius into his bedchamber and watched his charge through narrowed, hostile eyes. Caius had thrown himself on to his pallet, his legs drawn up to his chin in his guilt and distress. He wept hysterically, because, although Caius cared for very few living things, he depended on his mother.
‘What will I do?’ he howled, and Artorex hurried away from the whining, self-absorbed voice.
Julanna had been moved into the dining room where the terrified servants had cleared away the food and covered a dining couch with fresh linen. The girl was now in labour, her eyes half-crazed and her swollen belly moving spasmodically with each powerful contraction. Frith had come from the kitchens and she and Myrddion had the childbirth firmly in hand.
Artorex ordered Livinia’s maidservant to assist Lord Ector to move the body of his wife into their bedchamber and, although her face was twisted with grief and loss, Delia rallied to fulfil the needs of her mistress. Artorex longed to weep and to lay his head on Delia’s capacious, cushioned breasts and cry for the loss of his mistress. But he was the steward, so he must put her house in order.
As the news of Livinia’s death spread, the servants of the villa set up a great wailing, but Artorex ordered them to be silent.
‘Your mistress was a great lady. She would expect you to honour her by washing her body and preparing her in her best peplum and robe for her funeral. Don’t shame her.’
Their tears stopped on Artorex’s command. Celts knew the honour owed to the dead - especially to the heroic dead - and they ran to do his bidding.
‘Take care of the master,’ Artorex ordered the cook. ‘Coax him to drink a little Spanish wine. He is broken-hearted, but I must entrust him to your care. I am needed elsewhere.’
‘Of course,’ the surly cook replied, his features freed of their habitual, disagreeable irritation. ‘I will do all you ask.’
‘You have my thanks, good man. Take him to the scriptorium where quiet reigns, while I
attend to the guests.’
He found Luka in the guest room, across from the atrium and the colonnade.
‘I have been seeing to the maiden,’ Luka told him. ‘She is aware, but her scalp needs mending. By the gods, what a madhouse we have seen this night.’
With a few long strides, Artorex crossed the central atrium to see to Gallia’s wound for himself. He found her lying on a disturbed coverlet in her old room with one hand pressing a torn fragment of cloth that Luka had folded into a compress for her wound. Her hair was streaked with blood, but her eyes were bright, albeit frightened.
‘Let me see your head, Gallia,’ Artorex ordered curtly and, obediently, she pulled the compress away from her scalp. A long split in the skin was slowly oozing blood.
‘The brain might be damaged within the skull, so she shouldn’t be moved,’ Luka cautioned. ‘I’ve seen strong warriors who’ve died of head wounds.’
Artorex felt along the gaping edges of the wound, and Gallia bit her lip hard to keep from crying out in pain.
‘Good girl,’ he murmured, as his fingers carefully probed the skull around the long split. ‘Your hard head seems intact. But Luka is correct. You should lie back, hold the compress to the wound and, when Myrddion is free, he’ll stitch your wound together. He’ll need to shave part of your hair away, unfortunately.’
‘I don’t care overmuch,’ she mumbled. ‘How is Julanna? Is she safe?’
‘Aye, but she is in labour.’
Gallia tried to rise from the bed, but Artorex pressed her back.
‘She has Myrddion and Frith with her, so she has no better aid in all of Aquae Sulis. Obey me, Mistress Gallia. Luka will stay with you.’
At the entrance to the room, Artorex pulled Luka aside and informed him of Livinia’s fate. The older man shook his head in consternation. He had seen enough of the carnage in Caius’s room to have guessed at the outcome but he frowned in distaste as Artorex confirmed her death.
‘I need to set the villa to rights,’ Artorex added desperately, for he knew that activity would keep his mind sharp and hold his grief at bay. ‘It would assist me greatly if you could stay with Gallia and prevent her from any childish action. She’s quite capable of ignoring the best advice if it pleases her.’
Luka merely squeezed Artorex’s shoulder. ‘Be about your tasks, boy. We’ll talk later.’
‘Aye. Later.’
Once Artorex had seen to the needs of all his charges, he set about putting to rights what could be salvaged from this terrible night.
In the barn, several stable boys had been woken by the din and the commotion, and were trying to calm the restive horses. Artorex sent these men to Julanna’s bedchamber with the express task of cleaning away the blood-splattered evidence of the death of their mistress.
‘Burn anything that can’t be cleansed. Scrub the floors, to ensure that there’s no sign of carnage that could further trouble the master,’ Artorex ordered crisply, and the men lifted wooden water pails and rags and ran to do his bidding.
Delia met him at the doorway of Livinia’s rooms and barred his entrance. The last dignities offered to the dead have always been the duties of women, and Artorex wondered sadly how this sex could bear the pitiful task of cleansing and straightening the lifeless flesh, especially when they were as beloved as the mistress had been.
‘You may leave Lady Livinia with me, Steward,’ Delia whispered. Her face was slick with tears, but she was controlled and fixed in purpose. ‘My lady will go to the flames as she would have wished. Be about your duties, for her sake.’
‘Oh, Delia. Her death is such a waste, such a mess,’ Artorex began, his head bent and his hand tightly clasping that of the servant.
Artorex suddenly realized the impropriety of his actions and the inadequacy of his grief. He pulled his hand away and squared his shoulders.
‘Spare no expense, Delia,’ he whispered. ‘The master would want you to use all the precious oils you need, for the last of the Poppinidii family goes to the shades to join her ancestors.’
‘The women shall do all that she would have wished, just as if she were here herself,’ Delia whispered.
The servant woman began to weep as she turned away from the granite-hard eyes of the steward.
As Artorex left the corridor, Julanna’s childbirth cries began to echo through the villa, but the steward knew that he couldn’t assist with the agonies of a new life entering their world. However, he could provide some service to the master. He found Ector weeping quietly in the scriptorium under the watchful eyes of Grunn, the cook.
The master’s large, liver-spotted hands were folded around a wine cup, and his head was bowed low.
‘Lord?’ Artorex said softly.
Ector raised his leonine, balding head unwillingly. His blue eyes were filled with misery and wet with tears, as if he was drowning in sorrow.
‘How can my Livinia be dead?’ he asked feebly, and then burst into a fresh storm of weeping.
Artorex knelt beside Ector’s chair and gripped one limp hand.
‘Mistress Livinia is with her ancestors. I fear we’ll never see her like again in these isles. But she died for what she loved and, even now, she holds me to my oath. She’d wish you to go on and to protect the villa in her name.’ He squeezed Ector’s hand. ‘You must rest, master, for you’ll need all your strength for the grandchild that comes.’
Ector bowed his head once more over his entwined hands. ‘But what of Caius? What of our son? How can I bear to look into the eyes of the man who has killed his own mother?’
‘You must trust me to put everything to rights, master. I have asked Grunn to take you to your bedchamber. I’ll do everything exactly as you would wish it to be done, and I’ll do it in your name.’
Reluctantly, Ector permitted Grunn to assist him to rise to his feet. Like an old, old man, Ector was led from the scriptorium.
Artorex automatically took up the pitcher of wine and the goblet, wiped over the desk and set all to rights within the room.
Then he returned to the kitchen.
A single maidservant was boiling rags in a blackened pot, her face flushed from weeping. Artorex paid her no mind, until a sudden shriek split the preternatural silence of the villa once again. It reminded him that a new life was struggling to come into his world.
The woman used a wooden stake to put the cleansed, steaming rags into a wicker basket, bobbed her head to the steward and then ran to tend to the needs of her mistress. Artorex knew better than to intrude into the female business of childbirth, so he waited in the corridor, pacing in time to the beating of his heart.
The night was still and Julanna’s final scream tore the darkness apart with her primal need. The frail cry of an infant was anti-climactic, but Artorex sighed deeply, muttered a quick prayer to Mithras, the soldier’s god, and waited for Myrddion.
Instead, Frith came to the doorway. Her back was straight and her arms held a dark-haired babe wrapped in fresh linen.
‘A child is born, my lord.’ Frith held the baby out to him. ‘You must bless her. Please, my lord, for she’s a weak thing, and she mustn’t die, for the shade of the mistress would never forgive me.’
‘Don’t name me by titles that aren’t mine, Frith. You know that I’m only the steward. But if it will set your mind at rest, I’ll bless the child for you.’
His large hands obscured the red, monkey-like face of the infant as he murmured the old blessing of birth over its head of dark hair.
‘Now the child will live,’ Frith exclaimed happily, her old eyes alight with something fey and strange. ‘I’ll take her to the master - for she has the eyes of my sweet Livinia.’
Myrddion watched the tableau in the doorway. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were grave as he wiped his bloody hands on a scrap of cloth.
Artorex smiled gratefully at him. ‘I thank the gods that you were here when Caius ran amok, otherwise more than one soul would have fled to the shades during this night. Once Julanna is safely abe
d, I beg you to tend to the head of Mistress Gallia, my lord.’
‘You give me too much credit, Artorex. What of your own wound?’
Artorex looked down at the long shallow gash that ran from just below the shoulder to his elbow. It had stopped bleeding some time ago, but was now beginning to redden with heat from the wound.
‘I’ll see to Gallia shortly,’ Myrddion decided. ‘But first, I’ll clean and dress that trifling wound.’
As Myrddion cleaned the gash in hot water, Artorex continued to issue orders to the servants.
‘Before you see the master, Frith, I wish you to oversee the moving of Mistress Julanna. Her room should be prepared by now. If not, inform the servants that I require them to work faster. You must also send one of the girls to the village for the wet nurse. And I want Targo here - I need him immediately, Frith.’
‘All shall be done as you desire, master.’
‘Stop calling me that, Frith. I am still that same grimy boy you forced to bathe.’
‘Yes, master,’ she replied, with perfect sincerity.
‘Will this take much longer, my lord?’ an anxious Artorex asked Myrddion while his wounded left arm was bandaged. ‘I left Lord pen Bryn with Caius and the gods alone know how I shall deal with him.’
Around them, servants bustled as the stable boys carried a pale Julanna to her quarters, and the women struggled to put the dining chamber to rights. Frith issued orders with the clear commands of a general and, before Myrddion had completed his task, the entire room was once again bare and silent.
‘I am still at your service, Artorex. Where do I find the Mistress Gallia?’
‘She is in Luka’s room. He is concerned that she should not be moved.’
‘I shall see her immediately.’
After Myrddion left him to tend to Gallia’s injuries, Artorex sucked in the luxury of blessed silence - and tried to think. The dining room, where the whole tragedy had begun, had been restored to its usual state. Cleared of the bloody detritus of birth, it was simply a room of some opulence, with its couches awaiting the arrival of valued guests. Yet, Artorex was certain, it would never be the same cheerful place again. The benign graciousness of Livinia was lost forever.