A Sword in Time

by Cidney Swanson

  So why was Littlewood paying off Jules Khan? And what was the connection between Littlewood and Khan’s death? Or between Littlewood and the would-be impersonator? He compiled his findings and wrote out his questions and then called his SAC, prepared to demand additional time in Florida. His SAC didn’t take his call.

  Cursing, Nevis sent an email requesting permission to pursue the investigation of a possible wrongful death involving Arthur Littlewood.

  42

  • QUINTUS •

  Rome, 53 BC

  “Put her down at once,” Quintus roared to the four men who surrounded DaVinci.

  One of the drunkards, seeing a Roman legionnaire, detached himself from the group and ran away.

  Another, his hand on a dagger at his side, addressed Quintus in Latin. “Say that again in the language of Rome, cunne!”

  Quintus had done it again: he’d used the wrong language with the wrong person.

  Running at the men, now down to three, Quintus called out in Latin.

  “I said, put her down, son of a dog!” Having said this, he drew his sword on the filius canis.

  The trick was to threaten with the sword while avoiding actual harm to the girl.

  The girl, however, had ideas of her own.

  DaVinci—upside down—pulled hard enough on her captor’s toga that it slid off his shoulder. The young man’s friends laughed and made lewd comments, one about disarray and the other about the eagerness of the girl. The man himself was either such a tidy dresser or so fearful of Quintus’s approach that he dropped the girl.

  From her position on the ground, DaVinci kicked the youthful captor’s legs so hard that he stumbled, inciting more insults from his companions.

  Thus, by the time Quintus was within reach of the three, one of them was on the ground, and the other two were laughing uproariously at the sight. This was all the invitation Quintus needed. Extending his sword arm, he brought the pommel of his gladius into resounding contact with the jaw of the first dissolute in his path. The man went down on one knee, clutching the side of his face and screaming obscenities. The other remaining man, however, had a trim physique and was removing his toga in preparation for a fight. He raised his fists and taunted Quintus.

  “Afraid to face me without that sword, mentula?”

  Quintus assessed the eager fighter and then calmly replaced his sword in his belt. A second later, Quintus’s leg shot out as he tried to land a kick in the man’s gut. His opponent sidestepped the kick, coming back with a fist aimed at Quintus’s face. Quintus blocked, and the fighter swung his toga, wielding it like a shield. The swinging toga also served to block Quintus’s view of the youthful abductor DaVinci had tripped. By the time Quintus could see the abductor again, he was rising to join the fray. Quintus now found himself fighting two opponents at once. Well, it was better than fighting the original four at once.

  Roaring like an angry bull, Quintus delivered a face punch to the youth, using the momentum of the blow to crash into his second opponent. The two tumbled to the ground, Quintus’s fall softened by the body underneath him. Without missing a beat, Quintus rolled out of the fall and grasped at the hem of the opponent still standing. The opponent fell to the ground, knocking his head soundly on the cobblestones.

  Quintus rose to check on the third attacker, who was still rubbing his jaw and running through a litany of Roman obscenities. DaVinci, however, got to him first and delivered a sound kick to his groin. The obscenities pinched off into a painful wheeze.

  Where had the girl learned to fight like that? The thought, unfortunately, distracted Quintus from the movement behind him. The fighter with the soldierly physique had risen again. He landed a solid kick to Quintus’s kidneys, and now Quintus was wheezing, too.

  But Quintus Valerius hadn’t trained with the greatest warriors in Rome’s vast empire for nothing. Ignoring the dull pain, he spun and landed a quick pair of jabs to his opponent’s jaw. The fighter went down, eyes rolling back in his head.

  “Quintus!” shouted the girl.

  He spun left, swerving just before the girl’s abductor, dagger outstretched, aimed a thrust at Quintus’s hamstring. It was not a bad move, but Quintus dodged it easily, pulling his own sword from where it rested.

  “You want a fight?” roared Quintus.

  A pair of shutters on the ground floor slammed shut, distracting DaVinci’s abductor.

  “For shame,” Quintus shouted at the abductor. “Brawling while decent citizens take their afternoon rest. Come on,” he said, left hand beckoning to the youth. “I dare you, you son of a flea-bitten dog!”

  Once again, he’d uttered his insults in English, but either the tone in which he uttered the threat or the obvious pleasure he took in the prospect of a blade fight made his opponent turn suddenly pale. Throwing the dagger at the girl, who successfully dodged it, the would-be abductor fled down the street, toga in utter disarray.

  “You sons of dogs! Anyone else?” roared Quintus.

  The last two men remained on the ground, one insensate, the other whimpering in pain. Quintus centered himself, preparing to deliver a knockout blow to the whimpering one.

  “Enough!” shouted the girl.

  Glowering, Quintus met her eyes. It would be much more satisfying to leave both of his opponents unconscious.

  “You’ve proved your point. You’re a badass. Now let’s go,” the girl said.

  He met her eyes, flames of green in her flushed face. Gods below, but she was beautiful. And she was also right. He had defeated his opponents. There was no honor in kicking the fallen. It was time to leave. He satisfied himself with an ungentle, booted nudge that rolled the moaning man over onto his face and into a puddle of doubtful origin.

  “I said, let’s go,” said DaVinci, fisted hands jammed onto her hips.

  Swearing under his breath, Quintus followed her.

  43

  • DAVINCI •

  Rome, 53 BC

  DaVinci’s legs were shaking as she climbed back up to the fourth-floor apartment. In the week since she’d saved her house and wrecked her life, she’d stopped exercising. She was out of breath, although possibly some of the shaking was due to escaping that ugly bastard who’d run off without his dagger.

  It had been the same repulsive youth who’d groped her earlier in the day. Ugh! If she was stuck in Rome, maybe it was time to relocate. Move to the coast. Or to New Zealand. She had no interest in looking over her shoulder every time she went out to fill a water jug. Although she had taken her attacker’s dagger for her own. This put a grim smile on her face.

  This time he’d had friends as back up. She may not have understood the words they heckled her with, but she had definitely understood their intentions, and the odds had not been in her favor. If Quintus hadn’t come back . . .

  But Quintus had come back. And she was safe. And unhurt. Well, there was a bruise blooming on her forearm and one of her knees felt wonky.

  She grabbed the pitcher of water from the table and took a long drink. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Quintus wiping his forehead. Although the lamplight was dim, it cast enough illumination for her to see his forehead was bleeding.

  “Forehead cuts are the worst,” she murmured, reaching inside her purse for a Kleenex. But when she went to place it on the cut over his eye, Quintus snapped at her.

  “I require no aid.”

  “You’re bleeding,” DaVinci said, standing her ground.

  “I wouldn’t be bleeding if you hadn’t followed me.”

  DaVinci, holding out the Kleenex, glared at him. “I’m trying to be helpful.”

  “It would have been helpful if you had stayed put as I instructed you.”

  That, again? She threw the Kleenex down and folded her arms. “Okay, first of all, covering ground we’ve already been over, I do not take instructions from you. And second, maybe I would have stayed put if you’d bothered to get us a room with a freaking window and not some jail cell!”

  “Roman insulae
don’t have windows!”

  DaVinci glared at him. Quintus glared back. The man was impossible. In fact, now that she thought about it, maybe his wife was the injured party in the relationship.

  “None of this would have happened,” Quintus said, “if you hadn’t tried to attack me on the platform of the time machine.”

  A flush of heat rose from her neck. “None of this would have happened if you treated space–time with some respect, instead of like it was some . . . some toy invented to amuse you.”

  “You have no idea the importance of the mission for which I came—”

  “No, I don’t, but I know this much: You’re going to have to accept the fact that you don’t have a place here anymore. You can’t reclaim your old life; it’s gone. Rome is no longer your home. Your wife is no longer your wife.”

  Her heart was pounding, and she could tell the flush that had started at her neck was probably turning her whole face tomato red, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t here to look pretty for Quintus, that was for damn sure. She held his gaze, daring him to look away first. Daring him to tell her she was wrong.

  Unexpectedly, Quintus broke eye contact first. “You are cruel to speak such things,” he said, “though they be true.”

  She hadn’t meant to be cruel. She was just telling the truth. If only he knew the irony of what she’d just said about his old life being gone. She might just as easily have been lecturing herself.

  Quintus sank onto the protesting bed, squatting to pick up the tissue from where it had landed on the ground.

  “No! Don’t let that touch your wound!” DaVinci leaped forward and snatched the Kleenex out of his hands. “Bacteria, hello!”

  God only knew what kind of filth was on the floor of this disgusting room. She pulled a clean tissue from her purse and offered it to him.

  Quintus took it and dabbed at his forehead.

  “You’re missing part of it,” she said, sitting beside him and moving his hand to the right place. His skin was warm, and when they touched, something tugged inside her belly. Something it would be a lot simpler if she ignored. She released his hand, lacing hers together in her lap.

  “By the way,” she said. “thank you for coming back to help me.”

  As soon as the words were out, the memory of the assault hit her like a car crash. She sucked in a breath, trying to swallow back her terror. It didn’t matter that she knew she was safe; her body knew she’d been in danger. Real danger. The muscles running along the insides of her arms seized violently, and a moment later her thighs seized, too. And then every muscle in her core contracted, and suddenly she was shaking, everywhere, an inexorable, teeth-chattering, head to toe tremble that felt like it would never stop. She’d seen Yoshi’s rabbit shake like this after a hawk had landed on the rabbit’s cage and then flown away. She was that rabbit. The hawk was gone, but her body shook and shook and shook.

  At some point, Quintus had placed an arm around her, and gradually she realized he was murmuring softly to her, half in Latin, half in English.

  “You are safe now. I will allow none to harm you. You are safe.”

  She felt the safety of him, the strength of his arms, his muscular chest pressing into her shoulder, comforting her. The shaking began to die back, her arms calming first, and then her legs, and finally her torso, until all the tremors had passed. She was safe. She was safe. She could feel Quintus’s calm pouring into her, steadily washing over her, surrounding her. She shifted to settle into his arms, but Quintus, misunderstanding her movement, started to release her.

  “No,” she murmured.

  He obeyed.

  She didn’t want him to let go. Up till now, her arms had been hugged tightly around her chest, but now she slid one arm around Quintus’s broad back, resting the other on his forearm. She held her breath, waiting to see how he would respond. He didn’t pull away. She took a slow breath. Leaned into Quintus. She was safe.

  Safe, and . . . something more.

  She felt a tug in her belly, like she had when he’d grasped her early this morning while hiding from his son. But he’d been pretending to embrace her that time, and this, whatever this was, wasn’t pretend.

  She felt his breath on her hair, warm and steady. She felt the heat of his chest, its rise and fall where their bodies touched, the warmth of his arms enfolding her. The tug in her belly shifted, becoming a flutter, whispery and soft. It was the dance of a hundred fireflies, of pulsing light and gentle dark.

  Yeah. She was in for it now. She needed to move. She needed to pull away. She needed to let go. Her body, however, didn’t care what her brain thought she needed to do.

  She was familiar enough with desire—it was impossible to avoid as an art student who spent hours sketching sleek and muscled specimens of nature’s finer efforts. But this was different. Or, it was . . . more. It was desire and . . . and . . .

  Her mouth tugged into a smile.

  . . . and gently blinking fireflies pulsing in her belly.

  Oh, DaVinci . . . She licked her lips and instantly found herself thinking of his lips, full and red. Wondering what it would be like to kiss those lips. Would he kiss her back? The fireflies sparked and swirled. Oh, DaVinci . . .

  The feeling in her belly shifted into a stab of desire, hot and insistent. She tipped her head to find his mouth—and felt a drop of something hit her hand: splat.

  A drop of blood from his forehead had splashed onto the back of her hand.

  “Oh,” she said, frowning. Talk about a way to kill the moment. She pulled back.

  Instantly, Quintus released her.

  “You’re still bleeding,” she said, leaning away to examine his forehead. “Okay. I see it. Hold still.” She folded a section of tissue in half and then in quarters, pressing it to a spot over his left eyebrow. “Hold this,” she said.

  He pressed the tissue to his forehead. She dropped her hand.

  “Thank you,” said Quintus. His voice was low and gravelly, and DaVinci felt a sudden certainty she hadn’t been the only one thinking about kissing.

  Which was just . . . a million kinds of stupid. What was she thinking? She was stuck in ancient Rome, not vacationing in Cabo. This was not a time to be hooking up, no matter what the fireflies in her belly said.

  And then, while she was trying to reason with imaginary bugs, she felt the sharp sting of a real bug. Biting her. For real. Swearing, she launched herself off the bed. Ugh! What had she been thinking, sitting on that flea-infested mattress? What had she been thinking about everything? Especially all things Quintus Valerius.

  She glanced at him. He looked awful. Well, as awful as a person that good-looking could look. He’d been wandering the streets since dawn, followed by getting shouted at by her and learning awful things about his wife and kid, followed by fighting off street thugs. She tried to think what Leia would recommend. Stay hydrated, maybe?

  She reached for the water pitcher and handed it to Quintus.

  “Here. You should drink some water.”

  And kiss me. You should kiss me.

  Okay. No. She seriously needed to stop that line of thinking. The fireflies in the belly thing needed to stop. Now.

  He accepted the pitcher and downed the remainder of the water, looking at it disappointedly when it was empty.

  “There’s a fountain really close,” DaVinci said. “I’ll, um, stay inside if you want to fill it up.”

  “It was unkind of me to demand that you remain here, alone in a strange place,” said Quintus.

  Darned right it was, thought DaVinci. But this time she kept her thoughts to herself. Quintus had only been trying to keep her safe from, well, the kind of thugs he’d ended up helping keep her safe from.

  “Come,” said Quintus. “We will go together.”

  “Okay,” said DaVinci, a tentative smile blooming. “Together.”

  She liked the feel of the word. Her fireflies flickered and whirred. They liked it, too.

  She followed him down the stairs, legs
more or less steady, although she sensed her quads were going to be screaming at her tomorrow.

  Tomorrow.

  The thought of tomorrow hit her hard; she had no idea if they were actually going home again or if they were stuck in the Eternal City forever.

  They reached the ground floor and stepped out into the street. DaVinci was just about to ask for a refresher course on the Roman aqueduct system when she saw Quintus stiffen and draw his sword.

  Across from them, at the bottom of the dead-end street and lounging at a taberna, were five Romans with a variety of weapons displayed on the tables they occupied. One of the men, DaVinci recognized. It was the guy who’d first attacked her, and later thrown his dagger at her. He was back, with a few more of his apparently limitless supply of friends.

  44

  • NEVIS •

  Florida, July

  Special Agent Nevis was trying to keep calm on the phone with his SAC, who had finally deigned to return his call, only to lecture Nevis on doing his job. “Doing his job?” What did the SAC think he was doing, exactly? Nevis hadn’t been this angry in a long time. Not since the disappearance of his former brother-in-law Lewiston with those stolen millions.

  “Sir, with all respect, there is something here. I’m convinced of it—”

  “And I’m not,” snapped his boss. “So unless you’ve got a signed confession you haven’t mentioned yet, I expect you to get on that flight to Louisville tonight.”

  “What if I could get one?”

  “A signed confession?”

  “Littlewood is nervous. He’s got a secret facility that he attempted to hide from us. And I strongly suspect he’s the key to uncovering the disappearance and death of Jules Khan—”

  “I took an hour out of my day—my very busy day—to look into Arthur Littlewood. If there is a man less likely to contemplate an act of terrorism, I would like to shake his hand. Littlewood has his head in the clouds, not on jihad.”

  “But sir—”

  “And I looked at Khan’s death. I am satisfied it had nothing to do with Arthur Littlewood.”