His hand came down flat on the desk beside Diana with a sharp crack. “Damn it, Diana—do not pursue this!”
“Why? There is no crime in it. It does not diminish your loyalty to Arthur. If anything it—”
“No!” he roared and his hand fell across her mouth, cutting off her words. Diana stared at him over the top of his hand, seeing the throbbing in his temple and his flushed features. Astonishingly, his hand was shaking. He stared into her eyes.
“That which you wish me to say you will never hear from my lips. There is no room in my life for anything but Arthur’s work and everything I have done here has been toward that end.”
He was lying. Diana was utterly sure of it. But why was he lying? What was the truth? She knew he cared enough about the estate and the people on it to work tirelessly for them.
A tenuous association occurred to her. She grasped his wrist and pulled his hand away. “Is that why you wanted me to execute Rowena? For revenge?”
Alaric looked away.
“It has nothing to do with military demands at all,” Diana breathed. She put her hand on his arm and he flinched a little. “Tell me,” she coaxed. “I will say nothing of this, ever.”
“What interest is it to you?”
“If it is revenge you seek, then I must know that when I make my decision.” Diana realized that she trembled too. It was the same breathless anticipation she had felt in the forum today.
“It’s not revenge I need,” he whispered and the arm resting against the desk curled around Diana’s waist, drawing her up tightly against him. His long hot fingers framed her chin, held her head steady and lowered his head and touched his lips against hers. It was soft, fleeting, yet the gentle touch sparked off a maelstrom of reactions.
Diana was too confused to think of protesting, or even speaking. Blood pounded in her temples, creating a roar that blanketed thoughts, sense and left her emotions reeling. Above all, she wanted him to kiss her again. She wanted another touch so that she might savor it properly.
He kissed her again. This time it was everything she wanted. His lips pressed firmly against hers and she could taste him. She sighed into his mouth and in reaction his arm around her tightened again. She could feel every muscle of his thighs. She could feel…
Abruptly Diana began to struggle. “No!” she cried, trying to get her arms between them so she could push him away. “No!”
He let her go with a speed that could be equated with alacrity. He moved back a step and ran a hand through his short hair.
“Why ‘no’?”
Diana turned away. “Because I don’t want this. I can’t…I don’t want it!” she repeated desperately.
Alaric gave a sour, humorless smile. “Now you understand my position,” he said quietly.
Diana could find no adequate answer. The effectiveness of his demonstration was too powerful to counter.
Alaric silently bent to pick up his cloak from the floor where it had landed, unnoticed. He threw it over his shoulders. Again his mouth stretched in a tight smile closely related to a grimace.
“You said today that this is the place you choose to be. You’ve always known the place I choose to be and now you know the price that comes with my choice. Yours too, comes at a price. It includes having to make a decision about Rowena and living with the consequences. It is just the beginning of your choices.” He touched her cheek with one long finger. He seemed almost sad. “Good night, Diana.”
And then he was gone.
Chapter Fourteen
Alaric broke with custom the next morning. He took his breakfast bowl to the dining room. Usually only a dozen or so people broke their fast in the dining room but today almost everyone was there. He knew what drew them. They wanted to know what Diana had decided to do about Rowena. He suspected he was not the only one who’d had an uneasy night.
Alaric’s presence among them subdued them but he ignored the atmosphere and concentrated on forcing down his breakfast. He had eaten as much as he could withstand when the door opened and Diana stepped in.
It looked as if she had slept little, if at all. Now Alaric was aware of her sleeping habits, he guessed that the latter was true. On any other day she looked sprightlier on less sleep than a soldier on a forced march. But today her eyes were enormous in her drawn face and she seemed to move as if she would rather creep by unnoticed. But that was impossible. At her appearance the room fell almost totally silent. All eyes turned to her. Yes, they were waiting to hear her decision.
Diana stopped by Rhys and spoke quietly to him.
“At once, my lady.” Rhys pushed his empty bowl over to Octavia’s side of the table and hurried from the room, wiping his mouth. Diana crossed to her customary divan and sat down to wait.
No one else left the room.
Diana remained silent. She did not eat. She had no bowl in front of her and made no attempt to procure any food from the steaming kettle on the table in front of her. She was careful not to let her gaze collide with anyone else’s too.
Apprehension gripped him. Whatever she had decided, she thought it would not suit the majority of them in this room.
The door opened and Rowena was pushed into the room. Rhys followed her in and shut the door with a dramatic bang, while Rowena brushed herself of imaginary dirt, with a disdainful flick of her fingers. She looked around the room slowly. She had no trouble meeting anyone’s gaze.
Rhys pushed her farther into the room, so that she stood approximately in the middle of the empty floor space between the door and the closest table. He took up stance behind her, arms crossed over his massive chest, legs spread.
Diana rose to her feet.
“I know you all are anxious to hear Rowena’s fate, so I will delay no longer.” Her hands worked together in front of her. Alaric remembered she had dreamed of this moment and the power of the dream had propelled her to fight against him.
“You ask me to choose between banishment and execution. Very well then.” Her chest rose as she drew in a deep breath. “I choose neither.”
The silence in the room was absolute. From outside came the hoot of an insomniac owl, lodged somewhere in the villa eaves.
“I will not compound Rowena’s sin by appending murder to the list. Neither will I banish her from the estate and leave her to wander this countryside, free to steal from other unsuspecting people. This is our problem and we must deal with it. Turning her away is not punishment, it is cowardice.”
Diana took another breath and turned to face Rowena. “You will remain on the estate. You will work—no more or less than anyone else here is required to work. At night you will be locked into your room so that you are not free to roam the villa and take as you see fit.”
“What about during the day?” one of Alaric’s men called out. “She can take then, can’t she?”
Diana held up her hand. “Perhaps. But Rowena has shown that she prefers to take while no one is looking. Now that we know what she is we will all be watching her. Too, she will be assigned duties where her ways will cause the least damage.”
“What is to stop her simply climbing over the wall during the day and running away?” Evadne demanded.
Diana nodded. “Yes, she can do that but she is a fool if she does and Rowena is no fool.” She looked at Rowena. “You understand me, I know. There will be nothing to stop you walking away from the estate during the day. If you make that choice, no one will stop you, no one will come looking for you. You will be free to make your own way in the world. But I know you will not choose that. Here you have food, warmth and shelter.”
Rowena’s disdainful expression had vanished. He saw a glimmer of respect in the Saxon woman’s eyes.
“But that is no punishment!” Evadne cried. “She took from us, from our children!”
“Rowena will carry her punishment with her every day,” Diana replied. “Before we learned of her thievery, we offered her friendship, companionship, an equal share of all that we had. Now that we know her truly,
none of us can do that. She will be treated for the person she is, now, and that will be her punishment.”
Evadne sat back, awareness dawning on her face. She nodded a little. “Yes,” she agreed slowly.
Diana looked to Rowena once more. “By your actions you have chosen your place here. Do you understand?”
Rowena’s lip curled in a sneer that made her ugly and perhaps reflected her true nature. “Yes,” she snarled. “I understand.”
Diana looked to Rhys. “Rhys?”
He reached for Rowena’s arm and jerked her back toward the door. “Come, woman,” he growled and escorted her out.
After a moment, Diana followed. As soon as the door shut behind her, the room broke out into a roar of reaction, as everyone tried to speak at once. For a few moments Alaric listened to the tone of the babble and judged that the reaction to Diana’s decision was mainly one of cautious approval. He could sense no outrage there.
Swiftly Alaric rose to his feet and went after Diana.
He caught up with her as she reached the gates of the villa. She was struggling with the cumbersome bar and latch system that secured the gates at night. Alaric reached out with his left hand and lifted the bar from the slots for her.
“Thank you,” she murmured but didn’t lift her head to look at him. She grasped the big handle with a hand that shook and went to pull one side of the gate open but Alaric rested his hand against it.
“You did it,” he told her.
Diana did look up at him then. “Did what?”
“It wasn’t what they wanted but you made them accept your decision anyway. It’s a rare leader who can manage that.”
“I didn’t make them do anything. I don’t do that to people. I made a decision that I could live with. Whether they like it or not is immaterial.”
“So turning Rowena out was not to your taste, then? I’d have thought, given the drain on food that she will make, it would have suited you to be rid of her.”
“How could I do that? Turn her out…only to have her turned away from every door that offers food and shelter because of her race?” Diana shook her head. “We Romans are not all alike, Alaric.”
Her words hit him like a blow. She was talking of Ygraine, equating Ygraine’s fate with Rowena’s if Diana had expelled her from the estate. It had never occurred to him that Rowena’s position would be the same as Ygraine’s.
Diana had seen it. She had been able to see past Rowena’s sins and her unfortunate heritage. Her compassion was such that she refused to do it.
She tugged on the gate and his hand fell away. The gates swung open unopposed. Diana slipped through and Alaric listened to her steps as she made her way toward the barns and outhouses.
Never in his life had he thought he would be able to say this of a woman but he deeply admired Diana’s judgment and leadership. He respected her.
It was a long time before Alaric stirred from his position at the gate and went back to the dining room to start the day proper.
It only occurred to him during the midday meal that Diana hadn’t been seen all morning. A quick search of the usual places and then a more thorough search of all of the estate confirmed it. Diana was nowhere to be found.
* * * * *
Diana wandered the streets of Eboracum, unsure of how much time she spent aimlessly walking. She finally found herself in the forum and settled on the steps there to watch the people passing by. It was still late morning. As it was not a market day there were a number of people meeting in the forum itself instead of the empty, echoing market streets.
Among them were a fair number of unmarried women with their escorts and as Diana watched them laugh among themselves, she realized that she envied them. Their life, which had once been her life, seemed so simple and carefree. She could not recall from those times feeling any of the dragging heaviness of mind that dogged her every step these days.
When she had escaped the dining room this morning she had felt sick with the agony of choosing Rowena’s fate. Making and delivering her decision had not diminished the burden. She knew she would have to live with the consequences forever and she would be reminded of them every time she saw Rowena.
Would every major decision carry a similar burden? She didn’t think she could withstand many more of them, if they did. She had told Alaric this was the place she chose for her own. Had her choice been wrong?
She looked again at the chattering women on the other side of the forum with their pretty clothes and beautifully arranged hair. She compared them to her own disheveled appearance—trews muddy from the ride into the city, the oldest tunics she possessed, mended and stained beyond redemption, her hair simply tied back. She was sure her face reflected her sleepless night too. The women’s faces, on the other hand, were alight with carefree expressions. There was no evidence of responsibility grinding them down.
Maybe the world had it aright. Maybe women were not suited to command or leadership. They were not built right for it. They had neither the stamina nor the mental capacity to cope with the demands.
Diana sighed. She would gladly swap places with those women across the square this instant and without questions.
From the promenade that led up the hill to the basilica and government buildings emerged a group of men dressed in the Bishop of Eboracum’s colors. A little man with no chin led them.
They were scanning the square. She watched them idly. It odd for a single man to feel four armed guards were necessary. Even the Bishop, who made enemies every day, found two guards more than adequate.
They were making their way around the forum and it seemed to Diana that they were looking for someone. The little man’s gaze flicked over her and passed on. Then he jerked his head back to look at her more closely.
Diana felt a tendril of wariness curl through her.
The little man alerted his guards and they all began to cross the forum.
Diana realized that her hand was resting on the handle of her knife and she let it go with a grimace. These were the Bishop’s men. Did she really think they would try to harm her here, in the forum, in front of all these people? The Bishop held no grudge against her. Diana’s father had lined Eboracus’ coffers for many years, so there could be no cause for complaint there. Diana herself was a woman and therefore beneath the Bishop’s notice. She held no illusions in this regard. She had seen his contempt in action too many times to mistake it.
The five men reached her place on the steps and the little man spoke. “My lady, you are Diana, daughter of the late Marcellus Aurelius?”
“Yes.”
The little man gave a short sketchy bow. “My lady, I am Publius Theophilus, secretary to his Excellency, the Bishop of Eboracum. It would please his Excellency if you would accompany me to the Basilica.”
“Why?”
“Merely to talk, my lady. The Bishop has gone too long without expressing his condolences over your losses.”
Diana bit her lip. The man was lying. What did the Bishop want with her?
“You came looking for me? How did you know I was in Eboracum? I am not here every day.”
“Word came to us from the guards at the gate.”
Her wariness turned to alarm. The Bishop must have sent word to watch out for her. Why? She looked at the guards thoughtfully. Four of them. To help the miniscule Publius should she prove reluctant?
Around the forum, people were glancing quickly in her direction, then looking away. That reassured Diana. There were too many people here to witness her being escorted to the Basilica for Eboracus to risk anything once she was there.
But the guards would ensure that she got there one way or another.
Diana stood up and brushed pebbles and dirt from her cloak. “I will come with you,” she said.
Surprise fluttered across Publius’ face. He had not expected her cooperation, she realized. That frightened her. Why had she risked coming to Eboracum unescorted?
Publius and the guards led her up the wide avenue that
made way to the public buildings at the top of one of the gentle hills in the city. It was a silent walk, during which Diana had time to devise and discard a dozen reasons why Eboracus would want to speak to her. She strongly suspected that it had something to do with their conversation in the forum yesterday and the unspoken enmity between Eboracus and Alaric but she could not anticipate how Eboracus would use that against her. Or why.
She was shown into the cold, dim stone antechamber that served Eboracus’ office in the heart of the Basilica. There were a few clerks milling around, clutching their papyrus rolls to their chests, but at Publius’ appearance they scattered. Publius showed her a wooden bench, gave another quarter-bow and slipped into the inner sanctum. The guards took up position around the antechamber, two of them close to the door.
Diana waited, trying to keep her courage afloat with reassurances that the worst Eboracus could do—maim or kill her—he would not risk here with so many witnesses. He had no reason to wish her harm. But it did not still her fear.
At last, the door of the Bishop’s office opened and a number of men came out. Among them was the Bishop, talking to a tall, thin man with angular cheeks and a short, well-trimmed beard, which he stroked as he listened. His watery-eyed gaze fell upon Diana where she sat on the solitary bench and he halted and glanced at the Bishop.
“That?” he said, with horrified disbelief.
The Bishop placed a calming hand on the man’s sleeve. “Now, now, Geta, remember what we said, what I told you.” He shepherded the man to the door. “Publius will show you to the rooms we have arranged for you.”
Publius waved a hand through the open door way. “My lord…” he encouraged.
Scowling, the man called Geta stepped through and the door was shut behind him.
The Bishop turned on his heel to look at Diana. He was frowning. “Bring her in,” he told the guards and stalked to his office.
Two of the guards crossed to Diana, grasped her arms and almost carried her into Eboracus’ office. They deposited her on a chair sitting in the middle of the room.
Diana by the Moon Page 17