Her Roman Protector

by Milinda Jay

  Instead, he tossed and turned. His mind whirred.

  He rose in the dark of the night, and walked to the tiny window of his bedroom. It overlooked the fields beyond, dark now. He looked up to see a black velvet sky filled with twinkling stars. The very stars gave him hope.

  He loved her.

  This he knew.

  But what to do about it?

  He knew without a doubt after being here for only a few short hours that this was her home. This was where she felt safe. And here, he believed, with the help of her father and the men in the village—many of them retired legionaries—he could keep them all safe.

  Rome was a distant dream. He understood, now, that it was the honor, the respect, the prestige that made him yearn for a position as prefect of the Guard.

  While it was true that he wanted to protect his emperor and his country, he wanted to protect Annia and her children more.

  He loved her.

  He would do what it took to win her over.

  He lay down and fell into a second sleep, this one more peaceful than the last.

  He was jerked awake near sunrise by a lantern shining in his face. He reached to draw his dagger and realized he didn’t have it.

  “Arise,” a familiar voice whispered. “If I can’t sleep, neither will you.”

  It was Annia. He sat bolt upright in his bed.

  “What are you doing in here?” he asked.

  “Be silent. You are going to wake the entire household,” she hissed. “Get out of the bed. We are going for a walk.”

  He jumped up more quickly than if there had been an enemy attack.

  He saw she was not alone. An elderly servant woman tottered behind her carrying her own oil lamp.

  She handed him his cloak, and Annia pulled hers more tightly around her.

  He was giddy, and he was uncertain whether it was lack of sleep or excitement about the possibility he saw stretching out before him, nearly within his grasp.

  What if she had come to him to bid him farewell?

  They tiptoed down the stairs and out into the cool, predawn morning, followed by the swishing sounds of the elderly woman’s sandals on cobbled stone.

  Annia led him to a bench at the far end of the garden. The woman sat on a bench directly across from them. She sat her oil lamp down, leaned her head against the stone wall the rose behind her and dozed.

  “We must talk quietly,” Annia said. “It wouldn’t be polite to wake her again, nor do we want to awaken all of the dogs. They will howl for hours and wake everyone.”

  He’d never been very good at whispering, and he was going to have to whisper the most important words of his life? The scene was not playing out as he had imagined.

  She looked at him.

  “Well?” she said, after a moment of silence. “Talk.”

  Gathering his thoughts was difficult. He felt he was being questioned by enemy soldiers.

  “Do I need to refresh your memory about where we were?” she asked, the irritation in her voice growing by the second.

  “No, I can remember,” he said, trying to keep the near panic out of his own voice while squeezing his brain to remember what it was that Lucia and Theodora had advised him to do. Listen. That was it. He was supposed to listen carefully to what she said.

  He listened, but she wasn’t saying anything.

  She held her hands out and jerked her palms up in exasperation. “Am I to believe that you have nothing to say?”

  Repeat what she says to you, that was what Titus had told him to do. That way she would know he was listening to her.

  “You asked me if you were to believe that this is all I have to say.” He smiled, waiting for the wide-eyed appreciation Titus had promised.

  Instead, she looked at him as if he were a complete idiot. “Are you daft?” she said. “Why on earth are you repeating for me what I just said? I know what I just said. I’m the one who said it.” Her volume was rising, and Marcus held his finger to her lips to shush her.

  He didn’t want the dogs waking the world.

  She snatched his finger away as if it were a hot coal against her lips.

  “I knew this was a stupid idea,” she said, and rose to leave.

  “No,” he said, “wait. I’m doing my best, Annia, please be patient.”

  “Your best?” she asked, over her shoulder. “To run me off? Well, you’ve definitely done that.”

  “No, wait,” he said, and caught hold of her arm and spun her around to him. She landed against his chest. He held his breath, afraid she would run.

  But she didn’t. He could feel the beating of her heart against his.

  She looked up at him, her eyes pleading. “I can’t have my heart broken again.”

  He took her hands and pulled her gently down. They sat on the bench, and the words tumbled from his mouth before he could think or plan.

  “I know I’ve made mistakes, Annia, and I’m sorry. What I’ve been seeking is not at all what I thought it was. I wanted to be prefect so that I could protect my emperor and my country. I thought that was what I was called to do—something big, something grand, something important. I could think of no better way to prove my loyalty and do my duty to God and my country.

  “But something my father told me a while ago has stuck in my mind. God does not necessarily call us to do big things. God calls us to do small things that are big things in His kingdom.”

  “What do you mean?” Annia asked. Her anger had dissolved replaced by gentle curiosity.

  Marcus, relieved, continued. “I am no longer certain that being prefect is my life’s calling. Perhaps one day it will be. But right now, I am only certain of one thing. What I feel about you. When I met you, I envied a man so blessed as to have such a perfect family—a beautiful, kind wife, two healthy, happy boys and a sweet baby like Maelia. I did not understand how anyone would throw such a beautiful thing away. It made me angry that anyone could be so foolish as to let someone so precious go, and I wanted to fix it, somehow. And I didn’t know how. I am a soldier. I don’t know how to fix people. I only know how to fight.”

  Annia batted away at the tears that traced a path down her cheek, glistening in the pink of dawn. He caught a tear on the tip of his finger and gently caressed her cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bring you more pain.”

  She shook her head.

  He took a deep, steadying breath. “I only knew that if I could ever be so blessed as to have such a beautiful thing, I would treasure it forever. And last night, I realized what it was I needed to fight for.”

  Annia looked far, far away. Her gaze was focused on the thin line of gray light creeping over the horizon.

  “Every moment I’ve spent with you, every laugh we’ve shared, everything we have done together has made me happy in a way I never imagined. I’ve never felt so understood, I’ve never felt so right with anyone or anything in my life.

  “I’ve dreamed someone else’s dream for far too long, Annia. You are my dream. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. You are brave, you are charming, you are strong. You are the mother that all children dream of having, and the wife that good men long for. I love you, Annia. I love you more than I have ever loved in my life.”

  His words came out in a torrent of feeling, like waves crashing on the shore. He couldn’t stop them, nor could he wait for her response. “I want to marry you, Annia. I want to live with you and the children for the rest of our lives. I want to protect you. I want to take care of you. I want to keep you safe and make you happy. You deserve happiness. You are the most wonderful woman I know. I love you with all of my heart.”

  She looked up into his eyes and smiled. His heart swelled.

  “Will you?” he asked, holding his breath, fearful o
f her answer. “Will you marry me?”

  “Yes!” she said. “Oh, yes, a million times, yes!”

  He stood and pulled her to him. He took her face in his hands and tipped her chin up. His lips sought hers.

  But she pulled away.

  “You want to marry me even if it means living in Britain?” she asked.

  “Even if it means Britain.”

  “You hate Britain,” she said.

  “But I love you,” he said and laughed.

  “Well, then,” she said, “I look forward to a lifetime of laughter together. Come on.” Before he could respond, she stood, wrapped her cloak around her and said, “Race you to the sunrise!” And she ran full speed in the direction of the pink morning sunrise.

  He laughed out loud and followed her.

  She looked back and shouted, “Come on, soldier, I’ll get there before you.”

  They ran over the smooth green pastureland, and kept on running.

  He gained on her. She threw down her cloak, and he nearly tripped over it when it wrapped around his ankles.

  He threw his cloak off, as well, and now they ran together into the sunrise, their white tunics reflecting the soft golden rays of the morning sun.

  When she reached the edge of a hill, a hair’s breath in front of him, she stood, her arms up in the air in exaltation. “I won,” she said. “I won.”

  He grabbed her from behind, swung her around and kissed her full on the lips.

  “No,” he said, holding her face between his hands, “I’ve won.”

  Epilogue

  Maelia toddled over to the cradle where her baby sister lay sleeping.

  “My baby,” she said. She giggled, then ran and threw her arms around Marcus’s strong legs.

  He picked her up, swinging her high in the air.

  “Five babies and counting,” he said pointing to the infant twins.

  Annia sat rocking the cradle with one hand and holding the twin boy in her arms.

  Marcus put Maelia down gently and kissed Annia on her pretty lips.

  There was a clattering up the stairs, and eight-year-old Flavius burst in, his cheeks red. “Father, the south gate is compromised, and the sheep in that pasture are escaping. Bella is doing her best to keep them all rounded up, but I think we need your help.”

  “How did the fence break?” Marcus asked.

  “I don’t know,” Flavius said, his eyes wide.

  Marcus turned to Annia. “Duty calls,” he said, and kissed her.

  Flavius made a face of mock disgust. “I wish you two wouldn’t do that stuff!”

  “We’ll try not to,” Marcus said, “but I’m not making any promises.” He ruffled Flavius’s hair.

  The boy had grown into an excellent dog trainer. He seemed to be following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who had given him a pair of sheepdogs. Flavius had already trained them well.

  “Bella is holding them steady?” Marcus asked.

  “Yes, she is a good dog,” Flavius said. “She can keep them together, but not forever.”

  “We’ll get them,” Marcus said. “Where is Cato?”

  “He is trying to repair the fence,” Flavius said.

  “Good,” Marcus said. “You are both good men.”

  “I guess,” Flavius said, suddenly studying a rock on the ground.

  “What do you mean by that?” Marcus asked.

  Flavius shrugged and kicked at the rock.

  He was hiding something. Marcus knew the boy well enough to know that it was probably nothing serious.

  “No matter what scrapes you two get into, I will always believe that you are good men.”

  Flavius placed his small hand in Marcus’s large one.

  “I’m glad you are my father,” he said, grinning up at Marcus.

  Marcus’s heart swelled. Nothing he had ever experienced on the battlefield, no victory in battle, no advancement in rank had filled him with the pride he felt being called Father.

  For Marcus, Britain was no longer a place of nightmares. For now, a peace had settled upon him, and upon this part of the land. He and Annia’s father were able to trade peacefully with merchants from all over the empire from their Thames tributary riverfront homes.

  Marcus never imagined that one day he would be a sheep farmer, but here he was, as happy as he had ever been in his life.

  He took care of the sheep, and Annia oversaw the group of women who worked for her. They worked pallets of sheared wool through the long process required to create red waterproof capes, the birri, that were worn by soldiers and civilians alike from Caledonia to Corinth.

  While the women worked the wool, his mother, Basso and Nona took care of their babies and toddlers.

  Claudius’s proclamation had made it unsafe for his mother to continue her baby villa. A year after Marcus and Annia married, his mother and father, along with the rescued babies and their mothers, had moved here and settled into the lovely family villa in Britain.

  “I’ll go back to Rome as soon as I can,” Scribonia said to Marcus when she stepped off the boat her first day back in Britain. “I haven’t given up. Babies are still being exposed, and I want to encourage other women like me, well-off women who have chosen to follow the Christ, to use their bounty to help the poor babes and mothers who have been forced into that tragedy.”

  Marcus had shaken his head and laughed. His mother and Annia, two headstrong women living in the same house. How would they make it?

  But make it they did, and joyfully so.

  The meetings his mother held in her home every Sunday attracted people from all around who came to worship and hear the words of the Master. Mother’s friend Priscilla had gone south from Rome to settle in Corinth where the great teacher, Paul, lived, as well. Priscilla sent his mother letters in which she wrote down the teachings of Paul so that his mother could read them aloud to her little flock.

  The meetings grew. Soon they would have to find a larger meeting place.

  Flavius pulled his attention back to Marcus’s own pasture. “Oh, no,” Flavius said, pointing. “There’s another hole, and they’re going out there, too.”

  He and Marcus ran down the hillside leading away from their villa, and herded the sheep from that hole back into the pasture. Marcus repaired the stone fence while Flavius kept the sheep away.

  Bella barked and nipped the heels of the other strays, keeping them in a tight circle just outside the fence where there was another large hole.

  Marcus walked to the far side of her circle of sheep and gave Bella the command to herd the sheep back into the pasture through the large gap that still existed in the stone wall.

  Once the sheep were in, the two boys and Marcus worked to repair the original hole.

  The sheep were now safe. “Any idea what is causing the fence to buckle just here?” Marcus asked.

  Flavius kicked a rock, and Cato’s face turned a bright red.

  Marcus waited.

  The boys were silent.

  “What?” Marcus asked. “What are you not telling me?”

  “Cato, tell him. He’s going to find out anyway.”

  “We found something,” Cato said. “You want to see?”

  “Yes,” Marcus said. What were the boys up to now?

  “Come on,” Cato said.

  The boys climbed over the freshly repaired fence. They led Marcus beside the river tributary of the Thames on which they lived, and back into the woods. They hiked for a while in the cool green twilight until Flavius said, “We’re almost there.”

  A break in the tree cover, and Marcus heard a strange sound, a bubbling, gurgling noise.

  The sunlight shone down on a muddy brown circle of water.

  “Come on,” Flavius said. �
��Jump in.”

  The boys stripped down to their underwear and climbed into the muddy water.

  Marcus had no choice but to follow.

  “Leave it to the two of you to find a new place to swim,” Marcus said, shaking his head and smiling.

  The swimming hole was not wide. Marcus could toss a stone and easily reach the other side. But the waters were strangely warm. Steam rose from the water, and Marcus felt as if he were in the hot room in the baths in Rome.

  “Just like Rome,” Cato said, laughing.

  “Who says you have to go to Rome to take a proper bath!” Flavius said.

  “So this is why the stone fence is broken,” Marcus said.

  “Yes,” the boys said, somewhat sheepishly.

  “We can put a gate on that part of the fence,” Marcus said as they headed home from their brief swimming excursion. “That way, we won’t have a repeat of this afternoon’s experience.”

  “You didn’t like the springs?” Flavius asked.

  “Not that part of the afternoon. I liked that,” Marcus said. “It was the fixing-the-fence part I could do without.”

  When Marcus related the adventure to Annia as they lay in bed that night, she said, “You are a good man to have such patience with the boys. Not many men would be able to come in and father them as you do. I know it isn’t your ideal life. I know what you had planned was beginning a new family with a wife who had never been married.”

  “Stop,” he said, putting a finger to her lips. “I am living my dream,” he said. “I love you and my boys and my girls more than you will ever know. Don’t you ever forget that.”

  He rolled her over, and she lay on her back gazing up at him. He kissed her lips.

  “I will never forget,” she said. “Never.”

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from HEARTLAND COURTSHIP by Lyn Cote.

  Dear Reader,

  A few years ago, while researching for my dissertation, I came across the alarming fact that in the ancient world, infant exposure was an accepted practice. I had just given birth to my third child, and I was horrified at the thought of carrying a baby for nine months, and then being forced to send it away to die or be sold as a slave.