by Glover, Nhys
How she knew the moment he was awake, she couldn’t say. Maybe his body tensed ever so slightly, or his heart beat sped up. But it didn’t surprise her when she heard him speak, his deep rumble passing from his chest to her ear in the oddest way.
‘It will soon be dawn.’
‘The birds think so.’
‘How did you sleep?’
‘Well. How did I get here?’
She heard him chuckle like thunder under her ear. ‘It seemed the most sensible choice of position for us both.’
‘Hmm. My father would not approve.’
‘Your father isn’t here.’
The wave of grief that washed over her was shocking. She gasped back the pain of it. Vali’s arm tightened around her.
‘Sorry. I didn’t think.’
‘It’s all right. You’re correct. My father isn’t here. I hope he’s handling things…’
‘He will be. Our flight was not planned haphazardly. He had worked it through like a master tactician.’
‘I miss him.’
‘You’ll see him again soon.’
She nodded her head against his arm and the feel of his rough tunic was harsh against her sunburned face.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. My face hurts a little that’s all.’
‘We’ll avoid travelling in the heat of the day. Maybe I can work out a cover for your face. ‘
‘I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. You have enough to do.’
‘Handing over a boiled lobster with yellow hair to your husband-to-be may not be the best plan.’
She chuckled and unconsciously tightened her arm around him. ‘Boiled lobster indeed!’
His chuckle made his chest bounce up and down.
‘I don’t want to move. I’m not sure I can.’
‘Me either, but the cool of the day is the best time to travel. So up!’ The arm that surrounded her body shifted and began to ease her gently off him. It took everything she had not to fight to stay where she was.
‘The numena kept us safe last night.’
‘Maybe. There was certainly nothing to disturb our sleep. I haven’t slept that deeply or well for a long time.’
She turned to smile at him, noting the sleep dust in his eyes, the way his short white-blonde hair stood up on end, and his cheeks glistened with blonde stubble in the predawn light.
‘I’m so glad you’re here. I missed you terribly when mother sold you. I cried for days.’
His sleep blurred features suddenly hardened. He shifted to his side and climbed agilely to his feet.
‘What did I say?’ His reaction bewildered her. They had seemed so close only moments ago. And now there was a wall as high as a villa between them.
‘Nothing. It’s just time to be going. No fire this morning. Eat as much of the goose as you can because it won’t keep. Then get washed up and we’ll get on the road.’
She did his bidding, silently. But the goose tasted like ash in her mouth. Tears stung her eyes. Swallowing forcefully, she made a determined effort to eat her fill and not cry. Her brother had taught her that lesson well enough over the years. But she had never expected to have to utilize it with Vali. Why did he go from warm to cold, kind to cruel in a blink of an eye?
As they journeyed through the dawn mist, they saw others preparing for another day’s travelling. Huge wagons with six or more oxen, loaded high with produce for the city, began to lumber north as they travelled south. Few people spoke at this time of the morning, faces still drawn with sleep, throats croaky with phlegm, some hung over after a night of drink to help them sleep. They heard the occasion whiplash and ox-driver’s yell, but otherwise the morning was still.
And she and Vali were just as quiet. Whatever had passed between them that morning had broken down their bridge. Lara was uncertain of him for the first time. Did he mean her well or was he determined to make her pay for the crimes of her family and her people. Could she trust him?
They passed the way station of Forum Appii, but only stopped long enough to replenish their supplies. Vali came back to her carrying a colourful, exotic looking cap with a narrow brim and fabric that fell like a veil on three sides. He put it on her head wordlessly, and drew the longer length on one side over her neck to the other shoulder. This she could see would keep the worst of the sun off her head and shoulders, and protect her from the insistent bites of the mosquitoes.
They travelled on until mid-morning before stopping to give the horses a breather and a drink from the freshwater canal. Lara went for a walk to stretch her legs, relieve herself, and to stay away from Vali for a while. When she finally wandered back he was ready to go again, watching for her return. Anxious. She remembered how he’d been the night before when she’d gone too far into the copse of trees. Then he’d seemed worried about her. Would someone who worried about her mean her harm? But then, if not, why was he so hurtful to her in moments when he should be anything but?
As she limped toward him, his eyes burned blue fire. His day old beard was the same pale colour as his hair. His face seemed less misshapen this morning, the swelling gone down, some of the bruising fading. Only the red scars remained the same.
‘I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t mean to be hard on you.’ He said reluctantly as he helped her up into the carrus. ‘To hear someone cried for me…It makes me feel things… I can’t afford to be vulnerable, Lara. I can’t afford to feel weak.’
Lara nodded her head and sat down on the hard bench seat. She took the water skin from him and swallowed down the fresh water they’d collected at the last way station. When he got the horses on the road again, she felt ready to talk.
‘How can me crying because I missed you make you weak?’
He swore softly, and squared his shoulders. Without turning around, he answered. ‘Feeling anything but anger makes me weak. I have survived this long on my anger. If I stop feeling it, even for a while, I’m vulnerable. Off guard.’
‘But you never seemed angry. Not really angry, when you lived with us before. You would laugh. I could make you laugh. Remember the time I dressed up as a ghost, my face and hair covered with flour. You were in the office working and I jumped out and cried, ‘Boo!’ You laughed then, louder than you ever did. I saw the tears in your eyes, you laughed so much.’
She saw him stiffen, his back becoming even straighter. ‘Yes, you made me laugh. You could always make me laugh. It’s hard to explain how I could be angry and laugh at the same time. It’s like I play-acted with you. With everyone. Put on an easy face, as if I didn’t care about anything. And I kept my fire banked. ‘
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You know how Publius wanted you to cry and plead? And you learned that the more you cried, the worse he got. So you stopped crying and made out that you didn’t care. Well I learned that was the only way to keep on top of your mother, and people like her. Bravado, pure and simple, because, if I showed them how angry I was, how they got to me, it would just make them worse.’
Lara looked out at the flat, reclaimed marshland that seemed to go on and on forever ahead of them. The heat was stifling under the strange headdress she wore. Sweat trickled down her back, making her itchy. The mosquito bites from the night before still stung.
‘So you didn’t care for me. It was all an act?’ Her heart had begun to hurt her, physically hurt her. It made her other discomforts seem trifling.
‘I did care about you, little mistress. But I didn’t let it affect me. I kept my guard up. Like Elaeni and Herakles started to do with you after what happened to Ninia. If I’d let what was happening to you affect me, I would have been undone. I had to survive.’
She let that sink in for a while. It was hard for her to imagine what that must feel like, to turn off your feelings. To stay hard, and yet wear a mask of playfulness. She started to realise that the warm, gentle man she had known had simply been a front. The harsh warrior she was coming to know now, had always been there, just well hidden. Now there was les
s need for the front. He could be himself. Tears trickled down her face, cool against her burned face.
He looked over his shoulder and swore. ‘Why are you crying?’
‘Because I don’t have to keep up my act anymore. Like you, I can be the real me now that my cruel family are gone.’ She made no attempt to wipe away the tears.
‘But why are you sad?’
She shrugged and looked away from him. And he drove the horses off the road until he pulled them to a halt beneath a small stand of trees. Wordlessly he unhitched the horses and led them to nearby marsh water.
Lara knew she needed to get down and help prepare their midday meal. But she was so tired and so emotionally drained she could barely think. Her logical brain told her she was probably feeling shock, because of the rapid changes that had taken place in her life. And her body had been put under more physical strain than ever before. No wonder she felt numb, exhausted, uncaring what happened to her.
Vali came back to the carrus and stood looking at her. They were the same height now. For once she felt his equal, not a child to his adult.
‘Why did you cry?’ he asked sadly, his pale blue eyes troubled.
She wanted to look away and shrug again, but she knew he wouldn’t let her get away with that again. So she lifted her chin and tried to gather what little courage she had.
‘I feel like I’ve lost a friend. As if the Vali I knew died, and you’re a hard stranger whose taken his place. Maybe that other Vali wasn’t real. But he was to me, and I loved him. I cried because I lost someone I loved again.’
He blinked rapidly for several seconds and then his eyes flamed blue fire. ‘I would have killed him for what he did to you. Is that what you wanted?’
It was her turn to blink rapidly, in her case with shock. She knew he meant Publius. And, of course she wouldn’t have wanted him to kill her brother. He would have died too, if he had done such a thing.
‘No, of course not.’
‘If I let myself feel any more than I did for you, I would have had no choice. It is what I was bred to do. It is what my people require, my gods require. You protect what’s yours, what you love, at any cost. If you don’t, then you’re a coward, without valour.’
She tried to understand his thinking. Valour was just as much a part of the Roman ethos as it was his. And she could see how he had been caught between a rock and a hard place back then. If he had killed for her, more than his own life could have been forfeit. Depending on the way the law was carried out, all the slaves of the household might have been forced to pay the ultimate price for his act of violence. Rome was very harsh with slaves who killed their masters. The legal question would have been whether Publius could be considered Vali’s master. But the risk would have been too great. Just for her.
‘I understand. You were right to protect yourself that way. But it doesn’t make me feel any less sad. I was a child, and I loved the person you appeared to be. Don’t concern yourself. It’s time I grew up.’ With that she climbed down from the carrus and turned her back on him so she could pull the blanket out from under the seat.
She heard him stride away into the trees.
Chapter Seven
By the time they drew up for the night, still on the interminable marsh, they had fallen into an uneasy, polite co-operation. They moved in synchronicity, dividing the tasks required to set up for the night, caring for the horses, unpacking their goods, collecting firewood and setting up the fire, laying out the meal -- all done with utmost courtesy and consideration.
It felt like torture.
After sleeping through the hottest part of the day, Vali had felt better able to deal with his mixed feelings toward his mistress. He was still angry with her for condemning his actions, still felt guilty for hurting her, still considered himself a coward for taking the option he had all those years ago. But somehow he was able to balance those feelings against the needs of the present. But as the afternoon progressed, the mosquitos took their savage toll, and Lara’s polite but distant silences began to tell on him.
By the time the leg of pork they’d purchased in Forum Apii was nearly ready, Vali was close to breaking. He wanted to escape. He wanted to just get up and walk away, leaving his little mistress, with her harsh judgements, behind. With money in his pocket, and his citizenship printed on vellum, he could take off and forget all this. Forget her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she began, her voice croaky. ‘My attitude today has been deplorable. You did nothing wrong. You were a slave in an impossible situation, being forced to do terrible things. How could I expect you to put all that aside and care for me? My ignorance is my only excuse. I have no idea what it must be like to be a slave. I fool myself into thinking that I do, because of the way I’ve been obliged to live, but how arrogant is that? Comparing my luxurious, safe little life to what you and others have suffered was naïve, at the very least. You did the right thing.’
He turned the spit in silence, feeling a pain in his chest so intense that he couldn’t trust himself to speak. Finally, when he felt ready, he turned to her on the blanket behind him.
‘You’re right, you can’t possibly know what it’s like to be chained and filthy on a slave ship you think is about to sink, knowing that the weight of the manacles will drag you, and all of those poor bastards linked to you, down to the bottom of the sea. You can’t know what it’s like to stand on a slave block, your body ogled by everyone, being evaluated for your teeth, muscles and balls. You don’t know what it’s like to have an old woman’s hands on you, stroking you until she has you hard enough so that you can service her like a bull. What it’s like to…’
His little mistress put her hands over her ears and turned away, curling up into a ball at the far end of the blanket. Fury fought with compassion as he saw what he had reduced her to.
‘And I’m glad you haven’t.’ He stopped himself before he said too much more.
For a long time the only sounds he could hear were the marsh frogs and mosquitoes, the crackling fire and the occasional hiss of fat as it hit the flames. The smell made his mouth water, but with his emotions roiling like a storm tossed deck, he doubted he could keep any of it down.
Why did she have to be so understanding, so kind, so damned self-deprecating? It would make things so much easier to keep his distance, and his soul intact, if she was more like her mother.
He shook his head, trying to force out of his head the images of her mother’s aging, but still beautiful face, twisted with passion as he forced his way into her yielding body, his violent, painful thrusts sending her over the edge, as he cried out his own triumphant release. There was no real triumph in that scene. No victory over his oppressor. Hurting her only pleased her more. It just fed her depravity, and brought him down with her.
While that ugly, explosive orgasm played out in his memory he felt a gentle arm slip around his shoulder, as a chaste kiss was dropped onto his stubbled cheek. Lust, desire and need detonated in an instant.
Shifting around, he claimed her lips with his own, mother and daughter overlapping in his mind. Startled, her mouth dropped open and gave his tongue access. He could taste her sweetness, smell the heady scent of woman, feel her soft, giving body under his hands. This was what he wanted. What he’d been fighting since the moment he’d seen her in Rome a few nights ago. This!
But she didn’t respond. She remained acquiescent and frozen in his arms, as he intensified his assault on her mouth. He was able to draw his shattered senses together long enough to realise it.
And let her go.
‘The meat,’ he said shakily, turning away.
‘O..of course,’ she stammered, moving away from his side quickly, so he could see to their meal.
It was just cooked, and could probably have done with a few more minutes, but Vali couldn’t wait any longer. He needed to do something, anything to take his mind off his stupidly rash actions. How could he have expected anything but shock from her? She wasn’t her mother. Had she ever experie
nced a kiss before? His crude invasion must seem no different to what Publius had done to Ninia; repugnant, unpleasant and fearful.
‘We… we should reach the port of Tarracina tomorrow. I think we’d be better off selling the carrus and horses and taking passage with a merchant ship sailing down the coast. Any spies would have been looking for us at Ostia. If we didn’t take ship there they would assume we were travelling overland. It’ll take us no more than a day or so to get to Pompeii by ship, and be much more comfortable for you.’ He was proud of how steady his voice sounded, almost as if nothing had happened between them. Icily polite.
Her choked out, ‘Whatever you think is best,’ only made him feel more of a cur. Shouldn’t she sound relieved that she’d be able to get away from him sooner? Instead, she sounded hurt, rejected. He couldn’t understand her.
Using his dagger, he sliced off several jagged chunks of meat and dropped them onto the wooden dish they’d been sharing. Then he doused the fire and climbed to his feet. He needed distance from her, so he could get control of himself again. Being near her confused and confounded him, made him think and do things he shouldn’t.
‘Where…?’ Her voice wavered, and she didn’t finish her question.
‘Taking a piss. Eat while it’s hot.’
In the time they’d taken to prepare their meal, the night had fallen like a humid cloak around them. The air was heavy and still, the sky crowded with dark clouds that hid the moon and stars from sight. It felt like rain.
The spindly trees they had camped beneath would provide little protection from the elements if it rained. If Lara was soaked she would likely catch a chill. But he had nothing with them to protect her. In the darkness he looked at the trees. If he cut the fir leafed branches and made a lean-to against the carrus, it might provide enough shelter for a passing storm. He cursed his lack of foresight. At one of the marketplaces he had bought from in the last two days he should have thought to get a waterproof covering, if only to keep the dew from them in the morning. But all he had been concerned about was his stomach.