For Life or Until (Love and Warfare Series Book 1)

by Anne Garboczi

  She did not whine. Pulling away from Cedric, Ness reached for her babes.

  “Also, if that was what it looked like, you’re a hypocrite for that lecture you gave me last week after I kissed Gavin.” Isobel flicked her braid over her shoulder.

  “You’re too young to kiss boys. Also,” Ness felt the blood rush to her cheeks, “I just agreed to marry him.”

  “As if you aren’t already practically married with the amount of time he spends at our house.” Isobel rolled her eyes. “And you just think I’m too young because you’re my sister.”

  “You are too young.” Ness frowned at her.

  Isobel rested her hand on her waist and jutted out her hip, her body taut like a girl vying for the respect due to a woman. “Do you think I’m too young, Cedric?”

  “No.” He winked at her. “But if your sister asks, I said yes.”

  “Cedric!” Ness mock-slapped her hand against his arm. “Don’t encourage her.”

  Sliding his hand beneath her hair, he caressed his thumb against her ear. “You’re beautiful.”

  Two words. Ness swallowed hard as she shifted her babes higher on her hips. Aquilus could have incorporated half of Greek literature in a compliment.

  As the sun set, Ness tugged at the weeds that vied with her wheat for preeminence. Tall oaks surrounded her, and beyond them, to the left, lay Cedric’s fields. Less than a week until harvest and three days until her wedding.

  Stooping, Ness plucked Eric up and pried a dirt clod from his mouth. The white baby dress he wore had long since turned several shades darker than earth. Peeling up the dirty fabric, she kissed his tummy.

  He wrinkled his nose and let out a whooping laugh. She brushed her fingers across his soft curls. Eric clutched his stubby fingers over the wooden handle of her hoe.

  “Ready to learn to farm already?” She laughed into his face and he blinked his dark brown eyes. “See if Cedric can teach you that trick of his with a scythe. No one can reap a field of grain faster than him.” She caressed her hand over Eric’s chubby cheek. Cedric would love her sons like his own.

  “Can you show me the way to the chief’s house?” a male voice called. Even the evening wind that had picked up, blurring the words, couldn’t disguise the Roman accent.

  She whipped around. In the blinding halo of the setting sun, a figure in Roman armor stood, wearing the unmistakable red-plumed helmet framed by thick cheek-guards a man’s face could hide behind. He spread his feet confidently, the deadly short sword at his belt catching the sun’s light.

  The soldier stared at her, his gaze much too intent in this all too remote field. Cedric had warned her not to come out here alone.

  Dropping the weeds in her hand, she clutched Eric, thankful that Wryn was with Enni, and stepped back. “I will show you to my father’s house,” she said in Latin.

  He took a step toward her, his hobnailed sandal sinking into the loose dirt, and still he stared. With a quick glance, she measured the distance back to the path. She touched the knife that rested under her tunic dress.

  “Is that your babe?” The soldier stared at Eric.

  “Yes.” She tripped over furrows, bruising the wheat stalks in her haste. The trail that led back to home stood but a pace away.

  The soldier drew even closer and, though the sun still made it impossible to see his face, now only two rows of wheat separated them. “Does he take after his father?”

  Only a few paces away now, the man stood tall, his cloak billowing in the wind. She had a babe in her arms, so even if she ran, he would prove swifter than she.

  She planted her feet. “Yes. His father is a great Celtic warrior,” she said, making the threat. Perhaps instead of pulling out her knife, she should grab that hoe if this soldier attempted to assault her.

  The soldier ripped off his helmet and tore a swath in the wheat as he killed the distance between them. “His father is who, Ness Paterculi?”

  She caught a full glimpse of the Roman’s face. “Aquilus,” she breathed. Her arms went limp.

  He grasped at the falling babe and caught him in hands trained for war, not child soothing.

  “Liar, see his eyes,” Aquilus accused over screams as Eric opened his dark eyes and little mouth wide. “This isn’t any filthy Celt’s illicit offspring. He’s my son.”

  Eric attempted a bite into Aquilus’ cuirass. The babe’s gums closed over metal. With a pained shriek, he slouched back against Aquilus’ chest in defeat.

  Her feet rooted to the ground as her head pounded with the sight before her. Aquilus faced her, gaze on her. Slowly, she twisted her hands into her skirt.

  His body relaxed and he curved his mouth in a familiar smile. “But I frightened you first, so I think I’ll forgive your lie.”

  Holding Eric awkwardly in the crook of his arm, Aquilus reached for her. He stretched out to run his hand down her cheek.

  The reflection of the setting sun made the armor covering his chest almost as bright as the cloak fastened on his shoulder plates. His dark eyes laughed at her as he moved his hand forward. Slowly, he grazed his fingertip against her jaw and then moved his hand back to tangle in her hair.

  Bending, Aquilus let Eric slide to the ground, then he brought his other arm around to circle her. He touched his lips to hers and she felt herself responding. He pressed his arm against her back as he pulled her body against his.

  She let her fingers slide over his shoulders, the metal cold to the touch. He leaned into the kiss and she felt his touch like rain in summer washing over her.

  He held her waist too tight to have a handbreadth of space between their bodies. She let her lips touch his and her whole body urged her to continue.

  What kind of wanton imbecile let a man who’d divorced you, make you forget that three days remained until you remarried?

  “No!” Yanking away, she snatched Eric up. “I didn’t lie to you. Cedric is the only father my sons have known.” Because Aquilus had never come. Would he show any interest in his offspring now? No, he hadn’t made time for her before he’d divorced her. Why should she expect he’d have time for his children now after the divorce?

  “Cedric?” Aquilus blinked. “Your brother?”

  “I never understood why you assumed he was my brother when you first saw him two years ago at that well. A man and a woman are flirting in the smithy yard, then when Roman soldiers surround her, she screams his name. What about that says brother?”

  Aquilus knit his brow. “You talked about riding horses together, and plowing, and carving things. Oh, and that time you got lost all night in the woods with him and the wolves approached. Your father wouldn’t have let you do that with an unrelated man.” He looked at her triumphantly, as if he’d just proved Cedric was her brother.

  Perhaps in the stilted Roman world, fathers locked unmarried woman away from men. “Brother, huh?” She rolled her eyes. “Guess you should have told him that before he asked me to marry him.” What was Aquilus even doing here? Despite divorcing her, did he intend to show up periodically through the years to see his sons?

  Red flushed Aquilus’ face. “Ness Paterculi, you better not have involved yourself with some other man.”

  “Paterculi? I didn’t keep that unpronounceable name a moment longer than our divorce.”

  “Our what?”

  Aquilus’ bellowing voice hurt her ears and his anger hurt something deeper. This man had divorced her and abandoned his sons, too. She no longer had to deal with his tirades. Her dress flicked up leaves as she whipped around and headed toward the trees.

  “Come back here.”

  She started down the bracken-lined path.

  In a pace, he passed her and positioned himself in front of her.

  Averting her eyes, she held out one arm to guard Eric’s face against the overhanging brush and tried to sweep past.

  Aquilus put out a powerful arm, stiff leather bracer jutting up to black hair and dark Roman skin, and blocked the path. “As civil as always?”


  “Just leave.” Why was he here? For months, she’d dreamed of him coming here for her and a beautiful reunion. Now with the divorce complete and Cedric’s proposal, she’d finally put those dreams to rest and all at once he arrived to reawaken thoughts of what would never be? An ache pounded through her head.

  “I sailed an ocean and spent a day and a night slamming against the back of a horse to reach this miserable village. You, by Jupiter, are going to talk to me.”

  She leaned back against an oak tree, bairn in her arms, and tried to pretend his presence was but a wretched dream.

  “What divorce?” Aquilus’ voice could have sunk a ship.

  She blinked. “The one I got after you left and never came back for one. The village elders saw it through eight months ago.”

  “Village elders!”

  The tree trunk’s bark felt rough as she pressed back against it. He was furious now. What by Pollux did he have to rage about? He hadn’t spent the last year swollen as a cow then endured months of sleepless nights all to bear the children of a man who didn’t even want her.

  “We didn’t get married by some barbaric handfasting.”

  She stared at him. Lightning seared through her. He hadn’t divorced her. She froze, fingers digging into the bark. He still wanted her. If she wished, she could walk away with him this day, be his wife, and reunite Eric and Wryn with their father. Not that doing so would be fair to Cedric.

  She swung her gaze away from the growing shadows to his face. “What are you saying?” She’d been so certain he’d divorced her. Could he truly still want her? She sighed. Even if he did still want her, if she went back, they would just fight like before.

  “We married under confarreatio law, and you were joined to me in manus, the most ancient type of marriage.”

  At the sound of his angry words, Eric started crying. Ness hugged the babe tighter. Was Aquilus saying he wanted her back or he didn’t want her back? Or was he just pointlessly annoying her with a history lesson on Rome’s disturbed laws? “And?”

  He spread his stance. “More recently in this dissipated age, women have insisted on free marriage, where either spouse can leave at will, leading to many lewd affairs.” He glared at her when he said lewd affairs.

  Crossing her arms over Eric, she brought her chin down. Did he think she’d never remarry after he divorced her? Or maybe he hadn’t divorced her. She twisted down one side of her mouth.

  “Those related to the priesthood have kept themselves free of this.”

  She tilted her head. “Priesthood? Are you a pagan now?”

  “Let me finish.” His voice was a growl. “It’s not about a pagan religion. Marrying by confarreatio makes a patrician eligible for certain political offices.”

  More politics, how shocking, and if he’d just spit out what he meant, she wouldn’t need to interrupt. Perhaps he had traveled all the way to her village merely to torture her with history lessons about Rome’s laws.

  “Those from the noblest families still practice confarreatio marriage in order to be eligible for such positions. Though Augustus compromised and let women change from confarreatio to free association after they had birthed three children. Regardless, you have two children so you are under confarreatio law.”

  She rolled her gaze up to the darkening heavens. “Have you divorced me yet or not?” Also, had she told him she gave birth to twins?

  He stopped. “Of course I didn’t divorce you.”

  Of course? Those were the words she should have comforted herself with when she wept into her covers each night she lay in that lean-to feeling Eric and Wryn kick inside her as the man who’d given them life stayed hundreds of miles away from her. Of course? After all, why would not showing up for a year give a woman the impression that you didn’t want to be married anymore? “So, you’re telling me even though you stayed away so long I gave up and divorced you, now you’d like me back?”

  His black eyes grew haughty. “You can’t divorce me. Under confarreatio law, only I am able to sue for divorce.”

  He’d returned to tell her that she didn’t have the legal right to determine her own future? Scarcely the amorous homecoming she’d dreamed about. “Maybe I don’t want you anymore.”

  “You don’t get a choice.”

  “Of course, I get a choice. It’s my life.”

  “I don’t get a choice either. Even a husband can only dissolve a confarreatio marriage with just cause. Unlike those licentious free association marriages that end at will.” He gestured as if to show his disdain for these free association marriages where licentious wives expected their husbands to maybe, you know, write to them before they disappeared for a year?

  “You don’t love me. You just stayed married to me because of some stulte law?” Ness stared at him.

  “You’ve made marriage to you about as appealing as appearing in front of Medusa.” With a grunt, Aquilus relaxed his stance.

  She widened her eyes. Medusa, the mystical female monster with snake hair that turned men into stone with a mere look? He’d just compared her to Medusa. She rested her hand on her hip and glared at him. “If you’re merely waiting for me to give you just cause, I’ll happily oblige.”

  His fury flared like the fire in summer that defies control or restraint. He clenched his fingers around his sword belt. “You are my wife, the bearer of my children, and I refuse to let my ancestors be shamed by some upstart barbarian who thinks she can marry and leave at will.”

  Her eyes shot fire hotter than any hearth blaze. “I have a Britain divorce and if I want to shame your ancestors, I will. My ancestors likely cringed in their graves to see me marry one of the enemies who conquered their land.”

  His eyes smoldered, but he didn’t deign to answer.

  With the way this conversation headed, she’d have a Roman divorce too before the new day dawned. He’d left just because she’d told him not to go to Germania. He’d certainly divorce her for talking to him like this.

  A rapidly chilling wind blew through the trees, carrying with it the scent of ripe chestnuts. Aquilus glared at her, but he clamped his helmet back on and moved out of her path. “Show me the way to your father’s house.”

  He expected that he could speak to her like that and still be welcomed in her family’s house? Shaking out her skirts, she mounted Eric higher on her hip. “Are you sure I live there?”

  Aquilus clenched his fists and jutted his eyebrows down to meet the angry red of his face. “You’d better be lying to me about this Cedric.”

  She wasn’t. When he discovered that she’d agreed to marry another man, he’d divorce her in a rage and leave before she could so much as show him their sons.

  Would she have said ‘yes’ to Cedric if she’d known Aquilus would return and she’d have a chance to renew their marriage? She didn’t know.

  This was the house the medicine woman had pointed him to when he asked for Cedric. Aquilus shoved the door open.

  In the dusky interior, a small fire burned beneath a black cauldron. A broad-shouldered Celt stood over the kettle, a long-handled spoon in his hand. Snatches of light from the setting sun penetrated the chinks in the wattle and daub walls.

  “Are you Cedric?” The recently learned Celtic words sounded strange on Aquilus’ tongue.

  The man looked up. Shifting his weight, he wiped sweat from his forehead with his shirt sleeve. Then, warily, he nodded.

  In one step, Aquilus crossed the distance from threshold to center. He grabbed this Cedric who wasn’t Ness’ brother by the collar, though the Celt stood a good head taller than he. “What happened between you and my wife?”

  Cedric brought his hands up as he ripped away. “What?”

  “Too many women, you get confused?”

  The Celt took a sharp step back.

  Aquilus moved forward, closing the distance. “What is your relationship to Ness?” His blood surged through his body. Ness had lied. She must have. What if she hadn’t?

  Understanding flashed acr
oss the Celt’s face. “Oh.” He chafed his finger against his thumbnail.

  Ness hadn’t lied. A sick feeling twisted his guts. “Have you touched her, villain?”

  Cedric folded his arms, jaw hardening. “Tire of Rome, Tribune?”

  Aquilus grabbed the pommel of his short sword. “I came to get my wife and sons. How have you employed your time?”

  Cedric moved back toward the wall where a knife sheath hung. His gaze vacillated between the knife and Aquilus’ sword arm, but his voice stayed level. “I never touched Ness.”

  Aquilus let his fingers slide off his dagger, but he tensed his hands into fists.

  “We’re engaged to be married, though.”

  “Not to my wife you’re not.” Aquilus dove forward, slamming into the man.

  Cedric staggered back against the wall.

  Aquilus drove his fists into the Celt, but Cedric thrust his superior height and weight forward, throwing Aquilus away from him.

  His scale armor clanked against the kettle’s tripod as Aquilus stumbled back.

  Cedric kept his hands up, feet spread. “Is this what Romans call a fair fight? If I land one blow, you can have me executed.”

  Rising to his feet, Aquilus tugged at his armor’s leather lacings and tore the metal covering off. “If I ordered you killed, it’d be about my wife, not you striking me.” He landed a blow.

  Cedric met him head on. Arms pounded and smashed with the dull thud of fist against flesh and bone.

  Blood spurted from Cedric’s nose. Driving forward with his forearms, he knocked Aquilus back. Feet spread, Cedric rested a hand on the wattle and daub wall. “Aren’t you a little late?”

  Aquilus charged forward and slammed his fist into Cedric’s face. “Late for what? Dealing with a knave like you?”

  With Celtic quickness, Cedric caught Aquilus’ wrist and twisted it. “The time for coming was a year ago.”

  Horace had said something about keeping an even temper in adversity. Forget Horace. Aquilus kneed the man, drawing a gasp from the Celt and wrenching his arm free. “Much you’d know about it.”