by Claudia Dain
The sun was high and bright, the shadow cast by the portico deep and dark. She did not hesitate as she penetrated the darkness. She marched right in, holding her breath unconsciously.
Thanking God, she hissed out her air; it was empty. The frigidarium was littered with broken shards of pottery, a few burned scrolls from the library, and a small pile of tattered leaves, but the small pool was intact and holding water. Dirty, leaf-strewn water. Still, it was not beyond repair.
Moving through the doorway to the tepidarium, she saw at a glance that this room was now being used as a place to sleep. Cloaks, an odd pair of shoes, and a wide-toothed comb lay in comfortable disarray. The caldarium, just beyond the tepidarium, was in much the same condition, thought it also boasted a mat of pale yellow straw laid over a thick pile of pine boughs. They had turned her baths into a dormitory.
Melania sniffed in disgust and folded her arms over her chest. The flea-infested Saxon hawks would not nest here, not in her baths, not when she was suddenly so eager for a bath and a fresh change of clothes. The Saxons would have to vacate the trio of rooms in order for her to indulge in her bath; she would, of course, be bathing daily.
Melania smiled slowly. Why, she was still in the same garment she had worn when she last ate with her father. That would change. When she disrobed, it would be burned, in memory of him.
Yes, the rooms must be cleaned and returned to their original purpose before she could be clean herself, and the Saxon mob would clean what they had soiled. Unfortunately, the barbari would do nothing on her word alone; eating with them every day had taught her how slavishly they followed their leader.
Melania swallowed hard. Wulfred. She supposed she must somehow become accustomed to using his name, graceless as it was. Wulfred. It sounded like a bark, which was hardly inappropriate, now that she thought about it.
Wulfred. She needed his help. She would be courteous. She would be pleasant. She would be agreeable.
He would not be difficult to find; he never was. He was so huge that he was impossible to miss. This was perhaps the only time when that fact did not irritate her. She was going to be pleasant because she was, very simply, going to get her way. But a quick circuit of the rooms of the villa, the expanse of courtyard, the grassy area just beyond the gate, brought her no sight of him. The oaf. Could he not once do what was convenient and expedient for her? Ridiculous question, since she was dealing with a Saxon. She found him in the stable, where she had never before seen him, running his hands over her father's horse. Her father's most beloved horse.
"That is my father's mount, oaf. Take your manure-encrusted hands off her before you ruin her coat with your mauling."
Wulfred, the oaf, did not even look at her. He continued calmly brushing the dust from Optio's ruddy coat, brushing dust all over himself in the process, not that he seemed to care.
"Your father is dead," he said on a downstroke.
He was stripped to the waist, as always. Did these pagans have no decent clothes? His leg coverings were of braided leather and looked most uncomfortably tight to her. She had no idea how he managed to sit. Was cloth beyond their Saxon skill? Animals all, they lived in the skins of dead animals. Except that he did have a cloak; she had seen him once in a cloak. Where had he hidden it? Must he always be so revoltingly disrobed? It was so completely barbaric and so uncomfortably distracting.
"Then she is mine by Roman law," she barked out, stepping closer to him to claim her right, angry as much with his nudity as with his flagrant touching of her horse. "She is not yours to touch, Saxon. Can't you see how agitated she is becoming at your nearness?"
Optio had begun stomping and shifting the moment she had come upon them and grew more disturbed with every word Melania spoke. Still, the Saxon did not look at her. No, she was not worthy of eye contact. His attention was all for Optio, whom he now soothed by stroking her muzzle with a wide hand.
"There is no Roman law here, little snake, only my law, and this horse was calm until you crept in."
She had never been good with Optio; that much was true. But she had now talked herself into a corner and could not think of a way out. Would the Saxon never leave and go plunder another Roman's house? Would he stay and torment her until her hair turned white? Would he never fully dress?
"Will you take her when you leave?" she asked in a snarl. It was all she could think to say. How long would he stay? She had pondered it long and often.
Wulfred gave Optio a long and lingering rub before straightening to gaze at the ceiling of the small room. Oaf. He would make her wait for his answer. When what little patience she had was disappearing in a vortex of flame, he finally looked her straight in the eye.
"Probably."
Ha. So he was leaving. Good. She'd begun to wonder if he hadn't put down roots like an obnoxious weed.
"And when are you leaving?" Now. Today. Please, God.
Now he did not hesitate. He looked straight into her eyes and said with sober deliberation and ominous intent, "When I am finished here."
She knew what that meant. He would not leave until he had broken her spirit and then killed her. He had never made any secret of his goals, but then neither had she. She had fought him from the beginning, without relenting, and so she would continue, emulating her father. And like her father, she would not fight for her own death; why should she when his death would be so much sweeter?
He would not leave until he had finished with her, so he thought, but he would not leave until she had finished with him. He would be here a long time, because she had decided to fight, now that her own death seemed beyond her reach. He had assured his own death by withholding hers. She would die as her father had done, and nothing less.
Stupid barbarian. Let him keep protecting her from hard labor, seeing that she ate well, keeping her ever at his side or within call. He was making it very easy for her to kill him.
"Is that why you came?" he asked.
"What?" She started. It was as if he had read her mind. But that was impossible. He was a dirty pagan: stupid, uneducated, ignorant, dull. He could not know her thinking or read her heart. "No..." she managed, and then regained her composure. "I want to take a bath, and the murderers at your command have almost ruined the rooms. Tell them to clear out or I will."
That was as nicely as she could put it, more nicely than he deserved, to her way of thinking.
But not to his.
Wulfred, his hands resting firmly on the back of the horse, found himself marveling at her arrogance. Her home lost to her, her people dead by his word, her very freedom a memory, and she still held herself with head unbowed, spitting orders like a little Roman general. From what source sprang her unswayed confidence in her own inbred superiority? Even for a Roman she was excessively proud.
"Tell me of your father," he said, stroking Optio again, his movements measured and swift. It was hardly a question.
"What has my father to do with the baths and their deplorable condition, except to say that he was scrupulously clean in his habits?"
"Your father was Roman?"
"Of course he was Roman, you oaf; what else could he have been?"
"Born in Rome? Educated in Rome?"
She bristled like a cat poked with a sharp stick. Wulfred felt the beginnings of a smile move the corners of his mouth. He lowered his head to his task to keep her from seeing it. He hardly wanted her to imagine that she brought him pleasure.
"No," she said in a snarl, her eyes hot and glittering, "he was born here, in Britannia. Educated here, in the Roman way."
"It was your mother, then, who was Roman born and inspired in you a love of Rome?" He smiled with empty charm, knowing the answer before she spoke.
"She was of Britannia also, from Durovigutum, just west of here. A fine Roman town."
"A fine British town with a Roman name," he countered with a sharp smile.
"Britannia is of Rome, imbecile, as you know well," she said.
"You are too young to have journeyed to
drink from the Tiber," he said calmly, enjoying himself enormously, "so it must have been your grandparents who taught you so well to revere and mimic the Roman way, the land of their birth. What brought them to this isle? Conquest?"
He had struck close enough to the truth to hurt and just enough off the truth to bite. He could read the pain in her eyes and it fed him. This was even more fun than watching her eat.
"My father's mother was a Briton," she said. "My father's father was a legionary."
"Out of Rome?"
She hesitated before answering, anger flaring in her eyes like a live spark. His smile struggled for life.
"Out of Syria."
"So it is from the east that you come by your black hair, and not from good Roman stock. And from a warrior as well."
"Does that surprise you?" she said sharply.
He looked her over appraisingly, marking her rigid frame braced for attack and her hot, aggressive eyes.
"No." He smiled, finally giving in to the urge. "But for one who screams her Roman-ness with every breath, you seem to be more of Britain than of Rome."
"You are a fool if you believe that only the city of Rome births Romans," she said with heat, "and that only touching the dirt of the seven hills confers citizenship. I am as Roman as the emperor. My feet are even now on Roman soil, the air I breathe is Roman air, the—"
"Soldiers protecting you Roman legionaries?" he interrupted.
"They'll be back," she said with authority.
"Not while you live," he said with just as much confidence. "The Roman world is shrinking, Melania, breeding fewer Romans every day. Do not link yourself to a dying race."
"I do not link myself. I am Roman," she stated flatly.
They stared in silence at each other, measuring the evidence of their race in each other's faces.
He stood tall, blond, and muscular, a Saxon to the very bone. She faced him in the dusty stable room, small and proud and black of hair, the pride of Rome stamped upon her features. She was a slender torch, a brand, filled with the fire of pride, the fire of battle. Perhaps the fire of passion?
He shocked himself with the thought. And then smiled. Melania was passionate about everything, in both her hates and her loves. He had never known a woman like her; he didn't think one had been created. She was passion and intellect embattled, blind rage and cool plotting, towering pride and fragile femininity.
And she was Roman, always Roman. He knew that all born within the Roman sphere and with Roman citizenship were Roman, but she was also Briton, even if she would not claim it. He could see it if she could not. There was more to her than Rome could give.
"And as a Roman," she said, breaking the cord of fragile understanding that was being forged between them, "I have a need to bathe. Tell your maggots to vacate the rooms. I will see to their repair."
She said it almost magnanimously, though her eyes would not meet his. He could not hold back the smile that curled his lips.
"If you wish to bathe, there is the river."
Her head jerked up and her strangely colored eyes blazed her anger even before she spoke.
"Do not tell me what is on my own property! I am fully aware of the river, having heard its voice since my birth, but I do not bathe in the river, as does a horse. I bathe in my baths! Of course, you, in your pagan stupidity, would know nothing of proper bathing. Or do you bathe at all? I have seen no evidence of it since you have overrun my home and my land. Certainly the baths have not been used... in their proper way."
He watched her gaze shift and slide to the ground as she twisted the ragged end of her dress. And he knew why. Cenred was hardly discreet. When her next sentence veered off the topic of her bathing rooms, he was not surprised. He was pleased. Her clear discomfort brought him heady pleasure.
"Why, the Roman bath is the envy of the world, not only for its structural beauty but for its elegance of function. To bathe in a river has not been done in centuries... in either your culture or mine, though for entirely different reasons," she finished bitingly.
Wulfred had listened to her diatribe in pleasant silence, arms crossed and leaning against the stable wall. She was so full of hiss and rattle, this little Roman snake, and so empty of teeth. Why had it taken him so long to find the joy in baiting her? She was so wonderfully predictable in her responses.
"Well, then," he began, pushing himself away from the wall, crowding her, "you have convinced me. I'll see that the rooms are immediately cleared. I can't wait to experience a Roman bath." He smiled as he brushed past her and left the room.
Melania stood in stunned silence, a look of horror growing in her eyes. He wasn't gone long, and then was back again, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her along behind him. Pulling her toward the house. And the baths.
"You are going to use my baths?" she asked in a hiss.
"Certainly." He grinned. "I can hardly wait after your description of them. You were trying to convince me of the superiority of the Roman bath, weren't you?"
"Well..." she huffed.
"Well?" he echoed, slowing down so that he could look back at her face, a face suffused with fiery, outraged red. She seemed to be having trouble keeping up.
"My purpose was to prepare a place for my own bath," she said.
"You'll get your bath," he responded lightly. "And so will I."
To his back, Melania muttered softly in resignation, "It's not as if we'll be sharing the water."
Wulfred only smiled in predatory anticipation and kept walking, her small hand a tight fist in his.
Chapter 12
It had taken more time than she would have liked for the rooms to be cleaned to her satisfaction. Now, near dusk, she began her final survey of the quartet of rooms that comprised the baths.
The tepidarium, where the bathing began, was no longer a disgrace. The floor was clean, the broken tile swept away, and the cobwebs cleaned from the corners. There were many missing tiles, but nothing to be done about them. None here had the skill for setting tile, and her father had been a young man when the craftsman who had known the technique for creating the brightly colored tiles had moved out of the area. The villa did not look its best, but she couldn't blame the Saxons for everything. To be honest, the tepidarium looked as good now as it had before they had descended.
Melania stripped off her dirty yellow stola and laid it next to the fresh stola of soft amber and the palla of brilliant saffron that Dorcas had laid out for her. Her clothing would travel with her from room to room during her bath, and she would bathe unattended because she had Dorcas engaged in a more important duty: guarding the entrance to the room. She would not be intruded upon by any of the yellow-haired vermin without ample notification; it was even to be hoped that Dorcas could scare a stray Saxon off if one happened near. Dorcas had spent some time with them, because of her Saxon bedfellow, and they now regarded her with something of fellowship and goodwill.
Not so Melania. Not that she cared. It was enough that she had to tolerate Wulfred. More Saxons she did not care to know, however distantly.
She stood nude for a moment, listening for unwelcome footsteps on the courtyard side of the door. It would be just like that big oaf to come charging in, hoping to catch an eyeful of her in such naked vulnerability. These Saxons had the morals of pigs and the manners to match. She knew what he would want—to shame her with her own nudity—but he would fail. She'd been seen nude by half her household in the course of her life.
Of course, no man had ever seen her body, but the Saxon could hardly embarrass her, since he was hardly a man.
Hearing nothing, she smiled in relaxed anticipation and walked to the bath, eager for the feel of the warm water against her skin, so very eager to be clean again, so eager for the pure indulgence of something so completely Roman. As she stood staring into the water, her foot poised, she realized that she had not really looked at the water before. She had looked at the tile and the absence of rubble and the clean walls, but she had not really looked at the wat
er.
It was dirty.
Human hair, yellow and long, floated in swirled patterns on the top of the water. There was a dark scum line on the polished rock walls of the pool, and there was a trail of water leading to the doorway of the frigidarium. There was only one man with the perversity to bathe in water prepared for her: the great Saxon oaf who had taunted her about the superiority of the Roman bath.
She'd been gracious in allowing him to take advantage of her baths; he was certainly in need of a bath, though mere water could hardly wash away his barbarism.
Furious, she hurriedly wrapped the palla around her torso, flinging the long end over her shoulder; she wouldn't take time to do more, not when that oaf had dirtied her water. If he weren't such an imbecile, she'd suspect him of doing it on purpose and out of spite, but she couldn't credit him with having the wits to know that he had ruined her bath.
Following the trail of water, she marched to the doorway of the frigidarium, the linen of her cloak slapping against her calves and the long end trailing in the water at her feet. It was empty. Where...?
A low, rippling laugh from the exercise room caused her to jerk her head in that direction. So he hid from her there, but that laugh... it was a woman's.
A vision of Dorcas and that leering madman of hers rushed upon her. They had used the exercise room, too....
A rush of pure, hot fury rose up from her belly and lodged itself in her throat, choking her. She could see his mouth on a slender, female throat, his strong hands on a firm bosom, his golden body lowering a woman's fragile form to the ground where he would hold her to him, covering her and sheltering her even as he pierced her, his large hands entangled in dark spilled hair as his mouth moved to devour a hard-tipped breast... his golden hair falling across her torso as his hands moved down... as his mouth... and his eyes.