To Burn

by Claudia Dain

  It was difficult to fault him, although there were many slaves in the world and few reacted so violently to that state. Of course, she had. Didn't she hate him and want to take revenge because he had robbed her of everything, most especially her freedom? But they weren't the same: he was Saxon; she was Roman. There could be nothing that they shared. He was an animal, as all Saxons were; she was a product of the highest culture the world had known. Saxons were savage, lawless, while Rome was the seat of reasoned justice and impartial philosophy. She had known this all her life. She had been told this all her life.

  So many of his statements made sense now. He had told her that he wanted her hatred and that he understood it. A hate to match his own. Melania snorted softly in bitter amusement; they were well matched in that.

  He had known better than anyone how death would have released her and, knowing, had withheld it. How long had he yearned for death? How long had he remained captive to Rome's will?

  Wulfred slipped into the room as the sun dropped below the treeline. The wind was still, unnaturally still, and the air charged and thick. The air in her chamber was charged and thick as well. Melania whirled on him, her eyes angry and her posture rigid with suppressed energy.

  "Were you ever going to tell me?" she demanded.

  "No."

  He didn't even have the grace to look apologetic. Oaf.

  "Why did your fellow murderer want me to know? He certainly made a point of it."

  Wulfred walked across the room and stood by the window, looking out at the sunset.

  "So you would know that I hate Rome," he finally said when she was on the point of pushing him out the window, "and..."

  "Me," she supplied in a furious undertone. It was so difficult to give in to a truly magnificent rage conducted in whispers. "The imbecile did not know that I already understood that perfectly."

  Wulfred said nothing. He stared out the window as if he had never seen a sunset before. Wouldn't he tell her anything unless she pried it out of him?

  "Are you going to tell me about it now?"

  "What more do you need to know?" he said with some bitterness. "I was a slave of your glorious Rome. I am a slave no longer."

  "Was it... was it very bad?" She felt a fool for asking, but she could think of no other way to get him to talk of it.

  Wulfred chuckled and turned away from the window to look at her. He was in shadow, a silhouette against the fading light. "Is being a slave ever good? Tell me, slave of a Saxon warrior?"

  She ignored his question and asked another: "How long?"

  "Too long."

  "Can't you give me a simple answer?" she flared. "I only want to know... to understand what—"

  "A year," he said abruptly. "A year that stretched out to touch your Christian hell."

  "A year," she repeated. It wasn't such a long time, yet she had been a "slave" to him for only a season, and that had seemed more than long enough. "It could have been worse..." Slaves were usually slaves for life; a year was hardly—

  "As a galley slave," he said, his voice vibrating in intensity.

  A galley slave. Merciful God, a galley slave. Melania felt her stomach tighten and cramp, and she wrapped her arms around herself. They rarely lasted a year, and often died still in shackles. Worked to death. It was the worst thing that could happen to a man; it was a slow and agonizing death sentence.

  "How...?" she whispered.

  "How did they catch me or how did I escape?" Wulfred asked with an empty laugh.

  "Catch you...?" she stammered in open-mouthed stupefaction.

  "Little Melania, who knows so much of Rome," he said softly, and turned again to the window, turning away from the sight of her. "I was... I am a Saxon. An animal, by Roman measure. When the legions defeated us, as we defended our own land, they offered us the famous Roman peace. We were to trade self-rule for Roman rule, and pay the Roman tax. I did not want peace with Rome. I fought. I lost. I was enslaved, chained at foot and hand and throat. An animal, to be worked. Dragged from my land, from my home, from my people, to work and starve and die on a Roman boat."

  He said it tersely, in a choked recital that was bare of detail, but it rocked her with its very spareness. He sought neither pity nor understanding. Why, then, did both rise up in her to flood her eyes? Melania watched him. His back was broad, his arms long, and every inch of him was bound by muscle. It took time and much labor to build such muscle on a man. He was no animal.

  "But you did not die," she whispered into the silence.

  "No," he answered. "But they thought I had. I should have," he said softly into the night air. "Whipped if slow, whipped if weak, whipped if asleep when ordered to be awake, whipped if awake when ordered—" He turned to face her. "And never fed enough. Starved as punishment. Given watered wine and beer as a reward for living another hour."

  Melania had closed the space between them without realizing it. She wanted to touch him, to comfort him, to reassure them both that he had survived. He was alive. He was free.

  But she could not touch him. She was Roman. The enemy.

  "I collapsed. It was at night. We had just come through a storm, rowing for our very lives to keep the boat from swamping. They lashed me. It did nothing; it was like a dream. And then they unlocked the chains that had kept me bound to that wooden seat for a year and threw me over. Garbage. Like garbage."

  "They threw you... into the sea? But how...?"

  Wulfred smiled—he actually smiled—and said, "I am Saxon. Water is my ally, not my foe. I will not die by water."

  He turned again to the window. The sun was gone completely. Stars struggled against the heavy clouds and lost; even the trees were swallowed in the totality of the darkness.

  She lit the lamp. There was too much darkness in this room. It was suffocating.

  His back, the back that was ever bare, glistened golden in the wavering light of the flame. She had never really studied his back before; she had seen only his nakedness. She studied him now. Lines, ragged and broken, covered him—covered him so completely that at first she did not understand what she was seeing. These ridges were not muscle but scar tissue, old and thick. And over all, the slim, bloodied scabs of her nail marks.

  "I have scarred you again, bringing up blood," she whispered, her breath on his back. She thought she would be sick and gulped in air to ease her nausea. So many scars... so many lashings. So much pain. So much rage.

  Wulfred turned to face her and she wanted to hide her face. "It was the only Roman lashing I did not mind," he said, his voice hoarse in his whisper.

  "The pain..." she murmured, guilt riding her hard—the guilt of a whole empire.

  "I feel little there now."

  She met his eyes, an act of moral courage, and read his lack of anger. Impossible. He had every reason to hate. He had every motive for revenge. And he had the means. He had her.

  There was nothing of hatred in his eyes.

  "You have not had much of a revenge on me, have you?" she whispered.

  "You have not been very cooperative," he whispered back.

  He stood out like a golden flame against the dark and empty window. No wind ruffled his golden hair, no cloth covered his bronzed chest, no veil of distrust clouded his blue, blue eyes.

  "Even making me your wife... those bonds were supposed to hurt, I suppose."

  He lifted his brows and said, "Have they?"

  "Not very much." She slowly shook her head. She did not offer that it was because she had been very little tempted to honor those bonds. Now everything had changed. Yet everything was the same.

  He reached for her, his authority as her husband clear in his manner. But it was not as clear to her. Too much had she learned; there was too much to think on. She had to reason it all out and come to a conclusion that made sense. But he wasn't going to give her time to think, to reason. Perhaps he did not want her to think. Perhaps this was his revenge.

  His kiss was hot, as hot as his anger should have been. Hotter. He devou
red her and his wet heat inflamed her, igniting not her anger, but her passion. He could so easily touch her passion; her reason ran before its fire.

  Hands pulled at her clothes, freeing her of their bondage. She realized that some of those hands were hers. She had to touch him and had to feel him touch her. Skin to skin. Mouth to mouth.

  Her breath came in pants and gasps. The single light of the lamp was too intense for her suddenly sensitive eyes and she closed them, intensifying the impact of his touch. He stroked her and laid her down, his kiss never ending. The tile was rough on her back. She didn't care. His hands were on her breasts and his weight pressed her down; that was all that mattered. All she wanted. She did not want to think that he was her enemy and she his. She did not want to think that he had just cause for his hatred of Rome and what Roman law could do. She did not want to think that he had as much hatred in him as she had in her.

  But she could not find any hatred in her now; she felt only passion. And, at her core, empathy.

  She opened for him, knowing what he would give her. Wanting it. Wanting the smooth length of him. He lay between her legs and she savored the hard thrust of his manhood against her belly.

  He moved his mouth from hers and nipped her neck. She arched into his bite. He took her breast into his mouth and sucked; she held his head to her, imprisoning him. She moaned and he grunted his pleasure as he moved to her other breast. She bent her head and pulled him up to her by his hair, attacking him with her mouth. He was so hot. She needed his heat. She craved this fire he lit with every touch.

  He controlled the kiss she had started, and she was content to allow it. He spread her legs with his, poised himself above her, and attacked her breasts. He wrung a cry from her of pure sensual pleasure.

  "Come to me," she said softly in command. She wrapped her legs around his hips and urged him down to her, down to that place of melting heat. Down to that place only he knew of, that only he seemed able to find.

  He broke the kiss and stared down at her as she lay spread and eager. His hands spanned her waist and he lifted her, showing her how easily he could control her. "I am no slave to command, Roman. I take you at my pleasure."

  He turned her on her stomach, and her breasts almost cried aloud their loss; until his hands stroked the round globes of her cheeks, finding the folds that held her milk. She lifted her hips toward him, unmindful of the tiles against her face, wanting his touch above all else.

  One hand drifted down and under her, rubbing the soft skin of her belly before finding a distended nipple to roll between thumb and finger; she moaned, lifting herself to her hands so that he could give her more. He did. He ran his hand across both breasts simultaneously while fondling her below; she rose to her knees at his prompting, so that he could reach her, pleasure her, fire her.

  On hands and knees she quivered before him. She could feel his manhood throbbing against her hip. His mouth bit her lightly on her left cheek and she jerked, moaning. And then his mouth moved down and his hands parted her from behind. She fell forward, her arms useless, so that her head rested on the floor. He took her in his mouth from behind and she lurched forward at the contact. Pulling her back, a hand on each hip, he held her while his mouth nibbled.

  She was burning. The fire roared all around her. No, it flamed within her and sprang to greater heights wherever he touched. Wherever he kissed.

  When he sucked on the nub of her desire, she screamed in a ragged whisper.

  It was then that he took her. Kneeling behind her, he plunged in, his arm wrapped around her hips to hold her to him in an unbreakable hold while his hand plucked her nipples.

  Fire sprang up and scorched her, consuming her, licking her.

  She was dying, throbbing with death, convulsing with death.

  He had taken her from behind, like an animal.

  She didn't care.

  He withdrew and turned her quickly onto her back and spread her to accept him. She did. He plunged in and out, his full weight on her. She wanted it. If this was his revenge, let him take it.

  It was a poor revenge.

  She held him to her, gripping him with legs and arms, his ear between her teeth.

  Again, the roar of fire and the sound of flames. Again, the throbbing of near death. Again, his strangled shout of achievement.

  When they cooled, she did not release her hold on him. She did not push him from her. A small part of her argued that by this action, he would know that his revenge had missed the mark; by enjoying his sensual attack, she had negated his vengeance in it.

  She knew she lied—to herself. Defeating him had had no part in this mating.

  He stroked her hair and eased his weight from her. She cradled him between her legs and rubbed his back. They held each other almost tenderly while their heartbeats slowed and calmed. Melania buried her face in the angle of his neck and shoulder; he smelled of sweat and spent desire. It was a smell that made her smile.

  "You smile," he said, his voice a throaty whisper. "As I said, you are not very cooperative."

  She smiled more fully and retorted, "You will have to try harder in your acts of revenge, Saxon. You are failing miserably."

  "I do not know if it is in me to try harder," he said, smiling with her.

  "Is it in you to try again?"

  "Is that what you want?"

  "Ummm, how to answer that? We have walked this road before, haven't we? You always seem to do whatever it is I do not wish you to do, and do it most enthusiastically. And what I want, you will always refuse to do."

  "Always?"

  "There is the matter of my death."

  "You are not dead."

  "Thanks to you."

  "Do you still want to die?" He kissed her face gently, his breath a caress. "Because there are ways...."

  "I have tried them."

  "Not this one. This one you have just learned." He grinned and kissed her neck, his teeth grazing her skin. He left a bruise, certainly.

  "And would this kill me?" she asked, letting her hands drift down in a flickering caress.

  "Just a little," he said softly before outlining her ear with his tongue.

  She shivered in pure anticipation.

  And remembered Marcus.

  Marcus, waiting for her in the dark. Marcus, relying on her for food and clothing. Marcus, trusting her.

  "I... I..." she stammered, pushing at his chest, raising her knees to dislodge him. "I have to... Would you get off me?"

  Wulfred allowed her to rise, his expression plainly perplexed. And suspicious? He watched as she hurriedly arranged her stola and palla, watched as she strapped on her shoes, watched as she ran shaking fingers over her hair.

  "Where are you going?" he finally asked.

  She looked at him, sitting comfortably naked on the floor of her chamber, his hair a hopeless blond tangle and his eyes fathomless blue and inscrutable.

  "I have to... empty my bladder!"

  Chapter 21

  It had begun to rain.

  She hadn't had time to collect anything at all for Marcus, not even a crust, and there was certainly no opportunity to do so now. Wulfred was in the chamber behind her, strange Saxons were in the triclinium to her right, and the courtyard was turning to mud; she had to go now, empty-handed as she was.

  Crossing the courtyard, thankful for the obscuring clouds, Melania raced out into the night. No one would be watching her; all Saxon eyes had seen her go to her chamber and then seen Wulfred follow not long after. There would be no Saxon shadow to follow her tonight. The hill to the vineyards was steeper in the dark and more slippery in the rain, but she knew well the path and was not daunted. Finding Marcus might prove more difficult in the rainy darkness of the early autumn night. She hoped she would not have to penetrate the wood. She hoped he would be watching for her.

  He was, thank God.

  He came out of the deeper black of the forest and held out his arms to her. Without hesitation she ran into his embrace. Marcus, beloved man!

/>   He held her close, his face buried in the tumble of her streaming hair; he held her high off the ground, letting her feet dangle above his. If they could have fused, they would have chosen to. This was what she had not dared to dream when the Saxons had descended. Marcus, alive. Marcus, strong and fit and—

  He dropped her as suddenly as he had taken her up.

  "You've been with a man."

  It was not a question, and his voice was hard as stone. She fussed for a moment with her clothing, and her hand reached for the havoc that was her hair.

  "Don't bother," he snapped, watching her outline in the murky light. "I can smell his seed on you."

  "Marcus, I—" she began hesitantly.

  "Again, don't bother." He turned his back on her, crossing his arms against his chest, crossing them against her. "You have found some solace in the Saxon destruction, it would seem. I would wish you joy, but can't over my bile."

  Anger rose up at his judgment, pushing tender feelings down into the mud. "You don't know what's happened! You don't understand anything! You ran off—"

  He spun to face her, his anger obvious even in the dark. "I didn't run off! I left you safe! We both agreed that it was safe here, so far inland, and you encouraged me to go."

  "Yes, you went," she shouted against the storm, thankful that the rain hid her unbidden tears of fury and rejection. "You went and I stayed and the Saxons came. Do you have any conception of how I yearned for death? Of how I pursued it?"

  "You seem healthy enough," he grumbled.

  Melania laughed almost hysterically, "Oh, yes, very healthy. But not by choice! Do you think he would let me die when he knew how desperately I wanted death? I could teach you many things about the perversity of Saxons."

  This was not what she had wanted; this was not what she had dreamed when she had dreamed of Marcus coming to her. The rain lightened and clouds broke into tatters across the face of the moon, so white and distant, so far from the conflict that was embedded in her heart. She loved Marcus, but how could he find her guilty when she had fought so long against the Saxon who was now her husband? Marcus was here and she had a Saxon husband; no, this was not like anything that she had dreamed.