Everett, however, seemed interested in including the green-eyed interloper in their conversation.
“DaVinci, do you suppose your father might be willing to suggest lost art texts for which we could search?”
“Lost texts?” DaVinci combed pale fingers through her red-gold hair and shrugged. “My dad is the emperor of lost causes. Why not lost texts?”
“He certainly has connections,” said Jillian, who evidently took the question more seriously than did DaVinci. Jillian explained to DaVinci, “We’ve already got a solid list—history’s top-ten lost texts, twenty-five top reasons to regret the burning of the Ancient Library of Alexandria, and so on. These are just things we grabbed off the internet without any real effort. But if you could get your dad to maybe ask around in the art community?”
“Uh, sure,” said DaVinci. “He knows people that might . . . know stuff.”
Quintus was still learning nuance of expression in English, but this girl’s speech seemed less precise than that of either Dr. Littlewood, Everett, or Jillian. Perhaps she was uneducated.
“So what do you think of all this, anyway?” DaVinci asked, addressing Quintus with an amused look on her face. “Are the trips to Alexandria a good way to use the machine?”
Why would anyone ask him about the uses to which the time machine was put?
“I owe Dr. Littlewood a debt I cannot repay,” Quintus said, wary, “and I am therefore glad to offer my assistance as an interpreter.”
The green-eyed girl frowned, causing her full lips to thin. How red those lips were. How pale the girl was. And her hair—even in this artificial light, it seemed to glow. What would it look like in the sun’s light?
“That’s not what I asked,” said the girl. “I mean, that’s great you’re grateful and Littlewood is made of awesome, yada, yada, but what do you think about visiting the past to collect important things? Is it ethical? Unethical?”
Quintus’s jaw tightened. What was the girl fishing for? Did Littlewood or Everett or Jillian suspect he might wish to use the machine for his own ends? Had they sent the girl to trick him into speaking of this?
“I perform my duty without regret,” he answered cautiously.
The corners of the girl’s mouth twitched. Was she laughing at him? She no longer struck him as uneducated so much as . . . what was that new word? Wily. Yes. The girl was wily. She had a hidden aim and was attempting to conceal it. Quintus had been trained to detect such things by a master of the art—Gaius Julius Caesar himself. So what aim was this girl attempting to conceal?
Perhaps Littlewood had noticed Quintus’s increasing questions about the machine after all. Quintus had tried to keep his interest hidden, but perhaps he had failed, and the girl had been sent to wile a confession from him. It would not be the first time a pretty girl had been employed in such work, but it made Quintus sorry to imagine Littlewood suspicious of him. Guilt pinched at him. A good man would not repay his employer thus. And yet, who was Quintus’s true employer—his true commander? Was it not Caesar? Had he not pledged to deliver Caesar’s letter?
His resolve renewed, Quintus attempted to dismiss the girl.
“If you will excuse me,” he said, “it is time I began work.”
He crossed to the station from which he monitored the camera mounted beside the laboratory entrance. Ordinarily, once everyone had departed for the day, he would listen to YouTube videos on conversational English, but everyone had not departed for the day, so he could only watch the monitor. Sensing the girl was still watching him, he attempted to look engaged by his job.
The girl, her arms folded delicately over her small chest, walked toward him.
“What is it you don’t like about picking up stuff from the past?” she asked. “Clearly, you’ve got some feelings about this. So, is it just the nausea and dizziness? ’Cause I am not a fan of those, either.”
Quintus pressed his lips together. “The discomfort is minor.”
She raised one red-gold brow.
“And inconsequential,” Quintus added, proud of the new-to-him word. “And in any event, it matters not what I think of the importance of Littlewood’s work.”
“Huh,” she said. She stepped closer and peered at the monitor. “Wow. You do this eight hours a day?”
“Night,” Quintus replied tersely.
She was craning her neck between him and the monitor. She had a row of freckles across her tiny nose and below her lovely mouth. Everything about her was fashioned to perfection, as if Venus herself had given the commands. Quintus frowned at himself and returned his gaze to the monitor where it belonged.
“So what would you use the machine for?” asked DaVinci. “If it were up to you? What would be more . . . important, by your standards?”
The girl was persistent, a virtue Quintus normally admired. It had won Gallia for Roma under Gaius Julius Caesar, after all.
“It is not my concern what use Dr. Littlewood puts his machine to,” said Quintus.
“But you must have an opinion. I’m just curious.”
The girl’s persistence was striking. Perhaps Littlewood was indeed suspicious. Perhaps he should give the girl an answer to throw everyone off the scent. Quintus could not allow anything to prevent him from carrying out his mission.
“You do know that the items from the past aren’t actually stolen out of the past, right?” asked DaVinci.
“Indeed,” replied Quintus.
The girl crossed behind him and then examined him from the opposite side.
“So what would you bring to this century, if you could bring anything?”
Quintus’s throat felt suddenly thick. It was a question he had asked himself, and often. Could he bring his wife and son here? But as much as he missed his old life, he would not bring them here. Mucia would weep for her sisters, for her mama and tata and the culinary delicacies of Roma. His son, he hardly knew.
“Seriously. What would you bring back?”
Was this what Littlewood wished to learn? Was it for this he had employed the girl? Or was Quintus imagining things? Perhaps the girl was merely an acquaintance of Littlewood’s, as Jillian had proclaimed. The girl was probably bored. And accustomed, as pretty girls were, to having their whims met and their questions answered.
“Come on,” she said, smiling. “Humor me.”
“Very well,” Quintus said. “Were it up to me, I should bring Gaius Julius, whom you call ‘Caesar’ to this century. He would bring your nation under good governance. Yours is an undisciplined land.”
DaVinci stared at him, her mouth half-open, and blinked very slowly. “O—kay,” she said. “Yeah. No. So not a good plan. Stick with the doing-your-duty. As you were, soldier.”
Having said this, she turned and marched away.
“I’m beat,” Quintus heard her saying to Jillian. “Can we go to your apartment?”
Quintus shook his head almost imperceptibly at the odd girl. He did not rise to add his goodbyes to those of Everett when the friends departed a minute later. But as the door opened, he couldn’t help turning to see what the setting sun, now streaming through the basement door, would do to DaVinci’s hair. There was a flash of red-gold fire, and then the girl was gone.
Several hours after the girl had gone, after everyone had gone, Quintus thought again of her green eyes. Her shining hair. He tried not to. He opened a computer browser to episode thirty-four of his favorite conversational English channel on YouTube and pressed play. He told himself it was only that her eyes reminded him of the green eyes and golden hair of the girl he had tried to save so long ago. The girl whose pale-green eyes had caught the attention of Glavius, a fellow soldier during Quintus’s first campaign with Caesar. Glavius had been a great oaf of a man tasked with distributing slaves awarded after victories. He’d procured the green-eyed girl, a child of eleven winters, and while Quintus was no more squeamish about slavery than any of Caesar’s men, he had been furious when word reached him of Glavius’s plans for this newest slave.
The oafish soldier had crossed a line, proposing to deflower her before a paying audience of drunken legionnaires. Quintus had pushed his way to the front of the forming queue and demanded speech with Glavius.
“Are you paying to watch? Or to watch and have a turn?” asked Glavius’s groom, an onerous, toothless leer on his face.
Quintus did not dignify the question with a response. Ignoring the groom, Quintus grabbed Glavius by the tunic. “This must stop,” he said, his voice low and even.
Glavius shoved Quintus’s hand away and continued addressing his supporters, detailing the acts he planned to perform on the green-eyed girl.
“She is a child,” said Quintus, shifting himself so that he stood in front of Glavius.
Glavius made a show of examining Quintus from his feet to his face before emitting a harsh laugh. “You and she have that in common then,” said Glavius.
“Gaius Julius will not permit—”
Quintus was cut off by Glavius. “This for Gaius Julius,” he said, gesturing rudely.
“You forget yourself, soldier!” snapped Quintus.
The men encircling them had gone quiet, all attention on Glavius and the interloper, Quintus.
“No, boy, I do not forget myself,” said Glavius. “But perhaps you have forgotten a few important things. Such as bringing Tata Julius along with you to back up your demands.”
Quintus widened his stance. Below his cloak, he inched his hand toward his sword.
“Call off this . . . this spectacle at once,” said Quintus.
The girl, all the while, continued to stare into the distance, unblinking. Quintus had seen children in the aftermath of battle. But this girl with her ghost-green eyes, her gaze as unfocused and unblinking as one of the dead, made him shiver.
“Or what?” demanded Glavius.
“Or face the consequences,” said Quintus. With one smooth motion, he threw back his cloak and drew his sword.
Glavius laughed. It was an ugly laugh, full of disdain. He threw back his own cloak and rose. He was large, but he was also nimble, and his swordsmanship was legendary, some calling him Gladius instead of Glavius on account of his skill with the Roman short sword. Quintus struck first, hoping to end the fight quickly, but Glavius was ready. He parried Quintus’s strike and, with lightning speed, landed a blow using the flat of his sword on the back of Quintus’s thighs. It stung—it was meant to humiliate, and the drunkards surrounding Glavius laughed, making comments on Quintus’s youth.
The two went round and round for several minutes, neither able to land a serious blow. Quintus, however, was now bleeding in several places. He was beginning to think Glavius had no plans to seriously wound; the man was fighting a war of pinpricks and scratches, bloodying his opponent so that his handiwork might be admired throughout the camp. Quintus grew angrier, and in doing so, struck faster and faster while unintentionally letting his guard down. Glavius, it seemed, had been biding his time for this. He sprang forward, his blade singing toward Quintus’s head.
At that moment, Quintus slipped on a gnarled root, sending himself wide of the trajectory of his opponent’s blade. His fall saved his life. Glavius’s blade continued its unalterable course and drove deep into a log awaiting the fire. Glavius hunched forward, straining to remove the blade, which was solidly lodged. With shock, Quintus realized that Glavius had struck to kill. Hot anger, livid and blinding, overtook Quintus. With a fierce cry, he plunged his sword into Glavius’s exposed neck. There was no honor in the blow, but the fight was over.
Glavius pitched face forward. There was a burbling, gurgling noise as he tried to speak, and then the ground grew dark as his heart pumped his life’s blood into the cold earth.
The crowd that had gathered around Glavius dispersed rapidly. Quintus withdrew his sword and then plunged it into the earth, swearing. Not for the waste of such a life, but because he must answer for what had happened. And then, in the confusion of the scene, the girl seemed to come awake. Dashing forward, she pulled Quintus’s sword from the ground, and, before Quintus could stop her, fell on it, her aim as true as any soldier’s.
That night, a parlay with the defeated tribe commenced, and among other concessions granted by Gaius Julius, the tribe was given the body of the girl, who had been a barbarian princess. As the enemy retreated with her body, Quintus had stared after her red-gold hair until it had been swallowed by the dark forest.
A loud musical refrain summoned Quintus back to the present. The conversational English video had ended.
Grunting at himself for allowing the dark memory to resurface, he rose and crossed to the time machine. Enough wasting of time. He had work to do. Caesar’s work. And tonight was the night.
28
• DAVINCI •
Florida, July
“So, about Quintus the Barbarian,” DaVinci said to Jillian as soon as they were inside Jillian’s apartment. “Who put grumpy sauce in his coffee?”
Jillian’s brow wrinkled with worry. “Please don’t judge him based on this evening. He’s been through so much. Khan just dropped him here with no explanation. No assistance. Nothing. He was completely on his own for days before he found a friend.”
“Friend as in Littlewood? Well, no offense, but I guess that could account for the appalling lack of social graces.”
Ignoring the slur, Jillian said, “Littlewood didn’t meet Quintus until months after he’d arrived. A Catholic priest found Quintus first and befriended him. Like a good Samaritan.”
“Oh,” said DaVinci, nodding. “Well, I guess you don’t exactly go to catechism to learn manners, either.”
Jillian laughed. “Father Joe can be . . . disarming. He’s really sweet. And as for Quintus,” she continued, “he’s very nice, once you get to know him.”
“Which he totally goes out of his way to make possible,” muttered DaVinci.
Jillian bit her lower lip.
“Kidding,” said DaVinci. “Just kidding. I’m sure he’s a model Roman citizen or whatever, and I promise to play nice. I’ll have to if I want to get him to sit for me.”
“Hmm . . .” murmured Jillian.
“What? I’m not allowed to ask him to sit for me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He’s very . . . it’s just that he can be a little aloof.”
“Caught that.”
“He doesn’t mean to be. I think he spends most of each day feeling super confused, if you want to know the truth. Can you imagine it? Waking up to a world that’s nothing like the one you’ve spent your whole life in?”
DaVinci, who had been enjoying both the banter and the prospect of capturing Quintus’s gluteus maximus on paper, was brought suddenly and harshly back inside her own reality.
“Yes,” she said glumly. “I can imagine that.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Jillian. “I wanted you to have a break from all that—”
“It’s okay,” said DaVinci. “There aren’t any . . . breaks. Not really. And I’m sure you’re right about Mr. Gruff-and-Grim. I’ll behave better the next time we meet.” She gave Jillian a tired smile. “So give me a tour of your fabulous new home, already.”
After hugging DaVinci tightly, Jillian did just that.
“It’s very . . . normal,” said DaVinci after the apartment tour. She plopped onto Jillian’s sofa and stared up at the ceiling. At the popcorn ceiling. “Gotta say, I never imagined a world where Jillian Applegate and popcorn ceilings could exist in such close proximity,”
“The rent is low,” replied Jillian.
DaVinci’s eyes caught on a trio of expensive, copper-bottomed pots hung on the wall beside the stove. “And you care about what things cost since . . . when?”
Jillian’s cheeks tinged with pink. “I care.”
“Says the woman who just flew me out here first class.”
“That was on frequent flyer miles.”
Frequent flyer miles? DaVinci frowned. Frequent flyer miles and not cash or gold ingots or whatever Applegates paid
with? Jillian had changed. DaVinci’s heart skipped a beat. What if this was because of her? What if the changes she’d made to the time line had . . . had altered Jillian, like it had altered things between Yoshi and Ana?
“If this is my fault, I will never forgive myself.”
“If what’s your fault?”
DaVinci groaned. “I told you that I changed some stuff. History stuff. But I also changed people. Like, actual personality-type things. Or, I don’t know, choice-making things. In this time line, Yoshi got engaged to Ana.”
Jillian frowned. “You’re saying Yoshida doesn’t, well, didn’t get engaged to Ana in the time line you interrupted?”
DaVinci shook her head, mentally stumbling on the word interrupted. It sounded so purposeful. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything except for the demolition of my house. And if I changed you, I . . .” She shook her head. “How do I begin to apologize for that?”
Jillian took her hand and smiled softly. “Dr. Littlewood and I were discussing things, and he agrees with me that it’s unlikely your changes could cause any kind of ripple effect that would reach all the way out here. The changes are probably confined to you and your immediate family.”
“You told Littlewood?” asked DaVinci, blanching.
“Of course. The repercussions . . . the implications . . . Of course he needed to know.”
“Yeah. Okay,” said DaVinci. “It’s just so embarrassing. Or something.”
“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. You shouldn’t. It’s not like there are textbooks you could have consulted. Up till now, none of us have made notable changes to any time lines, so it was perfectly reasonable for you to assume your changes would be limited in scope.”
“Great. I’m blazing trails in space–time exploration.”
DaVinci reached for a curl that had slipped down over her forehead and twirled it a few times before tugging it back behind her ear.
A Sword in Time (Thief in Time Series Book 3) Page 11