To Burn (12 page)

His eyes clouded with something she would have named sympathy in another man, and he turned away from his sport, taking her arm to lead her away. Melania pulled her arm away from him, never wanting his touch and certainly not now when she felt so painfully exposed. He let his own hand drop and said softly, "I will show you."

She followed him, positioning herself just slightly behind his left shoulder; it was a position that kept him in view and yet made it unlikely that he would touch her. They left the walled courtyard by the side gate and walked slowly over the parched grass. It rustled beneath their feet, heralding their arrival to the birds and the wind. After only a few paces, she knew where he was leading her; all of her people had been buried here. This was Theras's doing, and she thanked him in her heart for his thoughtfulness. Her mother was here, as was her mother's sister and a brother of her own who had died in infancy. And now her father. The stone was new and the lettering crude; still, it was a respectable monument to the man.

Here in

This tomb lies

Melanius.

In peace.

In peace. Yes, now he was in peace, and she was left behind to battle their common enemy. She who had no peace and would find none until she joined her family in heaven, where Jesus the Christ had promised his followers that he had a place prepared for them. At least she had a place somewhere; the villa seemed less hers and more pagan every day.

She turned away from her melancholy thoughts, refusing to be crushed by the knowledge of her father's peace and her lack of it. Her time would come. Either way it would come.

If she won against the Saxon, she would die. If the Saxon defeated her, she would die. Oh, yes, she would be with her father soon. It couldn't be too soon.

Melania sighed and glanced at the golden animal who stood silently beside her, blue eyes scanning the treetops. Was he giving her privacy in his barbarian fashion? It was possible—he had the ability to surprise her—but she found it inconceivable to believe that he would do anything that touched upon kindness. He was Saxon, an animal.

"Is he really there?" she asked suddenly.

"Yes," he answered simply, looking down at her.

"Why?" She did not know what had happened to the others, but she had seen no other stones. They had not received this treatment.

"He fought well," he said.

A Saxon answer. Oddly, she found she could understand it.

"He was not so very old," she said softly, touching the rough stone with her fingertips.

"No," he agreed with an answering softness, staring down at her.

Lifting her eyes to the sky, she marked the flight of a pair of larks skimming the treetops. Birdsong caressed the air and the wind played in the trees. It was almost music.

"He loved this place, his home."

"He fought well," he repeated, his highest praise.

"Yes," she agreed, knowing it must have been true. She looked at the trees as they were moved by the wind's invisible breath, ignoring the building tears behind her eyes.

They stood a pace apart and said nothing for a while, watching the changing pattern of the clouds as they rushed across the sky. Was heaven as beautiful as this place she had known all of her life? Could it be?

"He fought for you as well," he offered after a time.

Melania smiled and ran her hands over the inscripted letters. "Yes."

"He loved you," he said with the barest hesitation. How had he ever learned the Latin word for love?

The tears rising, she choked out, "Yes."

It was true: he had valued her, taught her, disciplined her. Fathered her.

"Was it you... did you... did he...?" She could hardly ask, hardly get the words out, but she suddenly had to know. Was her father's death on this man's hands, this man who stood in solemn silence with her at her father's monument?

"It was not I, Melania," he said without hesitation. He had understood her fear and her question without her having to belabor it. He understood so much about her—perhaps too much.

And he had said her name. It was the first time. It sounded strange on his tongue, rougher and wilder, not the cultured name it was. She was suddenly glad that he was not the one who had taken her father's life.

"Not you?"

"No," he said solidly.

Strangely, she believed him. For all of his barbarity, he had never lied to her. He would never see the need, but also she did not think it in him to lie. There was no lie in the blue eyes that blazed into hers now; there was sincerity, earnestness, even compassion.

But there could not be compassion. He was too cold, too merciless, for compassion. The image of Flavius sobbing against his chest came instantly to mind, and she pushed it down; just because he could be kind to a child did not unmake him from the monster she knew him to be. A single act would not erase a lifetime of experience. She was no fool, and no Saxon was merciful.

"Then who?" She turned to face him, her eyes clear now and as sharp as ever. Her tears were gone as quickly as they had come.

He took a step nearer and said firmly, "It was not I."

He would not tell her. He did not want her to try to take vengeance against one of his men. In the end, did it matter? Her father was dead. Wulfred had not killed him.

"Did... he die well?"

"He died fighting," he began. It did not mean to her what it did to him. "He died well."

"He never gave up, did he? He fought until..."

She stared up into his eyes of blue, searching for... something. Understanding? But that was the same as compassion, and she had already decided that he could not give it. He was Saxon. He stood before her, blocking the sky and the swaying trees with the warm gold of his body, and his eyes burned to give her... what? Comfort? Could she wrap her arms around his neck and would he hold her to his chest while she cried out her loss and her isolation in a world without parents? Would he hold her and whisper to her until the pain went away? Could he, who had thrown the sword into her world, make everything right again? Everyone was gone; the legions, the wool merchant, the tile setter... her father. Even Marcus was gone. She was so very alone. The tears rushed back.

Who would whisper against her hair, "I've got you now"?

"He died well, Melania," he said softly, his hand almost touching hers.

He did not touch her; she was thankful for that. If he touched her, the tears would overwhelm her.

"That was like him." It was all she could think to say.

He had died well, as she had not.

Chapter 11

As she had not. As she was not. Starving herself to a skeleton out of spite was not dying well. Sticking a dirty finger down a parched throat was not dying well. In the thoughts she'd had of her father, thoughts born at his monument the day before, the last weeks shone with a disturbing clarity; what she was doing was not well done. There was no victory in this.

It was especially demeaning that even the Saxon had seen her efforts as childish rather than noble. Viewed through his eyes, she wondered if she looked more pathetic than anything else. She would die honorably, not pathetically. She would not have him think poorly of Rome because of muddled reasoning on her part. Better to die as her father had. Strong. Fighting. Clean.

She rubbed her grimy hands against the filth of her stola. Dirt had been one thing when she had been near her own death; what had dirt mattered then? But she was well rested and well fed and was no nearer her goal of outwitting the Saxon than she had been when he had first arrived in her valley. All those comments he had made concerning her appearance and her desirability, or lack of it—she supposed there could have been more truth and less insult in them than she had thought at the time. Certainly it was no fitting way for a Roman to go into battle against the barbari.

She was a disgrace. She was a far, far cry from her father and his valiant and noble effort, but it was not beyond her; she could honor him still. She was weak now and exhausted. It would take some time to build her strength. It would take strength to fight the oaf on the new terms she was just now formulating. Her path had been self-destructive—perhaps Theras had been right in that—but she would hack out a new path for herself.

A path of destruction for the Saxon. A path of righteous vengeance for herself. It would take time, time to plan and grow strong. It would take no time at all to become clean.

Not one to ponder a new resolution, Melania left her small room, the room that had been hers since the Saxon had first carried her there to sleep, and made her way across the courtyard to the three-room system of baths. She was ashamed to admit it, but she had avoided the baths since finding Dorcas and that grinning imbecile of a pagan stripped and tumbling together like a pair of animals on the floor. It was her house, but there were some things she preferred not to see. She didn't know if they'd ever been back, certainly she'd never been back, but, stiffening her spine against whatever awaited her, she was going back now. It was the first step on her new path and she strode firmly. She would own and command every inch of her home, and no copulating Saxon would get in her way.

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.