To Burn (15 page)

No, it was beyond foolish. It was ridiculous. Not to mention repugnant. Just remembering the planes, ridges, and shadows of his body caused her stomach to fly up into the cage of her ribs. If he ever touched her in an embrace tinged with anything other than pure hatred, she would probably throw up.

* * *

"She doesn't throw up her food anymore."

Wulfred grunted in affirmation and kept climbing. Cynric kept pace with him, holding his sword casually, ready. He would always be ready to fight for Wulfred, especially against the little Roman in the villa below them.

"She eats when you tell her to."

Wulfred didn't respond by so much as the shrugging of a shoulder. He kept climbing the small hills that surrounded the valley of the villa; it was not difficult climbing, but they attacked the hills with a will. Wulfred had much to occupy his thoughts. The little Roman always occupied his thoughts lately.

For Cynric, it had become a very disappointing summer.

"How will this kill her?"

Wulfred stopped at the question. They were at the top of a small rise, the wind moving softly over the waving grass, pushing well-formed clouds across the sky like boats coming in on the tide.

"Do you think that I won't?"

"I think that I do not understand this way of fighting. I do not understand a battle where food is a weapon and a good night's sleep is a blow. I do not understand—"

"You have said it," Wulfred interrupted. "You do not understand. She is Roman; this will not be battle as you understand it. There will be little of logic in it," he said.

"We have been here half the summer."

"She is devious, resourceful."

"She is a woman, easily killed."

"She is a Roman woman; killing her would be her victory, not mine."

Cynric sucked in his breath and clasped Wulfred's arm in exhortation. "She is Roman, Wulfred, and you have sworn—"

"I have sworn to make her suffer. She is."

"She doesn't seem to be suffering," he mumbled. Anyone that arrogant, well fed, and pampered was not suffering.

"Her foot is in the trap, comrade; I only tighten the noose and watch her silently gnaw herself to death."

"Nothing that one does is in silence."

"True." Wulfred smiled, looking away across the hills that stretched out before them. "But she gives me pleasure in her misery. It is a pleasure I would not hasten from."

"The summer is half-gone. Hensa will wonder—"

"We are here to fight and take. I have a fight that I would not turn from. I have all the treasure I need in this place. We will stay. And she will live, unharmed, until I say otherwise."

"When?" Cynric asked, ignoring the implied threat in that statement.

"I do not know. She is determined, stronger than I thought at first, and with a passion that I did not expect of a Roman."

"She is a woman. They are emotional."

Wulfred laughed and stroked his seax. "It is more than emotion. There is a fire in her that I find I can understand, even respect, though she is Roman." When Cynric only grumbled, Wulfred added, "Tell me of another woman you have known who is like her."

Cynric was silent, uncomfortable with the thread of admiration he could hear in Wulfred's voice.

"We stay until the end of the summer at the latest. I will take my pleasure from her. I will face Hensa when the time comes. You need only follow me, as you have sworn."

Cynric straightened from under his load of concern. "I do not need to be reminded to whom I have sworn myself, Wulfred. I am your man. Do not doubt."

"I do not doubt you. Now do not doubt me. I know what I am about in this place. Everything I wanted to find in attacking Britannia, I have found here."

Cynric listened and tried to understand as he walked alone back down to the villa, but he could make no sense of Wulfred's words.

* * *

Having no duties other than the ones normally performed by the woman of the house, Melania had the leisure to have her hair coiffed in an elegant, multibraided, upswept style. Dorcas was very good with hair. Feeling more feminine than she had in weeks, Melania decided to apply a modest amount of makeup as well. Antimony she brushed lightly over her lids, darkening them and accentuating her oddly colored eyes.

What name to give a color that was not brown, not green, and not exactly hazel? Her father had told her that her eyes were a turmoil of green and amber brown and bright gold. Not an unpleasant mixture, he had assured her, but also not quite standard.

But her black hair was her glory and she knew it. It might be very well for the women of Rome to wear wigs of blond and red, but in Britannia lighter hair was more often seen, and so her black hair stood out. She loved it. It was true black, she could see that for herself, with not a trace of brown or red or even blue to alter the hue. Admiring herself in a small mirror of beaten silver, she decided to apply a touch of red to her lips and cheeks.

With Dorcas nodding her approval, and the woman's unspoken hope for peace shining from her dark eyes, Melania arranged the folds of her palla and left the exercise room. Dorcas followed at a discreet distance. It might be fun to see how the Saxon responded to her now; she looked nothing like the bedraggled and dirty girl he had pulled from the hypocaust. Perhaps he would even be intimidated by the overt stamp of Rome in her demeanor and bearing, though she did not put much hope in that. The man had proven to her repeatedly that he was too dull to know when he should be impressed.

Not so his men.

She walked across the courtyard, where they were engaged in their usual mock battles, and first one, then another, then all stopped to stare at her. Dirty and sweaty and pagan they were, but they stopped to stare—no, to gawk—at her.

It was quite enjoyable.

"Who is it?" asked Cuthred.

"It's Melania, you dolt," Cenred said. "Who else could it be?"

"I thought it was your woman, Dorcas."

"Dorcas stands behind her, Cuthred, which you could see if you saw anything but the gleam of your seax."

"I see her," he said gruffly. It was clearly a new experience for him.

"Melania," Balduff said under his breath, dropping his seax and his shield so that they hung limply from his two hands. "She's a beauty, as I knew she was, And you said she was a mole, Cynric."

"She doesn't look as small and dirty now," Cynric said slowly, still staring and not able to stop himself.

"And she certainly doesn't look like a boy," Cenred said.

"
I
never said she looked like a boy," Balduff huffed. "I have always seen her worth, her femininity, her shapeliness."

"What compliment is that?" Cenred argued. "You see the worth of every tadpole of a girl."

"She is no tadpole," Cynric said.

"Bravo, Cynric, she has escaped being a mole and now a tadpole by your wise judgment. It would be best if you left the discussion of women to your superiors. You seem to lack the ability," Balduff said, pushing Cynric to the rear of the group they had formed to marvel at the glorious transformation of Melania.

"She looks very Roman, doesn't she?" Cuthred said, gripping his seax, his knuckles white.

"And you find that a curse?" Cenred said. "She
is
a Roman, fool, but I can find no fault with it, not as she looks. Do you think all Roman women look like her?"

"No," Ceolmund the Silent pronounced. "She is unique."

"I agree," said Balduff. "Never have I seen... Almost I would not have thought..."

"Ho, so you admit to being stunned by her beauty," Cynric said, pouncing. "You, who claim to know all there is to know about women."

"I never said she reminded me of a mole, Cynric. You alone have that distinction...."

Melania listened avidly as she slowly glided across the courtyard to the doorway of her room.

This was wonderful fun. Why, oh, why, had she waited so long to bathe? It was just then that Wulfred stormed through the gate and into the courtyard. What would his reaction to her transformation be? She only hoped it would be as soul-satisfying as that of his men.

"Is this how you serve me? In childish bickering? I could hear you halfway up the hill," he snapped, not looking in Melania's direction. Very deliberately, she thought.

"Wulfred," Cynric said, almost blushing, "the woman, the Roman, she... we... well,
look
at her!"

Wulfred glanced at her over his naked shoulder and said gruffly, "Have you never seen a clean woman before?"

"No," Cynric tried. "I mean, yes, but Wulfred, she..."

"She's beautiful," Balduff said, his voice soft and emphatic.

"She's Roman," Wulfred spat out.

"Fine," said Cenred. "She's a beautiful Roman."

"A beautiful Roman woman," Cuthred summarized for them all.

"And?" Wulfred demanded. "This is something you have not known before now?"

"Well, she was very dirty," Cenred said haltingly.

"And now she is clean. Does that mean that she will rob you of your purpose simply by bathing her filthy body and replacing her encrusted rags with proper clothing? Is that the extent of your commitment?"

"No, Wulfred," they said, almost in unison, shamed.

Melania watched and heard all from the shadow of her doorway, learning, observing, planning. What a fool she had been. What a self-destructive fool. If a simple stroll across the courtyard had caused such bickering and splintering, what would a more concerted effort yield? Wulfred would be harried in trying to control them, the dogs who claimed him as master. He would be exhausted within the week, and how could he retaliate against her? She had done nothing, except to bathe.

Oh, and Wulfred would not escape unscathed. No, him she would taunt and beguile until he was a besotted fool. If Dorcas was right—and she now prayed to God she was—then Wulfred felt a flicker of attraction for her, though he had hardly glanced at her and was acting in his normal obtuse way. He hadn't taken one step toward becoming besotted that she could see; but he would. With some effort on her part, a look, a smile, and that blessed proximity he insisted upon, she would have him howling in frustration as easily as she would have his men at each other's throats.

And when the game had paled for her, when she was sick of watching the Saxons fall over themselves for her, she would kill him. Thanks to his own proclamation, she would be close enough to accomplish it. God willing, she would have him enamored enough to have weakened his guard.

Melania smiled suddenly and smoothed the folds of her palla. This was going to be a lot more fun than starving.

Chapter 13

She took a piece of bread soaked in oil and spices and held it out to Balduff, her head lowered and her smile beckoning. Balduff, his smile radiating all the way to his eyes, leaned forward to take the offering with his fingers. She pulled back, laughing, coaxing, until he finally opened his mouth in submission and took the food from her hand—all the while wearing that besotted smile.

She leaned toward Cenred, leaned so far that the neck of her stola gaped and he surely had a view of the tops of her breasts, and made a motion of brushing dirt off his shoulder. Cenred laughed at her touch, his light brown eyes shining.

She winked at Cuthred. Cuthred, who smiled only when he was killing, grinned and turned away, pleasantly embarrassed.

Ceolmund, still silent, could hardly bear to look away from her.

Wulfred watched and wondered.

Melania had changed more than her clothes. She had been the personification of spitting and hissing fury; she was now smooth and silky temptation. She had insulted his men at every turn; she now charmed them with seductive smiles of promise. Promises she did not keep. Promises he would not allow her to keep even had she dared. No one would touch Melania. She was his alone.

He knew she would not dare. This display of hers was a ploy, a new method to thwart him; he understood her well enough to know that. Unlike other women he had known, Melania was consistent in both her emotions and her goals. He knew that she was still determined to defeat him and, at the very least, rob him of his joy in defeating her. So this new familiarity, this exuberant flirtation, was only a new means to the same goal.

But how did she rob him with this display? Did she think that watching her breast brush against Balduff's arm would bother him? Balduff, his eyes glowing with suppressed desire, did not touch her. Wulfred tightened his jaw until his teeth ached, but he kept watching her, his face a careful blank.

When she leaned close to whisper into Cenred's ear, brushing a finger down his arm to the back of his hand, did she cast half a glance at him to see if he watched? Wulfred crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned against the plaster wall; he knew she did. Therefore he would not allow her antics to make his guts twist upon themselves in angry turmoil, though they did each time she touched a man and smiled her sudden smile. He would not give her his anger or his interest. He would give her nothing on which to sharpen her viperous teeth.

Not everyone had his control.