To Burn (25 page)

He said nothing. He readjusted his leggings, retrieved the knife, which had lain within easy reach of her on the floor, and saluted her with it. And then he left.

He understood exactly what had happened to her on that floor, as did she.

Chapter 19

"The little snake has fangs after all, Wulfred, if I can judge by the condition of your back," Balduff said with a laugh the next morning.

Wulfred paused in his arms practice to stare at Balduff.

"She has claws, not fangs," Cenred joked, coming up behind Balduff as they left the triclinium. "She is a vixen, not a viper."

Wulfred hefted his seax and swung it before him ominously. He was not smiling; his eyes were the cold blue of sea ice. The smiles on Cenred's and Balduff's faces disappeared like summer mist.

"You are speaking of my wife," Wulfred said, his voice low and vibrating from deep within his chest.

"Yes, but—" Cenred began.

Balduff elbowed Cenred in the gut as he lowered his head in submission to Wulfred. "Words spoken without thought, Wulfred. Your pardon."

Another elbow jab and Cenred followed Balduff's form. "Your pardon, Wulfred. No offense was meant."

Wulfred considered them for a few moments in silence and then nodded his acceptance. His look was still somewhat severe when he turned his back on them and left the courtyard. Clearly he was not in the mood for companionship. When he was out of sight, Cenred felt free to speak.

"By the welts on his back, he had a good time last night with his Roman wife. Dorcas does not leave the signs of her pleasure so boldly on me."

"Dorcas?" Balduff grinned. "The woman who has thrown you from her couch?"

"Leave off, Balduff." Cenred scowled in distraction. "I do not need you to instruct me on the ways of women."

"That's not what Dorcas said."

"You've spoken with her?" The wounded eagerness in his voice was painfully clear.

"You've not?" Balduff asked, twisting the emotional knife.

Cenred scowled more deeply and backed up a pace; he would not be a toy for Balduff's wit.

"We were speaking of Melania. What harm—"

"What harm?" Cynric said. He had followed them from the triclinium and had heard the exchange.

"It was wrong to speak of his wife in that way," Balduff said.

"Worse has been said of Melania," Cenred argued.

"Melania is now his wife," Cynric snapped. "Did you not understand that when he married her, she became his? And once his, then one of us? We serve Wulfred, and now Wulfred has a wife. A Roman wife."

Cenred's eyes widened in the beginning of awareness. "Ahhh."

"Ahhh," Cynric mimicked. "Now you begin to see what has been done. She is the wife of the man we have sworn to follow into death." Adjusting his belt, Cynric said, "Think on that, brothers." Cynric walked on toward the kitchen.

Standing in the weak sunlight of the courtyard, Cenred and Balduff said nothing. They stared at each other with something like shock. Cynric would have been very gratified.

Wulfred had not given the two men a second thought; his thoughts were all for Melania. He had not seen her since she had evicted him from her chamber last night, but he knew that she had not left the villa enclosure; she was still too well monitored for that. He understood her need to be alone. Losing a maidenhead was a momentous event; she needed to come to terms with it. She also needed to come to terms with her blatant enjoyment of it. With a Saxon. He was a little stunned by her performance himself—happily stunned. It was a passionate woman he had married, but then he had known of her passion all along. She was usually passionately angry and always passionately proud; he should not have found her sexual passion surprising.

A blowing and stomping in the stable alerted him to her presence. The stable smelled of warm hay and fresh dung. The last flies of the season hovered and buzzed in the slanting morning light, drowning the sound of the larks in the treetops. She stood in the shadows, the warm brown of her clothing blending into the worn wood of the room. Her hair hung in two long black braids down her back, Saxon fashion. He read her mood instantly: Melania was morose. Optio was agitated.

She turned as he entered, facing him, challenging him.

"You knew what I intended last night." It was a statement.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall and nodded his answer.

"How?"

"I followed you. Also, I know you."

She turned away, picking at a strand of straw on her skirt.

"The stupid animal would probably have rum off without me anyway. She hates me."

Wulfred uncrossed his arms and walked across the dirt floor toward his wife. Never had he seen her so defeated. Why wasn't she railing at him for ruining her plans of escape? Where were her caustic words of contempt? Where was her passion?

"Hate is a strong word."

"She's a strong animal," she mumbled, toying with the end of one braid.

"And so are you." He turned her toward him by tugging on that braid and then gave her a quick view of his back. It was crisscrossed with bright red welts and two or three hairline scabs. She turned away, appalled. Or was she ashamed?

"Can't you find a tunic?" she yelped. "You haven't been walking around like that, with those, with that... Oh, of course you have!"

"I thought you'd be pleased that you managed to draw a little blood."

"Pleased? Why, it's obvious how... when... and now everyone will know what I did. What I allowed to happen."

"What you
allowed
to happen?" He understood now the source of her mood. As much as he had wanted to defeat her, this pathetic creature would bring him no pleasure. No, he wanted a fighting adversary, one who would challenge him before she was vanquished. "You hardly had a choice, little Roman." His voice was harsh, intentionally so. "You tried to kill me with your pathetic Roman knife. And did you come at me in honor? No, it was in stealth and in secrecy and in subterfuge. I disarmed you easily, bent you to my will easily, and will continue to have the pleasure of doing so for the rest of your life, because now you are my wife and there is no law that can protect you from me."

Wulfred lifted her up by the waist until her feet dangled, and shook her once before lowering her to the floor. He ignored the feel of her under his hands and the trimness of her waist as she brushed against his body on her way to the ground. He ignored it because he did not want to seduce her; he wanted to anger her. He didn't believe he'd have any trouble.

"Now do you understand what happened last night? Have I explained it so that even your devious Roman mind can grasp it?"

"Yes, you hideous oaf, I understand. I understand that I hate you. You are the source of all the misery in my life. Before you came I had a father who loved me and a life worth living; now all I have is a shaggy beast dropping fleas all over my home! I hate you!"

Melania had closed the distance between them, stalking him. Wulfred only raised an eyebrow at her aggression.

"I want you to hate me!" he thundered back.

"You do, don't you?"

"Of course, or what is the point of all this?" he boomed, flinging his arms wide.

"Exactly," she snapped, holding her ground and raising her own eyebrow. "And I do hate you; you have managed to succeed at something. You're a monster, a plague, a pestilence. I don't know what was wrong with me, but it will never happen again."

Wulfred watched her stomp away, swinging her arms furiously as she went. Melania was herself again; better that her anger flare up than smolder within her. And he did want her to hate him. Obviously. Why else would he have married her?

* * *

Hateful, odious man.
Melania burned with excess energy—energy of mind, body, and emotion—and she had no way to release any of it. She was sick to death of the courtyard, sick to death of the sight of all those hairy Saxons clanging their weapons within the confines of her home, sick to the point of physical revulsion of the Saxon who was her chief enemy.

His voice was too low and guttural. His hair was too light and too long. His body was too big. His eyes were too blue. His mind was too quick, certainly too quick for a stupid barbari. And his hands... his hands... and then there was his mouth...

She was filled with vile thoughts, and a dishonor to her race. What would her father have thought of her if he could have seen her behavior last night? Would she never learn to control her thoughts and her passions as he had trained her to do? She was a disgrace to her heritage; certainly no other member of her family had experienced such trouble in disciplining the mind as she seemed to have. No wonder her father had so often been exasperated with her. She tried so diligently to be the Roman he expected her to be, and she so often felt that she failed. Especially since Wulfred's coming.

She had to get away from all of these half-naked men!

With a determined stride, a stride that just begged to be stopped, Melania marched out of the villa. No one stopped her. She felt more at ease immediately. Even breathing was easier away from Wulfred. She wandered up a ragged flagstone footpath to the old vineyard. The large leaves were heavily rippled and shot with yellow; it was the end of the growing season. The vines were old and heavy, contorted around their supports with the comforting look of things well established. Only a few vines were left now; her father had not had the skill for grapes, and the vintner had died before she was born. Still, it was a lovely spot and very quiet. Quiet was good. Peace would be better, but she wondered if she'd ever have a peaceful moment again for as long as she lived.

Last night had certainly not been peaceful.

Melania felt her face heat at the memory and wondered if her cheeks were pink. She hoped not. She didn't want to give him a blush on top of all else.

Last night had been... unexpected, certainly. He had been so ardent, so passionate. So accepting of her responses.

She walked a row, her feet scuffing the dirt and sending up tiny clouds of dust. The sky was leaden and heavy with rain; every breath of wind announced that rain was coming. When would it finally rain?

When would she ever understand Wulfred?

The vineyard was bordered by forest, forest that became denser with foliage every year. She remembered that, as a girl, she had run among the trees in play, but there were too many wolves for that now. Still, the cool quiet of the forest beckoned her, but she had learned to listen to the calm voice of reason, even when her heart shouted another message. At least usually. Her father had taught her
that,
but not as successfully as he had hoped.

He had been even less successful in teaching her to control her tongue. Not that she needed to now, not with a houseful of Saxons. Still, he had stressed that her volatile nature coupled with her emotional explosions had been most un-Roman. She had tried to be more reasonable and cool in her manner and she was often successful. Perhaps sometimes successful, but never without conscious effort.

Wulfred hadn't seemed to mind her extremes. It was even possible that he preferred them. Of course, he was very uneducated and hopelessly uncivilized.

The wind gusted and she felt the delicate beginnings of rain.
Please, God, let it rain.
The trees swayed and groaned in the wind, their leaves blowing to show the paler undersides. A drop hit her on the cheek, evaporating before she could wipe it away. Would Wulfred leave before the weather turned foul?

If he did, he would have a reason. She had learned that he did nothing without purpose, which was why she knew that his latest provocation had been deliberate. Not without truth, but deliberate. As to his purpose, did she hate him more?
Impossible.
But she did hate herself less. Could that have been his goal? But why? He couldn't care that she felt overwhelmed with guilt for the responses he'd called forth from her last night; in fact, he should be thrilled that she had cause to feel such shame and that he was the author of the cause.

Melania shivered and crossed her arms over her chest. The truth was not as easy to see as she had been taught. Wulfred was a Saxon; that meant he was undisciplined, wild, uncivilized, blood-mad. Wulfred was also her husband by Saxon law, and her husband was perceptive, tender, intelligent, passionate. In order for the truth to be true, Wulfred could be no Saxon. But Wulfred was most definitely Saxon. Melania ran her hands into her hair and massaged her scalp. Again the trouble was with Wulfred; he never cooperated.

But he accepted her without condition.

Melania's hands froze in her hair as a new realization struck: Wulfred, the same man who matched her shout for shout, the man who ran his hands possessively and tenderly over her body, the man who declared her his enemy and with calm acceptance understood that he was an adversary to be thwarted by her in turn, accepted her. He accepted her as she was, for what she was. He had never tried to change her. He had never judged her and found her wanting.

Why? She had never experienced such complete acceptance from anyone. Why would she have it from a Saxon warrior?