Part 7 (2/2)
To learn that Heron's vision of the death of the Emperor had been a true Seeing was encouraging. The men who drank at the taverna near the lead mines were full of gossip. It was said that Claudius had willed the Empire to another general called Aurelian, by-pa.s.sing his own brother, Quintillus, who, after an abortive attempt at a coup, had died by his own hand.
”He will come, never fear,” said the Druid who had been waiting for us. ”These Romans are creatures of habit, and every evening for the past week he has come this way.”
”He is fair-haired?” I asked once again.
”As fair as bleached flax, with the mark of Mithras between his brows.”
I reached up beneath my veil to touch the blue crescent tattoed on my own forehead.He is an initiate , I reminded myself,and may see more than an ordinary man. I will have to be careful .
From beyond the curve of the road came a curlew's piping call, an unlikely sound for the high moors, but the Roman whose coming it signalled would not know that. I took a deep breath, lifted my arms to the heavens, and released the clouds.
In moments I felt the first spatterings. By the time the figure on the red mule came into view the rain was driving down in sheets, as several storm fronts that would have pa.s.sed over one at a time simultaneously released all their stored rain.
Our quarry had pulled up in the tenuous shelter of an elder bush, holding his sagum cloak half over his head in a vain attempt to protect it. For a little longer I watched him.
”Stay out of sight,” I told the two Druids, wrapping my mantle more securely, ”but when I move, follow me.” I gave my mount a kick and reined it across the slope below the road.
”Help-oh, please, help me!” I called in the Roman tongue, pitching my voice to carry above the storm and hauling on the reins of the pony, who had started to plunge as if to make my plight a reality. For a moment nothing happened, and I let the pony move forwards, clutching its mane. ”Can anyone hear me?”
I cried again, and saw the red mule at the rim of the hill.
I was wearing a white mantle so that the Roman should be able to see it even through the storm. I screamed and gave the pony a good kick, hanging on desperately as it galloped down the hill. I heard a Roman oath and the cras.h.i.+ng of brush as the mule scrambled after me, but we were all the way down the hill and well into the tangle of oak and alder beyond before the Roman caught up with me.
”Lady, are you hurt?” His voice was deep, and so far as I could see beneath his sagum, his body seemed st.u.r.dy, though he was tall. He grabbed for the reins that I had artistically allowed to fall as he arrived.
My pony ceased to struggle, recognizing a master's hand, and freed of the need to divide my strength between my mount and the storm, I drew the next squall shrieking down upon us.
”Thank you! Thank you! The pony ran and I feared I would fall!”
He edged the mule closer and put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned against him gratefully, aware now just how long it had been since I had done much riding. His warmth spread through me faster than I would have expected. Perhaps Heron was right, I thought dimly, and he really was the sun.
”I must get you to shelter,” he muttered against my hair, and a s.h.i.+ver ran through me at the touch of his warm breath. The storm had expended its first fury, but the rain was still driving down.
”That way-” I said, pointing south. ”There is an old tile shed.” The tile-makers had not yet started work for the summer: we had slept there on our journey here.
By the time we reached the shed, I did not have to feign exhaustion. My knees gave way as I slid down from the pony, and only the Roman's quick reactions saved me from falling. For a moment he held me, and I realized that we were matched in height. In what else would we be a match? I wondered then, feeling the strength in his arms.
Not that I was likely to find out. The Council, in its wisdom, had decided to bind the Roman to our cause by giving him one of our number in the Great Rite at the Beltane fires; but the priestess whom the lots had selected to be his consort was not me, but Aelia.
I watched, s.h.i.+vering, as the Roman proceeded with swift efficiency to build a fire. At least the tile-makers had left plenty of fuel for it. The little flame leapt and kindled, revealing a sinewy arm, strong cheekbones, short hair plastered close to his head and darkened to old gold by the rain. As the fire began to catch in the larger branches, he stood to unfasten his sagum and drape it, dripping, over one of the low beams. He wore a tunic of good, grey wool edged with red. A short sword in a well-worn leather sheath hung at his side.
”Let me take your mantle, Lady,” he said, turning. ”The fire will warm the air in here soon, and perhaps it will dry-”
The fire flared suddenly, for the first time revealing him fully, and my world stood still. I saw intelligent grey eyes that enlivened a rather ordinary face, permanently reddened by exposure to sun and wind and pinker than ever from the cold. Tired and wet, he was hardly at his best, but he would never be famous for beauty. His colouring proclaimed him Roman by culture rather than ancestry; he hardly seemed the stuff of prophecy.
Yet I knew him.
In the ceremony that made me a woman, the G.o.ddess had shown him to me. He was the lover who would claim me at the Beltane fires, and I was the woman who would bear his child...
The Druids found the wrong man, I thought desperately.This is not the hero of Heron's vision, but of my own ...
And if they were the same?
I do not know what my face showed at that moment, but the Roman took a step backwards, lifting his hands in self-deprecation.
”Please, domina, do not be afraid. I am Flavius Constantius Chlorus, at your service.”
I felt myself flus.h.i.+ng as I realized that I hardly looked my best either. But that was as it should be. He must see me as ugly, old even, until I knew... until I knew whether he wasmy destiny...
”Julia Helena thanks you,” I murmured, giving my own Roman name. It felt as strange on my tongue as the Latin. The girl who bore that name had lived another lifetime, ten years ago. But suddenly I wondered if she was destined to live again.
A leather flask hung at his side. He pulled the strap over his head and held it out to me. ”It is only wine, but it may warm you-”
I managed a smile, and turned to rummage in my saddlebags. ”And I have here a little bread and cheese and dried fruit that my sisters packed for me.”
”Then we will feast.” Constantius seated himself on the other side of the fire and smiled.
It transformed his face, and I felt a rush of heat that seared my flesh like fire. Wordless, I held out the loaf of bread, and he took it from my hand. I had heard once that in the hill country, to share a meal, a fire and a bed made a marriage. We had the first two already, and for the first time in my life I felt the temptation to deny my vows.
When my fingers brushed his, he had trembled. My extended senses knew that at a level below thought, he was responding to my nearness. My Druid escorts were outside somewhere. They would not disturb us unless I screamed. It would take very little, a step in the Roman's direction, a s.h.i.+ver as if I was cold and needed his arms to warm me. A man and a woman, alone together-our bodies would do the rest without direction.
But what of our souls?
To come to him without honour would destroy that other thing, sweeter even than the desire that heated my body: the potential that I sensed between us. And so, although I felt like a starving woman pus.h.i.+ng food away, I edged back, drawing ugliness around me like a tattered cloak, the reverse of the glamour a priestess knows how to wear.
Constantius shook his head a little, cast a frowning glance at me and looked away. ”Do you live nearby?” he asked politely.
”I dwell with my sisters on the edge of the marshes,” I answered truthfully, ”near the isle where the Christian monks have their sanctuary.”
”The isle of Inis Witrin? I have heard of it-”
”We can come to my home tomorrow before the sun is high,” I said. ”I would be grateful for your escort-”
”Of course. The men who oversee my family's holdings would rather I had never come here-they will not care if I miss a day or more,” he added bitterly.
”How did you come to riding the back roads of Britannia? You seem a man of authority,” I asked with real curiosity.
”Not to mention family connections.” There was an edge to the bitterness now. ”My grandmother was sister to the Emperor Claudius. I wanted to make my own way by ability, not patronage. But since my great-uncle tried to seize the Imperium, and failed, I will settle for simply staying alive. The new Emperor has good reason to distrust men of my family.”
He shrugged and took a pull from the wineskin. ”My mother's family has investments here in Britannia-an import company in Eburac.u.m, and an interest in the lead mines, and it seemed a good time to send an agent to check on them. At the moment, the Gallic Empire is safer for me than Rome.”
”But will not Tetricus and... what is his name, Marius, consider you a danger?”
Constantius shook his head and laughed. ”It is Victorina Augusta who really rules. They call her the Mother of the Camps, you know, but she has little attention to spare for Britannia. So long as she gets a share of the profits, they will leave me alone. Emperors may come and go, but business makes the world go round!”
”You do not sound very happy about it,” I observed. ”I would not have guessed you for a merchant.”
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