[A Dream of Eagles 01] - The Skystone

by Jack Whyte (ebook by Undead)

  I stood up and bent over her, drawing her gently to her feet and ignoring her sleepy, incoherent objections. I led her to the pile of warm skins and laid her down on them, and then I covered her with one of the largest. She smiled with her eyes closed and snuggled down into the warmth and softness and was instantly sound asleep. I waited for a few seconds and then eased myself down onto my elbows beside her, gazing closely at the perfection of her beauty in the gentle, dancing light of the fire. For five minutes, I told myself, I would feast my eyes on her, and then I would go and sleep by the fire.

  Sometime in the night I awoke, chilled again because the fire had died down and my bearskin had slipped off me. As I pulled its warmth back across my body, I felt her stir and realized with a thrill of fear that I had fallen asleep beside her. Instantly tense and wide awake, I began to ease myself away from her, afraid that she might waken and find me almost in bed with her. But as I moved away, her arm came out of the blackness and wrapped itself around my waist beneath the bearskin, the palm of her hand scalding me as it caressed the skin of my side and then cupped itself in the small of my back, pulling me closer to her. Tensed as I was, I did not move, so she did, and I held my breath as she wriggled close to me, snuggling her head into the hollow of my shoulder and wrapping one long, smooth, warm bare leg over my own. The smell of her hair filled my nostrils and I felt the warm fullness of her left breast pillowed against my small ribs. I tried to breathe without moving, waiting for her to relax so that I could move away again, although not one iota of me wanted to move away. This time when I moved she was fierce in her denial. She hung on tightly and refused to release me, and then she began to wriggle and tug and burrow, making delightful little sleep noises in her throat, until my left arm lay beneath her head and my fingertips rested lightly and timidly against her back.

  I lay staring at the dark roof space, feeling every inch of her length through the stuff of the robe she wore and knowing that it was rucked up, somehow, to her waist. I could not relax. Delicious and awestruck lust beat in my veins and alternate waves of joy and guilt riddled me. Then I felt her become very still.

  "Publius Varrus," she said, "you don't really believe I'm asleep, do you?"

  I froze in shock, unable to respond, and for a few moments there was nothing, until I felt the soft wetness of her mouth kissing my breast and she continued.

  "Because I am awake, and I would far rather be kissing your mouth..."

  Although I have no wish to describe the wondrous intimacies we shared that night, or any of the others that have passed in the years since then, I will admit that we had little to say to each other in the first few hours of exploration and discovery. There came a time, however, when, in spite of the willingness of the spirit, the weakness of the flesh demanded recognition, and we lay together close-wrapped and sharing the joy of what we had found, each in the other. And it was then that we began to talk. She began it, and the sound of her voice, quiet as a whisper in my ear, seemed almost dreamlike in my euphoria.

  "Publius? Will you say my name?"

  "Mmm? What d'you mean?" I was half asleep.

  "My name. What is it?"

  "Luceiia."

  "That's right. Say it again."

  "Luceiia. Luceiia Britannicus. Why do you want me to tell you your name? Don't you know what it is?"

  "Mm'hmm." I could almost hear a purr in her voice. "But I love the way you say it. When you say it like that it sounds like an exotic stranger's name, the name of a famous heroine from some great, tragic tale."

  "Well," I smiled, "some day you will be famous. You are the sister of Caius Britannicus, after all, and if he has his way, everyone will know him, down through the ages, as the father of the Bagaudae of Britain."

  "Ah, I would enjoy being famed, I think, Publius. But I have no wish to be tragic."

  I kissed her forehead. "There is no tragedy in your future, Lady. I know. I asked your Druid friends and they assured me you are blessed of God."

  She stirred lazily, moving against me. "Publius Varrus, that is blasphemy. Say my name again." I did so, and she sighed. "And to think that only days ago you had never said those words."

  "True." I drew her closer to me. "That is true, I had not. I had heard your name, but had never thought to dream of it. But I will never stop thinking of it now."

  "Why?"

  "Why? Because now I know you, and my world has changed forever."

  "Will you enjoy the change?"

  "I will."

  "Good, I think I will, too." She moved luxuriously against me, stretching her thigh along mine. "You are a fascinating man, Publius Varrus. Have I told you that before? Well, you are, far more so than I had imagined, and I have imagined much of you. Even before you came here I felt I had known you all my life, and now that I really know you in person, the feeling has not changed, except that now that I know you with my body, I feel that everything has changed. Am I making sense to you?"

  "I think so," I said. "But be gentle with me, I am not used to such unstinting praise. I shall grow vain."

  Her fingers suddenly dug gently at the muscles of my belly. "And what of women? Are you accustomed to having many of them around?"

  "No more than ten at a time."

  "Aha, the soldier is an arbiter of women!"

  "Not quite," I said. "I think we should talk seriously about that, one of these days."

  "Seriously?" She turned on her side and snuggled towards me.

  "Seriously," I said, slipping an arm across her, feeling again the fullness of her breasts and caressing the smoothness of her with the tips of my fingers. "I know little of women, Luceiia, even the kind that soldiers tend to know. Of grand ladies, I know nothing. And of you, I know only that I am here, and you are here, and I still cannot believe we are together. What did I do to deserve such fortune?"

  "You mean good fortune, I hope? Is that not strange? Here was I, thinking I had been the fortunate one. Tell me more about your women, Soldier."

  "You know already all there is to know. I was a smith, living a dull existence with only little excitement, and then you entered my life, and I began to know how little I know of life, or of women. Now tell me about you, about Luceiia Britannicus. We spoke a little of you when I first arrived, but not enough. Nowhere near enough. I am a parched man, craving to drink your life after a life of thirst. So tell me, please, what should I know about you?"

  "Ah! The wondrous me! What about me? Let me see, now." She paused, and then turned to face me in the darkness. "What should you know about me?" She held her silence as my hand palmed her left buttock, giving me plenty of time to admire the heft of it, its smooth contours and soft strength.

  "First of all, you should know that Caius thinks I would make you a good wife, and that you would be a fine husband to me. Then you should know that I think the same. I arrived at that conclusion over dinner with Varo, before Cylla tried to seduce you."

  I was stunned for an instant, overcome by the suddenness and the meaning of what she had said. Finally I managed to find my tongue again. "You mean... you mean the Commander... your brother... Caius would approve?"

  "Absolutely, of course he would! But that is neither here nor there and has absolutely no bearing on the matter. My brother is unimportant and powerless in this, Publius Varrus."

  I moved to sit upright, but she hooked her hand behind my head and pulled me down to her, and just before our lips met again she whispered, "I am the one who must approve my marital arrangements."

  I could not hold the kiss, delightful though it was. I broke away and tried to speak again, but her fingers closed my lips and she interrupted me before I could say any more than her name.

  "You are concerned about my brother's feelings, I know, but that is only because you are a man, with all a man's loyalty and nobility and stupidity. Did you not hear what I said? My brother's approval would not influence my decision to have you or to refuse you."

  There was an edge in her voice that I managed to recognize just be
fore I rambled on again. I decided to hold my peace and think for a moment, and she moved her hand, unbelievably smooth and soft and warm, down my neck to my breast and spoke now, still whispering, without a trace of raillery.

  "Caius, my darling brother, is an idealist. Of course he approves of a marriage between us! He thinks of you as some kind of paragon, and so he decided years ago that I could not do better for myself than to become your wife. The fact that I might choose to have a say in the matter did not occur to him. I love him very much, but he believes that he can apply his undoubted tactical brilliance everywhere as effectively as he can on the battlefield. He just does not know that there are circumstances and conditions under which it simply does not work. I would not have allowed him to arrange your life any more than I will allow him to arrange my own. Before we met, a few short days ago, you had no idea that I was alive. You have lived, how long? Thirty-seven years? Thirty-seven years without me. You could have lived another thirty-seven the same way, and just as happily.

  "I have had two marriages arranged for me. concerning which I was not consulted. It was no one's fault that neither of them was happy, but enough is enough. I have told you before, when we first met, that I have done my duty as a faithful daughter. Two of my husbands have died. Do I need another? I had asked myself that and decided that the answer was no. I needed no man, I swore, to help me to exist and be myself." She paused. "But then I met you and discovered that the idea of being a wife again appeals to me very greatly. And I saw, being a woman, the effect I had on you when you met me. I know I will make you a good wife, and I know I will make you happy, because you, Publius Varrus, are the man the Fates, the gods and the gentle Jesus have decreed to be my lord and master. Does that shock you?"

  It did, but I lied. "No. But it surprises me. You talk a lot."

  "Only when I have something to say. Now kiss me again."

  It was some time before we began to talk again. Eventually, unwilling to quit her arms but in need of cool air, I sat up and rested my elbows on my knees. The darkness in the room was complete.

  "We let the fire go out," I said. "Now they'll have to light it again."

  "That's nothing." she whispered from beside me. "They'll bring a brand from another fire. Publius?"

  "Yes?"

  "Have I shamed myself? Do you think me brazen and too forward?"

  I reached out and laid my hand on her breast. "That would not be possible. Luceiia."

  "Then why are you so quiet? Have you no wish to marry? Because if you have not —"

  "Hush, Luceiia, and let me talk for a while. You've given me much to think about, and you have made me slightly mad with joy, but now you must give me time to say what is in my mind, and before I do that I must order my thoughts. Will you allow me time to do that?"

  "Yes, Publius."

  For a time, there was a silence, during which I found myself listening for her breathing. Finally, I lay back against the rolled skin we were using as a pillow and gathered her to me so that she lay again with her head on my breast, her face in the hollow of my shoulder. As I spoke, my fingers combed her long, black hair.

  "Luceiia," I said, "I can only think what my mind moves me to think. I have never been in love. I don't know what love is. I have never had the time or the urge to try to discover what it is. I have known few women carnally, and most of those were paid. And I have never met anyone like you before. Your beauty frightened me when I first saw you, because I thought that you must see me as no more than a cripple. I know now that was unworthy. But your mind, Luceiia! Your independence, the way you express yourself, the way you smile and laugh and move, the colour of your eyes, the shape of your mouth — these are all new to me, and they excite me: You are in my mind constantly, every waking moment, and also while I sleep, it seems...

  "I had no thought of sleeping beside you tonight. It happened by accident because I was so tired. God knows I never hoped to possess your body. But now I have, and it is the most wondrous thing that I have ever known. I feel like a virgin boy again. No other woman has ever known what I have given you of myself this night. You have had my soul, and you possess it still, and that possession will never cease to be. I am yours, body and soul, from this time forward, no matter what may befall us.

  "Now, if this is love — and I think it might be — then I have discovered it at last. I can look at you here, in this darkness, and see every feature of your face and every nuance of your smile, and I can say I love you and know that it is true. And if, as you have said, you would be glad to be my wife, to share my life and bear my children and make a home for me to call my own and yours, then no man could be happier and still be alive. For it seems to me that such happiness is only found in the Heaven that the priests speak of."

  I stopped and drew a deep breath, weighing my next words carefully before committing them to speech.

  "There is but one thing I fear. Your brother, Caius. He has meant more to me than any other man since the death of my grandfather. I would never have dared to hope that he would bless a marriage between me and his sister. Tonight you tell me that he hoped for it, and I believe you in spite of myself, and I am glad. But, my love, I tell you truly after tonight I will forfeit his friendship willingly— not happily, but willingly — should he refuse to allow us to wed. I will forsake my friend to keep you. I love you. I can say no more than that."

  I was feeling more than a little surprised and pleased by my own eloquence, and the warmth of her treatment of me during the next few long and glorious minutes convinced me that I had managed to say exactly the right things.

  Some time later, I opened my eyes to see the brightness of dawn at the window. Luceiia was already astir, and I was alone in the small room we had shared. I leaped from the bed and pulled on my clothes, my thoughts racing as I tried to separate dreams from reality. I was lacing up my sandals when she came back into the room. I immediately stopped what I was doing and stood up, my eyes straining to read the expression on her face in the dim half-light.

  She came straight to where I stood and placed herself in front of me, her hands on her hips. She was tall enough to look me straight in the eye, and I was relieved to see that she had a smile on her face.

  "Well, Publius Varrus, now that the day is here, do I still have the right to think of you as husband?"

  I reached and pulled her to me. "Aye, my love, my beloved," I said. "As long as I have the breath and the life to call you wife."

  Our kiss was brief, however. She disengaged herself and smoothed her gown over her hips.

  "So be it. You will not regret this, my love. But there are things to arrange. We must return to the villa, and I shall begin to prepare for our wedding. You, in the meantime, will serve us both best if you spend your time digging for your skystone. That way, neither of us will distract the other from what has to be done. I will write to Caius today and send the missive by military courier tomorrow." She stopped abruptly, as though in mid thought, and then came back to me, taking my hands in hers and raising her mouth to mine.

  "I almost forget to tell you," she whispered. "Last night was heaven on earth, and I love you. And there are no fleas in my bed at home, you'll see."

  BOOK FOUR

  The Dragon's Nest

  XXI

  In the month that followed, Luceiia busied herself with preparations for our nuptials. For my part, I kept my word and stayed out of her way by digging for skystones. Greatly to my disappointment, I unearthed seven stones — I presumed them to be skystones — the largest of which was little bigger than the skull of a new-born babe. My knowledge of smelting, scant though it was, nevertheless made me certain that, even were I to succeed in smelting these, I would get little metal for my trouble.

  The truly disheartening aspect of all of this was that I had been at pains to excavate the largest "nests" first. If these finds were the biggest skystones in the valley, then all my dreams and effort had been for nought. And yet, I thought, there was something I was missing. My grandfath
er's skystone had made enough noise in falling to awaken only one man. I had never seen the stone itself, but I knew that it had been big enough to yield several pounds, at least, of raw metal. None of the stones I had unearthed would run to as much as one pound of metal. The mystifying thing was that their descent had been witnessed — both seen and heard — by hundreds of people, over a range of many miles. Something, therefore, was missing from my calculations. There had to be more and bigger skystones buried here somewhere; I must be looking in the wrong place, perhaps even in the wrong valley.

  Discouraged and frustrated, I decided to leave my digging for a while and make a try at smelting the stones I had found. I would have to build a smelting furnace — a kiln — somewhere on the grounds of the villa, so I broke camp and headed for what I now thought of as my home. Luceiia would be expecting me today, anyway. I had been away for five days and was beginning to run low on provisions. In spite of my pleasurable anticipation of seeing her, however, my frame of mind was not a happy one as I set out on my return journey.

  It was now the middle of January, and although the winter had been reasonably mild, there was now a real threat of snow in the wind. I reined my horse in at the very crest of the hill and turned around for one last look back into my valley of dragons. It was barren and hostile, cold and inhospitable. The signs of my puny excavations were invisible from this height, and the surface of the lake at the far end of the valley looked like a bed of rough slate beneath the angry sky. I pulled my cloak tighter about me and determined not to return for at least three months. By that time, I hoped, spring might have made the place look more welcoming.

  By the time I reached the villa I was in a foul frame of mind. The threatened snow was falling as sleet and it had caught me on the road, eight miles from home. I was chilled and I was hungry, but I had enough sense to go directly to the bath house before seeking out Luceiia. Hot water and hotter steam would improve my disposition.