The Adventures of a Roman Slave

by Lisa Cach

  “Why not just send this Sidonius to plead our case? I don’t know that I will be any more persuasive.”

  Clovis look at me incredulously. “Do you know men so little?”

  I remembered Sygarius setting me to spy on Clovis’s father, Childeric, and telling me that men lost the ability to think around a woman they desired. “You think that if I make puppy eyes at him, he will give me what I ask?”

  “I know it. Nimia, you are not a beautiful woman, from an objective point of view—”

  I snorted. “Thank you very much.”

  “—but you are stunning. I do not know what it is about you, but no man can keep his eyes from you. No man can see you and not want you. It’s as if . . .”

  “As if what?”

  “I don’t know. It’s as if you give off a scent that begs a man to fuck you.”

  My mouth dropped open. “I do not!”

  “It’s why I’m sending your two maids with you, and a cadre of soldiers as bodyguards. Terix and Bone Cruncher, too. If all else fails, that dog will rip the prick off anyone who tries to touch you.”

  I was warmed by his display of protectiveness, but knew better than to trust that he was telling me everything. I chewed the inside of my cheek, thinking. “Is there more to this than you say? You don’t expect me to sleep with Alaric, do you?”

  His nostrils flared. “No!”

  “That’s a relief.” I cocked my head, remembering Basina’s lecture and wondering what it might mean about discussions between her and Clovis. Scenarios they had toyed with, possibilities explored. “But what if it were the only way to persuade him?”

  Clovis’s face colored, and his jaw tensed. “I don’t want another man to touch you.”

  “But if it were the only way . . . ?” I didn’t know why I was pushing the question. Perhaps only for the pleasure of seeing his jealousy.

  “It would be your decision,” he said between clenched teeth.

  “So it would depend on how badly I want to see Sygarius’s guts on a platter.”

  Clovis nodded stiffly.

  I didn’t dare ask which he would prefer: me untouched, but without Sygarius; or me soiled by Alaric, but with Sygarius in chains.

  I didn’t dare ask, because I didn’t know which I’d prefer, either. I had a score to settle, and I didn’t know how far I would go to do it.

  “I would ask that you do not speak of your visions to anyone at Alaric’s court,” Clovis said.

  “Afraid they might try to steal your seer?”

  “Yes.”

  I tilted my head, acknowledging the truth of it.

  “I would also ask that you pay attention to anything that might prove of use to me.”

  It took me a moment to fully understand, and then I blinked. He wanted me to spy. No wonder he wouldn’t be content to send only Sidonius as his ambassador. A Christian bishop would not spy for him. “You really do mean to take all of Gaul for the Franks, don’t you?”

  He looked at me as if I were a simpleton. “Of course.”

  “Of course,” I echoed. I didn’t understand the why of it. There weren’t so many Franks that they needed so much more land. Why this need to invade and conquer? It made no sense to me. I better understood dead Childeric’s contentment with a purse of gold and a comfortable life, than I did Clovis’s ambition.

  On the other hand, I had ambitions of my own that Clovis might not understand. Those ambitions had been set aside during my pregnancy, and now I couldn’t see how I could take Theo with me while I pursued them. I wanted to find my lost tribe, the Phanne; only by finding them could I learn to control and develop my gifts. I also harbored a secret hope that if I found them, I might be reunited with my mother. I didn’t know if she lived in this world or the next; as a mother now myself, my heart hollowed at the thought of being separated from my child. She surely had felt the same.

  “You mentioned my two maids,” I said, changing the topic. “The nursemaid must come, as well. Theo cannot be without her.”

  “The child will remain here.”

  I pulled my chin back. “Then so shall I.”

  “You would expose your baby to the dangers of the open sea?”

  “If it’s so dangerous, why do you send me?”

  “Nimia, the child is but a month old. He is not strong enough to endure travel.”

  “Nor is he strong enough to be without his mother.”

  “He will be well cared for. Basina will see to that; you know it.”

  I felt a rising flood of panic at the thought of being parted from Theo. “Why do you care? You don’t believe him to be yours, so what matter to you if he should perish?”

  Clovis looked away and I saw the muscle in his jaw working. “I do not know that he is not mine.” He met my eyes again. “On the chance that he is, I will not risk his life at sea; I will keep him here, safe. Nor will I risk that Sygarius might take him, believing the child his own.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “And if all else fails, I suppose you expect me to use Theo as bait, to lure Sygarius into your hands.”

  Clovis’s eyes opened wide. “That’s brilliant, Nimia! You wouldn’t even need Alaric’s approval if Sygarius was willing to return on his own, to see his son. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  I was surprised he hadn’t. His avoidance of thinking about Theo must have blinded him to using the baby as a lever against his enemy. The whole point of Sygarius’s kidnapping of me had been to father a child. And as Sygarius had taught me, if you knew what a man wanted and offered to give it to him—or to take it away—you controlled him.

  Too bad I’d given Clovis the idea. Now there was no chance at all of persuading him to allow Theo on the journey.

  And maybe he was right not to. There were dangers on the road that one could not always foresee.

  Given what I had foreseen, I reluctantly conceded that I would rather have my son in the arms of Basina than exposed to whatever atrocity Fate had in store for me. Basina would snap the spine of anyone who dared look sideways at my child.

  Meanwhile, I would have a Christian poet-bishop as protector.

  God help me.

  Land! I love you, land!” Terix threw himself down on the pier to kiss the stones. “I’ll never leave you again.”

  I was tempted to do the same, stumbling on my sea legs to a wooden crate and plopping down upon it. Bone had already galloped off, lifting his leg on goods waiting to be loaded onto ships, and leaving a pile of dung in the center of the pier. Angry curses from a sailor marked the moment that dung met his foot.

  The early August sun shone down on the port of Burdigala, reflecting off the golden stones of walls and the terra-cotta roof tiles, and heating up the usual stench of a port: rotting fish, tar, seaweed, wood smoke, and the waste of animals and humans. The breeze that kept us cool on board ship had disappeared as soon as we tied up to the pier, and already I could feel sweat breaking out beneath the finery I wore.

  Three weeks ago I, Terix, Bone, the maids Polina and Winne, and a cadre of ten soldiers including their captain—a solid, serious Frank named Fenwig—had set off on horseback from Soissons for Juliobona, a port on the north shore of Gaul. There we’d left our horses and boarded this merchant ship, which had taken us through storms and winds, waves and seasickness, and hundreds of miles of ocean until, after two weeks at sea, we at last arrived in Burdigala. We were on the southwest coast of Gaul, near the great Pyrenees Mountains, which separated Gaul from Hispania. I was happy to finally be on land, the lurching, rolling, stomach-turning movements of a ship at sea over at last.

  For now, at least. There was the journey home to be dreaded, but I wouldn’t think about that.

  Terix rolled onto his back and lay spread-eagle, looking up at the sky. “Can you feel it, Nimia?”

  “What?

  He sighed in pleasure. “Noth
ing’s moving.”

  “Your clothes are getting dirty.” He was wearing Frankish garb, an embroidered tunic and short breeches, and a short cape pinned to his shoulders—an unnecessary addition in the August heat, but Basina had insisted that my entourage be nearly as finely dressed as she had arranged that I be. For me to be perceived as a person of consequence, my people must be dressed well, too. “I’m not sure you’re projecting the right note of dignified ambassador, lying there.”

  “Dignity can go take it up the arse.” He sat up and shaded his eyes with his hand, gazing down the pier toward town. “Is there a tavern nearby? There must be. Ports are full of taverns.”

  “Prostitutes, too.”

  “Did I mention how much I love land?”

  I saw Fenwig heading toward us. The soldiers and maids had been overseeing the transfer of our trunks and baggage from the ship to hired wagons at the end of the pier.

  “My lady,” he said when he reached us. “Bishop Callodorus has sent his litter for you.”

  I pushed myself to my feet, still feeling the rocking of the ship. “I would rather walk, but that would never do, would it?”

  “No, my lady.” Did a whisper of a smile touch his stern lips? I wasn’t sure. Over the weeks of our journey I’d come to respect his unflagging discipline and even temper, but had caught only glimmers of the man behind the stoic face. I didn’t know if he liked me, and didn’t know if he’d ever paused to consider the question. I did know that he took his role as captain of my bodyguard seriously, and permitted no laxness in his men. I suspected he had no greater terror than of failing in his duty—not for my sake so much as for his own honor.

  Terix and I followed Fenwig down the pier. Remigius had arranged for us to stay with Callodorus until Sidonius Apollinaris arrived, then together we would travel up the Garumna River to Tolosa and Alaric’s court. We were in the Visigoth kingdom now, and I found myself glad that Remigius had so many fellow bishops and priests he could call on to help ease our way.

  We stepped off the pier and onto the bustling waterfront, crowded with wagons, piles of goods, sailors, merchants, laborers, oxen, and asses. The bishop’s litter and bearers were waiting across the way in the shade of a warehouse, and Terix went to fetch Bone away from his pursuit of a quayside bitch as I followed in Fenwig’s wake.

  A man stepped in front of me, blocking my path, and clasped my shoulders in strong hands. “It’s you!”

  Startled, I looked up into the dark eyes of the pirate-trader, Jax. “You!” I said back, and felt a shock of fear. The last time I had seen him had been in a stable, after he’d tried to take more from my body than I had wanted to give, and then accidentally killed the elderly peddler who’d tried to rescue me.

  His eyes roved down over my coiffed hair, my fine gown of burgundy cotton with gold embroidery, and the heavy, broad gold necklace that covered half my décolletage. It was worked into the form of a labyrinth, at the center of which was mounted my gold and garnet bee. “Looks like you landed on your feet. No more selling your favors for ship’s passage, eh? Too bad. We never did finish, and I’ve found myself regretting that more than the reward I didn’t collect.”

  During our stable tumble, Jax had realized that I was the escaped slave girl for whom a reward of ten solidi was being offered. I was still too startled now at the sight of him to do more than gape. He was as lean and outrageously confident as I remembered, and as dangerously appealing. Lust shimmered over my body, making my breasts tighten.

  The blade of a short sword appearing at the side of Jax’s neck saved me from having to answer. “Unhand the lady,” Fenwig said.

  Jax’s hands caressed my shoulders once, then lifted off.

  “It’s all right, Fenwig,” I said, finding my voice. “I know him.”

  “Though not as well as I wish,” Jax said.

  The blade pressed harder against Jax’s skin, but not so much as a spark of alarm showed in his eyes. It might as well have been a kitten nuzzling his neck, for all it did to intimidate him.

  “He’s harmless,” I said to Fenwig—a gross lie—and gestured for him to lower his sword.

  Fenwig did so with a black look for Jax, and then tilted his head toward the litter. “My lady?”

  I nodded and lifted my skirts to follow. I had only taken a few steps when Jax called to me. “Nimia?”

  I turned, brows raised in question.

  He stepped closer and lowered his head, speaking quietly. “The red-haired man you warned me about—you saved my life. If ever you need help that I can give, ask for it. I am in your debt.” Too quick for me to stop him, he slid one hand behind my neck and pressed a searing kiss to my lips. It was hard, and so fast that my cunny didn’t pulse with the thrill of it until after he’d released me and danced far out of the reach of Fenwig’s blade. He saluted me with one hand and gave me a jaunty grin. “As you know, my lady, I pride myself on being an honorable dishonorable man.”

  As I watched him saunter off, all narrow hips and broad shoulders, my cunny gave a petulant pulse at being denied him. I was nearly as disappointed as Jax that we’d never finished what we started.

  And I tucked away the knowledge that there was a pirate who felt himself in my debt.

  Traveling by road would have been faster. A string of galleys being slowly rowed up the Garumna was, however, more elegant, less dusty, and easier on the bones of Sidonius Apollinaris, whose acquaintance I had only made in between his bouts of violent sneezing and calls for hot water with honey. The man had a cold, and in the past four days I had only caught glimpses of him on one of the other galleys. He had a gangly figure with a shock of straight white hair falling over his brow, and a sneeze that startled birds from their nests.

  The languid days on the river left me too much time both for worrying about how I would persuade Alaric to hand over Sygarius, and for missing Theo. Thoughts of him were both a balm and a torture, and either way a motivation to complete my business in Tolosa as quickly as possible so that I could return to him.

  I was glad I’d brought my cithara. I sat with it now in the stern of the galley, under an awning of roughly woven cloth, through which pinpoints of sunlight shone like stars in the night sky. Bone snored, stretched out near my feet; Terix did the same on a bench against the rail. The rhythmic splash of the oars and the dull creak of the oarlocks had become as familiar as the beating of my heart. With the rowers setting the pace, I set my fingers to the cithara strings and began to pick out a melody as calm and cool as the green waters flowing slowly past our hull.

  I lost myself in the playing, as I had hoped I would, and for a while I could forget who and where I was, and what lay ahead. A vision of how to deal with Alaric would have been helpful, but my golden swarm was hiding this afternoon, and no visions came. For today, the music had to be enough.

  So deep into my playing was I, it wasn’t until I paused to stretch my back and heard a slow, strong clapping that I raised my eyes to find that Sidonius Apollinaris had somehow come aboard, and was applauding me with warm appreciation in his sky-blue eyes. He sat sprawled amid cushions on the bench opposite Terix (now awake, a goblet of wine in hand), his back against the cabin bulkhead, one elbow over the rail, one long leg stretched out so that his foot nearly touched me. His other foot was on the deck to hold him and his flagon of wine in place. For a Christian bishop, he looked decidedly loose and free, and nothing at all like prim Remigius.

  “Delightful, my dear. I haven’t heard such magic coaxed from the cithara since a particularly luxurious party thirty years ago, given by senator Ontarius at his villa outside Rome. And even then, I don’t think the kitharede—that is, the cithara player, do pardon my Greek—had quite your expressive touch and creativity.”

  I felt my cheeks heating at the effusive compliment. I’d been praised before for my playing, but never by anyone who had likely heard the best that Rome had had to offer. “Than
k you.” Ducking my face, I rubbed my finger along the edge of the cithara and then set it aside, too self-conscious now to continue. I peeked up at him from under my brows. “You seem to have recovered from your illness.”

  “Foul, pesky things, colds are. I blame travel. I love to see new places and visit old friends—or to visit old, familiar places and make new friends—but the getting there is a misery. Wine”—he lifted his glass—“and good music played by an angel make it more bearable, however.”

  “What’s an angel?” Terix asked, saving me the trouble of pretending to know what the man was talking about.

  “A heavenly being, an attendant to God our Father,” Sidonius said, then nodded toward me. “But for us earthly beings, an angel can be a beauty such as this one.”

  I saw a spark of male appreciation in the bishop’s eyes, but got the sense that it was more an aesthetic pleasure than a sexual, coveting one. He looked to be about seventy years of age, but still vigorous; I wondered whether he was celibate, like Remigius.

  There was an empty goblet next to the flagon; Terix filled it with wine and handed it my way. “You’ve been to Tolosa before?” he asked the bishop as he resumed his seat. “You’ve dealt with the Visigoths?”

  “Many decades ago, I spent time at their court. I may have had my arguments with them over the years, but on the whole they strike me as a surprisingly civilized people: they are eager to maintain peace. They abhor nothing so much as war and disorder, which is a trait one does not often see in this world.”

  “I wonder, then, why they have not returned Sygarius to Clovis,” I said. “Doing so would seem the less confrontational choice.”

  “Perhaps not from Alaric’s point of view.”

  “And from yours?” I asked.

  “I am old and wise enough not to have an opinion. Yet.”

  I cocked my head.