by Lisa Cach
“Nimia, don’t you know? You could make balls grow on a tree.”
I felt him hardening against my buttocks, and he slid his fingertip into the tight space at the apex of my thighs. I wasn’t in the mood but didn’t stop him; maybe my body would wake up to his touch and distract me from my bleak thoughts.
“I thought you’d be upset that I slept with him,” I said.
“I was. Fenwig was emphatic that there was no other way, though; that if you hadn’t seduced Alaric, Sygarius would still be in Tolosa. Besides.” He shifted my upper leg, pushing his knee beneath it to give his hand more room to play with my folds.
“Besides?” My mood was no better, but my cunny didn’t care. Even his half-drunken fondling was enough to stir my desires. The clumsiness of it was a tease, making my hips move in hopes of catching a moment of pleasure from his fingers.
“You came back to me.” He dipped his fingertip inside my gates, and sighed at the wetness he found there. He swirled it over my entrance. “Like you always do. As you always will.” He guided his shaft to my gates and thrust his way in.
I wasn’t fully ready, and whimpered at the intrusion, even as I enjoyed the tight discomfort of it. He felt inescapably large when I was only half aroused, and I savored his first few thrusts with their semi-rough friction. Slickness came soon enough, and my passage opened to more easily accept him.
“You’ll never leave me,” he said, pumping into me. “You’re mine.”
The pleasure that had been building inside me died at those words. He didn’t notice, and I squeezed my inner muscles to force him to his release. He groaned in my ear and came, calling my name, clenching my breast in one hand. I felt his heart thudding against my back as his rod pulsed within me.
“I am no man’s,” I whispered into the darkness. “I am my own.”
It was as much a complaint as it was a declaration. Clovis didn’t hear it, his ears filled with the thrumming of his spent desire.
I rolled to face him before he could fall asleep, and plucked a chest hair to get his attention. “Did Fenwig tell you what happened at the Temple of Mars?”
“Crazy.”
I plucked another hair.
“Ow! Yes, he told me. I wouldn’t have believed it, except there were so many who saw the same thing.”
“What do you think of it?”
“I think it’s hysterically funny that the Visigoths think you’re a saint.” He chuckled. “Ah, gods, Nimia. With you at my side, I could conquer the world. You’re the armies of Hannibal, Alexander, and Julius Caesar combined, all hidden inside a small, sweet wench with a magic cunny.”
I gripped several hairs and tugged, hard.
“Ow, hey! What was that for?”
“Sygarius cut my throat. Does that not matter to you?”
“Fenwig and his men failed in their duty to protect you. Fenwig’s lucky to still be drawing breath.”
“So am I, Clovis—I almost died.”
He put his hands to either side of my cheeks and looked into my eyes, then kissed me tenderly. “You didn’t die, thanks to whatever powers of sorcery you possess. Forgive me for speaking lightly of it, Nimia. I can’t bear to think deeply on it. If I did, I couldn’t let you decide what to do with Sygarius, for fear that you’d be too kind.”
“You agree I have the right to choose his fate.”
He nodded, though it looked to pain him to do so. “Don’t disappoint me.”
I settled down against his side, my hand on his chest, my head resting on his shoulder. “Forgive me, Clovis,” I said after he had drifted off to sleep. “Your wishes will play no part in this choice.”
As mine played no part in his, concerning his marriage or my child.
Now, this morning, I stood before Sygarius, my former slave master. The man who had tried to force a child into my womb. The man who had murdered me.
Also the man who had taught me desire. Who had shown me the powers of sensuality, and not to fear them. The man who had wanted to both free me and make me his queen.
Sygarius said something to the Frank who stood guard beside him. The Frank looked to me, then trotted over to Clovis. A brief discussion, then Clovis spoke softly to me. “He wants to talk to you.”
I nodded. “Let everyone stay back.” I wanted these last words, whatever they were, to be private.
I crossed the stones to where Sygarius knelt, then sank down to my knees in front of him. He had been conquered; there was no need to stand over him. I did not care if the Franks around us thought otherwise.
A flicker of emotion went over his face, an appreciation of the gesture.
“What would you say to me?” I asked softly.
“That you were right, Nimia. You were never mine. I see now that from the very beginning, I was yours.”
I blinked, and felt a sting of tears. “What do you mean?”
“From the first moment I saw you, amid the prisoners taken from that Goth tribe, I was your slave. You wore the gold torc I put upon you, but it was my soul that was captured. Every limit placed on you was an attempt to free myself from your power over me. I looked at you and only let myself see a slave, because I could not bear to look at you and see my master.”
“I never ruled over you.”
“Nimia, I have neither time nor use for illusions. I saw in you what I needed to see. Just as you now see what you wish to see.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are greater than this, little bird.” He tilted his head toward the Franks around us. “You are greater than he.” His eyes flicked to Clovis. “Do not let him clip your wings. Fly free of this place. You were meant for more.”
“Why do you tell me this?”
His gaze was soft on mine. “Nimia. Have you not heard me? My heart has been yours since the beginning. And now we have come to the end.”
A tear spilled down my cheek. I wiped it away, disbelieving that I wept for him, yet knowing that I could do nothing but. He was part of me. He had helped shape me into who I was today. “I have nowhere to go,” I whispered.
“There’s a whole world you’ve yet to experience. You are not yet all that you will become, Nimia. Your future lies out there. You won’t learn what you need to if you stay here.”
After a moment, I nodded. “My people. The Phanne. They can teach me what these powers are that I possess.”
“Find them.” He smiled crookedly. “The final wish of a dying man.”
“You’re not just saying all this to take me away from Clovis?”
His smiled widened. “That, too.”
I laughed, and rubbed tears from my cheeks.
“Fly free, little bird.”
I nodded, and rose. I went to Clovis and took from his hand a sharp short sword, then returned to Sygarius and held it out to him, hilt first.
His eyes flashed his gratitude.
I turned my back. I could not watch as he took his own life.
I stood upon a knoll in the middle of a vast grassy plain, desolate with loss. Where my soul had been, there was only emptiness. I lowered my heavy satchel to the ground, careful of the chalice within, and then sank to the earth.
I recognized this place. I had seen it in a vision. I had not known then what losses it foretold; I would not have believed it if I had been shown.
My child, taken from me.
My lover, to marry another.
And Sygarius, the man I should hate above all others, had at last seen me for myself, and urged me to fly to greater heights than he would live to see.
After his death, I had moved as if possessed by the spirit of another, gathering a few precious items and then leaving Soissons on foot, with no word to anyone. I felt a ghost of myself, drifting on the breeze, though always north.
Emptiness flowed through me, and I let it. Sidonius Apollinaris
had spoken to me of the value of hope, and I understood him now, for I had none. I did not know how I would go any further toward a goal that seemed to have no meaning.
What did expanding my powers matter, when I had no one? What did anything matter?
I don’t know how long I sat upon the cool earth. An ant crawled over my foot and I watched it, not bothering to brush it away.
And then came a sound in the distance: a baying howl.
I raised my head. The sunlight glared in my eyes, and I put my hand to my forehead, shielding my view. A rider on horseback, leading a second mount; both followed a gigantic hound.
The heart that had been dead inside me thumped back to life.
Bone reached me first, bowling me over, pinning my chest under one immense paw as he slobbered all over my face. I laughed and groaned and batted him away, and by the time I struggled onto my feet and away from his messy affection, Terix was sliding off the back of his horse.
He swept me into his arms without a word, holding me so tight I couldn’t breathe. When at last his grip loosened, it was only to shake me. “Don’t do that, Nimia! You know that every time you run away, we have to go together. Jupiter’s balls, what were you thinking, leaving me alone with the Franks? You think I like those people?”
“I wasn’t thinking,” I said, snuffling back tears.
“Obviously.”
“Did you steal those horses?”
“Depends on what you mean by ‘steal.’ Clovis thinks I’m fetching you back.”
“You aren’t, are you?”
He kissed me on the lips, then shoved me toward the second horse. “What do you think? I packed your cithara, and food. You never consider food when you leave, do you? I may have stolen a few gold goblets, too.”
Terix tried to boost me up into the saddle, but I was laughing too hard. He scolded me until I behaved and he could throw me up there, then climbed onto his own mount. “Where are we going, anyway?” he asked.
“I was thinking Britannia.”
“Better late than never. Are we done with the Franks, then?”
“Not forever; I don’t intend to live out my life without ever seeing my son again. But for now, I think it’s for the best.”
“Good.” Terix glanced at the sky to get his sense of direction, then kicked his horse and we were on our way. “I hope the girls in Britannia are pretty,” he said, “and horny.”
And as easy as that, hope was born anew.
To Clark, for his unending encouragement and support
A naked woman will calm rough seas.
—Pliny
Frigid water splashed my face, jolting me awake. I wiped the spray from my eyes with frozen hands and tasted salt on my lips. Waves that had been high as my waist before I dozed off were now above my head, the bow of the open boat smashing against them and sending sprays of water back upon us.
“A storm is rising,” Terix said, glancing up at the darkening skies. He huddled beside me against the boat’s side, wrapped in a woolen cloak that had been sodden since we left the coast of Gaul eight days ago. His freckles stood out against the pallor of his skin; he’d been seasick for those eight days, too. “Neptune must hate me.”
“You should take it as a compliment.”
“Eh?” His weary eyes looked at me in question, the shadows beneath them deep gray. He needed dry land beneath his feet and a warm bed. I’d never seen him this drained of life, his usual spark smothered by the endless rolling of the sea—and of his gut.
“It’s envy,” I said, trying to cheer him. “Neptune knows what an enormous cock you have, and he wants it shrunken with misery as long as Salacia is near, lest she be tempted to ravish you.” Salacia was Neptune’s wife, according to the Romans, and goddess of salt waters.
A muscle flicked in his cheek, as close as he could come to a smile.
I dug my arm through his and held it close, still surprised at how much larger than me Terix had become. As children, we’d been the same height; now he was more than a head taller, and his arm was as thick as my leg. I felt like a child next to him, as if the gods had forgotten to let me grow. “You can’t succumb to Neptune’s jealous plot and be miserable,” I said. “I’m the only one allowed to sink into black funks. You know that. Who will tease me out of them, if not you?”
“I cede the task to Bone.”
I looked at the red-furred mastiff lolling in the stern. He rolled a bleary brown eye at me, foaming drool dripping from his dewlaps. If there’d ever been a question of whether a dog could be seasick, we had our answer.
The rest of the crew looked depressingly hearty as they manned the steering board, adjusted the trim of the sail, bailed the bilge waters, and even—with great care lest the charcoal escape and set fire to timbers, rope, or cargo—tended a steaming kettle of fish and turnips that would be our dinner. The cold that stiffened my hands had no effect on the men; they worked bare-chested, sinews moving like snakes beneath their sun-leathered skin. I often caught their eyes, speculative, on me, yet they kept their distance, abiding by their captain’s orders.
“I owe this lady my life,” Jax had told his sailors, who might or might not be pirates. “She warned me of a betrayal and saved my back from the plunge of a knife. You will treat her well.”
That debt, incurred more than two years past, had paid our passage to Britannia. The crew hadn’t been happy to carry passengers, and there’d been some trouble about a woman who usually sailed with them, who hadn’t wanted another female aboard and so refused to come with us. Jax had shrugged his shoulders and left her on the dock, her lips parted in surprise at being abandoned. Given her ripe looks and the crew’s answering dismay, I guessed she was a favorite whore. I was sorry for their loss but not sorry enough either to give up the voyage or to offer myself as their plaything in her stead.
Not so long ago, I might have enjoyed feeling their eager hands on my skin, but something had broken inside me when I fled Soissons a month ago, and now the thought of being touched by a man left me hollow. What was the point of it? I’d lost my infant son, Theo, to the Franks; I’d brought a man I both hated and adored to his death; and I’d rejected my lover, Clovis, because he wanted to use me more than he wanted to love me. Pride and self-preservation alone hadn’t given me the strength to tear myself away from him, but the pain of losing contact with Theo had.
And though I hated to admit it, Sygarius had given me the strength, too. He’d urged me to fly free and become what I was meant to be. He had done so from the gates of death, and I trusted the words of a man in such a place.
Jax nimbly darted between lashed cargo, crewmen, and the wood slats that served as benches, landing barefoot beside us, his toes spread and clinging to the damp wood like a salamander’s. “Go to the stern,” he ordered, a note of worry in his tone that I’d never heard before. “We must cover the boat before the storm hits.”
Quick and graceful as a fox, Jax had a feral confidence that was as dangerous as it was reassuring. Nothing scared him, so hearing the hint of alarm in his voice now sent a bolt of fear through me. “How bad will this storm be?” I asked.
“Bad enough.” He flashed a grin at me, his teeth white in the growing darkness. Wind thrashed his black hair, plastering tendrils across his cheek and brow. “If I ask your help, Nimia, will you give it?”
“Of course.”
“As will I,” Terix said as he and I struggled onto our feet, gripping the gunwale to keep our balance.
Jax’s grin turned wry. “This will be a woman’s work, my friend. I hope not to need it, but . . .” He cast his eyes to the horizon, where the gray wall of a squall was sweeping toward us. “The sea goddess will have her way.” He went forward to help his men.
Terix and I stumbled to the stern, trying to keep out of the way of the sailors lashing down oiled canvas covers that stretched from gunwale to gunwale. They eyed me a
s I went by, accusation in their glares. “They look as if they blame me for the storm,” I whispered to Terix as we settled in next to Bone.
“Sailors are known to be superstitious about women on board.”
“That can’t be, since they usually sail with one. And the carvings don’t speak to any such fear.” The prow of the boat was carved in the shape of a naked woman, her spread arms reaching backward along the gunwales, her legs parting at the waterline. The carefully sculpted folds of her sex were laved by the water with every plunge of the prow into the sea.
“Maybe they’re angry to be here. If not for you, they wouldn’t be this far west.” The eastern half of Britannia was well known to Jax and his crew, who traded with (or plundered?) the Saxons regularly. We’d stopped in three of their tiny ports—mere piers along marshy riverbanks—for Jax to ask what they knew of Maerlin. Maerlin was the man of my tribe, the Phanne, whom Clovis had met several years before and who had told Clovis to remember their meeting. For if he did, he’d said, “We shall both find that which we seek.”
Did Maerlin seek me as I sought him? He was the only thread I knew to follow to find my mother, if she still lived, and to learn more about the strange powers that were erupting inside me, which I was certain were tied to my tribe.
Maerlin loomed large in my imagination, but none of the Saxons had heard of him. I’d nearly given up hope when Jax finally uncovered a scrap of information in the third port. A woman remembered gossip she dared not repeat, about a young man with spiral tattoos who’d paid for lodging in a widow’s home for a night. It had been on a farm inland, some eight or so years before. He was thought to be a Briton, from the west. She remembered only because the rumors had been so wild, so warped, and whispered from woman to woman.
“She blushed when she told me,” Jax had said, looking at me with a question in his eyes. “And she wasn’t the sort of woman to blush.”
I’d put my hands out, palms up. “I’ve never met him. I have no idea what he did with the widow. Or to her.” Though I wondered; and I also wondered if the ravenous sexual hunger that used to haunt me, and had gotten me into so much trouble, was tied to being of the Phanne.
