The Adventures of a Roman Slave

by Lisa Cach

  As my fingers began to play as if of their own volition, so, too, the song’s images in my head began to change as if by their own wish. It was like watching a dream unfold, a dream where I knew I was asleep and could nudge events where I wished but was content to let it go where it would.

  Faintly, almost beneath the threshold of hearing, my golden swarm began to beat its wings. Their sound was so weak I had a sudden fear that they might never again rise up to sweep me away. I silently tried to coax them back to life, encouraging them, sending them my love and warmth.

  One by one, the gleaming spots of gold entered into my imagining of the song. I sang of Wynnetha crossing through a flower meadow, dressed in the finest silk, her hair caressed by the breeze (I went on for two verses on the shining length of it), going toward her bridegroom. The bees of my swarm flitted from flower to flower, shimmering in the sunlight. They were too few to sweep me away, but their presence gave me hope. These survivors, at least, had not been lost to Maerlin; maybe there were more, still slumbering.

  My attention was so closely focused on the bees I barely noticed when my song shifted, the blossoms of a wild cherry tree turning to cherries crushed beneath Wynnetha’s dainty slippers, the juices running dark as blood. The cherries in turn became chunks of flesh, with bones that crunched like eggshells beneath her feet. Red seeped up the hem of her gown, and still she walked on.

  Ahead of Wynnetha stood an enormous iron cauldron, as high as her hip. On the other side of it were Mordred and Arthur. She stopped before it and asked the men, “Whom does the cauldron serve?”

  Mordred turned his back and walked away.

  Arthur held out his hand, over the maw of the cauldron. “It serves she who feeds it.”

  Wynnetha took his hand and with his help climbed into the cauldron and disappeared into its depths. Arthur backed away, then vanished. The cauldron stood alone in the sunshine.

  I thrummed the cithara’s strings, the same chords again and again, waiting to see what would happen.

  A golden bee landed on the edge of the cauldron. A crack appeared beneath it and, with a snapping sound, ran down the iron. Blood spurted from the crack, and the cauldron split in half, collapsing to either side as it released its gory flood.

  Between the empty halves of the cauldron lay a clear green stone, as large and smooth as a duck egg. The sunlight struck it, and golden light shot out, blinding me, and the hum of bees filled my head for one deafening, overwhelming, soul-loosening moment.

  Then it was gone—the green stone, the light, the hum. I was sitting and looking at a circle of unhappy faces. Wynnetha was red with rage, Mordred scowled in confusion, Horsa looked as if he’d missed the punch line of a joke, and Arthur looked like a man who’d been forced to trade his favorite horse for a bag of onions. Only Maerlin looked happy, and it was an unnatural sort of joy—his mouth grinning, while his eyes were lost in some dark internal world—and it made my gut go cold.

  I danced my fingers on the cithara’s strings in a jaunty little trill and called out, “The end!” I gathered my skirts and fled.

  Terix and I snuggled together and whispered to each other as Mordred’s Britons snored and farted around us. Festivities had gone on after my odd musical performance, and I’d allowed myself to believe that most people either hadn’t understood the Latin or would forget the song under the influence of drink and more exciting entertainments.

  I really should refuse to play in public. It created all sorts of problems.

  Or is playing in public part of what brings on the visions? I suddenly wondered. The excitement of having an audience, the tension inside me as I performed, the feel of many eyes upon me. Perhaps it was no coincidence that I saw the future more often when playing before people than I did when alone.

  “What did it mean?” Terix asked me. “Will Wynnetha marry Arthur?”

  “It looks that way, though I can’t believe Mordred would give up so easily.”

  “And the cauldron?” he asked.

  “It might be the crystal chalice.”

  “But why would Wynnetha have it? Why would it serve her?”

  “I don’t know.” And I didn’t like the idea of her using it, gaining power from it. A greedy possessiveness filled me at the thought, a feeling that it was mine, and no one except—maybe—another Phanne should touch it. “And I don’t know what we’re going to do. I don’t want to go anywhere with Maerlin, but . . .”

  “But he knows someone who knows your mother; or at least he says he does.”

  “Maybe Arthur knows who it is. I trust him more than Maerlin.”

  Terix sighed.

  “It’s not like that,” I said, defensive.

  “Really? The man’s so gorgeous even I’m tempted to sleep with him.”

  I snorted. “I mean that if there’s a chance he’s going to marry Wynnetha, I’m not going to get involved with him. It wouldn’t be good for either of us.” I kept to myself what Arthur had said about our futures being intertwined. Even he’d admitted he didn’t know how that would play out; love and sex might have nothing to do with it.

  Alas.

  “Saying and doing are two different things,” Terix said.

  “I think Arthur is a good man. Maerlin, however, scares the skin off me.”

  “After seeing the damage he did, unarmed, to Fenwig, he scares me, too,” Terix said. He’d taken Daella to treat the big Frankish soldier, though there was little she could do beyond compresses for the ugly bruises and swelling on his face and torso. Nothing was broken except his confidence. Terix said that Fenwig kept repeating, as if seeking absolution for his failure, “He was too fast. I couldn’t see him move.”

  I released a heavy breath. “There’s not really any choice, is there? We have to try to go with Arthur and Maerlin.”

  “There’s Fenwig.” Meaning I could go back to Clovis.

  I shook my head. “I’m not giving up.”

  Terix tightened his arms around me. “Good.”

  It took me half the night to fall asleep, my thoughts going round and round on the vision, on Maerlin, on Mordred and whatever he had planned, but most especially on what Arthur had said to me with such defenseless honesty. It was disconcerting to have not felt the same bolt of certainty that he had. I didn’t count physical attraction; gods knew I felt that often enough.

  I remembered how confused I’d always been by the fact that Clovis had not seemed to feel the same knowing about how our lives would be tied together as I had. How could it strike one person and not the other? What was it that the struck one could see that the other could not?

  It was alluring, a statement like the one Arthur had made. I could feel the temptation to moon over him pulling at me, like a swift current on one’s feet, seeking to knock one over while struggling across a stream to the safe bank on the other side.

  I couldn’t let that happen. For once, I would make my lust bow down before a greater purpose. Find my mother. Find other Phanne. Build and hone my power. I couldn’t see how becoming infatuated with a man who would likely wed another could serve those goals.

  Sleep came at last, and late the next morning, Daella found me sitting on a stone block in the dirt yard in front of the hall, picking ticks off Bone’s hide and dropping them into a cup of ale. The dog gave me heavy-eyed looks of persecution but endured my plucking with deep sighs. Terix was playing a game with some children that involved kicking a stuffed sack and lots of happy shrieking.

  Daella squatted down next to us, ostensibly to help, but she had a carefully blank look on her face. “Something is happening,” she whispered. “Uern is excited, and Mordred gives orders.”

  “Do you know what it is?” I asked under my breath. I’d learned that Daella used her bland appearance to her advantage, sitting quietly with her face averted until people forgot she was near. They didn’t know that her ears were open and
that with her sharp mind and quick perception, she often understood what people were saying even when they spoke an unfamiliar language. She was a natural-born spy.

  “It’s about you; that’s all I know. And Mordred leaves soon, back to Tannet Fortress.”

  “Has Horsa decided, then, on a bridegroom for Wynnetha?” My heart pounded, thinking of Arthur.

  “I don’t know. Tomorrow is the irminsul.”

  “The what?”

  Her mouth quirked, and she shrugged. “Saxon thing. Sacrifices and . . . a big tree trunk or log. I don’t know. Part of Blood Month.”

  “Do Arthur and Maerlin leave soon, too?”

  “They keep their lips closed.”

  Her way of saying that they didn’t signal their intent like bonfires on a ridgeline, the way Mordred did.

  “Uh-oh,” Daella said, her eyes looking up as a shadow fell upon us.

  Uern glowered down at me, his finger pointing. “Amm-petter.”

  I wrinkled my brow.

  Daella questioned him in Brittonic, then turned to me, a muscle twitching in her cheek. “He means the amphitheater,” she said. “You must go there. Now.”

  Terix had noticed Uern’s arrival and came to stand behind me.

  Uern pointed at him, too. “Amm-petter.” A word he’d apparently never spoken before today.

  I remembered Maerlin’s comment that Mordred would be watching to see if Maerlin cared about me, before he sprang his trap. Perhaps that kiss atop the amphitheater wall had been the sign Mordred was waiting for. Whatever Mordred had been planning, the time had arrived to put it in motion.

  Uern made Daella stay behind with Bone, and Terix and I followed his swaggering form through the town and out to the amphitheater. Terix held my hand, squeezing it now and then to give me reassurance. I squeezed back; we were in this together, whatever this was. My curiosity was as great as my tension, and whatever thick scheme Mordred had thought up, at least we would no longer be crammed into that filthy, smoky great hall, waiting to find out.

  The amphitheater was empty, except for about twenty sheep grazing on the terraces. Uern urged us to the center of it, and we stood and waited. And waited. Just when my imagination was beginning to go wild and think he’d brought us there to kill us without witnesses, Maerlin and Arthur entered, ran their eyes around the sheep-dotted terraces, then came to stand a short distance from us, silent. I sent a questioning look to Arthur, but he avoided my gaze, his expression stern. Maerlin, on the other hand, was bright and happy as a bird, bouncing on the balls of his feet. I expected him to start whistling.

  There was nothing like making others wait to show your desperate need for crumbs of power. I was wondering if I had time to go find a bush to relieve myself behind when Mordred finally sauntered in, his mustache in full fluff. He made a show of inviting Arthur and Maerlin to sit on one of the grassy terraces, as if he owned them himself. He nodded his head in patronizing acceptance when they declined. I noticed that Terix and I weren’t invited to sit; not that I wanted to, with the pebbly black sheep dung everywhere.

  Maerlin had stopped bouncing with Mordred’s arrival, but I sensed that he was poised on the balls of his feet, vibrating with anticipation.

  Mordred laid his meaty hand on my shoulder and grinned, his square teeth showing under the thatch of his upper lip like a row of shuttered windows under the eaves of a house. “I bring you to Maerlin, as I say. I am a man of honor.”

  “So you did. Thank you.”

  “He is a man of your tribe, yes?”

  I nodded.

  “He is family?”

  I waggled my head back and forth. “Probably.”

  “Far family, blood not too close.” He leered at me, and I knew Uern had reported Maerlin’s kiss.

  Mordred suddenly spun me around, grabbed me around the waist, and hoisted, forcing me to bend over as he lifted me off the ground. I shrieked in surprise and alarm; from the corner of my vision, I saw Uern grab hold of Terix’s arms from behind. I flailed, there was a jerk at my skirts, and I felt the cool air on my backside.

  “She has your marks,” Mordred said.

  Furious, I got hold of Mordred’s breeches, pulled my head closer, and bit the back of his calf. He gave a gratifying yelp, then smacked my bare flesh.

  I bit him again and wrenched like a wolf tearing meat.

  He shouted indecipherable curses and dropped me. I landed on all fours on the soft ground, then flipped around to conceal my body, pulling down my skirts. It wasn’t modesty that had me covering myself but outrage at the manner in which I’d been displayed. I would have freely shown the tattoos to anyone, even to Maerlin, if I’d been asked.

  “And now you have her mark on you,” Maerlin said, as Mordred rubbed his leg.

  Uern released Terix, and he rushed to help me up. I wiped my muddy hands on my skirt and assured Terix that I was fine.

  “She is like you,” Mordred said to Maerlin. “She does strange things with sex. Maybe she sees the future, too. There are not many like her anymore, maybe none like her—young, pretty. And with magic.”

  “Her type is rare,” Maerlin agreed.

  “I offer her to you.” Mordred flicked his eyes to Terix. “And her husband.”

  “In exchange for?”

  “Wynnetha. Arthur does not marry her. You all go back to Corinium and leave Calleva to me.”

  Ah, so this was the deal Mordred had planned. It was one of the possibilities I’d thought of but dismissed as unfeasible. I knew already where I ranked when political marriages were at stake. Still, I couldn’t help but listen wide-eyed for their response, hoping that Maerlin and Arthur would surprise me.

  Maerlin put a bent finger to his lower lip as if to ponder. “An interesting idea. What do you think, Arthur?”

  Arthur’s face was stiff, no emotion showing. Was this how he behaved when talking with Wynnetha? Where were the warmth and humor? No wonder she preferred Mordred, if this was who she thought he was. “I swore to marry Wynnetha, if she would have me.”

  Maerlin shrugged in apology to Mordred. “So you see, it’s impossible to accept your offer.”

  I had expected nothing different, and yet I felt let down. I had no time to dwell on my disappointment, however, for a moment later, Mordred grunted and grabbed me again, this time holding me in front of him, my back pressed up against his torso. He caught both my wrists in one broad hand. I fought him, but it was like fighting an oak tree. “Then I keep her for myself. How do you like that?” He bent his head down to lick my ear.

  “I don’t like it!” I said, kicking at him with my heels.

  Terix lunged for us and was knocked down by Uern. The two rolled across the ground, fists thudding.

  “I have my own druid,” Mordred went on, ignoring both the fighting men and my struggles. “Ambrosius is not the only Briton with magic under his thumb.” He flicked my nipple to emphasize his point.

  Something like amusement flickered in Maerlin’s eyes, echoed by a twitch of Arthur’s lips. Anger steamed inside me. They thought this funny?

  I felt Mordred go rigid behind me, and a deep, controlled voice said, “Take your hands off her.”

  Mordred did, and I sprang away, turning to see Fenwig with his short sword at Mordred’s throat. Ah, so that was the source of their amusement.

  “The lady is not yours to bargain with,” Fenwig said in Latin. Like many Frankish soldiers under Clovis’s father, Childeric, he had fought as a hired soldier for the Romans and spoke the language fluently.

  “Uern!” Mordred snapped, but Uern was busy having his face pushed into the mud by Terix. To Fenwig, Mordred said, “We are all here to speak in peace. Put down your blade.”

  Fenwig glanced at Arthur, got a nod, and lowered his sword from Mordred’s neck, though he came around to stand beside me with it at the ready.

  “The lady
,” Mordred said with mocking emphasis, “is my prisoner. I do as I wish with her. Who are you to say otherwise? What rights do you have?”

  Don’t say it, Fenwig, I silently urged.

  Fenwig stood tall. “I am Fenwig of the Franks, here on the orders of Clovis, king of all the Franks and of northern Gaul. This woman belongs to him.”

  He’d said it.

  Ah, well. I wasn’t about to contradict Fenwig. If Maerlin and Arthur weren’t going to lay claim to me, maybe I’d be better off under the protection of Clovis’s name—at least for the moment.

  Mordred scowled in disbelief. “Clovis?”

  I felt a certain satisfaction at his shock. Clovis’s fame had reached this misty shore, as well it should. Gaul was only a short sea journey away and the closest neighbor to this part of Britannia. I had heard that on a clear day, it was possible to see Gaul from the southern cliffs. One would not wish to look across that water and into the eyes of an enemy.

  “What is she to the Franks?” Mordred asked.

  “My lady Nimia is the king’s lover and the mother of his heir.”

  Mordred’s scowl deepened, and he turned to look at Terix, now sitting panting in the mud, blood dripping from his nose. Uern was slowly rolling over, his face blotched with dirt, a cut over one brow. “Her husband?”

  Fenwig made a noise of disgust. “Don’t be stupid. She belongs only to Clovis.”

  Maybe it was the sneering noise; maybe it was being called stupid. Maybe it was the failure of his flaccid little plot and discovering that he’d been lied to about our identities. Whatever it was, Mordred’s face turned an ugly shade of purple.

  “Then let Clovis come with his army and take her.”

  The matter did not rest there. We were on Saxon land, and we were the guests of a man who had intended this gathering to ensure peace and safety for his people, not foment a war.

  Maerlin suggested we lay the situation before Horsa, and Fenwig could not do otherwise than agree. Without Arthur and his men on his side, Fenwig was one man against Mordred’s many. Those were odds no soldier still living would take.