Celtic Fire

by Joy Nash

  The pair disappeared through yet another doorway. Rhiannon eased off the bench and onto the ground, renewing her efforts to free the betony from the grip of the weeds while watching the portal for Cormac’s return. Now that she’d found him, it was possible she would escape the fort before the day was out.

  She’d finished weeding the first garden bed and had moved to a second before he reappeared. Rhiannon nearly jumped out of her skin when Cormac crept around one of the columns lining the edge of the courtyard and whispered her name. Though she’d been watching, she hadn’t seen his approach. He carried a large wooden bucket in his hands.

  “Ye must get me away,” she said.

  “How is your leg?”

  “Better.”

  He eyed her speculatively. “And the Roman? Has he bedded ye yet?”

  Rhiannon nearly choked. “No! Nor will he, if ye get me free of these walls before nightfall.”

  “I’ve sent word of yer capture to Edmyg.” His tone turned mocking. “I await my noble chieftain’s instruction.”

  “Instruction? Are ye daft? He’ll be telling ye to bring me home.”

  Cormac flicked one sausage finger in a dismissive gesture. “ ’Tis not possible for ye to leave this day.”

  “Then when?”

  He shot a glance across the courtyard. “Lower yer voice, woman. The entire household will be hearing ye.”

  Rhiannon grasped a particularly stubborn weed and gave it a sharp tug. “I must get out of here,” she said through clenched teeth. “Now.”

  He lifted his bucket and approached the fountain, brushing Rhiannon’s arm as he passed. “The guard at the gates has been doubled. Every Celt who approaches is questioned at length. I’m able to pass only because I assist the Roman cook in her endless quest for fresh vegetables.”

  “Smuggle me in a cart, then.”

  “A fine plan, sister, if my sacks were nay empty on the way out.”

  Rhiannon smothered a sound of frustration. “There must be another way.”

  “I might persuade the village laundress to claim ye as her assistant. But nay until the guard is lightened.”

  “How long before ’tis safe to try?”

  “No telling.” He hopped up on the low wall surrounding the fountain and slid his bucket under the stream of clear water that spouted from the mouth of a fish. “Perhaps in a sennight if my idiot brother lies low and doesna provoke the Romans further. Ye’ll have to make the best of it ’til then.”

  Rhiannon’s heart gave a strange shudder. She was sure Lucius’s careful politeness would not last seven more nights. He’d said he wouldn’t force her to his bed, but he was a man, after all, and she had seen the heat in his eyes. And, to her shame, had felt her own body warm in response.

  She watched water bubble over the rim of Cormac’s bucket. “A spring within walls,” she said, trying to turn her thoughts from Lucius. “A splendid convenience.”

  “No spring,” said Cormac, scuttling back to the ground. He lifted the full bucket as if it weighed nothing. “This water’s diverted from the burn.”

  “The burn that runs through the valley below the fort?” Rhiannon could not hide her amazement. “Are the Romans so powerful that they command water to run uphill?”

  Cormac shrugged. “I ken not how the dogs manage it.” He nodded toward the chamber into which he had carried the firewood. “But beyond that door the stream runs through their bathing rooms and latrine.”

  “They bathe within the house?” Rhiannon couldn’t fathom it. She washed in a clear lake under the sky. Did Romans enclose their entire existence with flat walls?

  “Aye, in a great pool of steaming water. Even the slaves are permitted—nay, required—to make use of it one day out of thirty.”

  Rhiannon imagined floating in such a cushion of warmth. Like a babe not yet born, surrounded by the waters of its mother’s body. Surely even the goddesses of Annwyn did not know such luxury.

  The door to the baths squeaked open a bit. Cormac caught Rhiannon’s wrist and drew her down behind one of the thorn bushes. “Tribune Vetus emerges from his bath at last. Have ye seen him?”

  Rhiannon shook her head.

  “He passed the entire winter with his arse submerged.” Cormac snorted. “No Roman lady could be finer.”

  He fell silent as Vetus emerged from the bathing room. A billow of perfumed steam followed him. A dark man, shorter than Lucius, with features far less handsome. He wore the crimson tunic of a Roman soldier, but moved with a graceful gait more suited to a woman. His short black hair, slicked with moisture, clung to his scalp. His chin was as smooth as a babe’s. As she watched, the tribune glided to the corner of the courtyard and disappeared up the stairs.

  “Hardly a man at all,” Cormac said, spitting into a flowerbed. “ ’Tis to be wondered why his cock doesna shrivel and fall off.”

  “The First Cohort of Tungrians is a disgrace to its standard.” Lucius placed his palms on the scarred desk in his office and leaned forward, fixing Aulus with a scowl designed to bring him to his ghostly knees.

  Aulus responded by glancing down and rearranging the folds of his toga.

  Lucius’s ire rose. He’d spent the better part of the day inspecting his brother’s miserable troops, an activity that had left him disinclined to cater to the moods of a dead man. “If you were standing here in the flesh, I would throttle you.”

  Aulus made a rude gesture.

  Lucius swore. “I’m sorry I ever wrote the recommendation that got you this command. I was a fool. I’d thought your years in Egypt had made a man of you.” He rounded the desk, advancing on Aulus. “I was mistaken. You failed in your duty to Vindolanda.”

  Aulus sent him a look of reproach along with an icy chill that stopped Lucius in his tracks. “Oh, I’m well aware you’re dead,” he said, disgusted. “But the fact remains that a disciplined garrison would not have fallen apart in six months.” He gave his brother a wide berth and strode out of the chamber.

  He halted in the headquarters’ courtyard and looked back. “You should have made training your first priority.”

  Aulus rolled his eyes toward the gray sky, which at the moment was fading into a mottled dusk. His pale lips compressed in an unrepentant line. Lucius could almost hear his brother berating him for his obsession with discipline. Jupiter knew he’d heard the lecture often enough when Aulus was alive.

  He exited the headquarters building, drawing an inquisitive look from the sentry. The first torches were sparking to life on the high battlement above the west gate. “At least my love of order has kept me breathing,” he muttered. “Which is more than I can say for you. If you’d had a care for something other than fantasy and roses, you might be alive rather than rotting in a fort cemetery on the edge of the Empire.”

  The words had no sooner left his lips than Lucius wished them unsaid. Aulus’s expression had gone hollow, his eyes bleak. His fingers worried the purple stripe on the edge of his toga.

  Lucius halted at the door to his residence and braced his arm on the cold wood, a fierce wave of loss breaking over him. The pale figure tormenting him wasn’t Aulus. Aulus was dead. Gone. But until his shade was banished, Lucius would not be able to mourn. His arm began to shake.

  “Commander?”

  Lucius whirled about. Gaius Brennus stood a few paces away, eyeing him curiously.

  “Is there a problem, Quartermaster?”

  “I thought to ask the same of you, sir.”

  Lucius waited a beat, until Brennus looked away. “The difficulty lies entirely with your troops,” he said succinctly. “They are a disgrace. I expect to see every able-bodied man—save those on sentry duty—mustered on the parade grounds at cockcrow. In full battle dress.”

  “Yes, sir.” Brennus pivoted and took a step toward the barracks.

  Lucius’s brows shot up. No soldier in the Legions would turn his back on a senior officer. He cleared his throat. “Quartermaster. You have not been dismissed.”

  Brennus
halted. “Your pardon, sir.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow at dawn, soldier. Clean your armor before then.”

  The quartermaster’s expression hardened. “As you say, sir.”

  “Dismissed.”

  The sentry at the northern gatehouse called a faint, “All’s well.” After a pause that was a fraction too long, the cry was repeated by the guard at the east gate. Lucius’s hand clenched into a fist, but when he rapped on the door of his residence, the force of his blow was controlled, the sound precise.

  The porter, a lean Celt with an unruly mane of blond hair, admitted him immediately. Lucius gave instructions for a late supper to be laid in the dining room. The man bowed and hastened in the direction of the kitchens.

  Habit prompted Lucius to approach the house altar, where he lifted one of the lares at random and murmured a rote prayer he didn’t believe would be heard. It was only when he replaced the figurine on the stone table that he took a good look at the brass god. An unclothed man in his prime, sporting a grotesquely huge erection.

  “Potency.” Lucius glanced toward Aulus, anticipating his brother’s smirk. A warm wash of air, rather than the chill to which he’d grown accustomed, caressed his skin. The foyer was empty.

  His gaze immediately sought Rhiannon. Did the Celt nymph wield some dark power over the dead? Could she be a witch? The thought unsettled him. She hardly fit the description of such a creature that Horace had given in his Epodes.

  He found her in the courtyard garden. She was sitting on a bench near the fountain, so still she might have been chiseled from marble, save for a wary flicker in her golden eyes. He drew closer, removing his helmet and abandoning it at the base of a rosebush. Perhaps she would be more at ease if his head was bare.

  She’d tamed her fiery mane into a thick braid that fell over her shoulder to curl at her waist. Lucius much preferred it unbound. He imagined sifting his fingers through the strands and spreading them over her naked body like a curtain of flame. He’d gladly plunge through such a barrier to claim her.

  Never before had a woman stirred Lucius’s lust so completely. Julia had not, and Lucius had wanted his first wife with a rare fervor, even though their marriage had been a political pact arranged by their fathers. Once married, however, he’d found Julia to be spoiled and petulant, more of a girl than a woman. After Marcus was born he’d hardly cared when his wife barred him from her bed. The brief sorrow he’d felt at her death had been purely for his son’s sake.

  The women of the East, in contrast, had been lush and inviting, and knew bedchamber secrets unheard of in Rome, but Lucius had found their docility tiring. Now, faced with this slip of a woman who hadn’t hesitated to put an arrow in his ass, his rod hardened so painfully he feared it would snap. If he slaked his need on her body, would his obsession fade?

  He seated himself beside her on the stone bench. She made no response to his presence.

  “The night falls far later here in the north than it does in Rome,” he said at length.

  She did not answer.

  “Have you eaten this evening?” When she didn’t respond, Lucius sighed and stretched out his legs. The dusk settled silently around them. He was prepared to wait all night for her response, but he doubted it would be necessary. No woman could remain silent that long. In the meantime, a few moments free of his brother’s unrelenting presence would be pleasure enough.

  A slave exited the kitchens and made the rounds of the courtyard, touching a lit taper to the pitch-soaked torches set about the perimeter of the garden. Lucius waited until the man had disappeared before placing his hand on Rhiannon’s arm.

  Her head turned and her gaze met his. “Do not touch me.”

  Lucius smiled. “The hour grows late. You should be seeking your bed. I’ll carry you above stairs.”

  “I prefer to sleep with the kitchen women.” She shook off his touch and rose.

  “Ah, so the little bird can hop from its perch. I’d begun to wonder if you’d spent the entire day motionless on this bench.”

  Rhiannon’s chin went up, accentuating its sharpness. “Hardly that. I cleared your garden.”

  She’d been pulling at weeds when he’d found her with Marcus this morning, Lucius recalled. He couldn’t fathom it. He’d given no order for her to do so.

  “Why?”

  “The herbs have been neglected.”

  Lucius peered through the torchlight. One of the planting beds looked less crowded, perhaps, but beyond that he could discern little difference from its appearance the day before. The unruly clumps of greenery in no way resembled a garden, especially since the roses had yet to bloom. “No doubt my brother tended the garden himself.”

  His comment seemed to cause Rhiannon such distress that Lucius found himself replaying the words in his mind. He could find nothing untoward, though his nymph seemed close to tears. “By all means,” he said hastily, “do whatever you like. I recognize little beyond the roses.”

  “Roses?”

  He nodded toward the arching canes. “The shrubs covered with thorns.”

  “They are hideous.”

  “Flowers will soon improve their appearance.” He extended one hand. “Come. I’ll carry you above stairs.”

  Rhiannon took a swift step backward and ducked her head. The shy gesture charmed him. Was that a blush spreading across her cheeks? She took a second, more hesitant step, then drew a sharp breath. Swaying on her feet, she grabbed for the bench and missed.

  Lucius sprang forward. As his arms tightened around her he willed her not to struggle, and perhaps she read his thoughts, for she went as still in his embrace as a mouse stunned by the cat’s claws.

  “Your leg pains you?” he asked, frowning.

  She blinked up at him. “No.” A flicker of alarm showed in her eyes. She twisted and Lucius reluctantly freed her, only to grasp her upper arm when he feared she would not keep her balance alone.

  “I’m … I’m just lightheaded. ’Twill soon pass.”

  His gaze narrowed. “What have you eaten today?”

  “A mug of cervesia at midday.”

  Lucius swore.

  “I wasn’t hungry.”

  “Hungry or not, you must eat.”

  “ ’Tis no concern of yours.”

  “It is.” Before she could open her mouth to protest further, he lifted her in his arms.

  “Put me down!”

  “No.” He carried her across the courtyard toward the dining chamber, approaching the door at the same time as a man and a woman exited the kitchens bearing the late meal he’d ordered.

  “You’ll share my supper,” Lucius announced in a tone that broached no argument.

  The dining chamber gleamed in the soft light of the hanging lamps. Three wide couches, draped in fine linens, were clustered about a central table. On the walls Bacchus reigned, feasting merrily in a forest grove with his scantily clad supplicants. Some of the figures weren’t clothed at all and taking full advantage of that happy fact. Rhiannon’s eyes widened when she saw the painting, but she said nothing. Lucius eased her onto the nearest couch and tucked the bolster under her left arm as the slaves laid out the meal on the table.

  She rolled onto her stomach and peered up at him. “I’m to eat while reclining?”

  Lucius smiled. “It will enhance the pleasure of your meal.” A heady mix of aromas rose from the table: broiled fish swimming in dark sauce, roasted eggs, and flat loaves arranged with artistic perfection. Lucius nodded his approval. His brother’s Roman cook had a fine hand indeed.

  He removed his armor, handing the torso shield along with his sword belt to the male slave with instructions for their care. The man bowed and left the chamber.

  Clad only in his tunic, Lucius settled himself to Rhiannon’s left, not touching, but close enough to wrap his arm around her waist if he so chose. “Your presence will enhance my own pleasure,” he whispered in her ear.

  As if in response, Rhiannon’s stomach growled loudly. Lucius chuckled. “
Your appetite seems to have recovered,” he said, drawing close.

  “It seems so,” she said faintly, moving away.

  The female slave stepped forward to fill their goblets. “Leave us for now,” Lucius commanded. “We’ll serve ourselves.”

  He reached over the bolster and used a flat knife to transfer various selections from the platters to a shared plate. When he’d finished, he lifted a plump morsel of fish with his thumb and forefinger and raised it to Rhiannon’s lips. He held it just slightly out of reach.

  She caught the offering on her tongue, laving the pad of Lucius’s thumb as she drew the succulent fish into her mouth. Fire shot through his loins. He shifted on the cushions until he felt the whisper of her body along the length of his own.

  He chose another small piece from the plate, but before he could present it, Rhiannon made a sound of distress. She snatched a goblet from the table and downed a hefty draught of wine.

  “Dear Briga!” She swiped the back of her hand across her tearing eyes.

  Lucius rubbed her back. “Have you never tasted fish?”

  “None that swim in fire,” she replied. Lucius chuckled and ate from his own dish while Rhiannon nibbled at the bread and ate a small portion of egg. At length, the slave woman returned bearing a platter of roasted boar’s meat.

  “Perhaps you will find the second course more to your liking,” Lucius said. His finger brushed a tendril of hair from her cheek.

  She went very still. “I’ve never been fond of boar’s meat.”

  Lucius ordered the woman to take away the platter and bring the final course. Rhiannon’s eyes widened when a bowl of poached pears soaked in honey and wine appeared before her. She dipped her spoon into the confection and did not stop until it was gone. She closed her eyes as she brought the final taste to her mouth. Lucius watched the pink tip of her tongue move over her lips to catch the last drop of syrup.

  His arm brushed Rhiannon’s shoulder as he nudged his own untouched plate in front of her. Her eyes flew open. He placed the palm of his hand on her nape. “I’m glad you found a dish to your liking at last,” he said, his lips close to her ear.