A Sword in Time

by Cidney Swanson

  “Hmmph,” she grunted, conceding the point. Plus, it was nice of him to give up his cloak. She was thinking about saying thanks when he grabbed her by the elbow, steering her to a tiled walkway.

  “Hey!” she said, “Ix-nay with the arm-gripping.”

  She jerked her arm free, and Quintus grunted at her, evidently exasperated, but he didn’t grab her arm anymore. Instead, he steered her with a gentle touch between her shoulders at each of the dozen or so turns it took to get out of . . . wherever they were.

  She was less sure by the minute it was the Coliseum. She had paid attention in Ancient Roman Architecture, sketching rather than doodling, and this place—while impressive and containing a high, rounded wall—looked more like a palace than gladiator central.

  “What building is this?” she asked.

  “It is a great villa Pompey claims to have built to glorify Venus Victrix.” He made a sort of derisive noise that was possibly related to Pompey’s claims.

  “Is Venus . . . whatsit related to regular Venus, goddess of love?”

  “Venus Victrix is that aspect of the goddess responsible for victory.”

  “Huh. Never heard of her.”

  For a brief moment, Quintus looked shocked, but then his face relaxed, like he was making an effort to hide his shock. Using a voice DaVinci associated with speaking to small, ignorant children, Quintus continued.

  “Pompey seeks to aggrandize himself by creating religious associations in the minds of Romans between Venus, the goddess mother of Rome’s founder, Aeneus, and himself. However, Pompey is too shrewd to have attempted to build his great palace within the pomerium.”

  “The pom-what-ium?”

  “The sacred boundary of Rome.”

  “Oh, that pomerium,” DaVinci said, recognizing the term. And then she remembered something else. “The first theater in Rome! I know about this building!” She looked excitedly around her. “Pompey built the first permanent theater outside the pomerium,” she said, automatically repeating a phrase she’d once memorized for a test.

  “To build it on the Campus Martius,” continued Quintus, “the Field of Mars, is also an act of hubris.” And then, lowering his voice, he added, “The gods will have the last word, I think.”

  “Won’t they just,” murmured DaVinci. From what she remembered, Caesar was going to kick Pompey’s bedsheeted butt right out of Italy.

  They had just rounded a corner when Quintus gripped her elbow again. A group of men who were not just drunk, but stupid drunk ran crookedly toward them. She shrugged Quintus off, roughly.

  “I can take care of myself,” she muttered, glowering at him.

  He raised one eyebrow, not bothering to contradict her.

  Which made her even angrier.

  In spite of her bravado, her heart was pounding, and she felt far more vulnerable than she was letting on. What was she doing here in ancient Rome? Why wasn’t she home? The drunkards seemed to size Quintus up and decide it wasn’t worth messing with him. They turned down another alley.

  “Just so you know,” DaVinci said, feeling braver now that the immediate danger had passed, “I totally would have decked Pompey the Great if he’d tried to kiss me or grab my hair or whatever the heck that was. And the same goes for you, buddy.”

  Looking at his muscled arms, she was struck by the fact that she probably couldn’t deck him, but he wasn’t going to hear that from her.

  “I do not know . . . decked,” Quintus said in reply.

  “Punched. Struck. Knocked upside the head.”

  “You intended to strike Pompeius?” Quintus’s eyebrow rose. “Then it is most fortunate I had the presence of mind to tell him you had . . . pediculi.”

  “What’s that supposed to be?”

  Quintus seemed to struggle for the English word but then found it. “Lice.”

  “You told Pompey the Great I had lice? Okay, seriously? That is so insulting!”

  Although it certainly explained the recoiling.

  “Indeed?” said Quintus. “I judged you would take it as a greater insult had he touched you.”

  DaVinci scowled. For the millionth time tonight. It was a facial expression she’d ditched when she’d left age fourteen behind, but Rome was apparently bringing it out in her again.

  As they stepped through a perfect Roman arch and onto a new path, her situation came slamming back down on her.

  “Oh my God,” she murmured, her heart racing again. “We’re still here. We shouldn’t still be here. Quintus, why are we still here?” And then, in spite of her ban on arm-gripping, she grabbed Quintus’s arm, which, not surprisingly, was firm as steel. “Seriously, what does it mean that we are still here? In ancient freaking Rome?”

  “I know not,” replied Quintus.

  “That is not an acceptable answer!” She shouldn’t still be here. She should be back in hot, sticky, twenty-first-century Florida. “In fact, I know not, has got to be the least acceptable answer ever spoken in history.”

  “I have no other answer to offer,” Quintus said.

  “Wait. So, like, what are we doing about this?”

  Quintus said nothing, but he had increased his stride. Ahead of them was nothing but fields to one side and to the other . . . Rome. She was looking at Rome. Which was wrong on so many levels.

  “I asked you a question,” she said to Quintus. Her voice had gone from angry to quavery. She hated when it did that. It was even more embarrassing than usual, contrasting as it did with Quintus’s steady, deep voice.

  “I do not know why the machine malfunctioned,” said Quintus.

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay. Malfunctions can happen to anyone. Littlewood’s a genius, right? I’m sure he’ll fix it. Any minute. Right?”

  Quintus didn’t answer. Which was even less acceptable of an answer.

  “So . . . what are we going to do?” she asked. She had to keep it together. “Where are we going?”

  “Home,” said Quintus.

  “Whose home?”

  “Mine. The home of my wife and child.”

  Hot Roman Dude had a wife and child? Wow. She had not seen that coming. But then she saw what was coming if the two of them showed up chez Quintus Valerius.

  “Um, Quintus?” DaVinci felt her heart sinking. “You already exist here. You can’t go home.”

  At which point Quintus stopped in his tracks. Even by moonlight, she could see he’d grown pale. And while she didn’t understand a single thing exploding out of his mouth, she would have bet her Janson’s History of Art, sixth edition that Quintus Valerius was making his way through every Latin swear in his dictionary.

  35

  • QUINTUS •

  Rome, 53 BC

  In his initial euphoria at finding himself still in Roma, Quintus had not considered the implications of a second Quintus already living here. Well, he had vaguely wondered whether this second Quintus had successfully delivered Caesar’s message, but that was different from taking in the awfulness of the fact that another Quintus existed here and now.

  Until the girl spoke, Quintus had been planning to return home, kiss his sleeping son, and lie with his wife. But none of this was possible. If his second self had already begun the two-week journey back to Caesar’s camp in Gallia, Quintus could scarcely return to his wife and child. And if his other self was lying with his wife right now, he had even greater reason to avoid his home.

  He uttered another curse.

  “I’m so sorry,” the girl said softly.

  Pity changed nothing. He schooled his features, hiding his distress behind a mask of calm.

  “It is unfortunate,” he said. He turned to examine the girl. Her friends had spoken of her before she had arrived, and from their description, he had expected someone of more . . . Amazonian dimensions. Not this slip of a girl who looked like she might blow away in a strong wind.

  “I can’t believe I’m here,” said the girl. “I, um, used to be an art student. There are art students who would give their do
minant hand to visit actual ancient Rome.” As she spoke, the girl looked about as cheerful as Proserpine on her annual visit to the Underworld. “Anyway,” she continued, “we can assume that once Jillian and Everett and Littlewood figure out we’re stuck here, they’ll figure out a way to rescue us.”

  There was determination in her voice, but her nervous habit of winding her hair around her fingers belied her confidence.

  “Perhaps,” said Quintus. “But Littlewood has assured me space–time retrieves those who journey every time. This irregularity seems more likely to be the work of the god who controls space–time.”

  The girl did not appear to derive comfort from this suggestion. She shivered, frowned, and grasped another strand of her hair. His sister had had a pretty friend who did the same thing when she was upset.

  His sister . . . They could go to the house of his sister.

  But as he considered the idea, he realized it had no more merit than his earlier idea. In fact, it would bring the same potential complications as visiting his own house.

  The weight of his situation settled heavily on his shoulders. If the gods had meant this as a reward for his prayers and sacrifices, there was much they had not taken into account. How like them.

  “How long have you been gone from home?” the girl asked. Her voice was soft, and filled with more sympathy than she had extended thus far.

  “I was a soldier in Gallia for four years before Jules Khan stole me from what you call Rome. During that time, I was sent thrice to deliver letters to Roma. The final time was seven months ago, by the reckoning of the time I have been in Florida. It was two days ago by the reckoning of this time, here in Roma.”

  “You must miss them very much. Your wife and your kid, I mean.”

  “Ours was no love-match,” replied Quintus.

  “Still, I’m sorry for, um . . . your loss?” The girl spoke as if asking a question.

  Quintus had heard Pater Joe speak such words to the bereaved, and he believed the correct form of reply was to offer thanks, but the girl was already speaking again.

  “I had to say goodbye to all the most important things in my life recently,” the girl added. “So I get how hard it must be for you.”

  This, Quintus doubted very much, but he managed to grunt out a thank you anyway.

  “How old is he? Your son?”

  “Two years,” replied Quintus. He felt a dull sort of ache in his throat. He wished he had been a better father to the child. “He is a beautiful boy. He takes after his mother, not me.”

  DaVinci laughed and then covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Why do you apologize?”

  The girl frowned. “I don’t know. It’s just something you say. I laughed because ‘takes after his mother’ is such a . . . modern thing to say, but we’re in flipping ancient Rome. And you still said it.”

  Quintus felt a small smile tugging at one side of his mouth. “I have found that people express much the same sentiments in your time as in mine.”

  “Huh. Maybe. Although . . . your English is super formal. Just saying.”

  Quintus frowned. “I have acquired it through podcasts recorded in Britannia—in Great Britain.”

  “Well that explains a lot. If you really want to know how to speak English in America, you should watch more TV and movies.”

  “So I have been informed by your friends Everett and Jillian.”

  The girl laughed again. Her laugh was surprisingly deep. He would have called it mannish compared to that of his wife or of the camp women who followed the soldiers in Gallia.

  “Dawn will break soon, and we are in Roma now,” Quintus said aloud. “My soldier’s cloak, worn by you, will draw attention. As will your garment, worn without the cloak. We must find you something more suitable.”

  “Hello,” said the girl, flipping back the cloak and holding out a corner of her gown for inspection. “Long, flowy white dress. No sleeves. Totally Roman.”

  “You are not dressed as a woman of Rome.”

  “Whatever,” muttered the girl. But she also wrapped his cloak more tightly around her garment.

  Besides suitable clothing, he would have to find lodgings. Somewhere safe to keep the girl. She could not be allowed to wander, that much was obvious. Her mannerisms, her attitudes, her lack of ability to speak Latin, and her exotic appearance . . . she would end up in the hands of slavers before the midday meal.

  “It will be best,” said Quintus, “if you are fitted with the clothing of a slave, lest you appear to be a runaway slave.”

  “That makes zero sense. If I’m not dressed like a slave, who’s going to think I am a slave?”

  “Everyone,” replied Quintus, surprised at her ignorance. “You look like one of the Celtae, who dwell in Rome only as slaves.”

  “I look like a slave, so I must be one?” Her green eyes were full of fire once more.

  Quintus, seeing she was not taking in the danger of her situation at all, attempted to explain it more clearly. “You will be safer dressed as a slave because others will assume you are under the protection of a Roman family and will hesitate to harm you. Or steal you,” he added.

  The girl muttered under her breath and then spoke aloud. “Fine. Let’s get me some ‘slave clothes.’”

  For this, Quintus needed money. He glanced at the fibula holding his cloak around the girl’s thin shoulders. He would have to sell the pin, as he had no other source of income or money. Fortunately, it was made of gold, except for the bronze clasp.

  They made their way to the cluster of goldsmiths in the Forum where Quintus was able to find a dealer in jewelry who bought his ornate pin. With a small portion of the proceeds, Quintus purchased a cheap replacement fibula, and from a less prosperous part of the city, suitable used garb for the girl. This left him with only a handful of sesterces, which would pay for no more than two nights’ lodging. He was going to have to find employment, and quickly.

  As DaVinci accepted the used garment, she muttered, “If I get . . . pedicures from wearing this thing, I’m totally killing you.”

  Despite their gloomy circumstances, Quintus barked out a single laugh.

  “What?” demanded the girl, brow furrowed.

  “I believe you meant pediculi.”

  She glowered at him. “Whatever.”

  A smile pulled at Quintus’s mouth, and he would have sworn she, too, was near smiling. She was a puzzle, both funny and fiery in a way not common among the women he had known.

  They were now quite close to his family’s domus, the home he had inherited from his father. It was not a fashionable part of town, but neither was it much frequented by thieves and thugs, and most importantly, it was a part of town where he knew he could find lodgings quickly. But first he must get the girl to change her clothing.

  Quintus guided her to a quiet place where he knew the ground floor vendors would still be closed. Between the shuttered tabernae, the food and wine vendors’ one-room shops, there were many small recesses where Quintus had hidden from his nurse when he was a child. One of these would serve as a private place to change.

  He took the girl to one of the deeper recesses and handed her the slave tunic.

  “I shall stand guard,” he said, “although the street will be empty this time of morning.”

  “Are you sure?” asked DaVinci, her golden brows drawing together.

  “My home lies hereby. I am sure.”

  “Fine,” she muttered. “Absolutely no staring. Turn around.” Placing both hands on her hips, she glared at him, waiting for him to turn.

  Quintus turned his back to the girl, and if he wondered how much of her pale skin was freckled like her nose and cheeks, in his defense, it could be argued that he had lain with no woman for half a year and more.

  The girl grumbled nonstop as she donned the woolen garment, calling down curses on any pedicurelles that might be hiding in the seams. Her abuse of the Latin word for lice did at least have the effect of diverting Quint
us’s thoughts from her milk-colored flesh.

  And then, with a final curse, she shoved Quintus’s right shoulder.

  “I’m done. Satisfied?” she asked, a dour scowl on her face. “Do I look Roman enough for you now?”

  In truth, if there existed a girl less suited to pass for Roman, he had not seen her. He swallowed, trying not to stare at her legs, which were longer than he would have expected for one so short in stature.

  “Well? Am I slave-y?”

  “Your resemblance to an unexceptionable slave has greatly improved,” Quintus said.

  “My resemblance to a what kind of slave?” Then she held her hand up, palm out. “You know what? I don’t need to know. I don’t even want to know. I. Don’t. Care.”

  She punctuated each final word by shoving her former garment inside the same bag in which she had placed his dictionary. He considered asking to have his dictionary back, but decided it was best kept hidden. Besides, if they were to find themselves permanently settled in this century, the book would do her more good than him. She could study it for occupation once he’d settled her safely behind the closed door of whatever lodgings he could find.

  He was about to tell her his plans for the remainder of the morning when he saw something that made the words catch in his throat. It was his son, racing ahead of his nurse, and laughing as only a two-year-old outrunning a guardian could laugh.

  36

  • DAVINCI •

  Rome, 53 BC

  At first, DaVinci assumed Quintus was staring at the small boy like anyone would have done, given the decibel of the kid’s shrieking laughter. She was just trying to decide if she should help the poor lady chasing after the boy when something unexpected happened. Without a word, Quintus turned to face her and then pinned her against the wall, pressing his body to hers and burying his face in her curls. Every point of contact between them crackled with electricity—and not the kind that meant time travel was about to happen.

  “I must not be seen,” he said. His breath was warm beside her ear. A shiver ran through her.