“But the old ways worked, didn’t they?”
“They worked well.”
Diana shrugged. “So?”
Alaric looked at the wall, then back at her. He nodded. “So. We dig a pit.”
* * * * *
It was the ninth day after the solstice and Rhys’ boar had been dressed and butchered. The rest of the animal would be salted, cured and stored for use throughout the winter—nearly every part of a boar was useful, right down to its feet.
That night Diana arranged that some of the boar be the central course of the evening meal. She invited Alaric’s men to join the household in the big dining room.
It was then Diana discovered the damage caused by that morning’s conversation with Alaric. Throughout the meal her gaze kept straying toward him, where he sat on a divan. She had never seen him recline to eat his meal as was customary. He always sat upright and used both hands, like the younger children and women of Diana’s family did.
He sat at one of the other tables, out of speaking distance, yet it felt like there was a connection between them. Diana puzzled over it as she ate a handful of nuts.
Alaric happened to glance her way. His expression was neutral and she could not guess at his thoughts but she knew he was recalling their conversation that morning, just as she was remembering his tale. Diana could still hear his voice and the musical phrases. It was a bond between them—something they shared that effectively excluded everyone else in the room. It was as if she knew him better than anyone and he was acknowledging that fact. It was a strange sensation.
Then he smiled. Smiled at her. Diana caught her breath in a shocked little intake. He looked away then, leaving Diana alone with her thoughts once more. She ate, oblivious to what she was putting in her mouth and drank, not tasting the wine. Instead, she was lost on a sea of novel feelings of belonging and acceptance.
The novelty lasted until Alaric went over to Evadne and her small group of giggling women, including the Saxon-born Rowena, with her thick blonde braids. At his approach the women fell silent. Alaric leaned over Evadne and spoke quietly by her ear. Evadne nodded took the hand he offered and rose from her bench. The two walked toward the door.
Deep in Diana’s stomach, a chill set in. Wretchedness made her tremble. How could he go with Evadne? Evadne did not know the story of his wife, or that he followed no god but his own instincts, or—
Or did she?
The clear voice stilled Diana’s trembling. She had been a fool to believe she alone shared that camaraderie with Alaric. Only a child would believe even for a moment that Alaric would have any unique feelings about her. She drove him to anger more often than not. She never giggled or blushed or fawned.
“Fool!” Diana clutched her goblet desperately. Deep embarrassment prickled through her, making her squirm. The discomfort did not assuage the embarrassment, either.
How could she have allowed herself to feel any sort of connection with him at all? This was the man who held the power to take away from her all that she had. How could she have forgotten that? She had even begun to like him.
Diana wished that the earth could open up beneath her and swallow her whole.
* * * * *
Alaric lay on his back, staring at a patch of light on the daub ceiling. It was moonlight, reflected off the snow in the courtyard to shine through the window over his bed.
Next to him, Evadne stirred and rolled over onto her side. The fur cover slid down her trunk to reveal her breast, ghostly white in the moonlight. Alaric eyed the full lush globe. Its richness did not stir him.
His thoughts returned instead to Diana, her face turned up to look at him. “So, despite hating Romans, you build gates and strengthen defenses for a Roman family because facing toward the future means you can’t see the past,” she’d said.
He recalled the response that had very nearly spilled out of him. “No, I do it for a Roman woman who would spit in my face if she knew. I do it because…
Because what? Until that moment he hadn’t realized that the drive to fortify the villa came from a desire to protect Diana. No, not to protect her. To let her have what she wanted. The villa, the estate, her life. Her freedom.
He recalled her standing in the clearing again. The way her whole body had tried to reach up into the light. That had been a person who longed for escape.
When had he begun to work toward Diana’s wishes and not his own? His life until now had been simple. He had dedicated himself to working and fighting for Arthur’s ideals. He believed Arthur and Merlin’s plans for Britain were the only possible way Britain and all her diverse people would weather the coming Saxon storm. He believed that so strongly that nothing he had done for the last five years had been for anything more than the simple reason that Arthur had wished it so. Until today.
The realization had shaken him to the core.
Diana. A Roman woman of little charm and questionable beauty. But he had sat there tonight at the dinner table and watched her eat, her face thoughtful. He had wanted to know what scheme she was busy dreaming up now. He had wanted to run his hand through her hair and feel the slippery warmth of it once more. The giggles of Evadne, the Saxon woman and the others had been an irritating contrast.
He’d found himself smiling at Diana simply because he had enjoyed her quick intelligence that morning. She had surprised him with her knowledge of the old hill forts his people had once built to ward off marauding tribes. When her gaze had caught his, he’d known instantly she was thinking of Ygraine. The dusty harper’s storytelling skills he’d learned from Merlin had not fooled her.
He’d not missed the startled, accusatory glance Diana had sent his way when he’d led Evadne from the room. There had been a quality there, something familiar. Alaric groped for the reminder and came up with the answer. Minna had sent him a similar look, as she had walked from the clearing.
Minna. What was the connection there? The Saxons? Tomorrow, he would ask some casual questions and find out more.
No. It wouldn’t serve him—it wouldn’t serve Arthur—to go looking for answers to that mystery. Today he’d learned he could be distracted from his duty to the Pendragon. He would have to be careful from now on to ensure that his motives remained pure.
Evadne stirred and sat up. “You cannot sleep, my lord?” Her hair swung forward and covered her breasts. It was coarse hair, rough textured.
“Soon,” he assured her. “Tell me about Minna. What happened to the little one when the Saxons raided this place?”
Evadne frowned. “I don’t know. They kept the family apart from us. We were locked in the slaves’ quarters unless one of them wanted us. Why do you ask about Minna?”
Alaric shrugged. “I wondered why she was mute. Sosia told me she was not born that way, that she spoke as a normal child does up until the Saxon raid.”
The answer seemed to satisfy Evadne but Alaric knew he had not answered her at all. He silently justified his probing to himself, Diana stands between me and all I must achieve here in the north. Learning more about Diana will help me deal with her better and that will let me complete the duties Arthur gave me.
He didn’t have the chance to consider the hollowness of the argument, for Evadne reached under the covers and slid her hand down to his groin. “Come, my lord. I know what will help you sleep.”
Alaric was already stirring and rising in her experienced hand. He pushed her hair aside and cupped the heavy breasts in his hands. At least his body was not betraying him the way his mind was. He let the delicious surge of sexual need take his mind away from the thoughts—the woman—who plagued him.
Chapter Eight
The next morning Alaric was too impatient to start the day to deal with Evadne’s sluggish demands, or to wait for the rest of the household to stir itself. He took his bowl of gruel from Sosia’s hands, stalked to the end of the verandah and rapped on the library door before pushing his way in—the first of what would become a daily occurrence and eventually transmute into
custom.
* * * * *
Alaric walked into the room almost at the same time as he knocked. Diana put her breakfast bowl aside, her appetite gone. He looked rested and energetic, which made her feel even more of a pale shadow than her sleepless night warranted. He had not bothered with a cloak and he didn’t look cold.
“You are here, then. Good.” He pulled the tall stool up to the opposite side of the reading table and sat down.
“Please. Take a seat.”
“The fortifications,” he began.
Diana reached for the plans she had spent most of the night pouring over. “I’ve been thinking about them too.” She pushed the roll toward him. “I went through some of the older books here. I think they may be from Rome itself—”
“You didn’t know that?”
Diana looked up from the book she was unrolling. “Why?”
“This is your family’s library.”
“Only men were permitted in here.”
He ate a mouthful of gruel. Diana watched his throat work as he swallowed. He dropped the spoon back with a grimace and put the bowl on the desk. His arm stretched taut at the movement and even his thigh tightened, keeping him balanced—Diana watched the muscle move under the trews, which were pulled smooth by the spread of his knee and hip.
“My apologies, my lady. I interrupted you.”
Diana clawed her thoughts together. Her gaze moved to the sharp dip in the brown flesh of his upper arm.
“Diana?”
“Did you enjoy yourself last night?” It was the first thought to come to her.
His black eyes, under the dark brows, grew wary. Suddenly the room was too warm, the air too thick to breathe. Could he see what was happening to her? That she was breathing faster?
“The fortifications…” Alaric began.
Diana cleared her throat. She touched the roll. “I was thinking…platforms. Behind the walls.” She dragged her gaze up to Alaric’s face. He was not thinking about walls. Was he remembering their conversation yesterday? He was looking at her the same way as he had then, when he had been smiling. She thought she might see into his mind through his eyes, if she let herself sink deep into his gaze.
Last night. It was like last night when they had shared that private moment of mutual warmth.
No! She could not allow this!
Diana shook herself. She stood, picked up the roll and smoothed it out with her hands. She would not twice deceive herself by imagining a unique understanding with him. The notion would quickly lead her into dangerous complications. She had to remember that this man held the fate of the estate in his hands.
She stared down at the book. What had she been thinking of? Walls? Platforms! “A platform,” she said, speaking clearly and decisively. “If we build a platform behind the walls, then we can fight off anyone who manages to reach the top.”
Alaric’s big hand dropped onto the roll, covering her scratchy diagrams. The fingers were long and could move with unexpected grace. Heavy blue veins shadowed the back of the hand and a dusting of hair arrowed toward the little finger.
“Let me see.” He turned it around, looked at it. “Where did you get this idea?”
“From Hadrian’s Wall.”
“That’s a double wall, with a rampart.”
“We only need to defend one side of our wall. It was the idea of a rampart—a platform—that I borrowed. It’s higher than the people below and the higher ground is always better.”
He was staring at her again.
“That’s right, isn’t it?” She was suddenly unsure. “You are the soldier here.”
“And your assumption is right.” He glanced at the diagram, then nodded. “It is a good idea.”
Five words. Diana knew it was Alaric’s highest form of praise. Warm contentedness burst through her and she found herself smiling. “Thank you.”
Alaric stood up abruptly. “I’ll see to it,” he said and he was gone.
Diana watched the cloud of cold air billow around the door he shut behind him. What…?
* * * * *
Alaric strode toward the slaves’ quarters, seething. So much for keeping his motives pure! Barely a day had past and already he was testing his resolve.
Her idea about the platforms was ingenious. He had seen such fortifications before, of course, and had heard Merlin describe the advanced engineering he had seen on his travels in the East. But Diana had not and had little to no experience with fighting off an enemy. She was clever, for a woman.
He tried to settle into the day’s work, mentally delegating tasks to Rhys and Griffin, as he walked to the slaves’ quarters. It was an attempt to keep his thoughts where they should be.
What was it that pushed that haunted look into her eyes?
* * * * *
Shortly after the solstice feast days were officially over, plowing and preparation for the summer crops must be started. Diana declared that all the fields, fallow or not, should be planted while the labor was to hand. Most of the men working on the pits and platforms were reassigned to the fields and Alaric was left with five to carry on with the fortifications.
Alaric spent a lot of time perched atop the villa walls, hauling up timber. He had an uninterrupted view of the fields from the wall, down the gentle slope to border the old Roman road nearly three hundred paces away.
Diana had unearthed every plowshare that might once have turned sods and it had been a rusty and dull collection indeed. She had challenged Griffin to build plows for them all and Alaric had watched the construction with simmering curiosity. Where was Diana going to find bullocks enough to drive all the plows? Or did she plan on pulling them herself? But he had remained silent. Diana did not welcome questions.
The plows were made and the shares sharpened as much as the old metals would withstand. Diana rounded up every beast of burden on the estate, including the soldiers’ horses and now Alaric watched the astonishing sight of war horses pulling plows behind them, heads down and hooves digging in. Their drivers were just as inexperienced and the furrows were a sight to behold. Alaric found his lips twitching every time he glanced that way.
Even Diana struggled behind her own plow. Alaric could see her close to the last fields, a small figure in white tunic and trews, her dark cloak furled back over her shoulders, struggling to steer an obviously recalcitrant plow and horse.
It wasn’t just a matter of strength. Alaric’s men were all strong of arm and chest—they had to be to withstand a day of hand-to-hand combat and sword play and the shields they carried were not light. Yet the men were creating some of the more interesting furrows. Their cursing was no less creative. Alaric caught snatches of it in the small breeze.
He was proud of them, nevertheless. Of all the odd work that they’d turned their hands to over the years, this was possibly the oddest. The use of their horses might well be construed as demeaning but Alaric had heard not a single complaint. Raised eyebrows and flabbergasted faces, to begin. Curses aplenty, even some of them directed toward their diminutive, irregular taskmaster, but not a single moan about the work itself.
The blonde woman, whom Alaric had seen often in the company of Evadne, emerged from the kitchen with skins of watered wine slung over her shoulders. She crossed the courtyard through the new gates and walked down the track. Alaric watched the sway of the woman’s wide hips from behind, while mentally reaching for her name. She was large-breasted, with sleepy small blue eyes and a well fleshed frame, unusual in this time of need. It wasn’t just her blonde braids that told him she was Saxon, for she spoke with a strong accent—the very sound of it made Alaric’s skin crawl and his sword hand twitch. He had heard that thick accent bawling insults and challenges too many times on the battlefield to ever listen to it with equanimity.
Rowena. That was her name. She was heading directly for Diana. He turned to deal with the next log and when he looked again, Rowena was with another worker, handing the woman a waterskin while Diana trudged toward the villa. Behind, her
horse stood with reins trailing, the plow handles heeled over.
When Diana was within hailing distance, Alaric lifted his voice. “You plow a pretty row, my lady!”
“No worse than your men!” She came over to where Alaric perched on the wall and stood with her hands on her hips, just below the thick belt that wrapped twice around her waist. It looked like something salvaged from a man’s clothes chest. “I hope they cut a straighter swathe through a Saxon host.”
“That they do.”
“That is a comfort to me.”
Alaric laughed at her dry tone. “If you insist on turning out every able-bodied person to the plowshare, then you must suffer the consequences.”
“But it is being done. That is all I ask of anyone.”
Alaric stopped pretending to work. “Why so many, my lady? It is for men to tend to plowing, after all. By my reckoning, three men could handle all these fields, perhaps more.”
“Perhaps. An experienced man can cover half to one acre a day, on a good day. If there is rain or snow, that is one acre not plowed and a smaller crop come harvest time. My father’s records go back nearly forty years and they tell me there has been rain on at least ten days every February. Winter will tarry this year, so the ground will be harder to break up.” She shook her head. “I cannot afford the risk of having anything less than every cleared field planted by Easter.”
“And let nothing else be done instead?”
Her voice was very gentle but her eyes blazed. “If we do not get all the planting done, then there will be no need for anything else.”
That blaze in her eyes was pure determination. He had planted it there at solstice by offering her hope, yet it felt like he had slammed up against a shield he had expected to be merely hide and wood, found it to be bronze-lined and winded himself. She had taken his offering and used it to build something beyond his expectations.
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