Her Roman Protector

by Milinda Jay

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” her father said, kindly. “A dog is a good friend. It’s hard to say goodbye.”

  “Yes, it is. But Marcus promised that when he goes back to Rome, he will bring my dog back to me.”

  “Did he, now?” her father said. “He sounds like a nice man.”

  “He is,” Flavius said, “only Mother is very angry at him.”

  “Oh,” Annia’s father said, “is that so? And why is that?”

  Flavius opened his mouth to tell the tale.

  Annia interrupted him. “That’s enough, son. Finish your food so that you and Cato and Julius will have a few minutes to run and play.”

  Flavius flashed her a big smile. “We would like that very much, Mother.”

  The boys set in on their food like ravenous animals. Soon the three of them had eaten everything put before them, and cleaned up their leavings.

  “May we go play now, Mother?” Cato asked.

  “Yes, son.”

  Cato nodded and ran.

  “I’ve brought two horses,” her father said. “One for you and one for Marcus. I understand, he needs to get to his father’s villa, which is very close to ours, only half a day’s ride away.”

  “That was thoughtful,” Annia said, though her face and tone showed that it was anything but.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “You will accept my offer, Marcus?” her father said.

  “I will, but I must caution you against separating our party.”

  “Why?” Tertius Maelius asked.

  “While it is true Claudius secured Britain for Rome, there are still pockets of rebels, especially in this area, who would like nothing more than to see Rome suffer.”

  Tertius Maelius looked disappointed. Marcus hated to upset the kind man, but what he said was true. Britain was not safe, and their only real safety was in numbers.

  “You are right, lad,” Tertius said. “I like to believe we are safe. Perhaps it is good you are here to keep me from becoming a foolish, old dead man.”

  Marcus nodded. He understood Tertius’s desire to believe all was safe. More, perhaps, than Tertius knew. In order to sleep at night, a man had to believe in the relative safety of his camp. Sometimes he even had to fool himself into a false security. Marcus imagined that to live in Britain, a man had to believe he was safe, even though he knew he was not.

  Marcus felt Annia’s eyes upon him. He looked at her, but she looked quickly away.

  Was it longing he read in that look? Sadness? Regret?

  It wasn’t anger. She seemed to be searching his face for understanding. Yes, that was it. She seemed to seek to understand.

  He’d had a few moments alone with Virginia and Titus after dinner the previous night. They had helped him understand what it was going to take to win Annia’s affection back.

  “It won’t be easy,” Virginia had said. “But it’s not impossible. The way she looks at you tells me everything I need to know about how she feels. Her heart is broken, but she wants, desperately, to believe in you. It may take you a while to earn her trust. First, she has to hear the truth from you. Then you have to prove yourself.”

  “What does that mean?” Marcus had asked. He understood very well that he had to tell her the truth, but then, how was he to prove himself? “How do I need to prove myself to her?”

  “You will figure it out,” Virginia had assured him.

  He had not felt assured.

  “But first, you have to decide what is important to you. Annia or being prefect.”

  Virginia’s words felt like a kick in the gut.

  Was he prepared to give up his dream of becoming prefect of the Praetorian Guard? Was he prepared to become a farmer in this country he detested, a country with so many horrible memories of death and destruction?

  Duty in Britain had meant consistent assaults by rebel armies. He preferred the peace of Rome. But what life did he have to look forward to in Rome? He could marry Cassia, but he had no desire to do so. It would be a marriage smiled upon by each respective family and would, most likely, gain him the trust of the emperor, eventually leading to his promotion from prefect of the Vigiles to prefect of the Guard.

  But Annia. If she would have him, which seemed highly unlikely at this point, she would not be moving to Rome. She was in Britain to stay. He knew this to be true.

  He needed wisdom. He needed guidance. He needed someone to talk to.

  Heavenly Father, guide me, he prayed. Show me what You would have me do.

  He would have to make her understand that he had never, ever intended to harm her baby.

  If she forgave him, he would trust God to show him what to do next.

  He walked around the wagon to where everyone sat eating. He would talk with her. Now.

  “Annia?” he said.

  The look she gave him was confusing.

  A host of eyes were on him. Virginia’s eyes were appraising, Theodora’s were full of pity. His mouth stuffed with cheese, Annia’s father simply nodded his greeting. Marcus was uncertain whether the man liked him or not. Did he consider him good enough for his daughter?

  It didn’t matter. Marcus was probably going back to Rome. After he made Annia understand. But what, exactly, did he want her to understand? Only that he never intended to harm her baby. Marcus hated the way his mind was jumping back and forth. Under normal circumstances, decisions were simple for him. He was a man of action, a leader, someone his men trusted with their lives. So why was he so confused?

  “Could we take a walk?” Marcus asked.

  “I’m eating,” Annia replied.

  This was going to take some work.

  “I’ll wait,” Marcus said, and to do something with his hands that made him feel he had control over at least one thing, he busied himself currying the horse, who waited patiently, munching the sweet grasses growing beside the road.

  Marcus watched Annia out of the corner of his eye. She was beautiful. Even when she was so angry. She finished her olives, cheese and fruit from Theodora’s stores and delicately brushed crumbs from her mouth, then swept her tunic clean. She checked the boys, who had long since finished eating and were making leaf ships on the little brook.

  “Be careful, boys,” she said.

  They smiled up at her. “Don’t worry, Mother,” Cato said, “we won’t get wet.”

  Marcus smiled. Separating a boy from any body of water was next to impossible. He guessed that before they continued their journey to Londinium again, at least one of the boys, if not both, would need a dry tunic.

  Annia walked reluctantly toward Marcus.

  “I am listening,” she said as soon as she reached the horse he combed. “What did you want to talk about?”

  He noticed her face had turned a bright shade of red. He wasn’t certain if anger made that happen, or if it was simply the same awareness that gave his own face a matching flush.

  “Will you walk with me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, “but not far. We have a long journey.”

  “We do,” he said, “but from the looks of our companions we have some leisure before we begin our travel.”

  Annia’s eyes followed his to her father, who had nodded beneath the shade of an ancient oak, his back against the trunk, his chin sunken into his chest. The rest of the caravan, except for the boys and Theodora, dozed, as well.

  Theodora held baby Maelia and walked up and down the banks of the brook soothing the baby and keeping a watchful eye on the boys.

  Marcus secured the horse’s comb in the saddlebag and looked down at her to see if Annia would follow him.

  She did. It was a small victory, but it gave him the confidence he needed.

  They walked along the road, never straying far from the company, circ
ling around the field opposite the brook. The soldier in him, alert to the dangers posed by the thick woods on either side of the fields, would not let them stray farther.

  “What did you want to say?” she asked. Was it his imagination, or was that softness he detected in her tone. But, abruptly, she became impatient, almost as if her own soft tone had angered her.

  “How far do you plan to walk before you are able to form the words you plan to say to me?”

  He couldn’t help smiling at the accuracy of her assessment. It was true. Now that she was standing with him, he was confused about what he wanted. And what he wanted to say.

  When he looked at her standing beside him, he doubted he would find as prefect of the Guard, the kind of joy he felt in her presence, even when she was angry.

  “I need to explain something to you,” he said. “I fear you believe the worst about me.”

  “I probably do,” she said, “though at the moment my feeling is that it is the worst that is in fact the truth.”

  “Yes,” he said. “That may be so, but please give me a chance to explain.”

  “I’m listening,” she said.

  She stumbled a bit on a branch that was hidden in the verdant grassy knoll in which they walked. He caught her about her waist and kept her from tumbling to the ground.

  He found that he didn’t want to let go of her. He held her until she pulled away.

  “Thank you,” she said crisply. “I’m quite capable of walking on my own now.”

  He nodded, took a deep breath, let her go and began speaking.

  “To protect the emperor was my boyhood dream, only I wasn’t sure how to achieve that goal. When I returned home after having served my twenty years with the legions, my mother sent me the perfect opportunity, unknowingly.”

  “Your mother?” Annia asked, drawn in, it seemed, by the urgency of his words.

  “Yes,” he said. “I had already helped her save many babies by the time you gave birth to your child, so she knew I could do it.”

  “Do what?” Annia asked. “Take gold?”

  The comment stung, but Marcus chose to ignore it. “When Mother laid Maelia at Galerius Janius’s feet, he refused to pick her up. Mother was ordered to expose her.

  “Instead, she took Maelia back to the villa where you had been sent to live when Janius divorced you. Mother thought that Janius simply wanted to rid himself of the responsibility of a girl baby. She thought him too stingy to raise her, care for her and eventually pay her dowry. And mother knew that you were no longer in his household, so it should not have mattered to him that the baby went there rather than to the place of exposure. But, Mother did not expect his new wife would insist the baby be killed.”

  “When Mother found out, she knew Janius would order the baby exposed.

  “Mother finagled an invitation for me to a dinner thrown by Janius. He had no clue I was the midwife’s son sent on a mission to earn his trust.

  “I let it slip that I worked as commander of the Vigiles and would sometimes be sent on a mission by private individuals that had nothing to do with fires.

  “Janius understood. We talked for a while over dinner. He let it be known he was now married to the emperor’s soon-to-be cousin and would then have special favor with the emperor himself. He invited me back for the next week.

  “I returned and asked for him to put a word in for me to the emperor. I wanted to be prefect of the Guard. Janius understood I was making a deal with him, and he told me about you and Maelia.

  “We agreed that I would expose his baby—which meant I would give it to my mother, though he didn’t know that—and he would pay me and put a word in with the emperor.

  “And then I met you, Annia. I felt soiled to have made a deal with the man who discarded you, and your daughter and then your son.

  “I saw Janius for what he was, and I wanted no further dealings with him.

  “I never intended to harm Maelia. I knew from the beginning I was taking her to safety.”

  “But you used her,” Annia said bitterly, “to press forward in your ambitious desire to become prefect of the Guard. You used my daughter, my baby, to move closer to your own selfish goal.”

  “I did,” Marcus said humbly, “and I am bitterly sorry. I brought danger not only to you and your children, but also to my mother and all of the women and babies at her villa. It was a foolish plan.” He uttered these final words with a guttural groan. “Can you forgive me?”

  Just then, a splash, followed by laughter. “I told you not to step out any farther,” Cato’s little voice broke through. Marcus hurried toward the sound.

  “But my boat,” his brother said, “it was going away.”

  “Yes,” Cato said, “but it was also winning!”

  Marcus pulled the sopping-wet child from the middle of the brook. Flavius clutched a leaf and twig boat in his hands. “Did I win?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Cato said. “You still won.”

  Annia looked up at Marcus. Her brown eyes were filled with something confusing. Was it admiration? Gratitude? Joy?

  Marcus wondered if he had won.

  * * *

  “Marcus seems a good man,” Annia’s father said to Annia as they continued their journey northward.

  The conversation with Marcus had only confused Annia’s feelings. She was no longer angry at him for putting her baby in harm’s way for money. She understood his desire to become prefect of the Guard. She also understood that Janius had fallen out of favor with the emperor.

  This made Marcus’s marriage to Cassia all the more necessary. Cassia came from a very old senatorial family. Her family name would be all he needed to guarantee being prefect of the Vigiles, as had now happened, and prefect of the Guard for the future.

  When Annia didn’t reply to her father’s comment, Virginia broke in. “He is a good man. Like all of us, he has made his share of errors, but unlike many of us, he is able to admit his mistakes. He is not a prideful man.”

  “I admire such a man,” her father said.

  Annia kicked her horse forward. She had to shake away her foolishness. Marcus had reiterated the fact that being made prefect of the Guard was his lifelong dream. There was no hope of any sort of future for the two of them whether she forgave him or not. He would have to go back to Rome. She must remain in Britain.

  “Let me be clear,” Annia said, slowing her horse to speak to her father. “Marcus Sergius has done some very kind things for me and for my family. I will be happy to smile at him if I should happen to pass him on the street, and invite him over for supper to thank him. Saving lives is no small thing. But I feel nothing more for him. I do not view him as a woman views a potential mate.”

  Her father studied her face.

  “Why are you smiling?” she said, her anger burning to her ears.

  “I’m not,” he said, though he was. “I detect something more,” he said. “You seem to have more feeling for him than you admit.”

  “I am not interested in anything other than friendship with any man. If you will agree, I would like for my boys and Maelia to live in peace with you and Mother for the rest of our lives.”

  “You named her for me, did you not?” her father asked, beaming.

  “If you are trying to move our conversation to a new subject, you needn’t. I am finished with that one. And to answer your question, yes, I did,” Annia said.

  “Well, then,” he said, “if you insist, we will not speak of Marcus Sergius again.”

  “Good,” Annia said, glancing back to assure herself that Marcus had not by chance overheard any of the conversation. He was watching her. She hated herself for blushing and turned quickly so he couldn’t see.

  “I wish you could have seen your mother’s face when she received your letter announcing you were coming
home,” her father said. “She has read it over and over again and keeps it in a special place in her clothes chest. I told her that if she read it any more, it was going to turn to dust in her hands.”

  Annia laughed, relieved to think of her mother and not Marcus. “I can’t wait to see her. I hope she has not exhausted herself preparing.”

  “You know your mother,” her father said. “She has prepared a feast beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. All of the animals for miles around are holding their necks, fearing that they will be next on the chopping block. She has prepared enough meat for roasting to feed the entire village.”

  Annia laughed again.

  When they made camp that night, Marcus approached Annia.

  “What?” she asked. “What more have you to say?”

  “Please understand, Annia,” he said, his voice pleading.

  “I understand. You’ve made it clear. You want to be prefect.”

  “Yes, I do, but do you know why? It is to keep all of us safe. The emperor, the empire, you, my mother and the babies, your father in this tumultuous country of Britain.”

  The taste in Annia’s mouth was bitter. “Tumultuous country?” she said. “You will remember, sir, that this country is my home. The place of my birth. My mother’s people have lived here since nearly the beginning of time. Be mindful of what you say.” She was furious. She wanted to kick him. But her frustration and anger was less at his feelings about Britain than the complete confusion of her emotions about him.

  “I’m sorry,” Marcus said. He was silent.

  His silence shamed her. It would have been much easier if he had fought her, defended his words. The look in his eyes spoke of the unmentionable horrors he had witnessed on this very soil.

  “The Iceni,” Marcus said. “They are a strong, valiant people. Their home is deep in the forest. Their warriors come unexpectedly, slaughter and leave without a trace. I fear one day they will gather their forces and wreak havoc on the Roman peace.”

  Annia was silent. Her mother believed the same. Though she was not of the Iceni tribe, her people had traded with them. They were feared.