by Claudia Dain
"She sees no release for herself as a slave," Cuthred said, "and yet she does not behave as a slave."
"As my wife, she will be tied to me with the tightest bonds possible, bonds nearly impossible to break. It will be my greatest joy to watch her spend her lifetime thrashing against these bonds of marriage."
"Wulfred," Cynric asked, taking him by the arm in gentle admonishment, "are you certain? Will she feel the bonds of marriage when she did not feel the bonds of slavery?"
The villa lay in peaceful repose, the lights winking out in the heavy darkness below. All were abed, or soon to be. Unsuspecting. She was so very unsuspecting of what he planned for her.
Wulfred smiled and his teeth gleamed white in the moonlight. "She will."
Chapter 14
It wasn't turning out at all as she had planned. Oh, it was going well enough with Wulfred's men, or it had been going well until just recently. Recently, in just the past few days, they had all but run from her whenever she approached. Cynric had looked close to throwing stones at her to drive her off.
Inexplicable behavior, even for Saxons. Still, it was mostly Wulfred's response, or lack of one, that puzzled her.
He didn't act anything like a jealous suitor, or even an interested suitor. He didn't act like a suitor at all. Stupid, perverse, pagan barbarian. Why, when all his men had fallen over themselves at a crook of her finger, did he remain so aloof? He did not treat her any differently than he ever had, the oaf. She was oiled and perfumed and coiffed and draped in beautifully worked wool, and he was just as surly and distant and dull as he had always been.
Imbecile.
Could he not see that she was more beautiful than any woman he had yet encountered in his miserable life? Could he not understand that she was higher in intellect and breeding and culture than any woman he could have possibly met roving through the woods, as was his natural routine? Could he not see her worth, her beauty, her desirability?
Not that it bothered her in any personal way that he was so obtuse. No, it was only that it would have been so delightful to watch him tear himself up with desire and jealousy. It would have been a wonderful game, one that she would have enjoyed completely until the time had come for her to kill him.
Melania licked her lips; they were trembling.
She would kill him. She was strong and rested and more determined to defeat him than ever. If he were intelligent, he would run from her villa, for she was set on destroying him.
And she would succeed. He would never anticipate violence against him, not from her, not now. None of them would; she had donned the role of beguiler too completely for any of them to see the role of executioner she had planned for herself. It would not be murder, not when it was retribution for what he had done to her. She had not forgotten her father, though the soil of his grave had settled during the summer and grass had seeded itself over the bare earth, gentling the raw reminder of his recent death. She had not forgotten, would not allow herself to forget, and Wulfred would pay the price for that murder, for murder it had truly been.
He would murder again if she did not stop his plans for her. His attitude toward her had not changed, despite her primping and smiling. What was the matter with him? It could not be that her lures were invisible to the Saxon eye.
No, Balduff alone with his silvery hair, ice blue eyes, and wide smile would have convinced her otherwise. He was, or had been, delightfully submissive, eloquently ardent, and blatantly obvious. Cenred, too, she had charmed, though he had been more reserved out of regard for Dorcas. To be honest, she could well understand what Dorcas saw in him; he was very handsome, with light brown eyes and wavy golden hair. His build was slim-hipped and muscular and his smile constant. His two front teeth were slightly overlapped and the effect was charming, even for a Saxon.
Cuthred, light blond with soft blue eyes and a broken nose to match a chipped front tooth, had surprised her with his docile adoration. He was built like a bull and had the same aggressiveness; so she had hardly thought he would turn his thoughts from battle long enough even to notice a woman. He had most certainly noticed her; in fact, his tongue-tied longing was almost endearing.
But it was Cynric who had been her greatest victory to date. Cynric, who had scowled at her from beneath dark brows from the moment he first had laid eyes upon her. Cynric, who would have chosen to spit on her before having to speak to her. Cynric, with his thick red-blond hair and deep blue eyes, had outrageous freckles across his nose and on the backs of his large hands. Cynric, hating every moment of it, desired her. Or had. What had happened?
Ceolmund had not changed, but he had never been a violent enemy. He was a strange Saxon: quiet to the point of silence, gentle as much as it was possible for a warrior to be gentle, and almost kind. Very odd behavior in a Saxon. He was handsome, too, though they were hardly an ill-favored race. Ceolmund's golden hair was quite dark and hung in waves to his elbows. His brows were heavy and sweeping over eyes of cool grayish blue. He was the tallest, excepting Wulfred, with wide shoulders and narrow hips, and his long nose was blunted at the tip. A most impressive man, for a Saxon, and second in size and strength and appearance to only one: Wulfred.
Wulfred, the only one among them to have remained her constant foe and completely blind to her transformation. If she had needed proof that he was an imbecile, she had it in this blindness. If only she could be as blind to his appearance. He was taller than any of them, his shoulders, arms, and back enormous with well-defined muscle; she couldn't help noticing his form, she rationalized, since he was never decently covered. His hair, golden blond and falling to the middle of his back, didn't cover him. Those skins he wore on his legs didn't cover him. A linen sheet certainly didn't cover him. She'd never forget the grin of arrogant and shameless satisfaction that he had worn when the sheet had crumpled to the floor. Or the gleam in his large eyes of intense blue.
She'd had ample time to study him during the last weeks, even though he'd kept his distance, emotionally. Physically he was as close as ever. Why, of them all, did he seem so unmoved by her transformation? He still called her a Roman snake on occasion, and she had hardly hissed her temper in weeks—an incredible feat of forbearance. He hadn't changed at all, and that meant one thing: he would kill her eventually. If she did not kill him first. It was that simple. It was a battle of wills between them that would end only when one of them lay dead. She didn't want to die. She didn't want him to win. But how to kill him?
A knife through the heart would do, but it had occurred to her that he was so muscle-bound, the knife might not make much headway. Her strike must be swift, and she did not have much weight to put behind the blow, so the chest had seemed to her more and more unlikely.
A long, deep slice across the throat would work and leave lots of his Saxon blood pooling on the ground besides, a definite plus, but he was very tall. She could never do it when he was standing, not being able to comfortably reach his throat, and he did not sit very often. It was a puzzle. If only he had fallen at her feet, as she had planned.
Melania left off her pacing in her little room. There were no answers there; the answers were out with Wulfred and the rest of them. Perhaps Cenred would give something away; he was fairly easy to read.
Leaving her privacy behind, something she had a little more of these days because of their foolish trust in her, she walked under the welcome shade of the portico, ambling toward the triclinium and keeping her eyes on the courtyard. Cenred was there, with Dorcas. He liked Dorcas well enough; that was obvious from the shine in his light brown eyes and the grin on his face. Dorcas returned his smiling regard, despite the fact that he was a murdering, hairy Saxon. Still, Melania had to admit, Cenred was charming. She'd spent enough time with him by now to know that, but how could Dorcas forget even for a moment that he was a Saxon? She had never been able to. And certainly the oaf had never done a thing to encourage her to forget it.
But Cenred was different with Dorcas. He was smiling fully at Dorcas and, though
she kept her dark eyes lowered, she was smiling back. They looked pleasant enough together, though not what she would call easy in each other's company. Melania leaned against a pillar of the portico and studied the lovers, really studied them, for the first time.
Cenred and Dorcas swirled around each other, drawing apart and swinging close in turn, never allowing the distance to grow too great. It was like a strange dance. He walked toward her and she backed up, smiling.
He stopped.
She stopped.
He spoke and she drew a step nearer. He took a step toward her; she stopped and gave him her profile.
He stepped forward again and again until he was close enough to reach out and brush a finger down the length of her arm.
Dorcas whirled away, smiling, and then stopped but three paces off, facing him. Cenred said something in a low tone that caused Dorcas to laugh and run toward him, her face alight with happiness.
Melania had never seen such a look on anyone's face as she saw now on Dorcas's. Never had Dorcas looked so beautiful. When she was a step away from Cenred, when Melania fully expected her to stop, Dorcas flew into Cenred's arms, arms that enfolded her with ease. Laughing, he let her go, sliding her down his body until she struck him playfully on the shoulder; he let her drop and she shrieked in exaggerated alarm.
But beyond all this play, this play that Melania knew led to the couch and originated on the couch and mimicked the antics of the couch, beyond all this, Melania saw something in Cenred's eyes, and in the eyes of Dorcas as well. But it was Cenred she studied. Cenred, who was of the tribe of Wulfred. There was a hunger in those eyes of warmest brown, and a claiming when he looked at Dorcas.
She had seen something of the same look in Wulfred's eyes just this morning. She had been on her knees in the antechamber to the library, a room that for two generations had served as an altar. The Chi-Rho of Christus had been painstakingly pieced into the tile floor, the work clumsier than the original tilework, but beautiful because of its meaning. She prayed there daily, and he had always left her to it, but today... today he had not left her alone.
He had said nothing. He had demanded nothing of her. Still, it had angered her that he had intruded upon her privacy when she wished to converse with the Christ. He had stood in the center of the library, the room an unsalvageable wreck since his arrival and of no use since he had burned all the manuscripts in his pagan violence, stood on the very spot where he had first seen her those long weeks ago. He had watched her, his arms folded across his bare chest, his eyes brilliant blue and blazing with a look she had never seen. A look she could not name. A look that was a shadow of the look that Cenred used when he looked at Dorcas.
It was a claiming.
When he called her slave, he had not had that look. This was something different altogether, and knowing what it was that Cenred and Dorcas did together sent a chill racing along her skin.
Was it so? In all her efforts to tempt him, had she succeeded and not known it? Did he desire her after all? Had she not understood him at all? But what use was it when he did not fall all over himself in clumsy and ridiculous admiration of her? What victory was there in this cold appraisal?
Still, she had tempted him, if she could trust the look she had read in him. He wanted her. Wulfred, the Saxon, wanted her.
Melania turned away from the couple in the courtyard and grinned. She had him. She had him exactly where she had planned for him to be, caught in a net of desire for her. It was a little disappointing that he did not act in any way the besotted fool, cross-eyed with lovesickness and loping after her like a dog seeking a treat. Still, it was almost perfectly plain that he wanted her.
She turned back to the courtyard and walked the perimeter, deep in thought, her hands playing with the folds of her palla. He had watched her through her prayers while she had rigidly ignored him, aware of his every breath and determined that he not know it.
He had not moved.
Neither had she.
The larks outside in the summer air had warbled in happy chorus until a raven had disrupted them with its hoarse croak and sent them flying off into the trees. This she did not see, but heard, the mental picture very clear though her eyes were closed in prayer.
Had she seen a glimmer of desire in those cold eyes of his? It had not seemed so, but if a thread of claiming, of possession, was in him, would there not also be desire? It seemed so to her. How could there be one without the other?
Melania smiled somewhat smugly and wrapped her arms around herself. He desired her. She wanted to laugh with the joy of it, but that would be an undignified display of emotion, and so she contented herself with grinning. Wulfred had fallen prey to her. Wulfred wanted to possess her. Melania grinned so fully that her cheeks ached with gleeful satisfaction. Of course, it was only the joy of winning, nothing else.
Melania turned out of the courtyard, suddenly stifled by the sun and the wall and the air and the tightening sense of enclosure. She walked briskly with a light, tripping step to the river. It was low now—the rains had been few this summer—and the river was sluggish. Still, it was running and it soothed her. Nothing else moved on this still, summer day. The sun was hot and dry; no wind stirred the treetops. Even the birds were still. It was too hot to fly, too hot to sing, too hot to sweep the sky for food. Melania turned her eyes back to the water; she watched the ripples of gray and silver as the water sped by, reflecting the golden sun in fragmented snatches. The water looked almost like molten metal as it flowed past her spot on the low bank of grass; almost, except that she could feel the cool air rising from the surface of the stream. She lifted the stray hairs off her neck with a casual sweep of her right hand, keeping her eyes on the water. It was a pleasure to watch moving water on such a hot day. It had been hot all summer, and so dry. Would this freakish and unnatural summer never end?
Of course it would end. Autumn was no more than a month distant and the weather would cool. With the chill, the Saxon horde would retreat. Finally he would leave. She would have her home again. He would take his men and his weapons and his arrogant orders and he would sail away. He wouldn't come back; he probably wouldn't be able to find his way if he wanted to. He wouldn't want to; what Saxon returned to a place plundered of all worth? No, when he was gone, he would be gone forever, and she thanked God for it.
She couldn't wait for him to leave, taking his hopeless desire for her with him. He would leave. She would never see him again. She would forget him. After a thorough scrubbing, it would be as if they had never been there, all smell of them and their weapons and their leather leg coverings and their bloody seaxes would be washed away. It would be as if they had never been, as if he had never come.
Except that her father's grave could not be washed away.
Tears stabbed, hot as coals, behind her eyes. These stupid, melancholy thoughts accomplished nothing. Melania brushed a hand across her eyes, pushing the tears away, daring them to come and challenge her authority. They wouldn't dare. Better to think of something else. She didn't want Wulfred to leave too quickly, not when she had just come to understand something of him and his almost blatant desire for her. After all, she did not want the Saxons to leave until she had killed Wulfred. He couldn't possibly leave until she had achieved her vengeance. Autumn was only a month or so away; she had better not delay or he might escape her.
Was it desire she had glimpsed in him? He was so guarded with her. Hardly the way Cenred was with Dorcas. How could she get him to relax with her? She could hardly stab him to death if he wasn't completely relaxed.
Leaning back on her elbows and closing her eyes, Melania dangled her feet in the water. It felt good on her bare feet, clean and smooth and cool. Refreshing. Relaxing. Peaceful.
"I thought you didn't bathe in the river, Roman."
Her feeling of relaxation slid from her into the river at her feet, leaving only agitation and a sick rolling in her belly.
"I'm not bathing, Saxon, and must you follow me everywhere I go? Ca
n't you find your own entertainments without intruding on mine?"
Her words came out more harshly than she should have allowed, but his constant proximity was putting her on edge. Could she not have a few moments to herself, a few isolated moments without being forced to look at a half-naked man?
Melania turned her head back for a quick glance at Wulfred, hoping he had found a tunic somewhere. He had not. He was glistening gold and rippling muscle. He was clean. He was combed. He was close to smiling.
Smiling? What did he have to smile about?
"It is too hot to seek entertainment, unless it involves water." He walked straight through her glare of annoyance and seated himself on the grass next to her, the length of his legs dwarfing hers. "I knew you were young by your stunted size, but I had thought you too old to splash in the water like a child. Shall I make you a ball of wood to play with?"
Again the reference to her being childlike; did he not act on his desire for her because he thought her still a girl? "I am perfectly formed by civilized standards, barbarian, with no defect, as any educated man would know."
"And you are always trying to educate me."
"With no success."
"No?" He smiled and looked out over the water, the light from the moving river reflecting and sparkling in his eyes. "You have forgotten my conversion to the Roman bath."
"A small victory, but one my nose appreciates."
"And your eyes?"
"My eyes?" she asked, pulling her knees to her chin in a gesture of unconscious protection, leaving the water to drip from her feet back into the twisting river.
"Yes, have you not noticed a change in my look? I have noticed a change in yours."
He had? He had certainly not shown it. What deviousness did he practice now? Would he not appreciate her beauty if she did not note his first? Not that he was beautiful; he was merely tall and golden and banded with muscle. Melania shook off the uneasiness in her belly; he was a typical Saxon, except that he was clean.
