Love's Blazing Ecstasy (39 page)

Wynne took Valerian’s dark gazes in her direction as contempt for her, not knowing the turmoil raging inside
him at her very nearness. Once when she accidentally brushed his hand while they were passing in the hallway, he pulled away as if she had burned him. The touch of her skin on his nearly made him lose his head. Wynne was wounded by his reaction, not realizing how he yearned for her.

He acts as if I will
defile him
, she thought with anger. Their violent conversation on that first day echoed through her mind. How could he possibly think such things of her, that she would share a man’s bed for trinkets? How insulting!

As the days passed, the wall between Valerian and Wynne grew thicker as each misunderstood so many things about the other, but at the same time certain routines were established. Wynne began seeing to Valerians household as she had Severus’, since he had no wife with him. This pleased him. He spoke no more angry words to her, but neither did he try to approach her again to touch her or caress her. In his heart he hoped that she would come to him. Every time he looked upon her it was a torture not to be able to take her in his arms. He was not blind to the looks other men gave to her tall slim beauty. He could not help but wonder if any of these men had bedded her, and this question ate upon his heart.

As for Wynne, she was oblivious of her effect. Even Cassius was drawn to her, though he would not even think of betraying his friendship with Valerian now that he knew of the young man’s feelings for the girl.

At last Wynne could stand the tension between them no longer, she asked him to give her her freedom. With her chin held high, she stood before him in the atrium, the light making her hair look like spun gold. “I must ask you to free me,” she said.

“No,” Valerian said firmly. “You belong to me now, Wynne.” At the pain in her eyes his voice softened. “I will try to make it as pleasant as I can for you here. You will not have to work, nor share my bed.”

He said that so easily that she felt her heart plummet.  He would not ask her to share his bed because he did not want her.
Perhaps in the dark recesses of her mind she had still held hope. “I beg of you—give me my freedom,” she said again.

But Valerian was adamant about keeping her tied to him, lest he never see her again, and he dismissed her.

“Why don’t you take what is yours, Valerian?” Cassius asked later that week. “It is your right as her master. Her body is yours. You even have the power of life and death over the woman.”

“I want more than her body. I want her love,” Valerian answered, looking thoughtfully out of the window at the falling snow. How he longed for the summer again, even though it meant he might be called upon another campaign if the peace that had lingered in the land was broken.

“Love? Love? There is no such thing. There is only respect for one’s wife and lust for one’s mistress!” Cassius stood peeling an apple with his dagger, wishing instead for the tart grapes he was fond of. As he talked, he punctuated his words with jabs of the dagger.

Valerian shook his head. “No. You are wrong. Love does exist. I had it once. Wynne loved me. This I know for certain.”

“And what if she never loves you again? Are you willing to wait forever? Take my advice, and if you don’t want to force yourself on her, then find yourself another concubine. At least until the Celt comes to her senses and realizes that you are a much better protector than Severus ever was.” Cassius looked up to see Wynne coming through the door, laden with foods for the evening’s entertainment—a banquet he was throwing to honor the new tribune.

As usual Wynne averted her eyes from Valerian’s as if trying to pretend that he didn’t exist. His refusal to let her have her freedom had deeply hurt her; it chafed her pride to think that he considered her his property to do with as he would.

Cassius hurriedly left the room, leaving the lovers alone, eyeing the tribune as if to say: Take what is yours.

“I appreciate the trouble you’ve gone to for tonight’s festivities,” Valerian said.

“That is a slave’s duty, master,” Wynne responded haughtily, busying herself with an arrangement of pine boughs.

He ignored the iciness in her voice and continued trying to win a smile from her. “Let me see what you have brought. Ah, shellfish, eggs”—he touched each of the items as he spoke moving closer and closer to her as he did so—“capon, truffles, apples, dates from Rome.” He grinned at her. “I fear we will all be fat as bulls when this night is through.” Inadvertently her eyes met his and he whispered intently, “Do you still hate me so much, Wynne?”

“I do not hate you,
master
,” she said. It is my duty to please you in all things—except one.” No doubt he lusted for a woman to share his bed when the festivities were through and for that considered her good enough, she thought. Had he so soon forgotten about all the other men who—according to him—had sampled her body, or didn’t it matter when a man’s staff was swollen with desire?

“Don’t call me ‘master’. My name is Valerian. I am sick to death of your calling me that! Do you understand?” He was torn between his rage at her aloofness and his excitement at her proximity.

“As you wish, Master Valerian,” she replied coldly, again emphasizing the word “master” as if it were an insult.

Valerian could control his temper no longer. He had held himself in check all these long days, but now his emotions were like a dam about to burst. With furious energy he gripped her shoulders.

“Let go of me!” Wynne cried, struggling against him. But he was strong and his anger made him even more powerful.

“No. by the gods, I won’t. Not until you admit that you do still care for me, that you have forgiven me, and that you want me as much as I want you.” Savagely he pulled her to him and pressed his mouth to hers in a brutal kiss, his hands tangling in the golden mass of her hair, his other arm about her slim waist.

Wynne fought him in earnest, remembering all too well the pain a man’s body could inflict upon a woman. Gone was the memory of how precious his kisses had once been. Now he was only another panting, sweating, lusting Roman trying to have his way with her. In a moment of panic she bit down savagely on his lower lip, and he reeled away from her, his mouth dripping blood.

“Why, you bloodthirsty little heathen,” he cried out, forgetting his protestations to Cassius about wanting Wynne’s love and not just her body. Anger made him foolish. “Were you so ruthless to Severus, or did you melt in his arms? Should I shower you with jewels to win your favors, as he no doubt did?”

She gasped, holding on to the table for support. “How dare you say such things to me? You of all people should know I am not a whore. A woman cannot help it if her body is used against her will.” She drew back and in fury pulled the shoulder of her stola down, exposing the scars from her whipping at the orders of Severus. “This is what I got from Severus,” she said. “Because I would not bed him. I never slept with him, never. I would as soon have bedded with a snake.”

He stared at her then and regretted to the depths of his soul his angry words and actions. “Oh, Wynne, I’m..I’m sorry, truly s..s..sorry,” he stammered. “I should not have said such t
hings to you.” He took a step forward, but she broke free of him and ran from the room.

“Valerian, you imbecile1” he shouted to himself. “Now you will never have her love. Your temper has killed it.”

Overwhelmed with remorse and tenderness for her, he remembered their first meeting and how she had fed him, clothed him, and given him Sloan.  Sloan. If there was any way to make up to her for the terrible things he had said, perhaps it was with the black horse. It was his only hope. If she still hated him, refused to forgive him, then he would give her one more present: her freedom.

Chapter Sixty-One

Valerian had been
looking forward to the evening’s banquet, but he had hoped that by now Wynne would be at his side, as his equal, his beloved. But it was not to be. All through the dinner she avoided him, unless serving him and even then averted her eyes. Her scorn was a thorn in his heart, embedding itself deeper and deeper within him each time she came near.

Wine flowed freely, as did conversation. The assembled guests had removed their shoes and had taken their places on the couches, reclining before movable tables. In
Rome the room would have been decorated with flowers, but here in the dead of winter, Wynne had decorated it with evergreens and colored cloth.

The meal had three courses: the appetizer of boiled eggs and shellfish in a wine sauce; the main course, a roasted boar, with truffles and apples; and for desert, honey cakes and nuts.

“Eat heartily, Valerian,” Cassius urged him. “Soon you will be eating simple soldier’s fare again.” Washing his hands to prepare himself for eating his dessert, he threw Valerian a wolfish grin and reached for a honey cake.

Valerian tried to enjoy his meal, but the food seemed to stick in his throat. A sudden desire to order all his guests to leave overwhelmed him. Usually one to abstain from drink, he soon was in his cups, hoping that this would dull the pain in his heart.

Seeing his friend’s unhappiness, Burrus made his way through the throng of laughing soldiers to Valerian’s side. They embraced warmly, as the comrades they were.

“There were so many here that I have not had time to greet you properly,” Burrus said, watching as Valerian reached for another goblet of wine. “It seems to me that you have much to tell since last we met.”

“That’s true. The gods have favored me. They spared my life and have given me much. If only the goddess of love were as kind.”

“Ah, Valerian, how much more favored could you be than to have such a beauty as Wynne in your household?  She is not only beautiful but brave as well.”

Valerian turned to his friend and gave him such a look of anger and jealousy that Burrus drew back in surprise. “What is it ? What have I said to upset you?” he asked.

“You know her?” he asked, then realized that—of course—Burrus had been with Severus at the same time as Wynne.

“Yes, I know her,” Burrus answered in a choked voice. “I think perhaps you had better put down your goblet, my friend. Drinking seems to make you quarrelsome.” He reached to take it away, but Valerian held it firmly.

“It’s not the drink which affects me so. It is the suspicion that perhaps you have sampled my slave’s charms, taken her to your bed. I am not blind to the looks which have passed between you this evening, nor the smiles which she has shed upon you. Would that she looked at me thus.”

“You insult her,” Burrus replied. “I have never bedded that lovely woman, though the goddess Venus herself knows that I would have tried to had she shown the slightest interest in me. She is a rare jewel, that one. She withstood every torture Severus could think of—beatings, starvation, being mauled, insults, threats. All the while Severus proclaimed her his alone, never once did she bow to his will. Never did she willingly let any man touch her.”

Never?” Valerian asked, his voice growing softer as his anger died.

“Never,” Burrus answered. With sorrow he related all that he had heard from Wynne’s own lips of the horrors she had experienced that day when Severus had so brutally swept down upon her tribesmen. How she had seen her people slaughtered before her eyes, and how a Roman she trusted with her life had murdered her father. “She was nearly raped by many of our kind before the day was through. For a time she hated all Romans, until I was able to befriend her. It made me sick to admit that I too was Roman after hearing her story,” Burrus lamented.

Valerian’s eyes were wide with shock. Never had he suspected that she
had been through so much debasement. “My poor Wynne,” he moaned. He saw her across the room and was not surprised to find her giving him an icy stare. He deserved all the scorn she heaped upon him after all that he had said in his jealousy.

“Ever since that day, she has been unable to abandon herself to passion, though I know that before that time she was deeply in love with someone.” Burrus looked up then and was taken aback by the look on the tribune’s face, as if Pluto himself had beckoned from his underworld for him, as if death were at his door. “Valerian, what is wrong?” he asked fearfully.
“Your face is as s as pale as if you had seen Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the underworld. Are you ill?”

“I wish that at this moment the earth would swallow me up, that I could disappear for
ever.” He put his hands up and pulled at his hair. “I have killed that which was more precious to me than life itself.” He told Burrus all that had happened between Wynne and himself since he had been reunited with her. He told about all the hateful things he had said to her, how she blamed him for the death of all those she loved, and her slavery itself, how he feared she would never forgive him.

“Then Wynne….Wynne is the Celtic woman you loved, the one you went to see that day to talk about peace? The one who has haunted you these long months.”

“Yes. Once she was mine, but now I have lost her.” He hung his head, shaking it back and forth as if saying ‘no’.

Burrus opened his mouth to speak, to try to comfort his friend, but before he had the chance, another friend stepped between them, slapping Valerian on the back.