One With the Darkness (19 page)

“Ahhhh, Lady Lucellus, a frequent visitor,” the man said, nodding. Could he not see that her face was reddening in the channel of light? “Sign the scroll,” the old man ordered, and swiveled it across the desk.

Livia took the stylus and dipped it in the inkwell. Her hand was shaking, already red and beginning to blister. She scribbled her name and straightened. “What name do you give him?”

“Jergan Britannicus Lucellus,” she said. Her voice was small.

“I suppose you cannot write it,” the man said to Jergan. “She can write it for you.”

“I can write,” Jergan growled. He pulled the scroll toward him. He took up the stylus and wrote the name she had given him. When he had finished, the old man took the scroll, examined both signatures, and then looked up.

“Jergan Britannicus Lucellus, you are now a freedman with all the rights thereof. Obey the laws of the Eternal City upon punishment of death.”

He stood there, holding the stylus, suddenly adrift. He was free.

Livia took the stylus from him gently and laid it on the table. Her hand was blistered. Her face was red. “Come, Jergan. You can stay at the house while you decide what to do next.” Jergan could not stand it longer. He reached over and pulled her
palla
up over her head, then twitched it forward to cover her face better.

“Watch that you are not impertinent, slave, else she may change her mind about freeing you,” the old man complained. He peered at Livia. “But you always free them, don’t you? Impertinent or not.” He heaved a sigh and turned to the next in line.

Jergan turned with her while the citizen behind them stepped up impatiently with the old man he intended to free. Jergan followed her from the building. She took a breath for courage before she hurried down the steps.

A large man with purple woven into the edge of his toga blocked her way. “Livia Quintus Lucellus,” he greeted her. “I so rarely see you out and about. What is the occasion?” His hair was a gray, thick shock. How did he know her, bundled up as she was? Jergan recognized him from the retinue of Caesar at the banquet the other night. That meant he was dangerous.

“Decimus Valerius Asiaticus, you surprise me,” she choked.

“It was your slave that betrayed your identity. Word has spread of his prowess. What was it,” the man asked Jergan, “nine?”

Jergan grunted assent, wishing the sun would go behind the clouds that scattered across the sky and give Livia even a modicum of relief. He had a feeling that the light leaking in under her
palla
was continuing to burn
her. The man had a crafty face with darting brown eyes that saw everything.

“You are fortunate in your selection. Many would give a high price for a slave like that. Would you consider selling?”

“Not possible. I have just registered his name. He is a free man.”

The man was peering under Livia’s
palla.
Of a sudden he grabbed her hand from among the folds of her
palla
and lifted it to his lips. The broken blisters sent little rivulets of fluid across her knuckles. How could the man torture her so? Didn’t he realize what he was doing? “Are you well? The sun seems to have an unfortunate effect on you.”

Livia snatched her hand away, unable to speak.

“I think Caesar should get to know such an extraordinary woman better. I will send a personal guard to escort you to his investiture of a new consul in the Senate tomorrow. We wouldn’t want you set upon again.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” she choked, and Jergan took her elbow, hurrying her back to the litter. He opened the hangings and thrust her inside. Glancing back, he saw the counselor to Caesar watching them with narrowed eyes.

“To the house,” Jergan ordered the Nubians, who lifted the poles. “And hurry.”

L
IVIA GASPED FOR
breath inside her litter. So much sunlight! This had been worse than previous visits to the registrar. The angle of the sun in winter was unfortunate. She heard Jergan urging the Nubians forward. The litter swayed and rocked. She touched a finger to her face and winced. Her hands were blistered and swollen, her face probably only slightly less so. She hoped Jergan hadn’t noticed how bad it was. The sun weakened her system. If she had any other wound, she’d have healed by the time
she crossed her doorstep and Jergan would never know about the healing. As it was, she must conceal how bad the burns were. She laid her hands carefully on the cushions of the litter. The scraping of her
palla
hurt too much to hide them now.

She lay there, half-insensate. When the litter stopped swaying it was all she could do to rouse herself. The draperies were pulled back. She cringed away from the light. She must gather herself and get out. She had to face the sunlight just once more.

But big hands laid her own hands gently on her lap, then pulled her
palla
around her. Arms lifted her. She hissed as her hands rubbed against the fabric.

“I can walk. I’m fine,” she protested faintly.

“Of course you can.” But he didn’t put her down.

She laid her head against his shoulder. He smelled familiar now. She would always know that scent, his alone. Her
palla
fell back to expose her face. Pain shot through her.

“Lucius, pull up her
palla,”
Jergan ordered sharply. “Shield her face.”

“Oh, my lady, what have you done?” The
palla
was adjusted.

Jergan carried her into the house as though she weighed nothing. The great doors clanged shut. She began to breathe again, limp against his chest. He carried her into her quarters and laid her down on her bed.

She huddled there inside her
palla
, afraid to move just yet. She’d be fine. She always was, no matter how bad the burn. But it would take some hours this time. “Leave me,” she said, to whoever was in the room. Her voice was thick and strange.

She heard footsteps and the doors were shut. Now all she had to do was wait out the healing. She could bear the pain until then.

The bed creaked as a weight descended on it. “Can’t you follow orders?” There was no question about who it was. His scent betrayed him.

“I’m not your slave anymore,” he said softly. He moved the
palla
off her face.

She cracked open her eyes, swollen and crusty. She could barely see the grim expression on his face. She must look a sight. “It isn’t as bad as it looks,” she mumbled through cracked lips. “I react strongly, but it goes away.” Just like he would, soon enough.

He pulled the edges of her
palla
carefully away from her hands. She didn’t lift her head to look. Why bother? She knew what they looked like. She had been burned before.

“Does this happen every time you free a slave?” He laid her hands carefully on the bed.

“Not this badly. The shaft of sunlight …”

“A high price to pay for a generous deed.”

She closed her eyes. “Uncomfortable for a while. It doesn’t matter. Leave me now.” Leave the room, leave the city—her heart contracted.

The weight lifted from the bed. She heard his steps moving around the room. No sound of the door closing after him. Sloshing. Scraping—was he opening a drawer? Then the weight was back. He lifted her shoulders.

“Drink.” Cool water passed her lips. She had to admit it was welcome. He laid her back down. She watched through her cracked eyelids as he busied himself with something. He leaned over her and smoothed some of the unguent she had used on his welts across her lips. His touch hurt initially, but then the salve soothed the burning.

“Thank you.” She was about to order him to leave again when she realized it would make no difference. He knew how bad the burns were. He would realize how
much she healed. Her lame explanation that the reaction faded either would satisfy him or wouldn’t.

“Would it help if I spread unguent on your hands and face?” he asked.

“The effect will pass. I can’t imagine anyone touching my skin.” Already she was speaking a little more clearly.

“Then rest.” He removed her sandals and the wrappings on her feet.

She was already feeling sleepy as the Companion in her blood began to do its job and heal her. A thought crashed through her lethargy. “Will you wait to leave for Britannia until I wake?” She made it a question. She had no right to ask it of him. Not anymore.

“I won’t leave.”

Good. She would see him again. Once more. It was all she could expect. She closed her eyes, too tired to examine the confusion in her breast.

11

W
HEN SHE OPENED
her eyes again, she could feel that the sun had set. Lamps were turned low around the room. It felt like it was after midnight. She must have slept for many hours. Jergan sat on the end of the bed, his back to one of the bedposts that supported the curtains hung to keep out the bugs in summer.

“Better?” he asked.

She sat up. She felt fine. She would look fine. “Yes,” she said warily. Had he grasped what the healing truly meant? Some part of her surged up inside her brain and hissed,
Tell him!
She couldn’t do that. Their kind existed in secret. It was their only protection, that and the disbelief of humans, against mobs with torches. She could die in only one way. No prison could hold her. But she had learned long ago that her servants could be killed, her work undone. She couldn’t tell anyone what she really was. She looked at her hands, once again smooth and white. The hands of a woman of thirty. Now he would ask what the healing meant. And she could never tell him.

A furrow created creases between his brows and he chewed his lower lip. He had been sitting there thinking for a long time. That was bad. But he surprised her.

“Why did you free me?” Lamplight flickered on the planes of his face. She couldn’t read his expression.

“I always free my slaves. Tufi and Lucius must have told you that.”

“They said a slave has to earn it. You made the others earn it. I did nothing to earn my freedom. Unless you count bedding you a service.”

That struck her to the heart. He thought she freed him in payment for the sex? She managed a chuckle. “It would have taken more than one night to earn your price, barbarian. You were expensive.”

“Then why?”

“Maybe I can’t own slaves anymore. I haven’t the stomach for it.”

“I don’t think that’s it.”

“You’re certainly insistent about things now that you are a freedman.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

No. She didn’t want to tell him. What use? He was going to leave anyway. Why bare her feeble hopes? She hardly dared admit them to herself.

Take a chance, Livia. You’ll regret it if you don’t. And regret will poison you. I know.

The effect was so strong it almost startled her. It seemed like an actual voice inside was admonishing her. She had heard it now several times. A shudder ran down her spine. She wished she only had vague urges now. Jergan had folded his arms across his chest, the muscles in his upper arms bulging, his brow puckered as though in disapproval. He was waiting her out. She tried to focus and cleared her throat. Very well. She could tell him this. “I couldn’t go on bedding you if you were a slave. In spite of the fact that you appeared willing.”

A small smile softened his stern expression. “I didn’t
appear
willing. I
was
willing. And it was more than last night. It was this morning, too.” He cocked his head to
look at her. “You want it to go on, so you freed me. Yet you are certain I will leave for Britannia now that I am free.”

“I know. It is stupid.” She fussed with her
stola
, embarrassed. Of course he would go. Romans had treated him abominably. He disapproved of everything about Rome.

Take a chance.

“I wanted you to have what you want most.” There. She’d said it.

“And what about you? You need a bodyguard more than ever.”

“I’ll hire one.”

She watched emotions flicker across his expression. Regret, something almost like anger. Then they faded, leaving … what? Resolve. The changes were so subtle and so fleeting that once she might not have recognized them, but now she knew his features and his guarded expression of emotion well.

“Good,” he said, finally breaking the silence. “But since no one you hired would really care about whether you lived or died, it’s a good thing that one man of good character who does care will apply for the job. Do I submit my application to Lucius?”

“You would stay?” She hardly dared form the words. She wanted him to stay so badly. But he longed for his home. She knew that. Those traces of emotion in his face just now had been the realization that his decision would cost him what he wanted most, at least for a while.

“Until your little plot is over. Depends upon the pay, of course.”

“This is dangerous, Jergan. You know that now.” She had to give him a way out.

“All the more reason you need a bodyguard. How much?”

“One dinar a day.” That was likely ten times the going rate.

“I am probably being cheated.” He shook his head, mock sorrowful. He had control of his expressions now. He seemed to consider. “With room and board thrown in?”

He was making light of a decision that must be truly difficult for him. She felt a smile light her eyes but managed to keep it from her mouth. “We are somewhat short of beds.”

“Then you must share yours, my lady. Do we have a bargain?”

She held out a hand and realized that it no longer blistered. She almost snatched it back.

But he took it and clasped it firmly. “Done. I am your bodyguard until the plot is over, one way or another.”

“Thank you,” she said. She should make him go. It was safer. And yet to share the burden with another was such a relief, she could not say it to him. Was she selfish in allowing him to stay? Yes. But the attack last night had proved she needed him. And the plot still needed her. If she needed him in other ways as well, was that so bad?

He looked seriously at her. “If it goes wrong, do you have some escape route planned?”