Roman (9 page)

“It is—” She paused, and the firelight emphasized the peaks and valleys of her frown, the hollows of her eyes and temples. “It is improper for me to eat before you. We are not equal.”

Roman set the bag straight down while still in his fist. “How exactly are we not equal?”

“My lord—” she began, a pained expression coming over her oval face.

“No,” he interrupted. “Isra, I mean in no way to be harsh with you, but I have told you before that I am no lord. And certainly not yours. There isn't a drop of titled blood in my veins. It's improper for you to refer to me as such.”

Her frown intensified. “Shall I then call you master?”

“No!” Roman said, horrified.

She dropped her eyes back to the untouched meal. “I do not understand. Forgive me.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout,” he said. “You've done nothing wrong.”

“What is it your wish I should call you? Please, have mercy and tell me, for I do not wish to incur your scorn again.”

Roman stared at her. “Scorn? I'm not—” He paused and took a deep breath. “Roman. Just call me Roman. And we shall eat at the same time.”

Her eyes flicked up. “As you wish. I shall call you Roman.” She reached out and picked up the bread. She tore it in half, although one side was considerably larger than the other, and then handed the larger piece to Roman.

“Thank you,” he said. He gestured to her with the hunk of bread and then took a large bite. He was still chewing when he saw the little smile come over her face as she at last brought her own morsel to her mouth, nibbling on it.

He'd eaten first, just as she'd wanted.

“I see what you did,” he said after swallowing the hard, lumpy dough.

“I should never think to hide anything from you,” Isra replied. She returned her bread to the cloth and picked up the carafe. “May I pour you some wine?”

He reached out and took the carafe from her. “You're not my servant, Isra.”

The woman placed her palms on her thighs. “I owe you a debt I can never repay in this lifetime. You must allow me to serve you.”

“I do believe our debts to each other negate any repayment,” he said and poured two cups of wine. “I've never had a servant in my life, and I'm not about to allow it now from the woman who saved my friends from execution.”

“That which I did was also for my own benefit,” she admitted.

“Perhaps that is true,” Roman allowed. “But it doesn't change the fact that what you did saved the lives of the three men who I consider my only family.” He took a drink, if only so Isra would. She had to be thirsty.

The dark-haired woman lowered her cup. “What of your true family? Were you an orphan?”

Roman picked up one of the eggs and took a bite, taking a moment to think upon a subject his mind hadn't come near in years.

“No, I wasn't an orphan,” he said at last. “I had a mum and a father. Brothers and sisters, too, although I can't recall how many or their names. More than I could count on one hand. The earliest memory I have is of our small home.” He paused. “I haven't seen any of them since I was six.”

Isra selected the smallest piece of cheese. “What happened to that boy who was yet so small?”

Roman laughed despite the vague feelings of sadness this discussion was rousing in him. “I wasn't small, even then. It's actually the reason I was sent away. My father said I ate too much, so he found an apprenticeship for me in the city. A stonemason who needed another slave. My departure brought much-needed coin into their house.” He glanced up and saw that Isra was looking at him levelly, and there was no pity or regret in her eyes.

“You clearly performed your duties well.”

Roman nodded, feeling the sadness fade away. “That I did. I had my own crew by the time I was twenty. Five years after, I was my own master.” He popped the last of the egg into his mouth.

He thought he saw something like admiration shining in her eyes, and Roman had to admit that it gave him a feeling of pleasure.

“You are not beholden to any lord? To no king?” she asked, a tinge of amazement in her voice as she tore a small piece of bread from the portion she still claimed.

Roman shook his head. “Only to the man or principality that hires me.”

“You enjoy more freedom than the wealthiest lord, then.”

He chuckled as he raised his cup to his lips. “I used to,” he said before taking a drink.

Isra dropped her eyes again, and so he thought to soothe her worry. “At Melk I do not toil for months in desert heat. It is a good life.”

She glanced up for only an instant, and it gave Roman relief to see that she no longer wore the chastised look he'd seen a moment before. He wanted to inquire as to her own past—the mother, the sister she'd lost—how such a beautiful and well-spoken woman had come to be enslaved in the basest of occupations in Damascus, but he did not want to see a reemergence of the fear and anxiety that had only now faded the slightest bit. And so he finished his meal much as Isra finished hers, in peaceful silence.

They gathered up the remnants of the food, returning the supplies and Isra's satchel to the compartment hidden beneath the cart bed.

“The sky is clear,” Roman pointed out again as he fastened the latch. “It will likely become quite cold tonight; I'll sleep beneath the cart.”

She was gathering her shroud from the side of the wagon as he spoke, and she looked up at his words. “No,” she said, and then seemed to temper her tone. “Would that you allow me the freedom of lying on the ground. I grew used to sleeping out of doors on my journey, and I fear the cart bed has made injury to my back.” She didn't look at him as she gave her reasons, only draped and folded the lengths of cloth between her fingers.

Roman frowned. “I do not care for the idea of you being exposed in the night. If someone should by chance come upon our camp, I would not be able to reach you easily.”

She did look up then. “If I am only under the cart, I can more quickly escape.”

He understood. He opened his mouth, but a faint rumbling from beyond the glow of their fire caused both their heads to turn. While Roman stood still, his eyes straining to pick out any movement along the dark horizon where the road lay, Isra dropped the clothing in her hands and stepped quickly to the fire. She kicked the bucket of water across the base of the coals and then grabbed a cracked, crooked branch, dragging the broken end in a zigzagging pattern through the ash. Besides the faint hissing of doused wood, no evidence of the fire remained, and although Roman lamented the loss of their warmth for whatever time they would be about before sleeping, he was impressed with the woman's forethought.

The desperate are often resourceful by necessity, he acknowledged, and he wondered how many times she'd had to perform the same action with her own lonely fires on the many nights of her journey to Melk. The idea gave him a feeling of unease in his stomach.

Then she came to the back side of the cart and squatted behind it. Roman joined her, bracing one hand on the splintery wood to duck his head and peer beneath the cart. He reached into a fold of his robes and withdrew the small golden dagger he'd confiscated from Isra days ago and held it out to her. She wasn't looking at him, though, so he whispered her name.

Isra looked down at the blade he held toward her, handle first. She reached out to take it, but when she did so, her hand was not empty. She had to maneuver a much larger knife in her palm in order to take possession of the small dagger, and Roman was quite surprised she had managed not only to acquire such a deadly weapon but that she'd apparently had it readily at hand the entire time of their supper.

As if she could hear his thoughts, Isra whispered, “Maisie Lindsey.” Roman smiled to himself in the dark, but the distraction was quickly forgotten when Isra again whispered, “There.”

He looked toward the road again and could now make out the soft, swinging glow of lanterns hung on the hooks of moving conveyances. By the heavy, muffled sounds of many hooves and the orchestra of creaks, Roman could only surmise that whoever passed was of a large party. The first of the wagons drew even with their camp and then passed, but the sounds of approaching travelers only grew louder. Soon, the faint whisper of a melody being plucked on a lute, the rhythm of a tinny drum, reached his ears, and then the murmurings of voices, the high-pitched shout of a woman's laughter, the arguing drone of men's voices, the barking of numerous dogs.

It was an enormous traveling party. Roman hadn't seen one so large since his time in the Holy Land, when the families of nomads would move themselves and everything they owned across the desert.

A horse from the procession whinnied and their little gray donkey behind them responded. Roman felt his shoulders tense, but the line of wagons did not pause.

“It's a caravan,” Isra whispered at his side as still the party passed by.

“A caravan of what?” He looked to her, trying to make out her features in the darkness, but her eyes were fixed on the road, and all he could see was her gently rounded profile.

She shook her head.

The last of the wagons finally passed, although the rattling cacophony of conveyances swelled in the air. Roman could not imagine any town who would grant them entrance at this time of the night. He thought of the wide place he and Isra had stopped to make camp and gave a moment's wordless thanks that it wasn't any larger.

He rose to his feet, as did Isra, and both of them stared for several moments in the direction in which the caravan had gone.

“Will you not reconsider sleeping in the cart?” he asked.

“No,” she said. She looked up at him. “I do not wish to disobey you.”

He watched her for a moment. He knew if he commanded her, Isra would obey. But he could see the fear in her eyes, and he did not want to be a cause of it. Perhaps she was in slightly more danger sleeping on the ground, but perhaps not. After all, if a person of ill intent sneaked up on their camp in the night and wasn't detected before reaching whoever it was on the ground, both of them would be in dire straits.

“Very well,” he said, and then went to ready his meager bedclothes: an extra robe and his satchel for a pillow. “Perhaps you would take the canvas to lie on so as to avoid the damp.”

“Thank you,” she said and took it from him. In a moment, she had disappeared under the cart.

Roman climbed into the now open bed and adjusted himself, trying as best he could to keep the cart from rocking. His feet hung off the end, the wood digging into his calves until he bent his knees and pulled his legs up.

He turned over onto his side and pushed the satchel into the board behind the driver's seat, trying to give the stiff pillow as much volume as possible. Then he sighed, resigning himself to the idea of his skull pressing against wood all night.

The darkness at last grew still as the rattling echoes of the caravan faded away.

“Good night, Isra,” he said.

The silence was complete for a long moment.

“Good night, my lord.”

“I'm not your lord.”

“Good night, Roman.”

I
sra closed her eyes, but her mind would not quiet. Her ears were attuned to the slightest whisper of wind against the land, the creak of the branches of the trees. In only moments, she could make out the steady rhythm of Roman Berg's breathing above her. And although his close proximity did make her feel much safer than she'd ever felt while sleeping on the road, her brow still creased with unease. Every so often, the breeze carried to her a hint of a shout or a clang or a single note of music, so faint that perhaps no one but Isra could have heard it.

It was the caravan. And it had stopped not so far down the road.

Slavers, performers, Romani . . . the group could be comprised of any sort of individuals. But they were traveling into the darkness, which meant they were used to being turned away. So whatever their kind, their repute was of the ill sort, and well they knew it. Isra didn't think they had noticed their tiny camp in the darkness set so far back from the road, but she wasn't sure enough to relax.

Should she wake Roman? And tell him what? That there were people camped down the road from them? That was a situation they would encounter many times during the course of their journey, and Isra knew she couldn't fall to pieces each time they were passed by travelers or someone noticed her at all.

But there was something about the group that had passed—something—she couldn't sort it out in her head. It wasn't exactly fear, it wasn't attraction; perhaps an anxious curiosity to know the nature of the danger or nay that was so close to them, sleeping in the darkness.

She told herself she was only foolish, squeezed her eyes shut, and finally forced herself into a tense, fitful slumber.

The creaking of the cart bed above her woke her—not long after dawn, by the gray haze that curtained the landscape beyond her meager shelter. She looked down past her bent knees, curled beneath her blanket, and saw Roman's sandaled feet touch down onto the ground. As they moved around the side of the cart before her, Isra gathered her legs and rolled out the opposite side and stood. They faced each other over the open bed.

“Good morn,” he said, and Isra thought he looked like a disgruntled little boy, his white blond hair flipped up at his crown where it had bent into place while he slept. She thought it looked silky and soft, like angora, and she wondered if it would feel as such should she pull a lock of it through her fingers.

“Good morn,” she replied and then dropped her eyes, bending at once to gather her bedclothes while the large man moved away from the cart.

It was only a moment later that she heard his muffled curse.

She looked, still turning the roll of blanket in her arms, to find him just coming to a stop near the tree, the thick fog blanketing the landscape around their camp like an enchantment. He was turning in tight circles, and from his hand hung a short portion of rope. Her eyes went to the tree.

The donkey was gone.

Roman turned to her and their eyes met, and in that moment Isra felt a weight of guilt descend upon her. She should have woken him last night; she had known something was wrong, but she had ignored it; she should have stayed awake all the night and listened instead of sleeping. She could have prevented the theft of the animal, but now the donkey was gone.

And it was Isra's fault.

A sick, cold, trembly feeling took over her middle and she felt heat come into her face, but before she could apologize, Roman's eyes went over her shoulder and he began marching toward her.

She frowned, but she was not afraid. No matter that she was prepared to take the blame for the loss of the donkey, she had no fear at all that Roman Berg intended to strike her. Indeed, he strode through the area where the line of sick flags should have been and past her to the front of the cart. Isra turned and then she, too, stared at what had caught Roman's interest.

The censer was gone. Likewise the bell.

Isra looked over her shoulder to where the blackened remains of their fire lay damp and glistening with dew. The thieves had even taken the neat pile of branches and twigs Isra had gathered the night before.

She looked back to Roman, her mind in a panic at what this would mean for their journey, and opened her mouth to beg his forgiveness.

“Isra, I'm sorry,” he said before she could speak, one hand on his hip, the other swiping at his forehead. “Our first night on the road and I've not proved myself a capable protector.”

“No,” she stammered. “I . . . I heard them making camp not far from us after we retired. I should have alerted you that they were nearby, but I was afraid you would think me overanxious. The loss of your belongings is the fault of my pride.”

He stared at her for a moment, and then a slight grin came over his face. It was so unexpected that it caused Isra to frown.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked. “We have lost our animal, our implements of disguise, even the wood for our fire.”

“I suppose it's the irony of it all,” Roman said. He held his arms out from his sides, turned his face up to the misty gray sky, and gave a loud bark of laughter. After he let his arms fall back down he turned to her. “Before we left Melk, my friends tutored me on surviving the journey.” He walked toward her and then past her, and when he continued talking, Isra felt she had no choice but to follow him if she wanted to hear what he was saying.

And she most certainly did want to hear.

“Adrian schooled me on the geography of the terrain and weather patterns of the season; Valentine advised me on the roles we would play and how best to stay true to them; Constantine warned me of the dangers inherent in each of the territories we would pass through and which leaders were corrupt.” He bent as he walked, gathering the leftover bits of fallen wood that would have to suffice for their fire.

“And each of them impressed upon me—over and over,” he continued in an affected accent, “
do not deviate from the plan, Roman. Stay with the plan. No matter what, Roman, you must follow the plan exactly
.” He laughed again and then glanced at Isra as he once more passed her on the way to the small circle where they'd made their fire the night before. “Do you know why they did that?”

Isra blinked. She hadn't been certain he was speaking
to
her rather than simply voicing his irritation aloud.

“No. Why?”

Roman dropped the pile of wood onto the damp coals and looked up at her, his hands going to his hips once more and his grin taking over his mouth. “Because I am terrible at playing along.”

Isra felt her eyebrows knit. “ ‘Playing along'?”

“Pretending to be something I'm not.”

“You seem to have done well at pretending to be a monk,” she offered.

“I haven't really pretended anything,” Roman said as he went to the bag that was—thankfully—still in the bed of the cart. “The camaraderie there is not unlike what I have found in a work camp, although there is much less swearing and it is considerably cleaner. I do many of the same things I would do in my life did I not live at Melk—I work, I pray, I cook.” He squatted by the wood and began to remove the flint and tinder from the bag.

“I do not understand,” she said, “why they would be so concerned with you not following a plan when there is so much at stake for both you and your friends.”

“That's just it,” he said and paused for a moment while the sparks flew from the stone onto the fluffy wad of tinder. Roman leaned spindly twigs against the tiny licks of orange and then turned his cheek against the ground to blow up the fire. He sat up and reached for another handful of damp wood. “It's precisely when there is so much at stake that I tend to . . . deviate from the generally accepted course.”

“You do not seem deviant to me,” she defended.

He arranged the little finger-width branches in a cone and then dropped his palms to his thighs. “Think back to when first we met.”

Isra did not have to rattle her brains to retrieve the memory of it from her mind. Indeed, for many, many months, her memories of Roman Berg were what had kept her alive.

“You walked into Damascus alone. Undisguised,” she said.

He nodded. “When I set myself to a course of action, it is usually my manner to go straight at the thing. My friends know this, and it is why they were so anxious to make a simple ruse with a detailed plan for me to follow.”

“They wanted to keep you from walking into Damascus undisguised again.” She felt a twinge in her heart at the deep bonds the four men must have, how committed they were to one another after what they had experienced. “But it seems their plan has been forfeited before it could be put to use.”

“Does it not?”

She was taken aback by the smile he sent her as he fetched the bag of food and jug from the cart and returned to the smoking fire on the ground. He removed the cups and poured wine into them but kept the open jug braced on his knee.

“Do we now return to Melk?” she ventured. “Surely it should not take us longer than a pair of days on foot to retrace the way we have come.”

Roman had turned one of the cups up against his mouth, and Isra was mesmerized for a long moment while she watched the thick cords in his neck as he swallowed the entire contents. He lowered the cup and sighed even as he was refilling it.

“I think it would not be a good idea to venture through the village in which we were questioned yesterday,” he said, and Isra felt foolish at having already forgotten the terror she'd felt at their near discovery.

“And besides,” he continued, setting the jug aside and lifting his cup, “I know Constantine Gerard well now. Should we return so soon to Melk, he will likely take it as a sign that this journey is ill-fated, and will do his very best to prevent us from setting out once more.” His expression was placid, but Isra understood the underlying message in his benign words. He raised the cup to his mouth and again drank it in its entirety.

“What are we to do?” Isra asked, cringing at her own boldness.

Roman set his cup aside and rose with a satisfied-sounding sigh. “
You're
going to break your fast here by this somewhat comfortable fire.
I'm
going to go retrieve our things.”

Her eyes went wide. “From the caravan? Alone?”

“Yes.” He walked to the bed of the cart, where the open compartment held the remainder of their belongings, and began rifling through them.

Isra came up behind him. “My lord, forgive me, but you cannot. You do not know the sort of people you will be facing alone. The very size of their party warrants your caution.”

“I know they're the sort of people who would steal a man's donkey and the sick flags from around what could reliably be understood to be a corpse,” he said, removing a folded piece of leather and setting it on the rough boards. “And besides,” he paused while he gathered the long length of his habit and shimmied it up over his wide body. In a moment he had pulled it off, and Isra could not keep her eyes from going to the strip of firm flesh and chiseled ribs that flashed from beneath his white undershirt.

“They came into my camp, very close to where you slept, uninvited,” he finished, and shook out the leather to reveal a fine vest with raw lacings up the front. He slipped it over his head and began tightening the ladder of leather ties over his wide chest. “They will answer for that.”

Isra didn't know what to say. A part of her was consumed with fear for him, for what could possibly happen to him should he walk into the camp alone and accuse the inhabitants of theft; fear for herself at being left alone for the time he was gone—and perhaps forever should he not return.

The other part of her was thrilled at his daring, his surety. Who could refuse this man? His forearm was greater in size than most men's upper leg. Even his clothing seemed big enough to fit a bear as he removed a wide caped leather cap from his bag and snugged it down over his head before fastening it at his collarbone.

But even though his resolve and confidence were impressive, Isra still feared for his safety. “My lord—Roman,” she corrected herself, raising her palm at his frown. “I—”

But her words were cut off by a brown blur that swept through the air of the clearing from behind her, so close to her head that Isra felt the pull on the roots of her hair. An instant later, the brown thing billowed and flapped and shrank and then came to perch on Roman Berg's leather-draped shoulder.

Roman's laugh filled the foggy air as he brought a hand to his shoulder, and Isra gasped.

“Lou!” Roman exclaimed. “I shouldn't be surprised, should I? No, you couldn't miss out on the adventure, could you?”

The falcon had found Roman, the same way it had found him in Damascus.

Lou's painted head seemed to swivel until its brightly rimmed black eye found Isra, and in that instant, she knew what she wanted to do.

“I am coming with you,” she announced in a wavering voice, trying to ignore the cringe in her middle. She had just restrained herself from adding “this time” to her statement. “If you please.”

Roman turned his still smiling face toward her while he stroked the hunting bird's sleek back. Then he nodded.

“All right.”

* * *

They walked down the center of the road for what Isra guessed to be at least a mile before they began to see evidence of the party that had passed theirs in the night. Wagons had been pulled off to the side of the road, the animals missing from their harnesses, no signs or sounds of movement from within. She looked up at Roman from beneath the edge of the white linen that covered her head and saw that he was scanning the line of oddly covered conveyances while the falcon on his shoulder scanned the sky—hoodless, tetherless. And even though Roman's steps were calm and measured, Isra could feel his alertness through the thick, scratchy wool of her borrowed gown.