The Divining (11 page)

     Sebastianus looked at her in surprise. "They will find us for certain in there!"

     But she sprinted ahead, turning ghostly white in the purple dusk. Sebastianus ran after her. Ulrika disappeared through the entrance and Sebastianus had no choice but to follow.

     Inside, he saw that the cave was deep and wide, with no openings branching off, no large rock formations behind which to hide. They might as well be sitting in the middle of a meadow! Before he could voice his objection, they heard voices—deep, angry, shouting. The Barbarians had returned and, from the sound of it, had brought friends.

     Sebastianus dropped the travel packs and gripped his sword, ready to fight. But Ulrika seemed unconcerned as she slowly looked around the deep, black cave, turning in a circle, looking up at the rocky ceiling, until she was facing the entrance and Sebastianus. "We will be safe here," she said again.

     Whispering a curse, Sebastianus took Ulrika by the wrist and drew her away from the opening, to press her against the cold wall while he peered around to watch the Barbarians.

     But Ulrika did not mark the progress of the Germans as they tramped through the forest, drawing nearer to the cave. Instead, she found herself staring at Sebastianus's muscular arms and broad shoulders. His tunic was sweat-soaked from the fight, the fabric clinging to his back, defining hard muscles. The breath caught in her throat.

     But then she saw the tear in the cloth, the red stain spreading over his upper arm. He was wounded! Ulrika placed her hand over the injury and pressed gently. Sebastianus flinched, then said, "Shhh."

     They watched the Barbarians go inside nearby caves, search behind boulders, run their swords into dense brush, cursing oaths, wondering where the Romans had gone. To Sebastianus's surprise, they did not even glance toward the cave where he and Ulrika were hiding, did not come near, even though surely they must have seen it. He waited with held breath as the German warriors continued deeper into the woods, stamping over twigs and leaves until their footfall and voices could no longer be heard.

     He turned to Ulrika, his face inches from hers. "How did you know they would do that?" he asked softly.

     But she stepped away and opened one of her travel packs. Sebastianus watched as she sorted through the contents, bringing out a small, stoppered jar and a roll of cotton. Her dress was torn and soiled, her
palla
beyond repair, and her long, lion-colored hair streamed over one shoulder while still touchingly coiled on one side of her head. She looked tragic, yet proud,
he thought. The bend of her slender body, the graceful movements of her hands—everything about her was fluid, elegant.

     Sebastianus looked away and concentrated on watching the forest.

     Even though the German warriors had moved on and could no longer be heard, Sebastianus remained watchful by the cave's entrance, his sword ready. Ulrika came up to him and, lifting the torn sleeve of his tunic, gently dabbed ointment on his wound. Sebastianus thought it a minor injury and would have let it dry and scab on its own, but she was cleaning it, and then applying more salve and finally wrapping his upper arm with strips of cotton fabric. Expertly done, he noticed, recalling what she had told him about her mother being a healer.

     When she was finished, she lifted her eyes to his and for a moment both stood breathless in the darkness of the cave. Sebastianus felt the shadows move and shift about them, as if cosmic changes were taking place, and he remembered that he was cut off from his group, separated from his astrologer. Tonight, for the first time since he could remember, Sebastianus would sleep without his evening horoscope.

     The thought unsettled him. As did the girl's proximity. She stood too close. He could feel her soft breath on his neck. He stared at her lower lip, full and moist and sensuous.

     He stepped back, drew down his bloody sleeve, murmured a thank-you, and wanted to ask again how she knew the Barbarians would not search for them in this cave. But he was held by her blue eyes. He saw the smudges of dirt on her cheeks. Recalled how she had fought her attackers. "Night is upon us," he said. "We will need a fire."

     Ulrika sat wearily on the cold dirt floor and watched Sebastianus strike the flint and coax a flame out of a pile of dried leaves. He had collected stones and placed them in a circle for a campfire, and now he added twigs and pieces of wood. "Thank you," Ulrika said.

     "For what?" He concentrated on laying the sticks. The girl was filling his thoughts in a way that made him uneasy. He knew it was not just her proximity. Sebastianus suspected that if they were a thousand miles apart, he still would not be able to rid his mind of her. Aside from Ulrika's beauty, her grace and femininity, there was a curious strength about her—the way she
had flown at the Barbarians with a dagger, and then had held her emotions together as they searched for a safe hiding place. Now, quietly watching him with those compelling blue eyes.

     "For saving my life," she said.

     "As long as you travel with my caravan, you are under my protection. It is my duty to see that you reach your destination safely. When you turned up missing from our camp, I put a party together to go looking for you." He didn't look at her as he added, "I was furious when I realized you had left. I had to send the caravan on ahead while I put together a search party."

     When Ulrika trembled and wrapped her arms around herself, Sebastianus unclasped his blue cloak and draped it around her shoulders, drawing it snugly tight. In the flickering firelight, Ulrika saw the pewter pin that held the cloak at the throat. It was a beautiful Gallic design.

     Sebastianus saw how it caught her interest. "That was given to me by a widow in Lugdunum. A man in the neighborhood was making unwelcome advances and she had no male relatives to protect her. So I paid the man a visit. He will not bother her again."

     His words reminded Ulrika of something Timonides had said outside the city of Masilia, when Sebastianus had gone into town that night, bearing gifts. "My master has friends all over the empire. He takes care of people who have no protection. He need only make it known that this man or that woman is under the care of Sebastianus Gallus the merchant trader, and that person is safe."

     Ulrika had asked what these people gave Sebastianus in return and Timonides had said, "Their friendship."

     As Ulrika touched the fashioned metal, she received a brief vision of the widow who had given him this gift—a pretty woman left alone by a husband who drank too much—and Ulrika knew that the Greek astrologer had spoken the truth when he had said that all Sebastianus asked in return was friendship, for she sensed that there had been nothing more between Gallus and the widow.

     "How did you find me?" she asked.

     Sebastianus poked the flames with a green stick. "I became separated from my group and met an old woman who told me a Roman girl had come through here recently, a girl on her own. The old woman directed me to
the stream. Why did you leave the caravan? Why not wait until we reached Colonia?"

     "I wanted to warn my father's people."

     Sebastianus finally looked up, firelight reflected in his green eyes. "Warn them of what?"

     "Gaius Vatinius had a plan that would ensure his victory." She explained about the dinner at Paulina's villa, the secret strategy Vatinius had bragged about. "But I came too late."

     Sebastianus absorbed her remarkable tale while silently building a warm, bright fire. He looked across the flames and saw how pale she was in the hot glow, how she trembled, not from cold but from shock. She had seen a battlefield strewn with corpses. She had traveled a great distance to be reunited with a father she never knew, only to be told he was dead.

     "You are very courageous," he said.

     "I am very reckless. I could have gotten myself killed. I could have gotten you killed. I'm sorry."

     "At least you brought us to the safety of this cave. You knew those men would not come in here. How did you know?"

     She mutely shook her head and looked at her hands.

     "I have food," he said, reaching for his travel pack. "You must be hungry."

     When she did not respond, he turned to her, to find Ulrika with her back to him and to the fire, her eyes delving the darkness at the rear of the cave. "What is it?" he asked.

     "I thought," she began, but then turned around, shaking her head.

     Sebastianus brought out coarse bread and sharp cheese, cutting off chunks with his knife and handing them to Ulrika. As she nibbled delicately, staring into the flames, Sebastianus noticed that her eyes flickered toward the cave entrance, beyond which lay a dark and forbidding forest. He knew she was not worried about their stalkers coming back. The look in her wide, blue eyes was haunted, as if she were seeing images not there.

     She is back on the battlefield, he thought, searching for her father ...

     "What will you do now?" he asked. "Stay here and perhaps search for survivors of your father's family?"

     "I do not know what I will do now. I was so certain when I left Rome that
I would find answers here. Yet I am more confused than ever." She thought for a moment, holding him in her gaze with damp eyes.
You must return to the place of your beginning.
"I do not know if there is anything, or anyone, here in the Rhineland for me. But if I return to Rome, I will be expected to marry." She bit into the bread and chewed. "Are you married, Sebastianus Gallus?"

     He shook his head. "I am never in one place long enough to be a good husband and father. I have a villa in Rome, but I am rarely there. Sometimes my journeys keep me away for years. What woman would want that kind of husband?"

     He fell silent then, and found himself held captive by a pair of frank, blue eyes. He gazed at Ulrika across the golden flames of the campfire, and felt unaccustomed yearnings stir deep within him.

     Breaking away from the spell of her eyes, Sebastianus cleared his throat, looked at his hands, and then surveyed their saturnine surroundings. "This cave evokes a memory from my boyhood in Galicia, when I was thirteen years old. There was a man, Malachi, who owned the largest vineyard in the area. He was fat and rich and my brother Lucius and I had heard our father say that Malachi was cruel to his slaves and animals. We did not like that. So Lucius and I would sneak among Malachi's vines and eat his grapes until he chased us off with a whip. One night we crept into his vineyard and stole bunches of ripe grapes, taking them into town and selling them. When Malachi complained to our father, he gave us the thrashing of our lives. This meant revenge. Our plan involved a cave very much like this one."

     Ulrika kept her eyes on Sebastianus as he spoke.

     "Lucius and I dug a pit just inside the cave's entrance and filled it with pig manure. And then we ran past Malachi's house, making sure he heard us, exclaiming about treasure we had found in the cave. Because he was greedy, or so we thought, we knew he could not resist following us. We paraded in and out of that cave carrying bags, knowing Malachi was watching. And then Lucius and I loudly agreed that we had enough treasure and should go home."

     Sebastianus laughed softly. "We thought we were so clever. We did not know, of course, that Malachi was onto us. As we watched the entrance,
he came up behind us. He shouted, 'BAH!' We jumped up and yelped and dashed straight into the cave and the manure pit. My mother scrubbed us with soap for a week to get the smell out. And Father gave us yet another thrashing. Lucius and I didn't laugh at the time, but in later years we did."

     Sebastianus shook his head. "I was always looking for trouble and Lucius, being younger, followed. Neighbors called us 'those Gallus devils.' My father was forever apologizing for our pranks. But he secretly admired us. He had a way of smiling when he thought we weren't looking."

     "Tell me about your family," Ulrika said, finding comfort in the sound of his voice.

     "We have been traders for generations. It is in our blood. My ancestors journeyed the length and breadth of Iberia, taking goods to the many tribes that have lived there for millennia. When the Romans crossed the Pyrenees into our land, two centuries ago, my family did not fight them, as others of my race did. Instead, they saw it as an opportunity to expand commerce. My forefathers entered into contracts with the invading Romans, and began carving out routes to distant lands, following the new roads being laid down by Roman legionaries. When Julius Caesar made the conquest of Iberia complete, my family adopted Roman names and Roman ways, we learned to speak Latin and cultivate Roman friendships, and when we were offered Roman citizenship, we embraced it. My ancestral home, Galicia, is the northwesternmost tip of Hispania. I own land there, and a villa.

     "My three sisters live there with their husbands and children. I have not seen them in five years, but I write to them regularly, and send money home, even though they are prosperous. I miss my home and my family very much."

     "My mother is the only family I have ever known," Ulrika said, picturing a Galician villa filled with children. "We never had a home, we were always on the move because of her personal quest. We came to Rome seven years ago, but it has never felt like home to me. I have never really known where I belong. I had thought perhaps here ..." She sighed. "It must be nice to have an ancestral home, to know that blood relations are still there, that you can always go back someday."

     "Someday . . ." Sebastianus said as he stared into the fire. That was the
problem. Sebastianus Gallus was a man who wanted to walk two streets at the same time: he wanted to remain unmarried and free to explore the world, open new trade routes. But he also yearned to go home, settle down, marry, and have a family. He could not do both, and so he traveled his exotic trade routes with a divided heart.

     "My next journey, the gods willing," he said, "will be to China. If Emperor Claudius will grant me the imperial
diploma."
And if, he added silently, I can find a way to distinguish myself over Badru, Gaspar, Adon, and Sahir.