The Burning Stone Read online

“Stood where? Did she know you were watching her?”

  “She knew. She’d smile at me from time to time. Watched me as I watched her.”

  “So why didn’t you speak to her?”

  “Because she’s foreign. Doesn’t speak our language. Not yet. She knows a little bit, but not much at all. And she has brothers and a father, and none of them likes the idea of letting local men anywhere near her. She told me that, after we started talking.”

  “I thought you said she doesn’t speak our tongue. Where is she from?”

  “Somewhere in the west. Cornwall? Have you heard of it?”

  Lydia shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. How long have they been here?”

  “A year, I think. Perhaps two. I asked her that, but I’m not sure she knew what I was asking. It’s not easy, talking to someone when you don’t both speak the same language. But it turns out we can understand each other’s home language, if we take time and speak slowly enough. They’re different tongues, but there’s room to talk together in them. Anyway, her father and brothers are leather workers, and they have a stall by the marketplace—a shop, I suppose, for it’s open every day. And that’s where she works.”

  “So what is her name?”

  “They call her Eylin.”

  “Eylin. That’s a pretty name. So how did you manage to start talking to her, with all those frowning brothers watching her all the time?”

  “She makes deliveries sometimes, to some of the bigger houses. I followed her one day and she stopped and waited for me to catch up, and we liked each other. I was afraid her brothers might see us at first, but they didn’t. I knew for the first time, though, how you must have felt with us all looming over you and protecting you before you met Quintus.”

  Lydia thought about that for a moment. “I’m glad you realize how I must have felt. It’s not pleasant, being watched suspiciously by everyone, is it? So how often do you see your Eylin now?”

  “Every day, for half an hour, if she has deliveries to make. For shorter than that, without talking, if she doesn’t. It’s growing easier to talk to her all the time, though. When we do talk.”

  “And does she feel the same way about you that you feel about her?”

  Her brother shrugged his broad shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said. “I know she likes me. She always smiles at me as soon as she sees me, and I sometimes think she watches for me.”

  “Good for you, then,” Lydia said. “For both of you. I promise I won’t say a word, until you’re ready to tell everyone yourself.”

  They heard the sound of Liam’s voice shouting Shamus’s name, and he stood up quickly. “I’d better go,” he said. “Why did you come in here, though? Did Liam ask you to tend the horses?”

  She smiled. “No,” she said. “I was hoping that Quintus might be coming back today…”

  Shamus grinned at her. “Then stay here and wait for him. He’ll be here soon, I know, because they’re firing the ovens up at the armouries. He’s probably finishing up whatever he was doing, and if he doesn’t know you’re here he’ll have no reason to come running back in a lather, will he? I promise you, he’ll be here.”

  She watched him go, then walked forward to the doorway and looked across the outer yard to the smithy’s entrance from the street, and felt her heart leap in her breast as she saw Quintus Varrus striding towards her in the distance. Though he was wearing a smith’s hood of black leather that she had never seen before, he was instantly recognizable, even from more than a hundred paces, by his upright bearing and his slight but unmistakable limp, and she felt gladness flare up in her. She could even tell, from the way his mouth was pursed, that he was whistling to himself as he walked.

  She had decided to have him months before, the second time she had come north with her father, but it had not been a flighty or unconsidered opinion, even then. She had liked and enjoyed the man she had come to know, admiring what she had learned about his character, temperament, and personality. She had kissed him once on the lips, very briefly, and very chastely, on the night before he left Londinium with Shamus. That had been at her own instigation, simply to satisfy her curiosity about whether she would enjoy the sensation of kissing him. She had been pleased to discover how pleasant it had felt.

  Unfortunately, nearly four months had elapsed before she had the opportunity to test the experience again, but on her first visit to Camulodunum she quickly found it to be habit forming, as well as physically demanding, in the sense that her body had demanded more than she was prepared to permit it at that time. She had spent more than a few sleepless nights since then, regretting that she had not pursued things further. At no time, though, had Quintus Varrus sought to press her, and she had been grateful to him afterwards, suspecting that had he pushed her hard enough, she would have yielded.

  The months since then had passed quickly, endless as some of them had seemed at times, and she had long since decided, firmly, that Quintus Varrus was the man she wanted. She knew beyond a doubt that she would be a good wife for him, and to him, and she knew with equal conviction that he would love and protect her and the children they would have. And yet…

  She was a Christian and she suspected that Quintus Varrus was not. They had not discussed it at any time, and indeed Lydia had been at pains to fend off any suggestion, in any conversation, that might give rise to the matter of religion. She had no doubt that Quintus Varrus was a fine, upstanding man, but her father was what she considered a “sometimes” Christian, and though it made her feel guilty to behave as she had, she had avoided the topic scrupulously for fear of causing any conflict.

  Now, watching her man draw close, she knew the time had come to face it head on.

  Lydia watched avidly as Quintus Varrus stepped in through the street gate, and she saw the precise moment when he noticed the three empty wagons and realized that she must be there. He stopped abruptly and straightened to his full height, reaching up to pull the greasy black leather hood from his head, exposing the clean, short-cropped golden hair that had almost completely grown back. An explosion of laughter from the open door of the smithy drew his attention and he turned towards it. Lydia stepped into the stable doorway before he could move towards the smithy, though, and he hesitated, his eye attracted by her movement at the edge of his sight. He turned again, looking in her direction, and she thrilled to see how his face lit up with joy, seeing her there. He started to reach out, taking an instinctive step towards her, and then froze almost in mid-step, suddenly awkward and unsure of himself. Seeing that, his sudden vulnerability and hesitancy, her heart went out to him, and she reached out her hands, smiling and saying his name.

  He was beside her in a single stride, towering over her, and she reached up and pulled his head down slowly to where she could kiss him, a demure, chaste, fond, tentative greeting that quickly transformed itself into a blazing fire that neither one of them felt inclined to interrupt until Lydia felt the hardness of his arousal pressing against her and pulled away quickly. He raised his hands chest high, letting her go, and they stood staring at each other, breathing erratically and shuddering with awareness.

  Finally, though, Lydia reached out and seized his hands. “I told you your hair would grow back quickly, did I not?”

  “You did,” he said, smiling. “And it has. Almost.”

  “You can throw that ugly cap away now. It makes you look ordinary. Much better to go bare-headed.”

  “Aye, I would, except that I still need it to cover my yellow hair, since you don’t visit me often enough to keep it dyed for my disguise.”

  “Yes, but that was almost a year ago and no one has come looking for you, so you should be safe enough now, here in Camulodunum.”

  “You mean Colcaster, do you not?” He grinned in his pleasure at her unmistakable and unconcealable distaste.

  “You, too?” she said. “Such an ugly name. It is Camulodunum—a Celtic town, for all its Roman-sounding name.” She tightened her grip on his hands. “Now come with me, b
efore anyone sees you.” She backed away, pulling him with her into the darkness of the stables and the warm, rich smell of horses. “No one knows you are here yet,” she said, “so we can hide from them for a while, because you and I need to talk together with no other ears listening.”

  She looked around her then, noticing that four of the horses were watching her from their stalls, their ears pricked forward as though to listen to anything she might have to say. “There is nowhere to sit,” she said, looking around as though hoping to prove herself wrong before she added, “Though perhaps it might be better that what we have to discuss be conducted standing up.” She glanced at him keenly, gauging his reaction, but he simply continued to smile gently and enigmatically, his eyes slightly crinkled.

  “Standing upright, you mean, as opposed to lying with each other in the straw?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but no words were in there to emerge, and she realized he had shocked her and began to laugh. “Exactly,” she said. “That is exactly what I mean.” She hesitated, then plunged ahead. “The first day we met, you told my father you intended to marry me. Have you changed your mind since then?”

  “Not a bit, Lydia Mcuil,” he said, his smile unchanged. “Not even a whit. I’ve simply been biding my time, and trying to use it productively while I waited for you to see how right I was.”

  She tipped her head a little to one side, then nodded, though he could not tell whether the nod was for herself or for him. “It is time to end this time-biding, then. I will have you gladly, Quintus Varrus, if you will still have me—Wait!” She had thrown up her hand to stop him from reaching out for her, and he stopped, holding his head back, one eyebrow quirked. “Wait, Quintus, if you please,” she said again. “I have to say this now, before things go any further.” She looked around again nervously, as though searching for inspiration. “I have one main concern, and it has nothing to do with our being able to live together amicably and contentedly as man and wife, or to have children, or any of those things that most people fret over.”

  “Then if it’s none of those things,” he said gently, “what is it? You can spit it straight out into the open, Lydia, no matter what it is. I have no secrets from you, and I intend to have none. Tell me what is worrying you.”

  “I am Christian,” she said quietly. “And you are not. You are a Roman citizen. And I am not.” She paused, gazing into nothingness with a tiny crease of worry between her flawless brows. “I have a fear—and it may seem irrational, but it is real to me nonetheless—that those two simple facts might create difficulties for us in the years ahead.”

  “Religious difficulties?” He laughed aloud. “I think you can dismiss that from your mind, my love. It has been several years now since Constantine recognized Christianity formally at Milan—”

  That brought Lydia’s head up quickly. “Aye,” she snapped. “Five years. And only a few years earlier than that—what, seven in all?—Diocletian and his cronies were bringing the entire power of Rome’s armies against what they called the Armies of Christianity….That was less than a decade ago, Quintus, but too long ago for you to remember. You were still a boy, not even grown, and I was even younger, but I remember because they murdered my mother, supposedly for treason, when she was no more guilty of treason or sedition than I am. They murdered her for being a Christian, in a dispute over what you now laugh at as religious difficulties.”

  “Oh, Lydia, forgive me.” Varrus straightened up as though he had been slapped, and spun away from her, turning completely around, looking up into the rafters before coming to rest facing her again. “I had no idea. How can I alter what I said? Forgive me. I had no wish—” He stopped, and tried again. “It never entered my mind that I could hurt you by what I was saying. Especially with such silly, thoughtless words. What came out of my mouth—what you obviously thought you heard me say—was not what I meant to say at all.”

  He raised his hand to point at the bright sunlight beyond the doors. “Look,” he said. “It’s a beautiful spring day outside, the first truly fine day this year, and the first day of our new life together, so why are we standing here in a dark stable?” He reached out his hand to her and she took it hesitantly, peering up at him. “I promise you,” he told her, “I can resolve your difficulty and answer all your questions, even those you have not yet voiced. Come outside with me and I’ll hoist you up onto the bed of one of the wagons and we can talk in the sunlight.” He grinned, tentatively, seeing the doubt in her eyes and guessing accurately at its source. “And no one will disturb us, I promise you. We have waited long enough for privacy, the two of us, and now that you have said you’ll have me, by all the gods, including your Christian one, we will have privacy, if I have to chase all your relatives off these premises.”

  He checked himself again. “Lydia, my love, I knew your mother died when you were very young. Several people told me that, including Liam, and I understood her death was tragic and unnecessary. But no one ever actually said she had been killed during the persecutions. I didn’t know. I suppose I might have guessed, given the timing, but at the time I was a child in Dalmatia. I had never heard of Britain and knew nothing of Galerius and his bloodthirsty ways. And I agree with how you have defined your mother’s death. She was murdered, for her beliefs. But think of this. I might not be Christian—in fact I’m nothing, really, when it comes to having faith in gods of any stripe—but my mother was Christian, so I am not unfamiliar with what your religion entails. Believe me, my love, we can take care of your concerns.”

  He led her to the open tailgate of one of the wagons and checked that it was recently swept before he turned her to face him, with her back to the cart. He took her by the waist in both hands, exulting at the soft, yielding pliancy of her body, then bent his knees slightly, hoisted her high in the air and held her there, smiling up at her, his smith’s muscles making light of her weight.

  “By all the gods at once,” he said. “I love the feel of you. And the look of you and the scent of you and the beauty of you all in one wondrous, breathtaking reality.” And he lowered her slowly and gently to sit on the wagon bed. “Now sit there and talk to me. Marriage,” he said. “Talk to me about that. What would be your expectations of me, as a husband?”

  “The same virtues I have been seeing in you since we first met,” she said, smiling now. “Nothing to strain your principles or bend you away from being the man you are. I would expect your love as a spouse, your respect as a partner, and your admiration would be a welcome addition to both of those, though I know it will be my responsibility to earn and maintain all three. I would expect you to provide a home for us and for our children, and to do all in your power to hold them safe against the world and its excesses. And I would expect you to allow me to pursue my own beliefs in my own way, without interference, so long as I do nothing to disgrace you or shame you openly. That would be my entire list. Does anything about it seem unreasonable?”

  “No, not a thing.”

  “So be it,” she said. “So now it is your turn. What would you expect of me, as your wife?”

  He shrugged his wide shoulders. “That you be yourself, for that is what I fell in love with—the wonder of what you achieve in simply being yourself. Give me that, and pass it to our children, and you will hear no complaints or other demands from me. Now tell me about ceremonials.”

  She blinked at him. “I don’t know that word. What are ceremonials?”

  “Rites, religious rituals…ceremonies to mark important events like marriages. I know you disapprove of Roman gods—my mother did, too, Roman gods and their priestly servants. She regarded them as little better than augurs and sorcerers, though she refrained from saying so aloud. But if you wish to have a Christian priest attend your marriage service, I would have no objection.”

  She gazed down from her seat at him, wide-eyed and blinking slowly. “I have never given any thought to that,” she said quietly. “I have heard of people doing it, though, having priests witness their declara
tions and ask God to bless their wedded lives, but in all those cases the people were both Christians, man and wife.”

  “Then what would you do, normally? You must have thought about how you would mark the day of your marriage. It could hardly be no more than another ordinary day, surely.”

  She pursed her lips and looked up to the sky. “No, it should be the best, most memorable day of my life until that time, and it will be. I will see to that. It will be a day of celebration for everyone we know.” She looked down again. “But as to how we go about the actual rite, the making of our compact…Well, there I am uncertain and will be glad to take advice from you on any details you might think of. By and large, though, I would do as my brothers did, I suppose, and my father before them. None of them are really Christians, not in the way so many of our neighbours are, but they believe in holding to the traditions of our people.”

  “And what are those traditions?”

  “One man, one wife—a common pledge to honour each other and to stand together in the rearing of children. That’s the most important part, I think. The two people stand up freely, in front of family and friends, and declare their intent to live thereafter as man and wife, and they join hands as a symbol of their voluntary union. Sometimes their hands are tied with coloured ribbons, and sometimes they exchange rings or other tokens, but I think those details differ from place to place and clan to clan and even family to family. The man and woman exchange gifts, too, usually possessions rather than money, where I came from, as a sign of their joining together and sharing their worldly goods. And then there’s a public declaration that the couple has made a new family, branching off from the families of their birth. I think that’s part of the ritual, too.”

  “Really? You include all of that? That surprises me.”

  Her eyes widened and she bridled. “Why would my people’s customs surprise you?”

  “Because they’re so close to the way my own people used to do things in Dalmatia. There’s almost no difference. Do you have the aquae et ignis rite, too?”