To Burn (10 page)

She had not seen him for five days. This odd wanting could be explained away as morbid curiosity to see the effect she was having on his composure; surely he must be curious as to what she was doing, maybe even worried that she was getting the better of him in some way. And she was.

If only he would seek her out. If only he would demand her presence so that she could refuse him; there would be great satisfaction in that. Had he forgotten her in the past five days? Had he forgotten that she was his enemy and needed watching? Had he forgotten the anger that she had unknowingly sparked in their last exchange? Had he forgotten their hatred of each other? She hadn't, not in five days. She wouldn't in five years. But where was he?

Melania paced restlessly, like an animal tethered.

She had a pounding headache behind her eyes. She'd had it for days.

"You could use it," Dorcas said, relentless in her efforts at conversation.

"Use what?" Melania asked, reluctantly being drawn away from her angry preoccupation.

"His fascination."

"What are you trying to say?" Melania stopped her pacing.

"Do you know nothing of men, of him?" Dorcas asked, her tone almost exasperated.

"I know he is a monstrous oaf, hardly a man at all, but more a beast or a pestilence. A deadly pestilence that destroys all before and behind it. Yes," she continued, warming to her topic, "he is like a worm, feeding on death. Why?" she asked, letting her pain feed her anger.

Dorcas did not answer. Wulfred, the worm, was standing in the gateway to the courtyard.

* * *

Of course, he'd heard every word. When had she ever hidden her thoughts? Or her venom.

She'd been hiding from him. It had been five days since she had stood before him spouting words on Roman justice—words she hardly knew the meaning of. It had taken him the better part of two days to be certain that the anger she had sparked in him was within his control.

Five days. She looked smaller than he remembered her, if that was possible, little more than tendon and bone. And so agitated, as if she would fly out of her skin if she could. But what did she do with herself? He knew that she did no hard labor—she was too carefully watched for that—but what of the light tasks that were more comfortable for her? How did she spend her time?

He had watched her intermittently, though he had men enough to do the duty if he had demanded it. He had not. She was his enemy and he would see to her.

He had watched her.

She charged the air around her with her energy as she moved from one room to the next, directing, leading, comforting. He had watched her with Flavius, the boy, and seen a gentleness that seemed odd for her. At least in his experience of her it was odd.

One thing was constant: she never acted the part of a slave. No matter the task, no matter the hour, no matter the place, she was in command of both herself and all within her sphere. It served to make her seem all the more Roman to him, though he would not have thought that possible. He looked at her now, her black hair braided into a thick mat down her back that touched the roundness of her bottom with a playfulness that he found irritating. Distracting. Disturbing.

She looked exhausted, her skin as thin as air and her eyes dark bruises against her face. Yet she was not still, but pacing, pacing in front of the kitchen doorway. What was she about? Nothing good, certainly.

When Dorcas said nothing to her question, Melania turned quickly to face the other woman. Turned quickly and swayed on her feet, her balance almost lost. Her equilibrium lost over such a simple act? This, from the woman who had swung an ax with agility and grace?

Wulfred scowled, studying her, rubbing his knuckles over his belly in abstract concentration. There was something about her behavior that tugged at a dark memory, something from that black time he had hoped revenge would wash away from him. Wulfred's hand scraped along the hairy ridges of his abdomen in a rhythmic caress, reminding him. The hand stopped and dropped to his side.

He had seen such weakness before, even felt it himself. It was then that he knew exactly what she had been about for the past five days. She had been starving herself.

"Has she eaten?" he called to Dorcas, striding toward them.

"It is not yet time for the meal," the girl answered easily, confusion in her voice. She did not know.

"Get her some food. Now."

"I am not a child to be spoken over!" Melania declared. "Speak to me, oaf, if you have something of import to say, though that is hardly possible, is it?"

Wulfred's turquoise blue eyes pierced hers in smoldering anger as he waited for Dorcas to return. In moments she appeared with a plate of bread and fruit. Wulfred took the plate from Dorcas and held it out to Melania in challenge.

"Eat."

Turning up her arrogant Roman nose, she said with a sniff, "I am not hungry."

"I have not asked you anything. I have told you— eat."

"What a lovely world it would be if each of us had his way in all things. Never to have our desires thwarted, never to want something we could not have." Her eyes glittered like a writhing serpent's. "Don't parents in your pagan country teach their children that you can't always get what you ask for? But then, you were probably cast out to fend for yourself at a toddling age, like an animal. And just look at what became of you."

Wulfred held his ground, continuing to hold the platter under her arrogant nose. "You are ignorant of many things, but know this: you will eat this plate of food or I will hold you down and force it down your Roman throat. Just like a stubborn child."

"I am no child," she said, pointing her nose into the air.

"Prove it," he said in a growl.

She hesitated before taking the plate from his outstretched hand, and he could read her desire to throw it back at him. She resisted the desire. He was almost sorry. She looked at the food. He watched her swallow down her saliva. Finally, looking him in the eyes, she reached for a slab of bread and, breaking off a bite-sized piece, put it delicately and very deliberately into her mouth. She chewed the crust of bread into pulp before swallowing it down. Slowly, deliberately, methodically she ate the bread and the sliced apples and the ripe olives. He watched her every swallow.

"From now on you will eat every meal with me, where I can watch you. This is not a request," he added.

The fire of direct confrontation flared behind her hazel eyes and then was tamped out and covered by a screen of deviousness. She would obey, but she also had a hope of thwarting him. Again.

Wulfred allowed her to walk away from him, flinging her braid over her shoulder with enough force to cut him had he been a step closer. He had the victory in this latest battle and they both knew it. He also knew that she had not exhausted her arsenal, limited as it was. But she could not starve herself, not with him monitoring her every morsel.

Still, she had the look of a warrior rearming. He knew her well enough to be suspicious. And wary.

Chapter 10

He watched her like a wolf watching a newborn lamb, watched her eat as little as she could get away with without inciting a direct confrontation between them. She had learned enough to know that she had little hope of winning against him in a direct assault; he was too huge, too powerful. And still she grew thinner.

Melania wanted to crow her delight over the success of her latest strategy, but she didn't. She didn't want him to become even more suspicious than he already was, and he would know something was amiss if she let the light of victory shine forth from her eyes. She felt a thrill of victory every time she outwitted him, though he had made it more difficult with each passing day.

He had begun by forcing her to eat in the triclinium with the rest of the Saxons, directing the portions on her plate himself and watching her as she ate. Of course, she had positioned herself as far away from him as was physically possible, though the room was hardly large enough to permit her to eat without seeing him and his horde of murderers. Their table manners weren't as bad as they could have been; they certainly did not wash sufficiently between courses and definitely did not appreciate the delicacy and intricacy of the dishes served, not when they wolfed them down as they did. Still, it could have been worse.

After a few days passed and she still continued to lose weight, Wulfred insisted she sit next to him during meals. Melania smiled slightly to herself. He still did not understand her method, and she was winning before his very eyes.

Pitiful pagan fool.

After giving him her most superior look, one she had certainly perfected by now, she deigned to accede to his wishes. The head of the table was her accustomed place, after all, and this was her home, her table, and her food. Of course she would sit next to him in the place of honor. It took him out of her direct line of vision anyway, a definite blessing, though now they shared a platter and sometimes their hands brushed, making her stomach tighten uncomfortably. Hardly surprising, since he was such an animal, but she should have hardened herself to his presence by now; these disconcerting tremors should have abated in intensity. Instead they had increased. His blondness no longer aroused her attention. His bulging physique hardly caused her to turn her head. His growled commands incited only a shrug. She had not quite developed an acceptable response to his flame-blue eyes, but she would. She had no doubt as to that. She was a Roman and he a mere Saxon.

Now he was even more demanding about the amount of food she consumed. She had her winning method, still, it was better if she did not eat too much. And much, much better if he did not watch her too closely, or sit too close, or rub his hip against hers as had happened once or twice, causing that odd sensation in her belly. Really, he was too big to sit in such civilized surroundings. It was obvious, at least to her, that he should root around in the dirt with the rest of the pigs instead of squeezing in next to her.

These mealtimes were most trying.

Taking a small mouthful of wine to cleanse her mouth, Melania began to rise to her feet. Another meal blessedly over. It was her usual practice to exit as quickly as possible after the meal, a practice that suited her winning method to perfection. Today Wulfred broke his own practice of silence during the meal.

"Stay," he commanded, his voice a deep rumble in his hairy chest.

No need to ask to whom he spoke. Only she was the recipient of such terse commands. To everyone else, both Saxon and Briton, he was almost jovial. She paused, standing facing his back, wondering what he would say next. Such a wide and well-muscled back. Melania shook off the rolling in her belly and redirected her thoughts. Such a lovely, exposed target.

Turning to look up at her, his vivid blue eyes piercing in their intensity, he pointed back down to the cushion, indicating that she sit.

She crossed her arms in clear defiance and waited, standing, expelling a large sigh in the doing.

"You seem to do nothing," he said, toying with a crust of bread, looking at it and not at her. "I will have no idle slaves."

"I am not a—"

"Show me your handiwork," he interrupted her familiar tirade. "Or was the Greek lying when he said you had some skills?"

"Only you lie, Saxon, as do all your kind, so it is understandable that you think all other races are as you." She paused and dropped her eyes for a moment before adding grudgingly, "But Theras did not lie."

"Do you lie, Roman?"

She raised her eyes to turn back at that, instantly furious.

"I have certainly never lied in telling you of my hatred of you and your pack, Saxon, though I have never told the whole truth of my rage because I cannot find the words to express the loathing I feel and the vengeance that will be mine."

"You
cannot find the words? That surely is a lie," he taunted, rolling the crust into a ball between his fingers. "And what vengeance can a slave wreak? And that slave a shriveling, shrinking female."

Melania smiled in silent superiority and unspoken victory; what a dolt he was. "To be small is the Roman fashion."

"And to be lazy?" he asked, picking up a small bit of cheese to toy with.

"I am not the one who wishes to linger at the table, Saxon; it is you who plays with your food." When he said nothing, merely staring at her with those too-sharp eyes of summer blue, she understood that he had also been toying with her. She was most definitely not a woman to be toyed with. Melania turned on her heel and announced, "I'm leaving."

"And I'm going with you," he said, rising quickly to his feet. How could such a monstrous oaf move so fast? "To see you at your labors, light as they are," he added.

Not at all what she wanted. Naturally. It had already been too long since her eating, and now he dogged her like an unwelcome cur. If she didn't already know how stupid he was, she would suspect that he knew... or almost knew. But he could not know how she was defeating him with every day that passed, even every meal that they shared in such loathsome proximity. She had to endure his company at meals; she saw no reason to endure it now. Her temper fired, fed also by the explosive headache that had been as much a companion to her as the giant Saxon oaf now tripping along behind her like a monstrous bear.