To Burn (22 page)

Of course, Optio did not cooperate and it took much longer than it should have for her to get the mare saddled and ready. Unnatural animal to prefer the Saxon's touch to civilized Roman hands. By the time she left the stable her hands were shaking with both anxiety and fatigue—or perhaps it was only excited anticipation. The Saxon would die tonight. She would win the battle that he had begun with her.

The kitchen was her next destination, and though it was quiet, it was not deserted. However, because she had spent so much time in the kitchen in the past weeks, little notice was paid her. She found a large leather sack to hold bread, cheese, wine, and oil. It would be enough. It would get her to Marcus. It had to.

Melania walked quietly back to the stable, the sack held like a babe in her arms. Optio, true to form, tried to step on her foot as she positioned the sack behind the saddle. Moving away from the snorting animal Melania stood in the stable doorway and listened. The wind rustled the forest tree-tops, brushing branch against branch in enforced intimacy, and the leaves moaned in whispered response. The wind was cool and wet.

Rain. Autumn. The ending of one season and the beginning of another. The ending of one life and the beginning of another.

One more preparation and she would be ready. Melania once again crossed the empty and dark courtyard, saying a silent farewell as she did so. Good-bye to the safety of the villa walls. Good-bye to the rustle of manuscripts in the library. Good-bye to the familiar and ordered routine of a Roman household. Good-bye to all she knew and all she had known. And good-bye to the girl Melania; she would be a new person after tonight, a better person. A woman who had demanded justice and won.

In the room that had become hers with the coming of the Saxons, Melania opened a weathered wooden trunk and removed a stola of pale blue. Into this she wrapped a golden pin, a circular pin covered with tiny balls of gold. She had finished it. This would be her currency, should she need it. For this she had made it. She would not leave her home unprepared.

Melania stood in the dark of her chamber, stood with her hands idle and her mind oddly empty. Stood feeling the blood run through her veins, listening to the hammer of her heart and the moan of the rising wind; stood feeling time stop. There was nothing left to do. No more preparations to make. No arguments to voice. There was only... only... her mind flailed in frigid darkness, grasping and for a moment, lost... only the deed. And only she could perform it.

And she would. She had to. Didn't she?

And now there was only one more preparation to make, only one more deed before the final deed: she must get Wulfred alone and on his back and ready for the knife.

She left the womblike dark of her chamber almost reluctantly and entered the relative brightness of the portico. She could see him with his men at the table, her table. They blended together, those yellow heads bent over their cups, all except Wulfred. He watched the doorway, almost as if he could see her in the darkness. Almost as if he expected her to come. Almost as if he waited for her. But that was impossible.

Melania edged into the room. It was quite unlike any entry she had ever made into a room, and she was instantly furious with herself for behaving so out of character. Why not just wear a sign proclaiming herself a skulking assassin?

Swallowing the fear that threatened to drown her, Melania raised her hand and beckoned Wulfred to come to her. This was the Melania he would expect. This was the Melania whom he would not beware.

This was the Melania whom he ignored.

Her anger rose and enveloped her, and it was a welcome friend indeed. Fear fled, and she motioned toward him again, this time her movements jerky and abrupt and edged with violence.

Wulfred watched her, raised his cup to his lips, and took a casual sip. His disregarding of her wishes was completely intentional and completely predictable.
Oaf.
Could he not do one simple thing? Could he not walk calmly and in an orderly and timely manner to his own execution?

"Saxon!" she barked.

He raised his brows in silent inquiry, the lamps behind his head throwing the hollows of his face into deep shadow. She could not read the expression in his eyes.

"If you have finished," she said stiffly, "come to me."

"And if I have not finished?" he said pleasantly, taking another sip.

"Come anyway," Cenred said to a burst of general laughter.

If she had had any doubts, any twinges of guilt, that barbaric laughter burned it to cold ash. It would be with laughter—her own—that she plunged the knife into him. If he would only come and present himself.

In a softer tone, she said, "I would like to speak with you."

"I can hear you very well."

"Privately."

The moaning catcalls and lewd remarks of his men bounced against the plastered ceiling of the triclinium and off the marble tile floor and out to where she stood with her back to the portico. Given the chance, she would kill them all. But she would begin with Wulfred, who now rose grinning and, winking at Balduff, walked toward her.

At last.

His stride was long as he moved through the room, closing the distance between them. The flickering lamplight lit strands of his hair to molten gold that moved around his face as he walked. Of course, he was naked from the waist up. With all the pillaging the Saxons did, shouldn't they have found at least one tunic? He was a powerful man, this Wulfred of the Saxons; killing him would not be easy. Pray God that it was quick, because she would never be able to best him in a struggle.

He was almost upon her now; it was foolish to have thoughts of killing him on the surface of her mind, where he might be able to read them in her eyes. It was an aura of seduction that she wished to exude, not an aura of death. For no matter that he was a Saxon, he had proven to be intelligent.

She backed toward the broad portico as he approached, not giving ground, merely leading him where she wanted him to be. He followed her, the darkness of that late-summer night almost swallowing them both. She could see nothing of his face, only the sheer size of him and the dull yellow halo of his hair. It hardly seemed possible, but he looked even bigger in the dark, and he kept closing the distance between them.

The moon was hidden by thick clouds, and the wind gushed down to swirl within the confines of the courtyard. It was a cool wind and heavy with water. That sharp pulse of wind pressed against the long drape of her stola for just a moment, but it chilled her and she shivered.

"Why do you shiver, Melania?" he said in a soft rumble. "It is only a summer wind. The winter is far off." When she said nothing, he said, "Or do you tremble in anticipation?"

She turned to face him at the door to her chamber, thankful that there was no light to show her face, thankful that the moon was hidden so completely in the night. "Anticipation? What is there to anticipate? Other than our nuptials."

"Is that what you wish to discuss with me in such privacy?"

He was so close to her now that she could feel his breath on her hair. He smelled of smoke and beer and cool night air. And her soap. Yes, he was close—close enough for the knife, but all she could see were the knots of muscle encasing his chest and the ridges of muscle lined up upon his abdomen. She swallowed hard. He was a massive man, bounded by muscle and golden skin. He seemed too huge to fit into her tiny room; she couldn't get enough air into her lungs with him so close. He was a fire, stealing air and leaving only heat.

Her father's stern voice sounded in her head, scolding her for her wild and uncontrolled thinking and the intensity of her emotions. She was Roman and must behave as such. Wulfred was a man and vulnerable. Mortal. She needed him prone and relaxed so that she could reach his throat or his eye—soft targets and fatal.

"There is little to discuss," she said, backing into the room, silently urging him to follow her. She could still easily hear the noise of conversation in the triclinium. Across the courtyard someone clanged a pot in the kitchen. She needed more privacy— and more secrecy—for her act of justice. "You are making whatever arrangements there are to be made, isn't that right?"

"You are right," he said, accepting her silent invitation and entering fully the small space of her chamber. He had not been here since he had carried her in kicking every step of the way. "But you are unnaturally calm in your response, isn't that right?"

She felt the hair rise on the back of her neck at that too casual and too pointed observation. He was right. She was too polite and too calm; she had never been so with him before and it was a mistake to act that way now. But it was difficult to summon anger when fear and caution had their fingers around her throat.

"I choose my battles, Saxon, but if you are looking for one, you will find one here."

"I am here for battle?"

She could see his head turn in the darkness in mock bewilderment and his arms spread wide in question. She ran her hands, shockingly moist, down the sides of her stola. The heft and shape of the knife gave her solid comfort.

"What else have you done here?" she answered a bit sharply, thankful that her words could bite and thereby mask her ultimate purpose. "Yes, I have said little on the issue of this marriage that you have announced in godlike fashion, but I will say that I will not be bound to a man who... whom... whom... I do not know more intimately."

There. She had said it. The words tumbled from her mouth like pebbles, and she felt her heart pound convulsively, but she concealed it all. She was truly becoming a master of self-control.

He said nothing. She wiped her hands again and squeezed the knife for reassurance, thankful that the dark hid her from his scrutiny.

"Is that why the lamps are dark?" he said.

By all under heaven, he was too close on the mark to her thoughts.

"Of course. Do Saxons... fondle... with torches blazing?"

"Do Romans... fondle... before being joined?" He said it abruptly, sarcastically.

"I thought only to spend time alone with you," she snapped, turning her back to him. Of course, he would make it all so difficult. He was so predictably obstinate. "Do not try to convince me that Saxons who are to be married do not... know each other to a certain degree, because I won't believe it. One has only to look at Balduff and Cenred to know that for a lie."

"But Balduff and Cenred are not joined. And are not about to be."

She could hear the laughter in his voice. Oh, how she longed for the moment when she could pull loose the knife.

"Fine. Leave. Go back to your beer and your band of murderers and rapists and arsonists—"

She got no farther. She could feel his hand in her hair. If she hadn't been so nervous, she would have seen it: tell him to come, and he would want to remain; tell him to go, and he would choose to stay. He was the most contrary and irritating man she had ever met.

His hand snagged a looped braid and she winced, moving away from his clumsiness instinctively.

"I told you that I liked your hair down."

"And I told you..." No, she must not forget her purpose. "Fine." She licked her lips and swallowed heavily. There was no way out. She must say it. "Then take it down."

He did not answer her, but turned her within his arms until she could feel his chest almost touching her back. She could physically feel the rise and fall of his breathing just beyond her touch. Surprisingly, he was gentle. He was as gentle with her as he had been after rescuing Flavius from the flying sword; she was just as afraid now as Flavius had been then. Section by section, he released her hair so that it fell down her back. She was glad for the extra layer of something, anything, between his hands and her body. What to do now? She didn't like that he was behind her; it left her feeling vulnerable. But facing him would hardly be better.

He took the choice from her.

Her hair swung free, the waved ends just above the curve of her bottom. His hands cupped her there, one firm hand on each globe.

She jumped, jerked, whirled to face him, drew a fast breath to scream at him, and found herself choking on her own spittle.

"Did you not say that you sought fondling from your future husband?"

He said it calmly but even with her coughing fit, she could hear his suspicion.

"You—" she started to shout, and then breathed deeply to control her ire. "You do not have to grab. I am not a joint of pork."

Had he laughed? Was that choked laughter from the darkness?

"Then come to me, Melania, and I will not need to grab," he said softly, the humor still evident in his voice.

Yes, she should go to him. There would be no relaxed intimacy, there would be no relaxed Saxon lying helpless beneath her knife if she did not go to him. Yes, she would need to touch him. Touch the bulging muscle that had assaulted her eyes all summer. Touch the golden hair that hung down his back in rippling waves. Touch the throbbing column of his throat. Touch the hard planes of his face. Touch his mouth.

Kiss his mouth.

"Come to me, Melania," he said in warm command.

The space between them was not great, not in so small a room and not with him so close. He rose up, a darker mass against the dark of night, huge and immovable. She could not see his eyes. She could not read him in this darkness. Yet that was why it was so purposefully dark: so that he could not read her. She would control her body and make it go to him, but she could never control the thoughts that would besiege her as she did so. She did not want him to see her eyes.

She felt movement in the air and saw his hand stretch out to her, palm up. He was giving her this last measure of control. Somehow she had known he would never force her. Allowing herself to think no more, she placed her hand resolutely in his... and allowed him to pull her gently to him. Strange that he could be so gentle.

The oddly pleasing combined smell of soap and smoke came to her. And the heat of him. His body heat washed her like a bath.

"Touch me, Melania. Know the man who claims you as wife."