We all want to believe we are descended from poets, philosophers and kings. But the common thread of human ancestry, whether we accept it or not, is that at some point in our racial or cultural past, we are descended from barbarians. The hunter, the killer, the atavism lives within us all. It is merely a question of whether we take that initial, primal urge and turn it into something noble and meaningful, or whether in the name of some higher, ‘spiritual’ aim, we revert to the barbaric.

PART ONE

One

The man rode slowly toward the crest of the hill. He was in no hurry, for the sounds beyond it told him what he would find there: rapine, murder, a town in flames. It was a sight he had seen far too often, the same tale told by a madman, over and over again.

When he reached the dry, sparsely wooded hilltop he dismounted, and hid his weary horse in a small recession by a fallen trunk. After taking the last bitter draught from his drinking skin he lay down a short distance from it, and waited. His back against the hard ground, his arm held painfully beside him, he closed his eyes and tried not to think.

But the sounds from the valley beyond would not let him rest: the screams of the women, the rough shouts of cruel men, the crack and hiss of flames on the thatched roofs. For with them he heard the echoes of his own tragedy, and was galled by bitter memories of the fall of Rome. Half consciously he reached beneath the rough tunic and ran his fingers along the length of the terrible scar he bore. Beginning just above the left shoulder, the sword had crashed across his chest, breaking bone, severing muscle, nearly ending his life. Would that wound ever heal? He did not know, only that it made him useless, even as a mercenary. And vulnerable. Now he was nothing more than another scavenger..... He let out a scowl, and rolled onto his undamaged side, and forced himself to sleep.

When he awoke he instinctively scanned the rough undergrowth around him, then rose and moved soundlessly to an outcropping of stone at the edge of the steep incline. He looked not at the town far below, but across the vast expanse toward the horizon, where the sun was setting among bars of smoky cloud, red and somber and indifferent.

In less than an hour it would be dark. Already the pillaging horsemen had begun to gather their booty and be off. The few women worth keeping, screamed as they were bound and thrown across horses’ withers. The few men left alive were hunted out of the bloody corners into which they had crawled and finished by a blade through the heart, or a slash across the throat. The fires burned less thickly now, and something of the silence of night tried to gather in the shadows.

Massing at the ruined gate, the useless walls, the barbarians gave one long look at the stark countryside around them. For they were not the only band of marauders on the prowl. But finding themselves unchallenged, they let out a defiant cry and rode off in a turmoil of dust.

Cassius watched, and waited.

All the long, starlit night he kept his vigil, senses trained for sight or sound of intruders upon the smoldering village. But none came. And with the first light of morning, he descended.

He guided his horse carefully down the trackless hill, among the barren stones, toward a place in the wall where he could be seen only from above. Leaning forward, he wrapped the reins about the branches of an olive tree growing hard by it. Then urging his mount closer, he stood up on its back, and pulled himself over the rough stone. Then let himself drop into the shadows of a blind alley.

All was quiet and still. From blackened roofs and doorways the smoke still seethed, and throughout the dirty streets his eyes showed him the cruel thoroughness of the invaders. Nothing human moved: the bodies scattered to left and right were cold and stiff. A few goats wandered aimlessly. A red-brown dog, licking the dried blood from its master’s face, caught sight of him and ran off whimpering, its tail between its legs. Somewhere farther in he heard the bleating of sheep in a pen. That was all.

He began to search the stone houses for coins, weapons, anything of value that had been left behind. It was a grim and largely fruitless task. Coming upon what must have been the home of a prosperous trader, he entered its more grandiose ruin to find the very ringlets torn from his dead wife’s ears. She had been too old and corpulent to warrant much attention, and remained with the broken shaft of the spear pinning her to a heavy oak chair. And even as he stood regarding her a blackened beam, eaten slowly by creeping embers, collapsed from above and swung dangerously close to his head.

“Christ!” Look too long at a corpse and you become one yourself.

He did not find the soldier’s superstition amusing. He believed it.

He was about to give up in disgust, when entering again the sunlight of a broader street, he saw a long building largely undamaged by the fire—its roof was of clay tiles instead of thatch. Perhaps a meeting place or storage house, it seemed the only thing left worth checking. Skirting the featureless wall closest to him, he followed a recessed dirt track about the corners, and entered through a broad double door on the far side, gaping wide.

As always he moved silently, his short sword held at the ready. The light was poor beyond the doorway, and as his eyes adjusted he could just make out something lying on a long table: the body of a woman, her torn clothes beneath her. She had been repeatedly raped, then stabbed through the heart. A woman, perhaps his own age, in her way very beautiful. He felt again the sick clawing at the pit of his stomach. He stood very still, feeling acutely the presence of death: hers, already accomplished, and his own, surely not so far behind. Then turned to walk away.
From somewhere above and behind him came a start, and he whirled back again. A half defined movement in the beams overhead caught his attention, as something backed trembling into the corner from which it had begun to crawl. A child it must have been, a girl, because he had seen a flash of long dark hair. He remained as if frozen, listening as she tried to silence her terrified gasps, in vain. What else could he do?

“Easy, girl, I’m not going to hurt you.”

But the sound of his voice, and the knowledge that she had been seen, only drove the girl to still deeper trauma. She breathed rapidly, exhaling in desperate sounds more animal than human. Cassius hung his head and walked slowly out the door, trying to think what he must do.

Don’t be a fool, said his mind, there’s nothing you can do. But his heart had been stirred to pity. You can barely keep yourself alive, came the voice, and he knew that it was right. But the thought of that young life, and all that she had seen..... And something else stirred in him as well, less noble, but no less strong.

“Curse me for the fool I am,” he muttered, then turned and went back inside.

Taking off the braided leather thong he wore as a necklace, he untied the joining knot, and wrapped its length about his left hand. He mounted the table, then struggled to lift himself onto the main ceiling beam, which ran the length of the enclosure.

Steadying himself, and taking stock of the crossing rafters, he saw that at one end several boards had been laid across them to form a floor, and large clay vessels stacked for storage. These the girl sent crashing to the floor below with frightened kicks, as she tried to dig herself more deeply into the narrowing corner.

“No!” she grunted fiercely. “No, no!” The man advanced steadily through the gloom, knowing that words would be useless. And that if he left her there, she would die.

As his foot touched the first board she gave a harsh cry and rushed at him wildly. Cuffing her he knocked her unconscious, then caught her about the waist as she was about to slough over the side. He could not entirely suppress a feeling of latent desire and possession as he bound her wrists, and brushed back the thick hair from her face to be sure he had done her no serious harm. Then lifting her over his good shoulder, he made his way back along the beam, and lowered her as best he could onto the table. At that he had to let her upper body slither down unsupported, where it came to rest beside the lifeless form of the other. This double view removed all doubt. The dead woman was her mother.

He still had no clear idea what the girl herself looked like, beyond the dark hair and olive skin, the slender form so like her mother’s. So half lowering himself, half leaping to the floor, he came and studied her more closely. And as he watched her beginning to stir, he had to take a step back in spite of himself, and released a bewildered breath. The girl was beautiful.

She was older than he had imagined, perhaps twelve, seeming more childlike because of her slight, lithe body and smooth unblemished skin. Her face too was slender, with full lips and smooth, rounded cheekbones. And the eyes, as she opened them slowly, were so striking..... Now more than ever he realized they must both be gone, and quickly. A girl like this would not last long in the cruel anarchy of northern Spain. The best that could happen to her was to be sold, or kept, as a slave: the short and treacherous life of a concubine. The worst..... He need look no further than the tortured form beside her.

At that moment he heard the sound of approaching horsemen beyond the walls. And with that nightmare sound the girl seemed to recover her senses fully, and to remember where she was, and with whom. She struggled wildly against the bind at her wrists, and was about to cry out when he clasped a strong and calloused hand across her mouth.

“Now listen to me close,” he whispered harshly, and in an unfamiliar accent. “There are riders outside the gate, maybe the same that did this to your mother. You can take your chances with me, and walk out of here, or end up like she did.”

But there was no reasoning with terror. In her eyes he was the same as the men who raped and stole and killed without purpose. Freeing her face just enough, she bit hard into the side of his hand, and kept biting until he jerked it free and struck her backhanded, dulling her senses once more.

“Curse you!” he scowled, sucking away the blood. “I am trying to help you!”

But even as the thought came to him to leave her, and save himself, something else made him tear a long strip from her mother’s ruined garments, and gag her securely. And putting her over his shoulder as before, he held her legs tight to stop their squirming, and made his way to the door.

Stealing out into the street, he moved quickly from shadow to shadow, intensely aware of the sound of hoofbeats, spreading out and drawing closer. He made his way back to the alley, and climbing atop a stack of empty wine barrels, threw the girl roughly over the wall.

She landed poorly, the side of her face striking hard earth. She was dimly aware of a startled horse, the base of a wall, and of something large leaping down beside her. Then darkness closed again, and she knew no more.

Two

The girl regained consciousness to find herself lying on her side, a thick dryness in her throat, and an ache and immobility of the wrists for which she could not account. Opening her eyes, she saw before her a swift flowing stream. A man was bathing in a backwater pool near the bank, stripped to the waist. She felt no fear of him, only wondered who he was, and what she herself was doing there.

I must have had a bad dream, she thought. It was terrible. Strange men from the north were attacking the village. They broke down the gate, then I ran with my mother to the council chambers. She boosted me up into the rafters, and told me to hide among the jars in the corner. There was a sharp banging on the doors, and as she climbed down from the table she said I must keep very still, and not cry out no matter what I saw or heard.

Then they broke in, and dragged her by the arms..... Why did they do those terrible things to her? She never hurt anyone.

The thought was too much, and to escape it she studied the man. He was of average height and strongly built, though for some reason his right arm seemed more heavily muscled than the left..... As if feeling her eyes upon him he stopped, and turned to face her, planting his feet firmly against the current. He said nothing, only returned her gaze steadily. His hair was dark and wet, and clung to the sides of his face. He had a short and irregular beard, a hooked nose, and eyes very dark and serious.

Only then did she notice the scar, beginning just above the collarbone, which seemed irregular beneath it. The mark sliced downward across his breast, which was also laced with dark and dripping hair. She saw now that his whole left side seemed affected—stiff, less agile—and that the skin to either side of the whitish gash was sunken and discolored.

Strange to say, this sight alone seemed to jar her back to something like reality, and to tell her that all was not well. For the wound spoke of the violent and incomprehensible world of men, of burning and fighting and killing. And all at once her panic returned.

“Who are you?” she demanded. And suddenly she understood the reason for the pain in her wrists—they were tightly bound by some kind of braided leather. She was trapped! She struggled to her feet as the man climbed heavily out of the water and came towards her. “Don’t touch me!” she cried, with a vehemence that startled her. What was happening?

“I’m not going to hurt you,” said the man, stopping a few feet away. “I only want to be sure you do nothing to hurt yourself. Or me.” And he looked around him at the high, encircling hills. “These mountains are safer than the valleys, but not much I fear.”

“Where is my mother! Why have you brought me here?” He looked at her strangely.

“Don’t you remember?”

“No.” The realization stunned her, and something like a plea for help showed itself in her large, hazel eyes. “Where is my mother?” she repeated. And she felt a strangling lump clutching at her throat. “What have you done to her!”

Again Cassius felt the stirring of emotions long forgotten. He did not know what to say to her. There was nothing else but the truth.

“I did nothing to her, or to anyone in the village. But the Vandals did. Your mother is dead.”

And with this, like the breaking of a dam the memories came flooding back, no longer wrapped in protective amnesia. But still she fought against them with all her strength.

“You’re lying. That was only a dream.”

Cassius hung his head. “It was no dream, any more than I am.”

“You’re lying. My father..... It’s not true, it’s not true!” And she sat down in a heap on the rough, uneven ground, and wept bitterly.

Night was falling, and the man had not returned. The girl remained where he had left her, hidden by a jutting shelf of rock halfway up the high slope. He had not refitted the gag, telling her that if she cried out she would only bring danger on herself. But neither had he loosed her wrists, and the pain in them was growing desperate. The gnarled bush he had bound her to, by an added length of cord, had proven too tough and deeply rooted. She could not unearth it, or break its branches to slide the unyielding loop upward and over the top. Failing in this, she struggled first with the knot at its base, then with the bind itself. Its harsh leather tore her skin, increased her pain, but would not let her hands pass through, no matter how she squirmed and fought. His strength, like the crushing strength of a world without compassion, was just too much for her.

At first this realization brought only despair, and the fear of being helpless and alone as night closed in around her. But in another way..... She could not explain it. Yet somehow the feeling of being bound by the will of a man, a strong and unyielding man, brought with it a sense of security. She still mistrusted him, still feared him, but there was no denying it. The way he looked at her, the way he took such pains to keep her from running away, or hurting herself. Though the feeling confused her, she realized that she was important to him. She mattered.

But fear remained by far the stronger voice. He was still a man, and all her awakening experience of men told her they were treacherous, and cared not at all for the feelings of a woman. She told herself she hated him.

But where was he now? How could he just abandon her? Had he left her there to die? Unable to stand, she planted her feet firmly against the thick roots and pulled again at the cord, as long and hard as the pain would allow. Useless. She let out a plaintive moan, and leaned over her hands to cry.

Several minutes later she heard a sound, and looking up, saw him standing over her. In the last dying light of the day, his face looked more stern than ever. But something else, unreadable, played in the fierce eyes beneath tightly knitted brows. She had not the age or experience to understand the conflicting emotions at work in him, but instinctively she noted the expression, and locked it away in her memory.

“There is a cave,” he said, “a short distance from here. There we will have fire, shelter and food. But I have not the strength to carry you, nor the patience for any more games. Will you walk with me now, or spend the night here with the wolves?”

She found herself incapable of answering, but only drew up her legs protectively beneath her. “What are you going to do with me?” The shadow of his eyes grew darker still.

“Nothing I haven’t had the chance to do already. Damn you! There is no time for this.” The man drew a long knife from its sheath, bent down and cut the cord with a single, angry jerk backward. Wrapping the frayed end tightly about his right hand, he turned away and began to walk, half leading, half dragging her behind. The pain in her wrists forced her to go on, though what else she would have done.....

She followed.

He had not lied about the cave. It was dry, the floor of dirt level and soft. And with the fire burning steadily, the small entrance partly covered by a blanket, it was also warm and bright enough to dispel the chill in her bones, and the feeling of naked exposure to the night. Nor had he lied about food. A butchered lamb lay beside him as he worked to construct a frame of stakes on which to roast it.

But the pain in her wrists had become all consuming, and dangerous. “Please,” she said, with tears of vexation in her eyes. “Untie my hands. I won’t try to run away.”

Cassius stopped. These were the first words she had spoken since they set out from the ledge. For the first time he left off his labors long enough to study the cruel work of the bind: the leather cuff was darkened with blood, the soft skin beneath it discolored and torn. He needed no further prodding. Taking a long wooden needle from his pack on the floor, he came closer and set to work untying the double knot.

But no sooner had he released her hands than he immediately seized her sandaled feet, brought them together, and with the very same leather and cord, bound her tightly about the ankles.

The girl was almost too stunned to react. But after he returned to the makeshift spit, and she had slowly massaged some measure of feeling back into her hands, she looked over at him in confusion. The same question that had troubled her since she first found herself in his power, returned with the added force of resentment. She tried to suppress it, fearful of his wrath. But a rising bitterness goaded her on, and gave her the courage to speak.

“Why?” Her voice was at first the rich and womanly tone she had inherited from her mother, almost defiant. But as he glared back at her, unmoved, her youthful despair returned. “Why are you doing this to me!”

He seemed to take this in, but did not answer. Instead he lifted a sharp stone, and with it pounded the two Y-shaped stakes into the ground on either side of the fire. Then with a strength and stubbornness that were unnerving to watch, he impaled the lamb on a third, and set the stripped carcass in place. The exposed flesh hissed and popped as it was licked by the flames. Then with an abruptness that startled her, he came and sat cross-legged directly in front of her.

“Do you mean, why did I save your life? Why did I go back to the village, despite the danger, to be sure we both had enough to eat? Why don’t I let you run out into the night, where if the wolves don’t get you the barbarians will, or maybe even one of your own countrymen? Is that what you are asking?”

And though she struggled against them, the tears came again. “No. Yes..... Why are you hurting me!” Cassius eyed her steadily, subduing the pity that tried to well up inside him.

“Don’t you understand?” he said finally, looking away. “I am trying very hard not to hurt you..... I am trying to protect you. Listen to me. You are so young. . .you don’t realize the dangers all around you.”

“The most dangerous thing in my life is you!” And in a blind fury she seized a handful of dirt and small stones, and flung it at the side of his face.

With this the man turned sharply, took her shoulders in a crushing grip, and lifted her straight up. And as they stood, so close, she felt the hatred of his eyes burn through her.

But Cassius’ hatred was not for the hapless girl, and slowly he remembered it. More slowly still, he loosed his grip on her. “Well,” he said quietly, and with strange emphasis. “At least you know something of the hearts of men. I was beginning to wonder.”

With his hands no longer supporting her and her feet thus bound, she quickly lost her balance and sloughed to the ground. Raising herself on one arm, she brushed away the dirt from the shoulder of her dress, and with her fingers, pushed behind her ear the thick and straying locks of her hair.

“I hate you,” she said bitterly, fearing to hear herself speak. But the man did not respond, only continued to turn the lamb on the spit. And in its utter helplessness, she saw herself. She leaned heavily on her hands and watched him, unable to feel anything but a kind of battered bewilderment. And the throbbing pain in her wrists.

The man watched her, feeling so many things. And though he told himself a true Roman could never be drunk, the wine he had brought from the village was not without its effect on him. But of all the things he felt, sitting empty and worn before the fire, the strongest was a kind of dark wistfulness. He knew that all must end in death and ruin, and that life was therefor hopeless and meaningless. He knew the girl was not his own, and that she herself felt nothing for him but fear and loathing. He knew, and yet this night it struck him as terribly sad. And while he had always viewed such emotions as weakness, there in the sheltered cave, with the beautiful child so close. . .the knowledge did nothing to lessen the pain.

In her sleep the child stirred, moaned something that sounded like, “No, don’t leave us.” Cassius wondered vaguely to what phantom of her past she spoke. Then reaching blindly down, she made as if to wrap the hem of her dress more tightly about her exposed ankles. But the impulse faded partway, and instead she only drew her knees more closely to her body, rubbing the side of her leg for warmth. All unconscious, all innocent, and all, for reasons she could not know, a silent torment for the man.

In the smoky light of the fire, the distorting heat of the flames, Cassius felt his eyes losing focus. His mind too seemed to lose its anchor and drift backward, into a past still too recent, and a place that would never be far enough behind. And all the while the girl was there before him. But as an owl spoke hauntingly somewhere in the night, ancient messenger of death, his spirit yielded at last to the melancholy spell. And in her place he saw other figures, other forms. He tried for a moment to fight off this, most bitter of memories. But he was so tired, so damnably tired.....

He saw his wife, lying on the wooden floor of what had once been a home, cradling even in death the body of their young son, trying to protect him. Both were covered with gashes and gaping wounds, garments slit by the blows and thickly stained with blood. As the moon rose silently, and wolves gathered on the outskirts of the town. While in the near distance, the Rome of his forefathers, burned. And the single, terrible question had hammered him to his knees, strangling him with merciless tears as he leaned over and cradled them both in his arms, broken. He spoke the word aloud.

“Why?” In the name of Heaven, Why?

With this he came back to the present, and he shook his head angrily. But the question remained, a bludgeoning and pitiless foe, destroying all he believed, cared for or understood.

But since that mortal night he had vowed never, never to weep again, and did not now. Instead he rose, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. He looked over at the girl, restless and aching.

Then for a reason not altogether clear to him he went to the entrance. He took down the blanket, and walked with it to the place where the girl lay sleeping. And though the words, “Damned foolishness,” played in his mind, nevertheless he knelt down beside her, spread the blanket over her, and gently tucked the folds of thick wool beneath her legs.

Then he returned to the fire, and closing his mind, finished roasting the lamb.

In the soft light of first waking the girl felt a strong hand on her shoulder, and a husky voice speak her name softly.

“Ariel.”

Oh! The sound and feel of him came as such blessed relief, contradicting all the dark images of the dream—of abandonment, loneliness and death. She turned towards him warm and grateful, eyes closed contentedly, putting her arms around his neck and drawing him close.

“Father. You’ve come back.”

But there was something unnatural in the unyielding stiffness of his body, and in the rough beard that scratched her cheek..... In sudden revulsion she remembered and pushed him away, throwing off the blanket and trying to run. But the bind still held her ankles, and she could not. Half crawling, half rolling away from him she searched frantically for some kind of weapon, or large stone to hurl at him. But there were none to be found. As the dawn peered in through the entrance she saw nothing but the cave, the fire, and the man who held her life in his hands. And now it was her ankles that throbbed.

Seeing that escape was futile, and that the man himself made no move, she sat up abruptly and pulled down the hem of her dress, which had ridden dangerously high in the struggle. Still he made no move. Her sense of desperation faded, but her anger did not.

“Why did you do that?” she demanded. But then another thought came to her, and her expression changed to one of bewilderment. “How do you know my name?”

“I didn’t, until just now.”

“But how— ”

“If I tell you will you stop torturing yourself, and promise to eat something?”

She eyed him suspiciously, trying to gauge his motives. But she wanted to know so badly..... “Yes, I promise!”

The man moved back to the fire, which had fallen to graying charcoals, lit red from within, the roasted lamb golden and still above it. He sat down and pulled closer to him the deerskin pack. He reached inside and fished about for a moment, then drew out a locket on a fine silver chain. But the chain itself was broken, and the engraved cover no longer fitted shut.

“You have seen this before?”

“You know I have. It belonged to my mother.”

“Yes. Then you know that inside is a miniature portrait, the head and shoulders of a little dark-haired girl. And on the inside cover are the words: ‘Closest to my heart, closest to my breast, Ariel.’”

“How could you?” she cried, burying her face in her hands. For until that moment the smallest part of her still clung to the belief that somehow her mother was alive—that the attack on the village had not happened, or if it had..... But this was worse than any nightmare. It was real.

Cassius eyed her evenly. “Do you mean, how could I steal from the dead? Or do you mean, how could I force you to see things as they are?” The girl turned away, trying not to listen. “Well, in the first case I will confess it is something I have done in the past. But on this occasion the locket is for you, a remembrance of the woman who gave her life for you. And as for showing you the hard truth, don’t you think it is time you started facing it? Your mother is dead and your village destroyed. And if I read the signs right, your father has betrayed you both.”

“Stop it! Stop it!” And again she flung handfuls of dirt at him. But as her aim was blind, and the fury short-lived, he did not respond in kind.

“Your mother is dead,” he persisted. “But you are not. You can hate me if you want, but that won’t bring back the past. It won’t bring back those you loved, rightly or wrongly. Listen to me! You are in a country, nay, a continent, overrun by barbarians. There is neither law nor reason to fall back upon. You had better start thinking how you are going to protect yourself.”

The girl said nothing, only hung her head mournfully. And when he tried to make her eat, she refused.

A short time later they descended, down from the high cave to the place where Cassius had left his horse, a level clearing on the long hillside, among the shelter of pines. The big grey stamped impatiently when it saw him, raising and lowering its head, though it made no other sound. The man walked right up to it, freed it from its tether, and patting the neck, bent over to examine its hooves. He moved all around the animal, stroking its flanks, checking both muscle and coat.

Ariel watched from her distance, trying to remain aloof. The bind at her ankles had been replaced by a shackle of rope— she could walk but not run. But she could not help noticing that the rough man took good care of his horse, and that it seemed to feel a kind of affection for him in return.

“Where did you get him?” she asked plainly. For she had slowly reasoned—

“Keep your voice down.” he whispered harshly. “Take a lesson from my horse if you must. Noise brings attention, and attention brings death.” Her face colored, and she looked down at the cold ground beneath her. Still, she repeated the question.

“This is not your native country,” she said. “And to judge by your accent you cannot have been here long. How did you get the horse?”

He started to answer gruffly, but there was something appealing in her childlike stubbornness. And now that she spoke more quietly..... “The same way a man gets anything that is lasting. I took it in my own two hands.” He could not entirely suppress a feeling of pride as he gnarled its long black mane in his fingers, and slapped its strong chest with the opposite hand.

“But how did you train him in so short a time?”

“I bought him from an old man who kept him tied to a rusted plow, scraping day after day a dry field full of stones. He had sense enough to appreciate the change of fortunes. If I must say it again, you could take a lesson from him.” Cassius felt a pang of remorse as he said this, but it was not lasting.

“What do you want from me!” she cried, stamping her feet in vexation. He came closer to silence her, but the outburst was already fading. “What are you going to do with me?” And she hung her head, feeling utterly lost and abandoned.

Now it was Cassius who pawed the ground, angry and agitated. For he himself did not know, had no answer to give her.

“I don’t know,” he said finally, gazing obstinately at the crown of her head, from which the curling locks hung seductively.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Of course not.”

“Will you. . .rape me?”

“I haven’t yet.”

She released a heavy breath, almost a sob. “Will you sell me as a slave?”

“No.”

“Then why? Why won’t you let me go?”

“Because I can’t. At least not yet.” He looked away, as if speaking to himself. “I know the last thing you want right now is to be alone with a strange, bitter man. I understand your contempt. But what you have to realize is that the life you knew is gone, and that it can never come back. Ariel,” he said emphatically, turning back to her. “I am not the one who ended it. I didn’t sack your village, or rape and kill your mother.”

“But you were there, after, to steal from the dead!” His eyes narrowed at this, glaring at her with some fierce emotion that was beyond her experience.

“I make no apologies, to anyone, for what I must do to survive.” He began to pace back and forth, growing angrier with each step. “I spent half my life trying to protect the frontiers from these animals. And when Rome fell..... Aahh. This is pointless.” And he moved off to sit on a stone, trying to gather his thoughts.

Ariel stood silent, till the morning cold began to creep up her legs, the sleeves of her dress, like a frozen blade making for her heart. She gave a shudder, a sorrowful groan, and moved closer to the horse for warmth. Blindly she put out her hands, and tried to lean against it to cry. But the animal was growing restive, and only moved away with a snort and a shake of the head.

Cassius, who had seen all this, and who now saw the girl fall to her knees as if in prayer, finally felt something give inside him. He rose, came beside her, and put a hand lightly on her shoulder.

“Ariel. Come.”

“Where are we going?”

“To bury your mother.”

The man moved with bitter stealth through the now familiar streets. And with every sudden sound, every shadowless stretch, he asked himself again why he had come. The danger had not lessened. On the contrary, every scavenging band within miles must now know that the village was plundered and laid bare. True there were countless others like it, but how much protection that afforded..... And added to the visual horrors he had already seen—the corpses thick and buzzing with flies, mutilated by wild dogs and carrion birds—was the unbelievable stench of decay. Death he had seen, of course: the bodies piled for burning, both friend and foe, crackling with their dark and acrid smoke. But to see women and children left to rot under an indifferent sun, their eyes pecked out by crows..... This was a sight, and smell, that tore at the soul, and turned the stomach inside out.

But he knew what he must do, and grimly, he did it. Reaching again the darkened hall, he prepared the body as best he could, grateful only that thus far it had been left alone. For what was the need, with so many others lying helpless in the streets? He closed his mind, and would not allow himself to feel the full depths of the woman’s tragedy. What would it accomplish if he did? Nothing.

Nothing.

The girl stood hidden upon the flatted crest of the hill, in the hollow where he had left her. The shackle of rope still restricted her movements: to try and descend the steep path after him would be dangerous, while to run away, thus bound, into a world without order or hope..... But that was not why she obeyed him, and remained there. Seeing once the blackened roofs of the village, tasting for herself the foul odor of the dead and listening to the vultures fighting over them, was simply more than she could face.

Was that why he had brought her here, to force the whole of the disaster down her throat? Hadn’t she been through enough already? She hated him more in those empty, horrid moments than she had ever hated anyone.

But something else gnawed at her as well: a dull dread of the thing he had gone down to find. She loved her mother more than all the world. But the thought of her lifeless form, of something terrible and loathsome in place of the only comfort she had known.....

And yet she couldn’t run away from it, either. What if her mother wasn’t really dead? How could she be? Just two days before she had been as alive as herself, had felt hunger, fatigue, love and sadness, all the things that she herself was feeling. Even now she felt the gentle touch, the warm body that held her close, and with silent tears told her not to be afraid. She had been alive. She must still be alive! A blow to the head, a gash across the breast, that was all.

“Mother!” And despite the shackle that clutched at her feet like a beggar, and the horror that was like a leper’s face, she shuffled, and slipped down, and lifted herself again toward the path that led back to her home. Her home!

But reaching the sheltering stone from which Cassius had first surveyed the valley, she stopped abruptly. There he was below her, leading his horse steadily up the snaking incline. And lashed across its back, jostling in a movement at once both fluid and stiff, was something wrapped in a patchwork of brown curtains.

She closed her eyes and staggered back. She fell, paused. . .then stood up again with curious poise. Turning mutely, she retraced her steps to the place where he had told her to stand, the hollow by the fallen trunk. There, he had said, they would bury her.

She felt nothing as the man finally came upon her, breathing heavily and pausing to rest. She still felt nothing as he wiped the sweat from his brow, patted the horse weakly, and began to untie the ropes that held the doubled ends of the corpse together. She only noted, with mild irritation, that he was exceedingly gentle as he lifted it off the rough saddle, and carried it like a sleeping child to the base of a nearby Joshua tree. It was a place she had known since childhood. But when he started to undo the fabric that covered the face, she felt such a shudder run down her back.....

“No! I won’t look. I won’t!” She turned away, her back to both of them, till something seemed to seize her by the face and arms, her face hot and wet, and she found herself staggering toward them.

“Mother, I’m sorry. No! Don’t leave me! Dear God.” And she fell to her knees as the man rose and stepped aside, engulfing her mother in her arms, and burying her eyes against the beloved breast.

But it was cold, and made a strange sound as she put her ear to the place where the heartbeat should have been. She was filled with a sudden, overpowering revulsion. She stood up, and would have screamed but for the strong hand which prevented her.

She struggled like a madman against his restraining grasp, then slowly went limp. Cassius brought her closer, awkwardly. Again she struggled, but he persisted, turning her towards him.

The breast her face now collapsed upon was not soft, and the hands that held her were not gentle. But they were warm, and living, and wanted her there. She sobbed heavily, ceaselessly as he stood very still, at intervals lightly touching the back of her head.

“I’m sorry,” he said many times. And then, “I’m sorry you had to see this.”

Perhaps twenty minutes had elapsed. The woman was buried, and they dared not linger. Cassius wiped the dirt from his hands, from his face, and turned to see the girl sitting where he had left her, head down and silent. He laid aside the broken spade, and addressed her. “It’s time we were gone.”

He stopped suddenly. Had he heard a twig crack, or was it only— His horse stirred nervously, eyes wide. This time he was sure. From a clump of bushes to his left came the sound of a man, crouching more deeply behind them. And from the corner of his eye he saw a half defined figure farther off move quickly between a gap in stunted trees and undergrowth. He drew out his sword, and began to back slowly toward his horse. With the other arm he instinctively reached for the girl, trying to brush her back along with him.

But though Ariel, who had risen, was also aware they were no longer alone, her reaction was entirely different. She hesitated for a moment, confused, then eluding the outstretched arm, burst instead toward the man in the bushes, moving as fast as the shackle would allow.

“Help me!” she cried frantically. “Help me!”

The shadowy figure rose up and came forward as she staggered towards him. But as she gained her balance and her wits long enough to look up at him, she found no trace of pity in his eyes. At the same instant two others like him broke from cover, and rushed at her companion.

Cassius stood very still. Then as the first of the two drew within striking distance he whirled, and with a vicious blow of his sword, cracked the shaft of the spear that had been intended for his back. And as his second assailant hesitated at the sudden movement, he turned on him with a cry of rage, and buried the short sword up to its hilt in his chest.

He felt a sharp pain and involuntarily lost his grip on it, as the spearman brought the splintered shaft across the back of his head with a crack. He fell forward and rolled away, reaching for his knife. As he did he saw a fourth man trying to seize the reins of his horse, and that the man from the bushes had wrestled Ariel to the ground and was tearing at her clothes. A moment later the spearman lunged at him with the recovered point of the spear, but this time Cassius was ready. Twisting his upper body to elude the thrust, he reached back and pulled the man across him and to the ground, then grabbed a fistful of hair and craned back the dark head, exposing the neck. And before the man could struggle free his throat was cut, bathing the Roman’s hands in warm blood. Then he was on his feet again, ready to attack the man at his horse.

But there was no need. The frightened animal had risen up on its hind legs, and with front hooves dancing in the air, crashed the man to the ground. Cassius retrieved his sword from the first body as the horse bolted off with a cry and a shake of the head.

He watched it go, then turned slowly towards the man who had attacked his woman. This man, suddenly aware that the sounds of battle had ceased, released his grip on her and rolled away.

And when he saw the cold gleam of death in Cassius’ eyes, he gave an involuntary start and tried to gain his feet to run. But too poorly, and too late. Cassius closed the distance between them in four quick strides, and threw him over onto his back. From there he fell to his knees and raised the sword, dagger-like, and crashed it down between neck and shoulder. The man shuddered and tried to scream. Then slowly his tensing body relaxed. His eyes sank back and his head turned away.

The Roman remained on one knee, breathing heavily. Dully he remembered the man his horse had stunned, and withdrawing the blade, rose to finish him. The adrenaline that had given him strength, now left him limp and exhausted. He walked past the girl, unseeing, then prodded with his sword, only to find the man already dead. He moved to a clump of stone and sat down, his shoulder throbbing and his breath coming hard and painfully.

Ariel remained where she lay, eyes wide, breathing too deeply and at intervals giving a shudder of fear and revulsion. The one thought that would form from the blank terror of her mind. . .was one of disbelief. For the men who attacked them had not been foreign invaders, not barbarians as she knew them. They were Spanish, a remnant of the ruined village guard. Then why?
At length Cassius rose and came toward her, his eyes and mind still burning from the heat of close combat. Drawing nearer he remembered her betrayal. Without mercy he lifted her up, and with a strong hand reopened the front of her torn dress, which she had closed and held tight against her. Beneath it he saw a smallish breast, firm and perfectly shaped. He took her head in his opposite hand, and crushed her to him.

“No, Cassius, please. Please don’t hurt me.”

Her voice worked on him strangely, seeming to wake him from a kind of dark dream. But though it suppressed, for a time, the brutal urge inside him, it did nothing to lessen his anger. With the knife once more in his hand, he bent down and sawed at the rope that kept her prisoner, bound to his will alone. And giving one hard, final jerk, the last strands tore and gave way.

“You do what you want,” he said flatly. And he began to walk away.

Ariel stood and watched him, her emotions churning wildly. She did not care for him, or trust him. Her fear of him had not lessened for the ruthless, predatory look she had just witnessed in his eyes. But another fear overpowered all: the fear of abandonment, of being truly alone in a world of violent anarchy. He was neither father, nor husband, nor friend. And yet the sight of him moving steadily away, and the realization that his warnings spoke a savage truth.....

“Oh.” She found herself walking, then running down the slope after him. “Wait!” she cried.

“Where are you going?”

Cassius said nothing, only continued to walk in the direction that his horse had fled. And when she caught up with him, when she put a hand on his shoulder he whirled, glaring hard and raising a forefinger in strictest warning.

But he did not tell her to go. He turned again, and continued to descend. After hesitating one final time, she followed.

Six

Cassius followed the trail for many hours, across a vast plain of heather and gorse which first began to roll, then fold in upon itself. It was late afternoon before he spotted his horse at the edge of a steep ravine—then it was gone down the slope—and late evening before he could draw close enough to calm it, and bring it once more under his control.

By then the light was fading, and the day’s long march had led him far to the west, still further from the coastal towns, into a region largely uninhabited. He found himself in a craggy, deep-cloven valley, split down the middle by a river running south. Needing water for both his horse and himself, he led it the remaining distance to the grainy, time-worn banks of the stream.

Somehow Ariel had stayed with him. Though on several occasions hunger and fatigue had forced her to stop and rest while the man did not, each time she was able to rouse herself, and half bitterly, half desperately, to rise and run and catch up with him once more. Cassius had been aware of her presence throughout, and was not as indifferent to the dangers both faced in the open country as he might like to be. Even now, among the relative cover of rock and bramble he watched her closely, some two hundred yards behind him up the slope, pausing as if to consider her next move.

As he had walked, and still more, as he realized that she was following, his anger had slowly cooled, and rational thoughts begun to pass through him once more. Her disloyalty still stung him, but the very depth of this emotion showed him that he had begun to feel a strong connection to her. And while he railed against this, wanting and needing no one, he could not help a feeling of male pride at the way he had defended her.

For almost two years, since he first received the terrible wound, he had been obsessed by it, convinced it made him vulnerable, and useless as a soldier. But the day’s close combat, his first real test, had shown him otherwise. His shoulder ached now, the arm tingled, but they had done what he asked of them. He had done what must be done, swiftly and decisively. He clenched his fist at that, and had to discipline himself not to cry out in angry triumph.

Ariel sat back against the slope, exhausted and unsure. She could not have said why she followed him, at all, let alone the many miles they had crossed. But once it became clear that his leaving was no bluff, that he was fully prepared to go on without her, something on a primal level had told her..... What? She did not know, only that she had followed, and was now in sight of him. Yet this same voice, unspoken, kept her from going straight to him. So she waited, and tried to gather her thoughts.

But night was falling fast, bringing with it a chill wind from the great northern mountains, following the course of the stream which fled from them like wolves on the scent of game. She could just make out the small fire he had built, knowing him well enough to understand that it was hidden from as many sides as possible, and would burn no longer than it absolutely must.

What she felt for him, or even what he would do to her in his passion, were no longer the main concern. It was cold, she was hungry, and this man had protected her. She knew, deep down, that he would not hurt her. Though she had little hope that her virginity would survive the encounter.

With a single tear for lost innocence, she made her way carefully down the slope. Slipping now and again on the loose and pebbly limestone, she came at last to a large boulder, lit on the far side by the light of his campfire, casting illusory shadows beyond. She hesitated, feeling desperate. Then stepped around the indifferent stone, into a small clearing a short distance from the river, shielded from it by a wall of brush and scrub pines.

Cassius looked up at her from the fallen trunk on which he sat, unmoved. “Sit here,” he said, indicating a dry patch of ground in front of it. “Don’t say a word. Just eat, and then sleep.”

She felt the tears start again as she came slowly and stood before him, looking into his eyes for some sign of what was to come. She saw there the anger she expected, though it did not seem the only emotion at work in him..... His voice was harsh and inflexible.

“Sit.”

She sat down, never taking her eyes off him. He handed her a bowl of cooked meat, a crust of bread, and a cup half filled with water.

“Eat.”

She ate and drank slowly at first. But though her mind remained cautious, her body eagerly accepted the sustenance he had given her. Again she felt the subconscious desire to submit to his will, to obey him, and to accept the life he offered. When she had finished she gave the utensils back to him, and stood up.

“Sleep,” was all he said.

At this word alone did her instincts rebel, and a sense of danger return to her. She looked to the place he had cleared for himself, his horse and belongings a short distance from it. She moved not toward it, but to the opposite side of the fire. Here she brushed away what she could of the surface gravel, tried to find a place where the ground would be softest.

Then looked back at him one last time. He might have been a statue, and his eyes remained unreadable. She lay down partway, facing him.

“May I have a blanket?”

“There is only one.”

There was no need to interpret his meaning. She rested her face on her arm and tried to sleep. But the fire was slowly dying, and the man made no attempt to refuel it. She turned away. Sorrowfully she asked the question that haunted her, like the unquiet spirits of the dead.

“Why is this happening to me?” And somehow, he seemed to know what she was feeling.

“There is no why.”

“But why did that man try to hurt me? For what reason?”

He released a caged breath. “There is no reason for the things an evil man will do. Somewhere in the course of a lifetime, he just stops caring.”

“Have you stopped caring, Cassius?”

To this he made no answer, unless he made it with his silence. Instead he rose, moved to the place he had prepared, and began to dig a shallow pit. Then lined it with the smoldering embers, and covered all with a thin layer of dirt. He spread his wide blanket on top of this, and lying down, folded one half over him.

And soon he was asleep. Though the girl could find no such escape.

The man woke to feel a trembling body beside him. And as his senses came back to him he realized that it was the girl, her back against him, trying to cover herself with the blanket. He drew her closer for warmth, shifted his body to spread it over her.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she said in a pitiful voice. “I’m so cold. I’m so afraid.”

“Never,” he said, taken back by the power of his emotions. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

He held her tight, feeling so many things. And in time, she slept.

Ariel woke feeling warm and rested, and quietly at peace with her world. She could not at first account for this, or for the clearing and the soft sounds of the river beyond.

When memory and awareness did return, she was much less certain what she felt. Somehow she was alone beneath the covering blanket, her clothes and her innocence intact. Why he had not taken her that night, when she was powerless to stop him, was a question for which she had no answer. Only one possibility presented itself, and this seemed so unlikely..... The very thought was disquieting, so great were its consequences upon her shattered world.

Was it possible? Did this fierce and powerful man truly care for her? Would he protect her, even love her as his own?

Sitting up, she looked around her. She saw him through the screen of undergrowth, his back to her, gazing into the stream as if deep in thought.

Beside her she found a bowl of wild berries, and the same cup half filled with water. Strong feelings stirred in her, battled against each other as she ate and drank, and tried to think.

Cassius sat wearily on a smooth stone by the bank, still trying to work it all through. Since the girl had come to him that night he had found sleep at first difficult, and then impossible. The bewitching child, whose flesh was to his as water to a dying man, had lain so close in his arms..... And yet he could not take her. Because the truth was, he did care. Somewhere among the hours they had passed together, her simple need had touched him, had woken him back to the cares and sorrows of the world he had renounced. More even than this, her beauty and innocence aroused in him the primal combination of pity and desire which no natural man can resist. His needs both to shelter and to hunt, to protect and to penetrate, to nurture and tear down, all found outlet in the girl, and ceased their feuding and became one. He wanted her.

But this same desire, not only for the girl but for another chance at life itself, brought him face to face with the terrible demon from which he had fled for so long: the dark and fatal reality of his life. And he was forced to admit, galling as it was to any soldier, that he had in fact been running. Could he now muster the courage to turn and fight? Could he, a wounded man, many miles from home in strange and hostile country, take this young life to his own?

So deep was he in his reverie that at first he was unaware of her approach. He felt a light touch on his shoulder, and knew at once it must be hers. Not turning, he waited for her to come and stand before him on the gentle embankment. Their eyes met on a level for the first time, searching, struggling, trying to understand. He knew that she must ask her question first.

“Why?” she began, feeling agitated. “Why didn’t you take me when you had the chance?”

“Because I can’t do that anymore. I took my wife..... And now she’s dead.” He was silent, then forced himself to go on. “I want to take care of you, to protect you. I have been trying to think where we could go, what we could do, to be safe from all of this. But there is something I have to know first.” He looked away, then straight at her.

“Ariel. Are you with me?”

“But I don’t even know who you are.”

“I’m a Roman soldier, or I used to be. All my life I’ve been fighting, for something I thought I believed in. Maybe I just don’t know what else to do..... Until last night, I thought there was nothing left worth fighting for.” She stirred, feeling restless and confused.

“Am I with you. As what? A slave, a mistress, a daughter? You ask me to choose, without telling me anything.”

“I am not your father, Ariel, nor even your friend. What you will be to me I cannot say. Perhaps if you were older..... But you’re not. The one thing I can promise is that you will always be free to leave, just as you are now. But the question remains. Will you follow where I lead?”

“What choice do I have!” she said angrily.

“That is not an answer.” And though it cost him to do so, he turned and headed back to the clearing, where he began to load his packed belongings onto the horse.

“All right! All right!”

He turned back to her. “Ariel. I am not trying to be harsh. But if you are to come with me, if together we are to stay alive amidst the chaos, then it must be as loyal allies. I must know that your heart, and your full attention are with me.” She had begun to turn away, when the steel in his voice returned. “There is only one word that will get you on this horse, and you have not said it!”

She rushed at him, began to pound his chest with her fists. Then lay her forehead upon it instead. In time she felt his hands upon her shoulders. She spoke.

“I just want you to promise me one thing.”

“What is it?”

“That you care about me.”

“I do.”

She stepped back, and at last her mind was clear.

“Then yes. Yes, I am with you.”

They rode in silence for a time, Cassius guiding his horse cautiously along the narrow track that skirted the river, with no greater plan than to follow the current and see where it led. The chill of the previous night still lingered in his bones, and with Winter not far off, south seemed as good a direction as any.

With the girl behind him, her arms about his waist, he was acutely aware of two sensations. First, how good it felt to have her there, and to know that she was with him. But then, more strongly, how impossible it all was, and how tragic it would be if he failed to protect her. As he had failed Arna..... He watched the rocky, undulating slopes closely, the wooded banks to either side of the water, knowing that around any bend could lie strangers, enemies, a trap. The walls of the ravine had begun to pull back slightly, and the scrub pine to yield to deciduous trees, their changing leaves a blaze of gold and deep crimson: there was some cover to either side of them. Still, he took nothing for granted.

As they continued on, he was surprised to find but few signs of habitation. In a dry land a river such as this, albeit secluded, should have been a lifeline of trade if nothing else. Here and there they would come upon an abandoned house, and toward noon the ruined landing and pull-ropes of what had once been a ferry crossing.

At first he was relieved by the absence of settlers, but then it began to puzzle him. Stopping for water at a sandy clearing where he could see a fair distance both up and down the path, he resolved to ask the girl about it. Kneeling at the water’s edge to fill his skin while the horse drank beside him, he put the question to her. She stood a short distance behind, stretching her lower back and looking about her.

“Ariel. How well do you know this country?”

“Well enough. My father used to trade here. But that was before…..” She hesitated.

“Before he got tired of being a father, and sold you and your mother to the richest man in the village?”

“You don’t know that! You don’t know my father, how hard it was for him, being.....”

“A Jew?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “You know?”

“It’s not much of a secret, with that Star of David engraved on your mother’s locket.”

“Then you understand that we have always been outcasts. That my father was cheated, harassed, even beaten and robbed. You can’t know what it was like. Or perhaps you hate us, too.”

He gave a grunt, of laughter or of sadness she could not say. “If only you knew how little such words mean to me. Christian. Jew. We all ask God to deliver us, then try hard not to see He’s doing no such thing. No, I don’t hate you. But as for your father, there is no excuse for a man to abandon his family.”

“He didn’t abandon us! He just had to go away for a while. And he didn’t sell us.”

Cassius shook his head. “Your mother wore a slave ring with the same symbol* emblazoned on the rich man’s door. You yourself wore such a ring, until I took it off you last night.” She turned away and seemed on the verge of despair, but he knew that he must drive the lesson home.

*the raging lion.

“You were slaves, Ariel, though you may not have been called that. And whether he wanted to or not, your father made a prostitute of your mother.”

“Stop it! Don’t you speak ill of my mother!”

“I am not, and I never will. No doubt she was sleeping with the old bastard just to keep him off of you.”

“How can you say such things?” she said weakly, unable to deny him.

“I say them because they’re true, and because the only way to survive such horrors is to look them in the face and call them what they are. I won’t speak of your father if it upsets you, because I know you loved him. As for your mother, she has earned my deep and everlasting respect. She stood true to her child, through loneliness and pain.....” Now it was Cassius who felt the hollow sting of a loved one lost. He closed his eyes, and unconsciously whispered her name.

“Arna.”

But this was neither the time nor the place for any of this. “Ariel. Forgive me. We must be moving on.”
Though she was reluctant, he persisted, boosting her into the saddle while choosing himself to lead the animal on foot. Give her time alone, let his horse rest. He too felt the need for isolation, and to feel his sandaled feet upon the earth.

He walked.

They had traveled thus for some miles when the silence began to weigh on him. Uncomfortable, he questioned her.

“Why should I answer you now?” she said sulkily.

“Because if you don’t I’ll throw you in the river..... Ariel, this is important. Important to our survival. Why is the valley deserted?”

“.....it’s the river. They say a colony of lepers formed upstream and contaminated the water. Now it’s called the River of the Damned.”

Cassius stopped dead, then whirled in near frenzy.

“But we’ve both drunk from it! Christ, you’ve killed us both!”

Her face was defiant. “Ignorance and superstition. Even if the colony was still there, and it has been several years, leprosy is not spread in that way.”

“You would risk both our lives on that?”

“It’s no risk. People hate the Jews for a lot of foolish reasons, but one thing we have always had are writings and teaching. Leprosy can only be spread through close personal contact, not by water, and not through the air.”

Cassius came closer and, holding the reins in his left, took her wrist in his strong right hand. “Let us understand one thing very well. I do not hate the Jews, nor did any Roman before Constantine. Under our rule they were free to worship as they chose, so long as they paid the tax and made no trouble. You see how things are for you without us. And just because I am a soldier does not mean I’m ignorant. There are things I know about the land, about life and death, that you will never know. I had heard that about leprosy. I just wasn’t sure I believed it.”

“Believe it!” she said, jerking free her hand.

Cassius stood very still, torn between pride and compassion. “Are you defying me?”

“What if I am? I’m tired of your threats, and the way you always bully me with your version of the truth. Who do you think you are?”

His eyes narrowed. “I think I am the man with the horse, the food, and the sword that saved your life. All right. You say the water is safe, perhaps you would like to prove it. You need to bathe, and I need to sew your dress.” In her anger she had forgotten to hold it shut, did so hastily. But then she felt a surge of fear.

“Are you asking me to bathe in the river?”

“I am.”

“But Cassius— ”

“If you don’t trust me by now then I am wasting my time. Or is it the river you fear?”

“Wait, please. Just give me more time.”

“All right. You have one hour. It will probably take that long to find a suitable place. Then we will see about ignorance.” Without further speech he took up his former position, and led the horse forward.

Toward mid afternoon Cassius stopped again. A smaller stream now cut across their path, angling into the river through a rift in the steadily widening ravine. Following it a short distance upstream, he found the greener, more gently wooded rift deserted but for a small stone house on the farther shore. This stood alone on a level stretch above the bank, partly hidden by trees, fringed in high grasses, and backed by the rising stone. Mounting behind her, he crossed over the clear and gurgling waters, moved closer to the house to investigate.

“Like the rest. Empty,” he said as he returned, helping the girl to dismount. “We’ll leave the horse here to graze; maybe we can pass the night inside. Now. It’s time for you to bathe.”

“In the river?”

“Of course not. I was angry when I said that. I would never endanger your life for the sake of pride.”

“But you still want me to bathe?”

“Yes, I do. The pool beneath the waterfall, there,” he pointed, “seems as good a place as any.”

“But I’m afraid.” Her eyes pleaded.

“Ariel, there is no time for this. Already the wind is turning cold. I won’t watch if it troubles you, just stay close enough to protect you, if need be. The stream is a blessing, clean and untainted, and I really must mend your dress. You make a tempting enough target for roving bands without showing your sweet breasts.” Her face colored, but he brushed this aside. “Ariel, please.”

She stood in turmoil, studying his face. Her eyes then moved to the house, real shelter for the first time in days. Then back to the man.

“All right.”

He could not entirely read the change that came over her: sadness, surrender, and despair all at once. Again he felt a qualm of remorse, checked the subconscious passions that had begun to well inside him. Yet still he took her hand, and led her toward the tranquil pool.

Ringed by young trees and sheltered from behind by the rise of moss-covered stone, it seemed a place removed from time, and from the harsh world around it. Cassius felt his conscious mind slipping once more, and as they reached the narrow strip of sand at the water’s edge, turned her towards him.

“Give me your dress,” he said to her.

She hesitated, looked at him imploringly, then reached down to her calves and lifted it slowly, revealing by degrees the young and shapely brown legs. She stopped just below the hips, her two hands held protectively together. . .then took the folds of dark red cloth above her waist, her chest, over her shoulders. And handed it to him. Her face was flushed and afraid. And for all his promises, Cassius could not keep his eyes from looking down at the partly exposed body, only the cotton slip, itself torn, shrouding in mystery the fine, lithe, youthful form. His gaze returned to her face, itself the more beautiful for the sorrow it now held and slowly, slowly came back to himself.

“Leave your sandals and your slip by the water’s edge,” he said thickly. “I’ll mend your dress by the stunted oak, yonder. I’m sorry for staring, but you must know that you are very, very lovely.”

But the girl was too stunned to take the compliment. Instead she walked stiffly, without feeling, toward some branches that leaned out over the water. It was not until she had removed the slip and hung it weakly across them that she found she was standing ankle deep in water. Cold, chilling water.

She turned to see the man sitting a short distance off, his back against the hard bark of a gnarled tree, sewing the front of her dress without turning to look at her. Reaching down, she slipped off first one sandal, and then the other.

The wind was rising now, and along with the water, brought her back to full and aching consciousness. Rubbing her arms she found them covered with goosebumps, her nipples hard and exposed. She felt her nakedness intensely, more even than the cold. But she knew what she must do to appease the man, and spend the night in the shelter of the small house beyond. So she advanced farther into the deepening pool, bent down and began to wash her face and neck. There was neither cloth nor soap, and to avoid the wind, she plunged still farther into the center of the pool. There, as she let her legs slide out from under her, the water welled up around her neck.

Cassius, meanwhile, continued pushing his needle into the cloth of her dress, pulling it free and out the other side, inserting it again, working smoothly and easily around the tight and bud-like buttons. It was a skill his fellow soldiers had sometimes mocked him for, until they found themselves shivering through tattered garments in some high Alpine pass, and came to him with coins of bronze and silver, asking his help. He would have to make a pair of fur boots for himself and the girl, he thought.

I didn’t expect Spain to be so damnably cold. Curse these northern mountains. The needle went in and out, in and out. He glanced over at the girl to be sure she was all right. He could just see the outline of her shoulders, her hair wrapped in a swirling knot above the back of her head.

If only he’d been born in his great-grandfather’s time, a Caesar. He’d have sent his best man-servant to the square every day to look over the newly arrived slaves, taken from all over the Empire because their provinces had tried to revolt. Served them right, too, going against the natural order. And if he missed a fine prize like this I’d have him roasted.

She could be my mistress in waiting. Yes. Too young to take now. But after three slave girls had brought him to the point of climax he’d have her brought in, his own body wrapped in silk and he’d kiss her gently, so gently on the lips, she still innocent and not understanding his passion.....

She doesn’t look all that young in that slip, his thoughts continued. I wonder how old she really is. No doubt her mother was keeping her as childlike as possible, though that could have proved a double-edged sword. He’d known a lot of men willing to kill their own brothers for a beautiful girl not quite ripe, still half a child and therefor forbidden. He himself was not immune.....

Ariel closed her eyes, the only sound the gentle slapping of the fall against the grey-green stone, the water below. It was like a kind of dream.

She dipped her head below the water, pirouetting slowly. Again. Her face split the cold surface as she rose. Her fingers brushed the water from her eyes. She opened them.

There on the opposite bank crouched an animal, long and lean, with pointed ears and burning eyes. Its scraggled fur was black and brown and there was hunger, and no pity in its eyes. As she stood up in shock it took a half step back, crouching still lower, its hackles raised and its teeth bared and snarling.

“Cassius!” she screamed. “Cassius!”

His reveries broken off so suddenly, the man bolted to his feet: the object of his affections was in danger. The sword was in his hand and he was running towards the pool, the stream that flowed from it. He saw her standing, struggling towards him. Then he saw the wolf.

There was no real danger and he knew it, and already his tensing body had begun to relax. But still he let her come to him, naked now and dripping and full of need. She staggered up out of the water and clung to him wildly.

“Easy, girl, it’s all right.”

“But the wolf!”

“There’s no danger, child. He wouldn’t have hurt you. Probably came down to drink, and was just as startled as you were.” He moved her back a little, lifted a stone and hurled it at the wolf. “Hah! Back to the bitch that spawned you!” The wolf danced to avoid the stone, snarled, then turned and moved off.

“No danger!” cried the girl, in her anger forgetting her nudity. “Then why are you always talking about them, telling me you’re going to feed me to the wolves?”

“I use wolves as a symbol,” he said, his eyes sparkling strangely. “A symbol of all the dark and sinister forces of which you have no comprehension. The animal itself is no danger to a man, though Spanish wolves have a black reputation with sheep. You just have to make up your mind which of the two you are.”

Now Cassius, taking a step back, had his first full look at her unbridled form. The shapely legs and sweetly rolling hips. The slender sweep of stomach and ribs, leading to the firm and rose-nippled breasts, a little larger than they had first appeared because of their fullness below. And as his hungry gaze returned to her face he saw that she had realized all, and colored with shame. She tried to turn away, but his hands were already about her arms, softly bringing her back.

“Don’t be ashamed. You’re beautiful.” His voice was gentle and caressing until, through the intoxication of the moment, he seemed to realize all at once he’d been deceived.

“How old are you, girl?” The words were sharp and demanding.

“My mother told me never to tell.”

His grip tightened. “How old!”

“Fourteen. I turned fourteen in June.”

She felt him drawing her close. His clothed body was rough and hard against her skin.

“Cassius, you’re hurting me.”

“I want to hurt you.”

But then the wind, which had been rising, shook them both with a blast of cold air. The girl felt her whole body shudder with a sickly chill as the ache of the pool, and the morning’s ride, increased ten-fold. A sudden panic surged through her, and she would have swooned had the man not already been holding her.

In the heat of his passion, Cassius first thought it some kind of trick. But when he saw the beloved face so pale, and felt all life gone from her limbs, he caught her up and carried her toward the small shelter.

Kicking open the door he brought her inside, then laid her down on the musty straw mattress of a plain wooden bed. Running out to the horse he took down his saddle-pack, his blanket, came inside and made the door fast. He fitted the blanket over her as she came back to herself, shivering violently.

“It’s all right, Ariel. Don’t fight me now. I swear I’m not going to hurt you.”

Once he had calmed her he drew out the drinking skin from his pack. He removed the cork and brought it toward her lips, until he remembered the source of its water. The fear that she had already been exposed came over him like a thunderclap, but he knew that he must fight it off. “Easy, easy. I have to bring you fresh water, that’s all.”

Looking about him, he found a discarded urn. He took it hurriedly to the stream and, rinsing it thoroughly first, filled it with the untainted water, hoping this would be enough to save her.

And that it was not already too late.

All that night Cassius remained beside the bed, trying to understand the fever that burned inside her. The roots of her malady were all too clear to him: she had been through three days of trauma which might well have killed her. He rebuked himself for being so insensitive, but this accomplished nothing.

Her youth had served her, physically, and perhaps for this reason she had fought off the illness until now. But emotionally? He saw her in his mind’s eye, crouched behind the wine jars, peering down and forcing herself to remain silent while the barbarians raped, and finally murdered her mother. He remembered his own treatment of her so shortly after: the blows to the face, throwing her over the wall like so much booty in a sack. He told himself weakly that these actions were necessary, and had saved her life. Maybe so, came the answer, but that did not lessen their effects on both mind and body.

After they left the village his treatment of her had been merely callous, and nothing more than he had been taught..... By whom? By his father, who had been taught by his father, who had been taught by his and back five hundred years. They had been Romans, of the proud and unyielding soldier class, defenders of the Empire and the Order of the Gods. Under a noble Caesar like Augustus they had been welcomed as bringers of peace and prosperity. Under a murderous fool like Nero.....

And what had been Rome’s downfall? In a word, Christianity. By accepting the passive and forgiving precepts of Jesus, his people had lost the iron will necessary to dominate and administrate a hundred far flung provinces. The thought that perhaps this was for the best, was too easily vanquished by the bloody chaos into which Europe had fallen with their demise. Where was the purpose or morality in any of it?

All these things and many more passed through him as he sat in the rigid chair, heightened and at the same time made meaningless by the girl’s wasting fever and nearness to death. For if she died what did it matter? Having failed once to take those he loved to safety, he had been given another chance.

Given. The very word rankled, implying as it did the existence of God. He had come here of his own will, had saved her from the Vandals and the renegade Spaniards by his own hands. And now she would live or die by his own devices. He struck at his forehead with his fists, trying to make himself think.

But for all his years of soldiering he was no physician, nor anything like one. His own body had been so robust, before the wound, that he had had no need of medicine, had in fact considered it an aberration to allow the weak and infirm to live. Let them die of their affliction before passing that weakness on in children. Only the strong had a right to survive. Was that not the Roman way, and what had given them the strength to conquer and rule the civilized world?

But, curse it all, how to save the girl? He tried yet again to understand her symptoms: high fever, chills, an almost delirious attempt to warm herself until she fell into an unconscious sleep. One comfort only could he find, and it was not much. He had never heard of leprosy being preceded by such a fever. Though what other maladies the gruesome colony might have brought with them to the river..... He saw in memory the huddled lepers he had known from Africa to Gaul: wrapped in dirty and tattered clothes, sores open and festering, begging or being pelted with stones by day, crying out their mortal anguish in the night. Men, women and children turned to slowly decaying monsters, surrounded only by themselves.

Where was your God then? a voice mocked. Where was Jesus Christ, who so poetically promised comfort to those who suffered? Pathetic creatures eternally struggling and inevitably doomed to fail—that was Man. What possible purpose could be served by inventing such a God, except to torment with hope those who would do better to fight back, or throw themselves off a cliff.

So ran his thoughts, spiralling ever downward, bitter and black. Yet his stubbornness would not let him yield, kept searching through long memory for the treatment that would save the girl he loved. Yes, loved. He could not say why he loved her but there was no use denying it any longer. The anguish he felt as she suffered was proof enough. He was almost tempted to pray for her. Only the crushing memory of his wife and son.....

“Think!” The exposure to cold, the lack of food and sleep. Exhaustion had played its part, allowing the sickness to enter her. But what was the illness itself? What was it!

Finally he realized there was nothing to do but to dress her in the slip, and keep the fire burning brightly. Cool her forehead with a damp cloth and let her sleep. When she woke he could try to ask her what she knew of it, since clearly her knowledge of medicine was greater than his.

So he dressed her as best he could, in a moment of weakness laid his head upon her shoulder and wept. Then straightened himself and covered her again with the blanket. He built up the fire as high as he dared, then finally lay down between her and the cold wall beyond.

He closed his eyes, tried to block out the pain and guilt. He could not, nor could he stop the torrent of his thoughts.

It was morning. There was a feeling of morning in the room. The fire in the blackened hearth had all but died. A reluctant light peered in under the door. There were no windows, only a small square opening in the door itself, firmly bolted.

She was lying on her back. The mattress smelled musty and the straw beneath its yellowed cover lumped and bulged against her back. As once—was it only once before?—her first impressions of the man lying next to her were filial. Her father had come home. She knew in her heart it could not be true, but she turned toward him anyway. The movement caused a sickly pain throughout her body, and she moaned sorrowfully and lay back. Her mouth was dry and her head was pounding and the dull amnesia was so much the norm that she no longer cared.

Cassius stirred, sat up quickly and looked down at her. Her face was still pale, and as he put a hand to her forehead he found that it still burned, though not as severely as the night before.

“Ariel?”

Her large eyes turned to him slowly, but she made no answer. There was an indifference there that troubled him, a resignation to death he had seen far too many times.....

“No!” he cried, and in a fit of desperation he took her by the shoulders and jolted her hard against the bed. “You’re not going to die! Look at me!”

His violence shook her to the root, but it achieved its purpose. She winced from the pain, tried to turn away, but instead felt him throw aside the blanket and try to lift her. “You need air. I’m taking you outside!” This was too much and she began to weep, broken, pathetic sobs, but feeling all the same.

“No, no, don’t take me. I’m cold, I’m cold, please don’t hurt me.”

Cassius thought for a moment, quickly came back to himself and laid her down and replaced the blanket. He poured some water from the urn into his cup.

“Ariel, please drink.” She let him raise her head a little, and did as he asked. She seemed to feel a pain in her throat as she swallowed, but asked to drink again. He freshened and replaced the cloth on her forehead. “Ariel, please help me.”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered, eyes closed.

“Can you tell me anything of your illness? Clearly it is a fever, perhaps from a poisoning of the blood. But I can find no wound to explain it.”

She tried to consider this for a long time, asked him to repeat it. A bulge in the straw near the small of her back was particularly troublesome, and as she tried to move off it she felt a sharp pain and soreness there. She groaned, and in the momentary clarity that followed the pain, understood.

“My kidney,” she said, wincing. “I hurt my kidney at the wall. Then yesterday. . .riding the horse.”

“A kidney infection?”

She nodded, reaching back her hand to massage it gently. But even this—

“What can I do?” he asked fervently.

“Nothing. I will live or die.” And again she wept, though this time when he put a hand to her face she engulfed it in both of her own. “I’m scared, Cassius. I’m scared.”

“Don’t be. I won’t let you die. You need water, I think, and broth. I’m going out to hunt. I’ll build up the fire again and give you more water. Just lie still, sleep if you can. I’m with you, my little love. I’m with you.”

The man brushed aside a tear of his own, then rose to do what he had promised.

So passed a number of days, Ariel struggling against her illness, Cassius against the fear of losing her, and the incessant worry that they would be found and laid bare. As precaution he had picketed his horse in the narrow space between the back of the house and the almost sheer granite behind, letting it out to graze and drink only at night. He tried to avoid using the fireplace by day, except at the girl’s most dire need. He fortified the door as best he could, but knew this would make little difference if the Vandals or the Sueves caught them inside.

After the first two days Ariel grew no worse, if little better. Perhaps the most discouraging thing to her, more even than the bitter chills that came on her in the evening, was the incessant nausea. She could eat nothing solid, only the broth that Cassius had made, and the squeezed juice of wild grapes and blackberries. Morale was always difficult, and the one escape she could find was in thought: rapid, feverishly clear thought and memory, racing to keep one step ahead of the body’s despair.

At times this could be a blessing, looking back over the days of untroubled childhood, or passing through her mind with remarkable clarity all the things she had learned from the life-giving scrolls: history, geography and science, all at her fingertips and fitting together into a larger truth as never before. But in the evenings, when the pain became unbearable, she saw instead the more recent past, in all its subtle shades of horror. She would remember her life in the trader’s house.

Now that Cassius had torn the scales from her eyes, she was forced to admit that her mother had been shamefully used. How many times had she been forced to attend the ‘meetings’ with his customers and fellow merchants? She remembered one in particular, held at Ignatius’ own home because his wife was away. From behind the bolted door of the loft that served as their room, she heard the crude voices of the men, the trader bragging and the others admiring. Then the tearing of clothes, and strange guttural sounds so repulsive..... Perhaps three hours later her mother had knocked gently. She came inside, dress torn, hair mussed, and with an expression of such despair..... She bolted the door quickly, leaned back against it, and wept. “They wanted you,” she whispered brokenly. Then gathered her daughter close, so close and loving.

Doubtless the same fate had awaited her. Perhaps it still did, with Cassius.

And this was what she could not resolve. Men were obsessed with rape—she had seen the same intention in Cassius’ eyes a dozen times. Yet since her illness he had been more than gentle, more than kind. He spent every waking moment either in gathering food and firewood, or trying to put her at greater ease and comfort. Even when he slept, and this was little, one troubled sound from her and he was by her side, speaking words of reassurance and affection. Had he even. . .said that he loved her? It was beyond understanding.

For his own part, Cassius never spoke of the danger of their position. He let her believe they had reached a kind of haven, a calm in the very heart of the maelstrom.

But with each day his anxiety grew. The local inhabitants might know of the colony, and therefor avoid it, but clearly the invaders would not. There was nothing to keep them from venturing either up or down the river, finding the rift, and the lonely stone house. When he thought of this, inseparable as it was from visions of his wife and son, it could be as difficult to face as the morning before a battle. More so, because it was not his life alone that would be lost if he failed. He had been in enough losing battles not to be unnerved. But somewhere inside him a line had been drawn, and would not be crossed over. He must not fail. The girl must live, or he himself be torn to pieces.

He could not say why her young life aroused in him such defiance, more even than the birth of his son. It was not a thing of the mind. Yet here he would make a last, desperate stand against horror and the void. There was no denying it, or calling it by any other name. It simply was.

One night Ariel woke to see him sitting alone in the rigid chair, looking into the fire with an expression of such sorrow and inner worry that she was truly touched, felt for the first time something akin to closeness and commiseration. She raised herself to a sit against the headboard, and as he turned his weary eyes toward her, gave voice to her thoughts.

“Cassius? You’re worried about our safety, aren’t you?”

“Nay, girl, we’re fine. Try to sleep.”

“I don’t feel so bad, really. But I wish you would talk to me. Really talk, and tell me what you’re feeling.” He looked back at the fire, and after a time said grudgingly.

“I’m feeling old.”

Now as she studied the grizzled veteran, the question seemed to occur to her for the first time. “Would it upset you if I asked..... How old are you?”

He looked back at her a moment, reluctant to burden her with his own troubles. But there was no real reason not to tell her.

“I am twenty-five years old. My life is half over.”

She considered this a moment. “And half is still ahead of you,” she said stubbornly. “Don’t spend it staring into the coals. Come over here and talk to me.”

At this hint of the old precociousness he gave the same grunt, something between sadness and a laugh, that she had come to know in him. But he did as she asked, lifting the chair and bringing it to the bedside. He put his hand to her forehead as always to check the fever, brought her some water, then sat down and rubbed his stubbled face heavily.

“And what shall we talk about?” he said, relieved at least that she seemed a little better.

“Your past,” she said. “I want to know everything.”

“Everything you will never know, and many things are unfit to tell you. I’ve been a soldier, remember, and far from a gentle man. All right. What part of my life interests you most?”

She hesitated, then said. “Your wife.”

His brows drew together at this, and he got up and began to pace the room. “Why on earth do you ask me that?”

“Because I’m trying to understand you, the way you are with me. I’m sorry, but it seems the only way.” He moved more rapidly, emotions churning. But all were dampened by fatigue, and he was so tired of running.

“You’d better be damned sure you want to know.”

“Cassius. I stood naked before you— ”

“It’s not the same!” he cried suddenly. Then remembering to whom he spoke, added more gently. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“All right. It’s all right.”

“It’s not all right. I’ve carried this inside me, like the broken tip of a blade, for so long. And still the wound is too painful to touch.”

“.....Cassius,” she said quietly. “Maybe you need to open the wound a little, and search for the blade that torments you.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Won’t you try, for my sake? Please?”

He looked over, and the genuine concern he saw in her arrested him. Her eyes glistened with tears. Something was churning in her breast as well.

“Shouldn’t I really wait until tomorrow?”

“No. Not if you care for me.”

He felt the Demon there in the room with him, sitting in the bed, taunting him. But no, not a demon, just a girl that he loved. And she was asking, almost begging..... He sat wearily in the chair.

“How can I begin?”

She put a hand on his. “Begin with the beginning. Just tell me how you met her.”

“Met her? You make it sound like something social. I took her, as I would take a treasure from a conquered enemy.”

But with this the ice had been broken, and the long imprisoned waters began to flow.

Twelve

“It was in the north of Gaul,” he began, surprised at the ease with which she had brought him to it. “I’m not going to try to explain the politics of our retreat from Britain, any more than I would try to understand it myself. The Empire was in chaos. We were fighting the German barbarians, while half our army and many of the officers were themselves German. Rome as it had been was a memory, and more and more relied on mercenaries to fight its battles. Sometimes our Germans fought well, sometimes they deserted to join the other side: idiocy beyond description.

“But there we were in the north of Gaul, trying to halt the Franks in their attempt to drive us still farther south. On this day we had caught them unprepared, and retaken a garrison they had stormed but a week before. Our mercenaries, along with some of our own, were off doing what mercenaries do best: destroying the surrounding villages, raping and pillaging. It seems cruel, and perhaps it was. But that is what war has become in this age of darkness. Armies no longer battle armies; whole populations are put at risk.

“Being an officer and a true Roman, I took no part. On the contrary, it was often my responsibility to see that they did not destroy what might later be useful.” He paused, as if reflecting. “The Germans are a strange breed. They seem to take all life outside their own as a personal affront, and something which must be wiped from the face of the earth. They may have an empire of their own one day; but it will not last, because all they understand is destruction. We Romans are builders and administrators. That is the difference.....

“But being barbarians, the Franks had brought their women with them. Not their wives and children, thank God, but enough slaves and serving women to tempt an army on the march beyond its breaking point. I happened to be passing the quarters of a Frank leader, when I heard from within the sounds of a woman speaking bravely, and the mocking laughter of men. Going in to investigate, I saw a young woman standing upon a table with a long, two-handed sword in her grasp..... She was sweeping it from side to side, threatening three mercenaries who had her surrounded and were making a game of her. Normally I would have let it go, but something struck me in her fierce defiance, and the skilled way in which she handled the sword.

“So I ordered the men out. They did not go willingly, for she was a fine prize—much better than they deserved—and I had to swat one across the side of the head with the flat of my sword. But they went. Then I closed and set a guard at the door, and sat in a big chair a short distance from the table, watching her.

“She remained as before, pointing the sword now at me. And the more I looked at her, the more I realized that this was a fine woman: strong, healthy and attractive, very brave and determined. She had blonde hair, a striking face with blue eyes and a fine, long-legged figure. She was not hysterical, only frightened and determined. So I talked to her.

“’I’m not going to hurt you,’ I said. ‘But there are many others who will. Your people are defeated.’

“’Not my people,’ she said fiercely. ‘I am from the North.’ I don’t think she knew herself the name of the people or the province. She had been taken as a little girl, and it could have been any from the Scandinavians to the Saxons. ‘I was taken from my home by these, these.....’

“’Pigs?’ I offered.

“’Yes! By you.’

“’I am not a pig,’ I said. ‘I am a Roman.’

“’And what is the difference between what you would do to me, and what they were going to do just now?’

“’I will marry you,’ I said plainly. Though I was surprised to hear myself speak, it was not a sudden resolve. I was twenty years old, my father was dead, and it was high time to take a wife. And this girl suited me. She was the right age and temperament..... I cannot fully explain it. But it was not unthinking.

“That stopped her, and I could see the confusion in her face. ‘Why would you do that?’ she asked.

“’Because I want to,’ I answered. ‘And because we would have a fine son.’

“She looked hard at me, and I think she saw I wasn’t lying. She lowered the sword and turned away, as if ashamed of something: her past, the way she had been used..... I came up quickly and disarmed her, but she no longer resisted me.

“’Will you promise me one thing?’ she asked, as I took her down and held her in my arms. I asked her what it was. ‘That we will have a home, and that I will be your woman alone.’

“’That is our way,’ I said, smiling now because I knew that she was mine. With that she let me kiss her, touch her. And when I had satisfied myself she was in fact the woman she appeared, I took her to my captain. He too was a Roman, and an honorable man; and we were married according to the law.

“That first night,” he went on, eyes shining and intense. “We made love. And except at the end, when the wildness in a man’s heart takes over, I was truly gentle with her, as I have never been with anyone, before or since. And when it was over she cried softly, without telling me why.

“A little later, when I turned to sleep, she saw that I was wounded. It was nothing, a gash behind the ear. But she insisted on tending it. That was her way. . .and because I had shown her the least kindness.....” He found himself unable to go on.

“Why do you stop?” asked Ariel.

“Don’t you see? I took her. Without regard for what she wanted, or needed, or thought, or felt. In years after, though I was often gone for months at a time, and toward the end would come back wounded, and in a vile temper..... In her silent and suffering way she accepted it, accepted me, and did her best to care for and encourage me.....

“Oh, Arna! What have I done to you?” He covered his face with his arm, and for a long time would say no more.

“But when did you start loving her?” asked the girl gently. “That is what I most need— ”

“Are you too blind to see!” he cried, rising and in sudden violence hurling aside the chair. “I never loved her, never knew what I had. To me she was just a possession, a beautiful body to give me pleasure, and to give me a son..... I wasn’t even there when he was born. Wasn’t there to take her hand, to steady her and help her with the pain.

“Ah! It is unbearable!” He strode to the door, threw it open, and went out into the cold and unforgiving night.

In time Ariel rose, and with tears in her eyes, closed the door behind him.

Thirteen

She heard the door opening but pretended not to. Instead she remained lying on her side, turned away from him and with her eyes closed. If he was going to abandon her she didn’t want to know. If he was going to attack her, she would be ready. Her fingers closed tightly around the knife she had taken from his pack.

But he did neither of these things. Instead he approached quietly, laid a hand on her shoulder and said huskily. “Ariel, wake up.” The hand was cold. He had been alone in it for three hours.

“Ariel. There is something more I need to tell you.” She turned toward him, and when she saw the anguish in his face, dropped all pretense.

“I wasn’t sleeping. But if you want to wait.....”

“No. The blade licks my heart. I must tell you now, or perish.”

She sat up slowly, trying to conceal the knife beneath her leg. “All right.” The feelings aroused in her by this indomitable yet broken man, about to reveal what lay deepest in his heart, were overpowering. Yet still she said, All right. The blade of his unsheathed knife felt sharp against her thigh, its point only inches from her womb.

“On the day the Goths sacked Rome,” he began again. “I was with my legion, as always. We were stationed on the broad plain just beyond the walls of the city, the northern perimeter. The plain itself had been burned and trampled flat two years before, when the barbarians had been content to lay siege, and blackmail our cowering leaders. It still wore a barren and beaten look, with a few blackened trees scattered like graveposts across it. . .an ill omen of itself, without the sight of the barbarian hordes encamped beyond.

“The Seventh Legion, mine, had been reduced in number from one thousand—six times that in my grandfather’s day—to something less than three hundred. Our mercenaries, seeing the hopelessness of our cause, had deserted the night before. So had a number of our own—weaker or wiser, I cannot say. What remained were men like myself, sons of the sons of soldiers, too proud and too stubborn to yield.

“I should have taken them away, Ariel, my wife and my son. But that moment is what I had been bred to for five hundred years, trained and hardened for by the years of desperate and futile combat. Trying to defend a way of life that was dead and in the past.

“I was wrong. I have paid.....

“As the sun rose over the eastern hills we watched them advance. There are no words to describe it. Fifty thousand armed men surrounded the Salarian Gate alone, gathered from half the tribes of Europe. Armor and weapons of every shape and description. Men on horseback, men on foot, the very picture of Chaos. There is nothing so unnerving to a man of discipline, as the sight of wild and fur-clad barbarians coming to destroy. . . his world.

“They came at us, a human wave, against which our lines were but a pile of sticks against the flood. They were an enraged horde. We were a handful of desperate men.

“We fought well, as always. We fought like rabid dogs. But still our lines broke. We were separated into small clusters of men, surrounded, pressed from all sides and slowly collapsing. It was like descending into Hell.....

“My shield was gone. My sword was buried in the chest of the man I had just slain. I was too exhausted to pull it out quickly, and from the corner of my eye, I saw him. A big brute of a man, he came, threw aside his own dying comrade, and gave me this.” His hand made a sharp chopping motion against his shoulder and chest. “His sword crashed into me like a blacksmith’s hammer. I fell, several others fell on top of me, and I was left for dead. The barbarians must have been afraid the others would beat them to the spoils: the virgins and the gold….. Such was their haste.

“It was nightfall before the pain in my shoulder brought me back. I was weak, and without the use of my arm. It was all I could do to force my way out from under the pile of bodies. Still the dead and the dying surrounded me, with their bloodied limbs, their anguished cries..... I was dizzy and hot from loss of blood, and death reached for me like demon hands out of the earth. But not demons. My brothers in arms.” His tears flowed like blood from a mortal wound, but he would not let himself stop.

“I looked to the northwest, toward the hills of the village that had once been my home. To my horror, there were flames there as well.” His breath came in gasps, and he no longer seemed to see her. “I forced myself onward, up and down the long road. In darkness toward the town. The stars mocked me, and it was suddenly cold.

“When I reached the village. When I reached the street. My door was broken down..... Too late! My wife and son were lying on the floor.....

“Oh, God. Oh, God!” He reached down and embraced her legs. “Arna, no. Don’t die! I’ll fight them now! I’ll fight them..... Jarad! JARAD!”

Almost in a state of shock herself, the girl tried to push him away. He was shaking and sobbing, embracing her as if she were already dead. She screamed.

With that sound he stopped utterly, then raised his head in confusion. Not his wife there before him. Then who?

His eyes focused slowly, and he saw instead another brutalized child, another victim of the world that God had abandoned. He rose slowly, and looked away. He started again for the door.

Herself shaken, still the girl felt enough compassion, enough broken hope to throw aside the blanket and go after him. She wrapped her arms about him from behind and held on as tight as she could. “Don’t go,” she pleaded, weeping bitterly. “I forgive you, just please don’t go.”

He looked down at the floor, not fully returned, and said quietly. “I will stay, Ariel, and I will always protect you. But who will protect you, from me?”

“I don’t care, I don’t care. I need you and I want you to stay.”

He turned, numbly stroked her hair. Then led her back to the small comfort and shelter of the bed. He took away the knife, and spread the blanket over her as before.

“May I lay down beside you.”

“Yes.”

He lay down on the blanket, and put his arm across her protectively. Until slowly he remembered who he was.

Ariel slept far into the morning. When she woke she felt empty and exhausted, but not physically. Most of the pain in her side and lower back was gone, and the beads of sweat on her forehead told her that the fever had broken. She sat up and looked over at Cassius, who was boiling something on the coals in the cracked iron pot he had found.

“How do you feel?” he said, returning her steady gaze. She made no answer but only nodded. “I found some turnips,” he said, still not talking about it. “And wild onions. I think you should try some of the stew today. Eggs would be better for a start, but it’s the wrong time of year.”

He too felt exhausted, and weary of emotion. It was out; he had said it; and while the crushing pain was lessened, he felt in its place an emptiness that was almost as hard to bear. It was as if by speaking of his wife and son he had buried them again. Now they were truly gone, even from memory. And he was ashamed of having shown weakness before the girl.

“I need to go outside for a moment,” said Ariel, herself blushing from the memory of the times when she had been unable. “Is it very cold?”

“Not yet, but snow is coming.” He said this with certainty, and with the sinking realization that they would be trapped there at least another day and night. “Put your dress on first, let me dry your forehead with the cloth.”

She stood up, feeling as awkward as she dressed and came forward as a schoolgirl called to stand before the teacher. But this teacher, who had always been so strict, had suddenly opened his heart to her, and in her eyes changed so much..... It was all so strange and unfamiliar.

She stood patiently as he daubed her forehead, the hair surrounding. When he was finished he set down the cloth, rested a hand on each of her shoulders, and looked her in the eye.

“It’s no use pretending it didn’t happen.”

“I know,” she said, looking down.

“It won’t happen again. I had a moment of weakness. It’s gone now— ”

“That’s not it!” she said, stamping her foot. “You saved my life. There’s no shame in showing me your heart.”

“Then what?” She tried to turn away but he took her chin in his strong and calloused hand. This in itself was reassuring, but.....

“Tell me what you’re feeling.” He thought he knew, and it troubled him. His grip tightened.

“Tell me.”

“I’m scared!” And her face registered both anger and insecurity.

“Of me?”

“Yes..... No. I’ve never been this close to a man before.” He turned away, and back to the fire.

“Nor I to a woman. Not in this way. I had been inside my wife a thousand times, but never..... I know how to take a woman, Ariel, but not how to love one..... Go outside now, and be quick about it.” And he refused to look at her.

She did as he asked, feeling as she went the calming and unsettling knowledge that this fierce and dark hearted man was in love with her. Even crouching behind a patch of wind-riven bramble, and telling herself that this was what her new love had brought, could not dispel the warmth and chill of her emotions. She rose shivering, went back to the house and, after patting the horse affectionately, reopened the door and stepped inside.

She found waiting for her at the rickety table a bowl of rabbit stew and some water. She warmed herself before the coals first, then sat down in the chair that Cassius had set before the table, and began to eat. The man lay unspeaking in the bed, the blanket pulled up to his bare ribcage, looking weary and worn.

“Let me have an hour’s sleep,” he said. “Let the fire burn out, and wake me if you hear the sound of horses, or anything else you can’t identify. Eat well if you can, as much as you can keep down.” He thought to add, “We may have to travel soon,” but he kept this to himself. Let the girl recover her spirits as well. Time enough to get used to a life on the move.

And he turned away to sleep. But as this placed him squarely on the injured shoulder, he was forced to turn back with a groan of pain and frustration. With the coming of snow the damaged bone had begun to throb, and the discomfort in his side was more acute. He was by now so accustomed to the pain of his injury that it caused him no great concern. It was just the constant reminder that he was now something less than a man..... This was what he hated. He watched the girl as she studied him briefly, then turned back to her food. Until his eyes began to lose their focus. . .closed. And he was asleep.

The girl ate eagerly, her stomach empty and craving. Her youth and natural vitality had pulled her through the worst of the affliction, and now that her mind was more at ease she was able to take in her surroundings and her situation more objectively. They were in a safe place (or so it seemed to her), they had reached an understanding, and for the first time in days uncounted she did not feel anxious and oppressed. Even with all her mother’s efforts, she had always felt a vague uneasiness and half defined threat while living in the trader’s house.

The thought of her mother saddened her, but she knew in her heart that Eve would have wanted her to go on. I wonder what she would think of Cassius. There was a thought. He’s a Gentile, but mother never cared much for things like that. She had married the man her parents wanted her to, and that hadn’t turned out so well..... As always now when she thought of her father the feelings became dark and confused. And while she couldn’t fully accept Cassius’ version of why he left them, the loyalty that had once gone to him alone had begun to waver. Without realizing it a measure of that devotion, along with her womanly forgiveness, had been transferred to Cassius.

Because whatever he was or was not, her thoughts continued, this man had never lied to her. He’d had a dozen chances to leave her, and taken none of them. Nor had he abandoned his wife, though he believed he had. And he had loved her, in his way, without knowing it. She had seen with her own eyes how much he loved his son. Just as he had been a good father to her..... A father? Is that what he had become?

In a way, yes. But this father she could touch.
As these words passed through her, something in her body reacted. A burst of adrenaline, the thrill of the forbidden, she knew not. But she had felt it, and in its afterglow, turned to study him as he slept.

In time she moved the chair closer to the fire for warmth. For warmth, and watched him sleeping, her eyes vague and dreamlike. Just watching. The bulge and slope of the muscles in his strong right arm as it lay outside the blanket. The shadowy vale between the shoulder and breast.

The strong dark hairs that were like a fleece across it. She found herself wanting to touch him, to lift the blanket and look at him. Just look at him. Stirring inside, and all the while afraid of herself.

But this was not a fear that drained the body, or the spirit. On the contrary, she felt her blood pulsing vigorously, warm and close to the skin.

Something urged her forward. She hesitated, then rose and walked soundlessly toward him. Closer, until she stood beside the bed. Unconsciously she raised her skirts a little, and felt the rough and gentle blanket brush against the skin of her legs. She remembered herself standing naked before him, and the way his eyes and voice had caressed her. Heart pounding, her hand reached out to touch him.....

Then she saw her mother lying on the table, and the feeling was gone. She drew back, sat hard in the chair and drew her knees close against her body. She rocked herself dejectedly, bitter and confused. Why did men have to be so brutal and unfeeling, when a woman was willing to give so much on her own?

Why?

Cassius woke with the familiar sense of dread that every man who has tasted his own mortality must wake with: the knowledge of his death, like a thunder in the distance, and of the futility of struggle. He felt the stone on his chest, and the feeling of being deep under the water: the tightness of breath, and the need to fight his way back to the surface. He was weary of the fight, but also knew there was no other way for a man to continue. He threw off the blanket, and sat up to feel the cold embrace him.

But the room was not cold. A warm fire glowed in the hearth, and beside it sat a beautiful young girl who was somehow close to him, the melancholy of her eyes only adding poignancy to the portrait. The two feelings, death and life, clashed in his breast. What did it mean?

What could it mean?

Groggy and torn as he was, it still came to him that he had fallen asleep in the morning, and somehow the night had stolen over him. He rose in his near nakedness and strode to the door. Pulling it open he was greeted by a gentle push of wind laced with snow. It glistened on the ground as well, ankle deep and rising. This was the cold that his body had sought, bracing and compelling. But with the snow it also had a sense of silence and stillness that were somehow disquieting.

“It’s beautiful,” came the voice of the girl behind. He closed the door slowly.

“Like all traps,” he said flatly, not turning.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that we are trapped here another day and night. We won’t be able to leave.....”

“Why do you want to leave? We’re safe here, and we have everything we need— ”

“We are not safe. Don’t you understand that there can be no safety, anywhere, until the Gothic storm has passed? And it seems poised to blow for many a long dark year.”

The silence that followed these words made him turn at last and look at her. Her young face was as forlorn as he had ever seen it.

“Then why did you tell me it was?”

“.....because I wanted you to believe it,” he said more softly. “To recover your health and your spirits.”

“Are you angry with me?” She was crying now, like a child. She couldn’t help it.

“Nay, girl. Truly I’m not.”

“But still you feel restless: the way you keep going to the door. Is it because. . .because I won’t let you rape me?” Though he objected to the word, he knew there was a grain of truth in what she said.

“What makes you think I would ever do that?”

“You want to; I’ve seen it in your eyes. And you’ve raped a hundred women, I know it.”

“What you saw in my eyes was hatred, because of what happened to my family. And that has damned little to do with lust. And you don’t know me if you think I have ever raped anyone.” This was not quite true, but in that moment it seemed so. “There is a kind of woman who likes to be taken hard, almost against her will. And there is a fine line between that and rape, a line which I have never crossed.” He could not quite make himself believe this, either. But his desire for her was becoming desperate, and her good opinion meant more to him than any woman’s ever had.

Her voice in answering was passionate. “What if I told you..... What if I told you that I wanted you to touch me? That I want to lie with you, but I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“That you’ll hurt me! And that will destroy. . .these feelings that I have for you.”

With this the man’s restless hostility faded. She did care, and in time she would be his, would lie beneath him in his torrent, quenching the fires of his heart.

“My sweet girl. It’s all right. We have all the time— ” But before he could finish she had rushed up to him, embraced him, and buried her face against his chest, crying out all the fear and loneliness of her illness and her loss. Her tears felt warm, her lips soft and exhilarating as they brushed against his breast.

“Hush now,” he said warmly, his hand full of rich hair as it engulfed the back of her neck. “It’s all right.” And though the impulse came to him to lift her and take her to the bed, knowing she would not resist him, an uncharacteristic gentleness told him this was not the time. Instead he just held her, feeling his body firm and yet patient.

And when she drew back and wiped away the tears, he asked her if there was any stew left. She smiled and said yes, then went to warm it over the fire as he got dressed.

After the food was gone and the few dishes cleared away, it was close to midnight. Ariel made a halfhearted attempt at conversation as Cassius built up the fire, but he himself took no part. And when he had finished he wiped his hands with the cloth, ran them once through his hair, then began to undress. He laid his clothes across the headboard as before, then came and stood very close. He said, as if it were the only possible course of action.

“Ariel, it is time to sleep. Together.”

“I’m not tired,” she said quickly, moving away. But she knew as she did it wasn’t true, and that he would not accept her answer. He gave her a disapproving look, then walked stiffly and sat on the edge of the bed.

After a few moments’ hesitation she followed, let him take her shoulders in his hands. But when they slid sensuously to the buttons at her breast she pulled away, looked at him searchingly.

“Cassius? You wouldn’t do anything. . .wouldn’t touch me in any way.....”

“I won’t have the chance, if you intend to sleep in your dress.” The disapproval in his voice was turning slowly to anger. “And all you’ll do is put yourself in a sweat—or worse, start the fever again.” She felt herself being pushed into a corner.

“But Cassius— ”

“Damn it, girl! How many times have I had the chance to rape you? Have I ever taken it? I’ve protected you, given you food, and shelter from the storm. I risked my life to save you, pulled you from that village like a lamb from a burning barn. And all I get in return is distrust and accusation.” His finger pointed harshly, like a dagger, at her heart. “Now take off that dress, and get in this bed!”

The girl stood looking at him, stunned and disbelieving. All that he said was true, and yet the coldness with which he said it was so unlike the warmth he had shown her such a short time before. What was transforming him before her eyes into this hard, relentless master? Was his animal nature so strong that it silenced all other voices? Was this what it took to appease a man? And the thing that tormented her was that she wanted to yield, wanted to trust him and lie in his arms.

What else could she do?

Slowly she began to unbutton the dress. Again she felt the thrill of fear as he watched her. But as it became too strong she turned away, moved off a short distance, and continued undressing in the corner beyond the fire. And as the dress passed once more over her head she took it in her arms and pressed it close against her chest, unable to control the pounding of her heart. Only the slip now stood between her flesh and his.

She turned slowly to find him lying in the bed, waiting for her. Some of the warmth had returned to his gaze, but she knew that the harshness would soon return if she resisted him.

The chair was not far, and but a few steps were needed to carry her to it. She folded the dress neatly and placed it on the seat. She straightened, took several more halting steps, and was again beside the bed. Cassius lifted the blanket invitingly. After a final hesitation, she sat lightly on the mattress, lifted her legs and slid them beneath the covers. And lay down next to him, her emotions a whirlwind of comfort and fear.

The moment she was beside him Cassius felt his body engulf her, and the hard edge of his desire melt into an amnesia of contentment. He was no longer aware of the soul of the beautiful young woman in his arms, only of the woman’s flesh which soothed him and at the same time drove him. His was the intoxication of a man who has not tasted the release of intercourse for many months, then finds himself with a loveliness in his arms to fulfill all his needs without pretending. There was no voice of either body or spirit to speak against the spell she cast on him.

Ariel could not help feeling some measure of his blind passion, and at first his kisses and longing caresses were not frightening, even soothing and pleasant. But when they became too close to her vagina, too hard on her young breasts she began to push him away, first carefully, then, as he did not relent, more desperately. And she felt, as he finally became aware of her resistance, that she had woken him from a kind of dream.

She had woken him from a sweet and desperate dream of love and longing. The gentleness fled from his heart, and in its place the angry soldier returned. He tried at first to move her hands gently but firmly away. But when she persisted, with her arms and legs alike closing herself off to him, the rage of his life and his loss rose up in him like a dragon in its wrath. He forced her legs apart with his, pinned her arms mercilessly behind her. She screamed, and struggled like the daughter of a vanquished enemy. His right hand was raised above his head, and he struck her across the face.

He struck her across the face. And she turned her head away, weeping and trembling.

Slowly, slowly and painfully he realized what he had done. The one thing he had promised her, and himself, that he would never do. He felt a bitter shame rise, like a cancer, out of his heart. He drew back. . .and stood up in disbelief. She buried her face against the mattress, crying as if she had lost her only friend.

“Ariel,” he began, but at once felt the futility of the gesture. The words Forgive me, and I love you, played in his mind. He said, “I’m sorry.” But he knew that none of this meant anything.

Because he realized in that moment something that had first come to him the day he found her, slowly taking shape in all that had happened since. Simply this. Love is not a thing of words, not a noble thought or lofty sentiment, but a steady and unending course of action. To truly love someone means to care for them, and give them what they need. And being sorry accomplished nothing, unless he had truly learned, and intended never, never, to hurt her in that way again.

He wanted to touch her, to hold and comfort her. But he knew this was not the time. Words seemed such a small reassurance, but they were all he had.

“Ariel. I don’t ask you to forgive me. What I did was wrong. . .so wrong. I don’t want to promise it will never happen again. I want to show you. You sleep in the bed tonight, with my knife at your side if it makes you feel safer. We may have to leave soon, and I will understand.....”

His words fell away as she sat up and turned toward him, tear-streaked hair across her face, the skin of her cheek showing red beneath.

“It only hurts so much..... Because I love you, too.”

And in a simple gesture that pierced his heart, she opened her arms to him, silently begging for a friend’s reassuring embrace. He came to her and held her, close and gentle, and was bewildered to find himself weeping.

And all he could say was,

“Forgive me.”