Beloved (62 page)

“The gods!”
Zenobia laughed harshly. “Do you know what I was called by my people, Dagian? I was called the beloved of the gods; beloved of my people, and of the two men who loved me.” She laughed again, and the bitterness in the sound scalded the older woman. “I honored the gods all my life, but they deserted me! If it appears that they have given me a second chance it is only so they may take it away!”

The tears sprang again to Dagian’s eyes. In Zenobia’s fierce and defiant words she could hear all the pain and hurt that the beautiful queen had suffered. Dagian wanted to reach out and clasp the younger woman to her bosom. She wanted to soothe
her, and be a mother to her, and reassure her that everything would be all right; but she could not, for Dagian was not sure herself that everything was going to be all right.

Suddenly the silence of the grotto was broken by a man’s voice. “Mother? Ah, there you are. I wondered where you had gotten to.” Marcus Alexander Britainus stood within the entry of the little green hideaway.

Both women leapt from the marble bench, Dagian’s hands flying to her heart, Zenobia turning pale at the sound of
his
voice. There was no escape! She tried to turn away, but Marcus’s eyes were now used to the dimness and filling themselves with her.

“No!”
His voice was hoarse with shock, and his hand reached out to turn her about. “No, beloved, don’t turn away from me.” Slowly he entered into the grotto, brushing past his mother as if she were not there. Stunned, Dagian could but watch them as they devoured each other with their eyes. Marcus gently grasped Zenobia by her upper arms, and, looking down into her face, now tear-streaked, spoke in a low but audible voice. “I love you,” he said. “I have always loved you. I have loved you from the beginnings of time, and I shall love you long after our memories have faded from this earth.”

“I have never stopped loving you,” she said, “but our time is past. It would have been better if you had not seen me this day.”

“Do not say it!” he almost cried.

“I belong to Aurelian, Marcus. Do you understand? I am Aurelian’s imperial captive.”

“You cannot give yourself to him willingly, beloved. I understand! I truly do!”

“But I do give myself willingly. I must for the sake of my children, and Aurelian is not a fool. In the beginning I fought him, but I am weary of fighting a battle I cannot win, and I have Vaba and Mavia to think of, Marcus.” She sighed sadly. “I am no longer Zenobia, the Queen of Palmyra. Palmyra, like my spirit, hes shattered into a million pieces beneath the desert sun. The woman you knew died with her people.” Then, pushing past him, she fled through the gardens back to her villa.

He made to follow her, but Dagian blocked his way, hissing at him in a voice so fierce he hardly believed it was his mother, “Do not follow her, Marcus, lest you compromise us all! Aurelian is frantically jealous of her, and fears you.”

“He is wise to fear me, for I intend taking her back,” Marcus vowed.

“No, my son. He plans to make her his wife when Ulpia Severina dies.”

Marcus’s face darkened with anger.
“Never!”
he spat. “I will see him in Hades first!”

Dagian shook her head sadly. “Why are you both so destructive, my son? You would fight the emperor openly over Zenobia, and she plots to destroy him even at the cost of her own life. Be patient, Marcus. Aurelian cannot last much longer. His time will come, as surely as it did to those soldier emperors before him. You have but to wait, my son!”

His face contorted with pain. “How can I wait any longer having seen her now, Mother? It has been two years since Aurelian separated us, and I have ached every day I have been away from her. Who planned that Zenobia live in the villa next to ours? Surely not the emperor?”

“No,” Dagian said. “It was Ulpia Severina who arranged it.”

“Because she wanted Zenobia and me to be reunited!” he said excitedly.

“Yes,” Dagian admitted, “but I do not believe that she knew the depth of her husband’s involvement with Zenobia, Marcus. Now she is dying, she will do everything in her limited power to see Aurelian is happy after she is gone; and if Aurelian wants your queen for his second wife then Ulpia will try to see he has what he wants.”

“We could flee Italy, Mother. You, and Zenobia, Mavia, and I could flee to Britain!”

“And what of Zenobia’s eldest son and his family in Cyrene, Marcus? What fate would await them in Aurelian’s anger? Besides, the emperor’s passion for her is all-consuming. He would come after her with every legion at his command, and when he caught us he would destroy you, my son. Zenobia loves you, Marcus. I was not sure of it until this afternoon, but when she saw you, spoke with you, left you, every fiber of her being proclaimed her love for you. You can do no less. You must not put her or her family in jeopardy. Trust me—and wait.”

He sank down on the marble bench, and with a sob put his head in his hands.
Zenobia!
Her name burned like a brand within his brain. It was almost like a dream now, their brief encounter. Had he really held her in his arms again? Why had he not kissed her? The gods only knew he had wanted to. Another groan escaped his lips.

Heart pounding, Zenobia had fled across the gardens to her
own villa.
Marcus!
She wanted to scream his name aloud! “Marcus! Marcus! Marcus!” she whispered softly. “Oh, Marcus, I love you, and I shall die if I cannot be with you again!” She stopped upon the villa’s portico, suddenly taken by a terrible fit of trembling. Reaching out, she put her hand against a marble pillar to steady herself. She closed her eyes, but the tears could not be stopped. They rolled unchecked down her face in such profusion that her eyes were soon burning and swollen with the salty stream. Praise Jupiter that Aurelian was in the city this day and could not see her.

She let the pain sweep over her, and for several minutes she wept wildly, unashamedly. Then, taking several deep breaths, she attempted to pull herself back together. Her instinct told her to run back to him; to fling herself into his arms; to flee Aurelian with the man she truly loved! Her conscience sternly reminded her of her duty to those for whom she was responsible: Mavia and old Bab; Adria, Vaba, Flavia, Julia, and young Gaius Porcius. So many people depended on her, and even now in the bleakest and darkest hour of her defeat, she could not think only of herself.

Slowly she wiped the tears from her face and walked into the villa. Luck was with her, and she saw no one in her hurried flight to her bedroom. With a sigh she flung herself upon her bed and fell into a resdess sleep; a sleep haunted by his voice, a faceless voice that declared his love for her over and over and over until she awoke to discover that she was weeping again. She decided that this could not go on. If she could not get herself in hand then Aurelian was sure to discover that his dreaded rival, Marcus Alexander Britainus, was separated from her by just a few feet of garden. If the emperor suspected for one minute that they were in contact, she knew that he would kill Marcus without the slightest hesitation. Zenobia shivered. That thought alone was enough to bring her to her senses. I can face no more deaths, she thought.

In the weeks that followed, Ulpia Severina grew weaker. Aurelian’s passion for Zenobia, however, grew greater as each day passed, and he could scarcely bear to be out of her sight. He was jealous of any man who spoke gently to the queen, suspecting all of ulterior motives, even the kindly Claudius Tacitus, Rome’s elderly and revered senator.

Aurelian was frantic over the fact that he could not stay in Rome for very long after his triumph. His army was quickly ready to march again, its destination Gaul. Zenobia refused to come with
him, and Aurelian knew that if he pressed her she would complain to her friend Senator Tacitus. As an imperial captive, she was forbidden to leave the Rome-Tivoli area.

“What do you think will happen to me in your absence?” she mocked him on the evening of his departure.

“The city is full of men who want you,” he declared.

“Indeed? Is Rome so barren of women that its men will pant after a woman past thirty? Be sensible, Roman! Why would I accept another man when I can have the emperor of the Romans?”

Strangely, her mockery soothed him. He felt momentarily foolish, for she had never given him any cause to doubt her.

Aurelian departed for Gaul, the last broken link in the Roman Empire’s chain to be reforged, leaving his captive mistress to her solitude. For the first time in weeks Zenobia dared to renew her friendship with Dagian, although she had allowed Mavia to visit regularly with her grandmother.

Early one autumn evening the two women sat companionably together, Mavia having departed with her nursemaid Charmian for her cot.

“The news from Gaul is good for the empire,” Zenobia said. “Tetricus, the leader of the Gallic rebels, has surrendered, and Aurelian has spared both him and his son. Gaul is once more a loyal subject of Rome.”

“Praise the gods!” Dagian said fervently. “Now there will be fewer Roman mothers to weep over their dead sons. How I hate war!”

“Sometimes there is no other choice,” Zenobia replied.

“You can say that, having lost your younger son to a war?”

“I would rather Demi lived, but the choice was his. Like his father, he valued his freedom over all else. I see that now, although there was a time when I thought he did what he did merely to spite Vaba. Odenathus would have been proud of him.”

“Yes,” Marcus Alexander Britainus said, “he would have.”

Zenobia looked up, and when their eyes locked hers quickly filled with tears.
“Go away!”
she said in a low, fierce voice. “Would you endanger us all?”

“No one can see us from either villa, beloved,” he said, and then he turned to Dagian. “Mother, I want to walk down by the river with Zenobia. Will you keep watch?”

“You are mad!” Zenobia cried softly.

“I will watch,” Dagian said. “Go with him, Zenobia. He will persist until you do. Even as a child, he would not give up until
he had what he wanted. The servants are abed, and with the emperor away you will be safe.”

Marcus took Zenobia’s hand and led her to the cliff’s edge where, to her surprise, she saw a flight of steps cut into the face of the incline. Slowly they descended, he carefully leading the way, her warm hand tucked into his big one. At the bottom of the steps was a narrow strip of pebbled beach, and in the dim twilight he led her a ways down it, finally stopping before a thick group of greenery. Pushing aside the brush, he drew her into a small cave with a sandy floor. Upon a small ledge was a lamp already burning with a cheery golden glow that cast dark, flickering shadows upon the walls of the cave.

“I have been seeking a place where we might meet in safety,” he said by way of explanation, and then he swept her into his arms and kissed her.

Her arms moved swiftly around him, and their hearts pounded wildly with excitement. She molded herself against him, the desire for his love paramount. His mouth worked against hers, seeking, coaxing, drawing from her the kind of response she had never dreamed she would feel again. She was afire with her passion for him, taking his tongue into her mouth to play with, sucking upon it, nipping teasingly at it.

She was wantonly aggressive with him, murmuring against his ear when their lips had finally parted, “I had forgotten how tall you are, my darling. Ah, Marcus, I have missed you so!”

She made no protest when he loosened her long tunic dress and slipped it off her shoulders, allowing it to fall to her ankles. She stood, shivering slightly in her thin cotton camisa, as he stepped back, removed his long cape, and spread it over the sandy floor of the cave. Wordlessly he took off his tunic, toga, and undergarments. A soft smile touched her mouth as his dear and familiar body was revealed to her once more. She reached out and caressed his muscled shoulder. Their eyes met and then he smiled, too.

“Do you not want to tell me how foolish this all is, beloved?” he gently teased her.

In return she reached down and pulled her camisa up and off, flinging it into a corner of the tiny cave.

He caught his breath, seeing her once more as he had seen her so many times before their separation. His deep-blue eyes moved slowly over her lush form, a warm and loving glance; and she glowed in the light of his open and deep love for her. Reaching
out, he drew her slowly to him and enfolded her in his arms. He stood holding her, feeling her warmth against him, enjoying the simple sensation of her. She made no move, standing quietly within the circle of his embrace as he reached up and carefully drew the jeweled pins from her hair, letting it fall loose in a dark swirl about her body. Gently he stroked her long hair, and the touch of his hand sent small, delighted shivers through her.

All her lovely memories of him came tumbling back, and she forgot her months of hurt and anger. This great, tall man, this half-Roman half-Briton was her mate; and she wanted no other. Zenobia shifted in order to free her hands and slowly slid them up his broad chest. When her palms rested flat upon him she let her slender fingers entwine and twirl themselves in a circular motion through the soft chestnut hair that covered the center of his chest. It was a lovely teasing motion that he bore patiently until she finally tired of her play and slid her arms up and about his neck, raising her head to look him fully in the face.

They were now practically welded together, her full breasts pressed against his chest; their thighs and bellies matching. Fierce passion blazed between them, and with a low growl he bent his head to take her lips again. With a sweet sigh she surrendered herself to him, her mouth softening beneath his as together they slid to their knees, still embracing. They kissed and they kissed until finally she pulled her bruised lips from his, laughing breathlessly, and with a rueful grin he admitted, “I can’t get enough of you, beloved. I have touched no woman in all the time we have been apart.”

“I remember,” she said softly, “that after Mavia was born, and I remembered her conception, you told me you had touched no woman since me, for you wanted no other. Now you tell me the same thing again, and I am ashamed.”