Roman (16 page)

Roman saw Zeus approaching on his horse.

“Going into the city,” he advised. “There's an alley leading to a lot against the northern wall we'll camp at. This is a port town; there'll be a tax to enter. Only a couple pence. Asa wants the pair of you with him, once through.”

Roman nodded his understanding and Zeus moved on to the conveyance behind them. Isra was climbing once more over the driver's seat to disappear beneath the canvas before Roman could ask her why. He thought she'd want to see the entrance to the city, having been subjected to such depressing villages for the past days, but it was as if the directive from Zeus had prompted her escape into the cart bed.

He didn't care for being ordered about by van Groen himself, but for no obvious reason. Roman had never been one to chafe at legitimate authority. Every tier of society, indeed every undertaking by man, must possess some sort of hierarchy of leadership, and Roman certainly had no interest in governing this menagerie of traveling misfits. Van Groen was not only knowledgeable about the trade in which he and his people engaged, he had treated both Roman and Isra—especially Isra—with naught but kindness. Vain, ebon-haired, silk-tongued, blinding-toothed devil he might be, van Groen had ensured that they were well included and provided for.

Especially Isra.

Roman shoved away the thought that he could be jealous of the leader of the caravan as Isra rejoined him on the driver's seat with a huff of breath.

“It is accounted for, my lord,” she said, and when he looked to her with what must have been a bit of a frown, she averted her eyes. “Roman.” Then she held out a clenched fist, not raising her face toward him.

“What's this?” he asked, even as he opened his palm beneath her fist. In the next moment, a trio of coins fell into it, warm with the heat of her skin.

“Our tax,” she said, facing forward on the seat, her hands clasped in her lap, her gaze straight ahead.

“Isra,” he began, glancing down at the coins again, “I have my own purse. I will pay the tax.”

“I have no wish to disobey you,” she replied. “Of course you will pay the tax from your purse if you feel that is what should be done. I only request that you add the coins I gave you to your bag so that I may be held accountable to you for my portion.”

“Accountable for your portion?” Roman said. “Isra, there is no need for you to—”

“Never in my life,” she interrupted as she swung her head to face him, the color high in her rich cheeks, “have I had the chance to pay my own passage with coin I earned in the light of day.” She looked at him boldly, but Roman could see the anxiety in her eyes, the wildness to be understood, even if what she must explain further wounded her already battered soul. “Never have I purchased a bolt of cloth, a piece of fruit, a skewer of meat.
Never
. No one would accept my coin, even had I been allowed to keep what I earned. Everything I have ever had, I have been given or forced to steal.” She paused, and now Roman could see her chest rising and falling quickly, shallowly.

“I would pay my portion. Roman,” she added, looking into his eyes.

Roman looked at her for a moment as he tossed the coins in his hands. Then he nodded and looked away, slipping a finger into the drawstring of his purse to widen the neck just enough to slip the coins inside.

He wondered if she knew how brave she was.

They inched forward on the road toward the entry in the wall and Roman took advantage of the stilted silence between them to appreciate the fine feel of the sea air on his skin, the scent of lemon trees flavoring the breeze and making his mouth water. The temperature was dropping along with the sun, but it was still so much warmer than the weather they had left behind at Melk. Seabirds circled and called to one another overhead, and as if the gulls' cries were challenges he could not ignore, Lou flapped from his perch and headed into the painted sky.

At last the gray donkey came to the gates, and Roman urged her to a halt as the sentry lifted his arm and stepped to the side of the wagon. Another man carrying a shallow basket trailed behind him, looking from all accounts to be a beggar rounded up for the task. Roman guessed the guard would not even come to his sternum were they both standing on level ground, and so, seated in the tall driver's perch, it was as if he was looking down upon a child.

“Donkey; cart; driver. Three pence!” the guard trilled and held out his hand, his tiny, squinting eyes glancing once, twice at Isra.

Roman fished three coins from his purse, feeling a deep satisfaction at the idea that there was no way to ever know if the little discs of metal that found their way into his fingers were Isra's or the ones he could claim ownership of.

“Wait!” the little man barked and held his palm up. He frowned at Isra and then swung his glare to regard Roman. “You have slave.” He placed his thumb against his palm. “Four pence.”

“No,” Roman replied, and continued to hold forth his pinched fingers. “No slave. Three pence.”

“Dress of a slave,” the man insisted. “Look of a slave. Your wife?” he challenged.

Roman shook his head and pressed his lips together. “No. She is my—”

“Ah!” the man said in a nasty little sigh of comprehension. “Four pence, all the same. A different kind of slave.”

Roman heard Isra's gasp even as he gained his feet in the wagon, now towering over the guard in truth.

But the man did not seem intimidated in the least. “You not pay tax, you not enter Dubrovnik. All slaves taxed here.”

Roman tossed the reins to the seat behind him and hopped down to the ground before the guard, his boots raising twin clouds of dust.

“You shall apologize to the lady,” he said, still being forced to bend his neck at a ridiculous angle to glare into the man's upturned face.

“I apologize,” the man replied earnestly, and then his eyes narrowed. “
After
you pay four pence.”

“Ho, there!” a genial voice called, and both Roman and the guard turned their heads to see Asa van Groen cantering up on his black horse from the city side of the wall. “Can I be of assistance to you, good fellows?”

The guard stabbed a miniature appendage in Isra's direction. “Slave is one pence more. Four pence.”

“She's not a slave,” Roman growled, his fists clenching at his sides.

“No, no, my good man,” the leader said with a concerned frown and swung down from his horse. He joined Roman and the guard, placing a hand on the guard's forearm. “That's exactly right; this lady is no slave.”

The guard flung off van Groen's touch. “Slave or not, the tax is four pence for you now, ugly bear,” he sneered at Roman. “Pay or go.”

“I'll pay the extra pence,” van Groen said, his hands already at the purse hanging from his black belt.

“No,” Roman said, and added to the three pence already in his hand. He held the four coins to the little dictator. “Four pence.” He smiled as broadly as he could as the man snatched them away and flung them into the basket still held by the beggar behind him. “I'll be looking for you.”

“You don't frighten me, you big, stupid yellow
ox.”
He swept his fingers toward the cart. “Go on. Go away now, lest I tax you again for your noisy mouth.” He turned to van Groen. “I watch you myself. At any trouble, the jailer will—”

“No trouble,” van Groen promised, backing away with his hands up and then swinging up onto his horse. He looked at Roman pointedly. “Are you coming?”

Roman turned and regained the driver's seat, adjusting himself and twitching the reins.

Isra did not seem to have even blinked while the exchange had taken place. He glanced at her again as he drove the cart into Dubrovnik beneath the violet hues of a passionate sunset, the wheels clattering on the ancient cobbles.

“Are you all right?” he asked, trying to keep his voice even.

She nodded, her eyes looking straight ahead. “I am very well, my lord,” she whispered.

Roman sighed.

I
sra was racked with nerves so that she trembled as she donned the white flax gown in the back of her and Roman's cart, him keeping watch beyond the bed. The interior of the cart beneath the canvas was shadowy dark, only filtered light from the torches outside allowing her to tell up from down as she struggled to dress.

She thought for a moment how nice it would be to have a wooden shelter like the one Asa van Groen boasted of in his own wagon, and the distraction helped calm her. Asa's conveyance was much like a tiny cottage on wheels, with a copper brazier and rimmed shelves and baskets attached to the wooden walls. He had a shaded lantern hanging from a pulley in the ceiling, and a tabletop that could be folded away into the wall. A plush bunk piled with coverlets nestled against the front wall, and Isra couldn't help but think how comfortable it would be to sleep there rather than on the hard cart bed that was currently her pallet.

Likely, though, her bed was much more comfortable than the ground Roman slept upon nightly.

Her fingers fumbled in the darkness, attaching the cape to the gown by feel alone. They would require a larger cart bed—one with two axles. And a wooden shelter would add so much weight that they would need another donkey, or a pair of horses like Asa's, to pull it. It would all cost a goodly amount of coin, but perhaps she could eventually afford it with her proceeds from working with Kahn. A place in a corner for a perch for Lou; trunks for the clothing and belongings they would acquire. Two bunks of course, one of them unusually long to accommodate Roman's height.

Or perhaps one very large bed . . . ?

Isra slipped the curved headband of her pretend crown behind her ears and pulled the two thin plaits she'd fashioned on either side of her face in front of her ears. Once her costume was complete, she paused with a frown.

What if she returned to Asa after her and Roman's mission was complete? Would the caravan have her? She tried to imagine herself living in Asa's wagon, but the image was blurry, watery, and popped like a soap bubble.

Must she become Asa's woman to stay on? Must she become anyone's woman? Why could she not keep her own cart—this cart—and drive it herself? The blonde artist, Fran, did as much. Isra could purchase the conveyance from Roman with her own money—the donkey, too.

Her own home . . .

“Are you all right?” Roman's voice cut through the reverie of possibility.

“Yes.”

Isra inched toward the back of the cart on her knees, handfuls of her long gown clenched in her fists to keep from trapping the beautiful fabric between her skin and the rough boards and ripping it. She was careful to drop her skirt before edging her head beyond the canvas. Roman offered his hand and helped her disembark from the wagon, and she didn't realize how chilled she had become until her fingers were wrapped in Roman's warm grasp. He let her go too soon.

They were standing between the cart and the smooth stone wall of the city, and Isra could see that Lou had finally returned from his hunt, the falcon's noble outline clear atop Asa's nearby wagon. A handful of the tall torches had been placed along the wall to navigate the maze of the caravan, but Isra couldn't help feeling more than a bit trapped by the darkness and the task that awaited her. She could not see the area that had been set up for the performance, but she could hear the swell of the crowd beyond, smell the alternately pleasant and noxious odors that were common to cities. It was so much more than a simple crowd gathered in a field now.

“You plaited your hair,” Roman said, his blue eyes taking on an even lighter cast in the torch glow as his gaze went to the sides of her face.

“Oh.” Isra felt heat come into her cheeks. “Ah . . . I . . . do you—”

But her stuttering inquiry was interrupted by the larger-than-life leader of the caravan, as Asa came striding through the wagons, his costume and collar, his tall, sleek hair seeming to take up more physical space than Roman's mighty frame.

“There she is!” Asa beamed, holding his arms out wide and then folding one hand across his middle as he gave a grandiose bow, and Isra could see he carried a bundle of items in his left hand. He rose and took one of her hands, lifting it to his mouth and placing a kiss on the back of her palm before giving her fingers a little shake and then releasing them. “You are breathtaking, my dear. Not nervous, are you?”

“I am, yes,” Isra admitted, glancing at Roman's slight frown. “Has Nickle . . . ?

“Everything is in place,” Asa assured her with a confident smile, and then he turned to Roman, seemingly oblivious to the crossness on his face. “What of you, big fellow? Are you averse to lending your talent to our endeavor this evening?”

Roman's eyebrows rose, as if Asa's request had caught him off guard and taken the sting out of whatever slight Roman had perceived.

“Have you a thing in mind?” he asked.

“
Magnificent crowd
,” Asa crowed, raising clenched fists as he addressed the sky. “The take is already substantial, and has likely grown since last count, with word spreading through the city about the presence of the Egyptian queen.” He looked back to Roman now, and his expression of rapture had sobered. “But I am concerned about the number in the audience. I've my strong men on the perimeter around Kahn's cage, but . . .” He raised his eyebrows and looked at them both. “There are a lot of folk.”

“You want me to assist with keeping the crowd away,” Roman said, and Isra liked the way his face relaxed, his shoulders squared even farther.

“Yes,” Asa replied, but it was with a wince. “That. But in a less—how should I say it?—obvious capacity.”

Isra and Roman exchanged glances and then Roman looked back to van Groen.

“Perhaps you should explain.”

“Certainly.” Asa smiled. “As you know, we are forming our lovely queen's character after that of the mighty and mysterious Cleopatra, whose paramour, as you likely also know, was a soldier by the name of Marcus Antonius. While your coloring is perhaps not quite what one might imagine when thinking of a centurion, your impressive stature is just the thing for discouraging enthusiastic admirers from approaching our Nile royalty and possibly endangering the tiger or the queen herself.”

“You want me in the act?”

“No, no, good man—not necessarily in it,” Asa assured. “But visible. Between the crowd and Kahn's cage. To lessen the distraction, though, it would be best if you dressed the part.” He presented the items in his hand to Roman with a flourish.

Roman took them and separated the individual pieces: a short brown tunic with what appeared to be wide leather flaps hastily sewn about the hem, and what looked suspiciously like a large wooden bowl, its outside covered over in cloth with two long, rough-cut pieces dangling from either side.

“What the hell are these?” Roman demanded.

“Your centurion tunic and helm, noble soldier.” Asa grinned. “Fran is putting the finishing touches on your shield just now. A useful prop, I'd wager, if control becomes necessary. Here, try it on.” Asa reached out and snatched the bowl from Roman's grasp, and then had to stand on tiptoe with his arms completely outstretched to perch the vessel on the tall blond man's head.

Roman was scowling, and when he turned to look at Isra the limp cloth flaps that were likely meant to portray protective side pieces waved like little pennants against his cheeks.

Isra was shocked at the abrupt snort of laughter that escaped her and she brought both hands to her mouth. It was too late, though; Roman was already turning back to van Groen and shaking his head, his helm shields flapping, forcing Isra to turn her back on the pair.

“I'm not wearing this. I look ridiculous, obviously.”

“No, no!” Asa said. “It will look perfect to the crowd! You'll see!”

“No.”

Isra was trying to compose herself enough to turn back around, but the conversation between the two men made it difficult.

“What if we find you a spear to hold as well? A dull spear. Perhaps a spoon on the end of a han—”

“I'll run you through with it,” Roman promised. “If it's dull, it shall take quite a long time.”

“Listen, big fellow: You wish to keep our queen safe, as do I. You will be a magnificent addition to the performance. And I can't keep referring to you as ‘big fellow' for the entirety of our acquaintance. With this costume, you'll have a place in the troupe, a true identity!”

“You want me to answer to Marcus?” Roman asked. “No, thank you. He had an agonizing death, did he not? Let's not give anyone any ideas.”

“No, no,” Asa agreed. “We couldn't go that far. You'd be . . . you'd be . . .” Isra could almost hear the wheels in Asa's mind turning. Then she heard a crack, like a finger snap. “The queen's Roman consort!”

Isra's eyes widened and she turned back around to find Asa clutching the bowl to his chest. Her eyes went to Roman's slack face.

Van Groen held out the pretend helm. “Won't you at least try it? Just this night. Unless there is trouble, you'll need do nothing more than stand there and look menacing, which doesn't seem to be a problem most of the time, any matter.”

Isra thought she saw the shadow of a grin play about Roman's lips when next he spoke to her. “Do you think you could call me Roman?”

Isra tried to suppress her own smile. “If it means I might keep you nearby, I will do my best, my lord.”

He turned back to Asa and snatched the bowl from him. “I accept.”

“Good man!” Asa clapped Roman on the back and then held his crooked arm toward Isra, which she took, although she wished it was Roman escorting her. “Fran will be along with your shield.” Then he pulled Isra into the labyrinth of wagons, patting her arm as they went.

They arrived at the rear of Kahn's wagon, and Nickle was waiting for them with a large cloth-wrapped bundle, the widely woven fabric soaked through in macabre red patches. The sight of the package made her stomach clench, although she didn't understand why. The lad held out his fist toward Isra, and she gave him her open palm with a quizzical look.

He deposited several coins into her hand. “I told him he could attend the exhibition for free so he only charged half, milady.”

Isra smiled in surprise at the boy's honesty and resourcefulness. She and Roman had thought Nickle nothing more than a very talented thief, and although she still thought him gifted, she realized that Nickle's thievery might have at times meant the difference between eating or not for the troupe. Isra recalled all too well those long weeks when she had been forced to take what was not hers to survive.

She divided the coins evenly, handing half of them back to Nickle. “Well done,” she said.

The lad gave her a short bow. “My pleasure, milady.”

“The same sequence as before,” Asa said, forcing Isra to focus on the task at hand. “The speech you give is brilliant—”

“Most of what I say of Kahn is untrue,” Isra warned.

“Of course,” Asa said, waving his hand. “The folk don't care about the truth; they only want to be mesmerized, frightened, entertained. Say whatever you like—the more fantastic, the better really. As I said, the crowd is large; try to drag the first part out a bit; build the suspense. Once you're inside, it's over rather quickly. By necessity, I understand,” he rushed to add, then opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again on a smile as he looked over Isra's shoulder.

“I must say,” he mused, “when I am right, I am right.”

Isra turned and saw what appeared to be a centurion soldier from the ancient world walking toward them, a large, polished bronze shield on one arm.

And a tall, smiling blond woman on the other.

Asa van Groen had been correct: From a distance, the helm appeared authentic; the tunic, rugged and battle worn. The shield looked as though it must weigh a hundred pounds, but the way Roman was swinging it, Isra suspected it was yet another piece of artistic magic rendered by the beautiful Fran.

Isra's stomach knotted and the knot tightened as Fran gave a chirp of laughter at something Roman had said.

“Don't be discouraged,” Asa said near her ear, surprising her. His words contained a hint of something beyond a leader managing the outcome of his venture, and Isra felt his concern. “The crowd will adore you.”

“Thank you,” she managed to strangle out and drop her eyes just as Roman and Fran reached them. She didn't want to look up at the two blond people, so well matched; didn't want Roman to see how disconcerted she was by Asa's comfort. But she wanted to see Roman more.

“Our Roman!” Asa boomed, releasing Isra and throwing his arms wide. It startled her so when the leader called him by name that she flinched. “Incredible! The crowd will swoon with excitement! Fran, the shield is a masterpiece as usual.”

Fran only stared at him, a decidedly bitter look about her mouth. Isra thought for a moment that the blonde would outright snarl in reply. But to Isra's surprise, Fran looked instead to her, a bright smile suddenly curving her thin, pale lips.

“Just look at them both together, I say. Very good.” The blonde's eyes narrowed a bit, and Isra couldn't help but think that there was anger behind the woman's friendly smile, although why it should be directed at her, Isra didn't know. “All
she
needs is an asp hanging from her tit, yes?”