Calgaich the Swordsman (48 page)

"You're mad!” he said quietly.

She reached out and gripped one of his wrists. "There is a way you might save the woman and the child, Calgaich.”

He looked down at her lush body and shook his head. "No, Morar. Not now. Not ever. No child of mine shall fall into your hands to be a tool to further your ambition.” She sat up. "Then, the child will be mine.”

"And Cairenn will bear it and then be put to death.”

She nodded. "The child must be known as mine.” "You've forgotten something, or have you?” He searched her face with his eyes but he could not see beyond the mask of her beauty, to recognize whatever she was—witch or she-demon.

"What do you mean, Calgaich?”

"I am the child’s father. No matter how much power you now have, by your own devices, or through Valens, you can't deny that.”

She raised her arms toward him. "Come, Calgaich! Make love to me! Stay here in Rome. There is power for you here. Your grandfather has great riches. Some day they will be yours. Together
we
could rule Rome.”

Calgaich moved back from her. Her naked, sick ambition sickened him. “Get out of here, whore!” He turned away from her.

He did not see the look of pure hatred that passed across her beautiful face. She got up from the bed and quickly dressed herself.

“One thing more: If anything happens to my child or Cairenn, I will come to you, Morar, and you’ll die under my hands,” he warned.

She sneered. “You’ll never live that long.”

He raised a hand to her.

Morar retreated to the doorway.

“Drink yourself into stupidity!” Morar cried. “Go on! I have offered you myself and the world of Rome and you’ve turned me down! You’ll never get another chance, barbarian!”

Then she was gone.

Calgaich reached for the wine jug. Bron raised his head and growled. Calgaich shrugged. He really had no taste for the wine. He dropped onto' his bed, and for a long time stared up at the ceiling. Cairenn was with child and the child was his. He recalled the night he had raped her in the abandoned tower while the wolves had howled out in the bitter cold. He remembered how she had fought for him and saved his life when he had fallen overboard from the trireme
Neptunus.
He closed his eyes and saw in his mind’s eye her exquisite heart-shaped face.

Calgaich sat bolt upright. “By the gods!
She is my wornan!
How could I have been so blind?” He loved Bronwyn, too. And he would never forget the night she had come to him and risked her life to set him free. But he had thought that she was Morar, or he would never have forced her. She was a sister to him in his thoughts, and now he feared for her sanity. His mind returned to Cairenn, and he felt at peace with the knowledge of his love for her. He must live to tell her.

Calgaich was awakened by Tetius, an attendant, in the morning. He walked down the corridor to the
tepidarium
accompanied by Bron.

Tetius stayed in the room. He grinned to himself as he noticed the faint aura of fine perfume which still remained in the air. He straightened out the bed, while surreptitiously eyeing the wine jug. He tiptoed to the doorway and peered up and down die corridor. It was empty.

Tetius turned back into the room and reached for the wine jug.

Bron rose to his feet just inside the doorway of the
tepidarium.
Tetius walked slowly into the room. He held the wine jug in his left hand. His face was drawn and his right hand was at his throat. Suddenly his eyes widened and with a strangled cry he fell forward. The wine jug crashed onto the marble tiles and was shattered. A thin trickling of wine dribbled along the tiles and into the pool.

Calgaich drew himself out of the pool. He rolled Tetius over onto his back. His eyes stared unseeingly at the ceiling.

When Morar had left the room in a cold rage, she cried out: “Drink yourself into stupidity! Go on! I have offered you myself and the world of Rome and you've turned me down!
You'll never get another chance, barbarian!
”

The formal garden of the house of Rufus Arrius Niger backed onto a precipitous slope of the Pincian Hill. The garden was bordered with myrtle trees in stone jars. The portico of the house was opposite the summer house with a small open space in the middle shaded by four plane trees. A marble fountain sprayed undulating mists of water upward, which descended to overflow from the bowl and water the roots of the plane trees and the grass plot about them.

Beyond the summer house was an exercise area, round like a circus, surrounded by box trees and dwarf shrubs. There in the soft amethyst light of dusk could be seen the naked torso of Calgaich, who was exercising with his magnificent sword. It had taken over a month of constant exercising before he had begun to feel he had regained his old stamina and skill. He was being watched by his grandfather, Guidd and Bron.

“There is none like him.” Guidd One-Eye said proudly.

Rufus lay propped up on a couch in the coolness of the summer house. There was a gauntness and an unusual listlessness about the old soldier. “Only the great skills of the priests of Aesculapius saved him from certain death,” he said.

“And the help of Lugh of the Shining Spear,” Guidd added.

Rufus shrugged. “If you so believe, woodsman,” he agreed dryly.

Bron rose from beside the couch to greet his master as he came to the summer house. “Is there cool wine?” Calgaich asked.

“The Bottle Emptier is bringing some from the house,” Rufus replied.

Calgaich grinned. “Pray to the gods that it gets here.” He squatted beside the low couch. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“I seem to grow weaker each day.”

Lutorius came from the house carrying a large tray, upon which were arrayed jugs of wine and cool water, wine cups and a heap of fresh fruit. He was accompanied by a tall, gaunt man with long silvery hair.

“Fomoire comes,” Guidd announced.

“Then you did get my message to him,” Calgaich said.

Guidd nodded. “I found him in the garden of the house of Lucius Sextillius. He was alone. It was easy to climb to the top of the wall and call to him. I didn't want the Perfumed Pig to know you had sent for Fomoire.”

Calgaich introduced Fomoire to his grandfather. “He has some skill as a leech in my country,” he added. “I wanted him to see you.”

“You are a slave to Lucius Sextillius?” Rufus asked.

Fomoire bowed his head. “I am, sir.”

Rufus looked at Calgaich. “Can this man be trusted?”

Calgaich nodded. “With your life, Grandfather.”

“Were you followed here?” Guidd asked Fomoire.

Fomoire shook his head. “I was sent on an errand which should have taken me a great deal of time. I hurried to complete it and then came here.”

Calgaich looked at Guidd. “Just in case, look around outside, old hound.”

Guidd nodded, then vanished in among the trees toward the side wall of the garden.

Lutorius filled wine cups for Rufus and Calgaich.

“Fill cups for yourself and this guest, Bottle Emptier,” Rufus ordered.

“I am only a
calo
in the house of my lord, sir,” Lutorius responded.

Some of the old fire came back into Rufus's eyes. “Damn you! I’ll have the hide off your back, if you refuse to obey my orders!” Rufus roared.

Lutorius jumped to attention. He then filled wine cups for Fomoire and himself.

Rufus smiled faintly. “That may be the only way you understand,
calo.
After all, I must owe you something more than a broken nose for saving my life at Carrhae.”

Lutorius grinned widely. “That broken nose was an honor, sir!"

Fomoire had been studying the old soldier all this time. Calgaich slanted his eyes sideways at the Druid. Fomoire shook his head a little.

“Well, leech! What do you think?” Rufus asked gruffly.

“May I examine you, sir?” Fomoire requested.

The Druid looked into the eyes of the old man. He passed his slim hands over Rufus's face and fingered the texture of his hair. He passed a hand across the parchmentlike skin of Rufus. At last he stood up.

“Well?” Rufus asked.

Fomoire looked questioningly at Calgaich.

“Tell him, Fomoire,” Calgaich said.

Fomoire turned away. He did not want to look at Rufus.

Calgaich gripped the Druid by the shoulder. “What is it?”

Rufus emptied his wine cup. “Merely a fever, eh, leech? I've had them before. Once in Cappadocia . . . Ah, but that was long ago.” There was a reminiscent tone to his quiet voice.

“Your food and wine?” Fomoire asked. “Who prepares them?”

“The wine is from my own grapes in the country. My servants and slaves prepare my food.”

“You trust them all?”

“Why not? They are my
familia.”

“Damn you, Fomoire!” Calgaich snapped. “What is it?”

“I can bear the truth,” Rufus said quietly.

“Slow poisoning,” Fomoire told them.

It was very quiet in the garden. A moth fluttered about one of the oil lamps. An owl swooped low over the plane trees and vanished into the shadows.

Calgaich's eyes widened as he saw the owl. He knew the bird was one of ill omen, and a harbinger of impending death.

“How long do I have?” Rufus asked.

Fomoire shrugged. “It's difficult to tell. By that means it would seem to be a slow sickness of some sort or perhaps like advancing age. The doses of poison have been skillfully measured to make the effect long lasting. I don’t think it is fatal—
yet
...”

“But who? Why?” Rufus asked. He looked at Calgaich. “You stand in the way, Grandfather,” Calgaich murmured.

“Valens?”

“More likely the woman, Morar.”

Rufus tightened his hands together. “That golden bitch! But she would not have been able to do it herself.”

Calgaich’s memory quickened. “Have you been anywhere near her?”

Rufus shook his head. “The gods forbid!”

Calgaich looked toward the house. “Then it
is
someone in your
familia
.”

“Impossible!” Rufus snapped.

“Who can be trusted in Rome?” Fomoire asked dryly. “Who is the newest member of your f
amilia?”
Lutorius asked.

Rufus shook his head. “I’m not sure. Marcus, my steward would know.”

Calgaich nodded to Lutorius. “Don’t make it too obvious.”

Lutorius walked toward the house, then looked back. “If I find out, do you want me to take care of him?” Calgaich shook his head. “Not yet.”

“I must leave,” Fomoire said. “I’ve been gone too long as it is. If Sextillius finds out I’ve been here, he’ll have the hide
off
my back.”

Calgaich walked with him to a side gate of the garden. “Tell me, how is Bronwyn?” he asked.

Fomoire would not meet Calgaich eye to eye. “I don’t like to talk about her, Calgaich.”

“Tell me!”

Fomoire paused beside the gate. “She lives life as if she were in a trance.”

Calgaich remembered the blank, staring look on her face when he had entered the arena of the Flavian Amphitheatre. Moral* must not have sent for her yet. It was worse than her attempt to murder him. Bronwyn was her blood, her sister.

Fomoire continued, “She never smiles. There are nights when I hear her crying out, but no one can help her,

not in the house of the Perfumed Pig. There are rumors among the slaves and servants as to what goes on. Some of them are called in by Sextillius to participate, but they will not speak about it for fear of losing their tongues. Sometimes there are beasts involved.

“The
cumal,
Cairenn, sends her messages from time to time, but they do not sustain her. She called me to her chambers a few nights ago, very late, when the orgy with Lucius was over. She asked about you. She did not cry; I think she cannot cry anymore. It is beyond her. She wanted me to sing to her. ‘Old songs,’ she said, ‘from long ago.’ I sang as best I could. I did not want her to see me crying, so I held my face away from her. Her torn clothing was strewn around the floor, and silken cords were flung about from when they must have tied her. She had bruises on her wrists and ankles.” His voice broke. “I don't want to talk about it, Calgaich.”

Calgaich nodded. “I understand.”

“It is too late for the girl. She can never be the same. It would be better if she were dead. There are things she has been forced to do
...”

“The
Book of Elephantis
,” Calgaich murmured.

“And worse,” Fomoire added quietly.

Calgaich opened the gate for him. Guidd stood there. He nodded. The way was clear.

Fomoire turned as he passed through the gateway. “Since the death of Ulpius, Lady Antonia has become mad. The two weaklings, her husband, Mucius Claudius, and her brother, Lucius Sextillius, have fawned on Aemilius Valens While seeking his favor. Without the Lady Antonia, they are nothing, and, of course, they now have control of the family money, so they are buying their way into the camp of Valens.”

Calgaich looked back through the dark garden toward the lamplighted summer house. “And Morar is seeing to it that Rufus, their foremost enemy in the Senate, will be gotten out of the way.”

“If anything happens to your grandfather, your fate and possibly that of all us barbarians will be certain. The time is approaching. We must escape, or die here,” Guidd said.

“We'll have to move first and
fast,
Fomoire.”

They watched the Druid hurry down the steep shadowed street.

“He risks much,” Guidd murmured. “If Sextillius learns that he has been here
...”

As Calgaich approached, Rufus rose from his couch. Standing at the wall of his garden, he looked down upon the lights of Rome.

“Wine, Grandfather?” Calgaich asked.

Rufus nodded.

Calgaich filled two cups, and handed one to the old man. Rufus drank deeply. He looked sideways at Calgaich. “It is what I feared most—a slow and unclean death. A soldier should die in battle, with reddened blade in his hand and his eyes on the victorious Eagles.”

“Then why do you stay here, Grandfather?”