Kelli Stanley - The Curse-Maker

“Keep your mouth shut, lady. Or I’ll shut it for you.”

I shoved two slaves aside on the way out, tried to find the litter bearers. They were nowhere in sight, and neither was Gwyna.

“Gwyna!” I didn’t give a fuck who heard me. “Gwyna!”

Still no answer. I started walking.

I called her name intermittently, as I wound down a low hill to the outskirts of the city street. Calm night, not too cold. She’d be all right. She had to be all right. Goddamn it, Arcturus. You should have known. You’re a doctor-you’ve seen it often enough. You should have fucking known.

“Gwyna!”

No answer. I stepped on rocks and didn’t feel them, and the toga-the toga she bought me-was turning brown. She wouldn’t like that. I held my breath and screwed up my face tight. No time for it. No time for panic. No goddamn time.

“Gwyna! Where are you?”

Rocking back and forth, back and forth. Keep walking. Not the goddamn time, not now. Not now. The drops fell on my hands, and I rubbed my cheeks and jaw viciously. Keep it in, goddamn it, Arcturus, find your wife. Find your wife.

“Gwyna! Gwyna! Please answer!”

I was almost at the villa. The door was there, and I pushed it in and was running into the triclinium when Lineus appeared.

“Where is she?”

“Your-your wife isn’t here, sir. The litter bearers returned, but she wasn’t with them. I assumed you both decided to walk back.”

“She’s not here-are you sure? She’s got to be-Gwyna! Gwyna!” I ran through the house bellowing her name. Lineus and a trail of slaves followed me.

“Gwyna? Gwyna!”

They looked in every corner-outside in the garden, the barn. Lineus mobilized them like an army, staying with me while I threw open every door in the house. No Gwyna.

I turned to Lineus. “I’m going to look in town. If she comes in the meantime-”

“I’ll hold her here for you, sir. Don’t worry.”

Aquae Sulis was a pale cream in the moonlight. The fountain by Natta’s shop sputtered its uneven drops, my footsteps echoing, a hurried, urgent shuffling in the desolate market square.

What did she say about Diana? A special goddess? And the Isis-it made sense now. Diana and Isis. Both goddesses for childbirth.

Don’t think, Arcturus. Don’t feel. Just walk.

“Gwyna! Gwyna!”

No answer but my own voice bouncing against the yellow limestone. Maybe-maybe a goddess-it was a chance. A hope. A prayer.

I found her looking over the edge of the spring. The square was empty, and the temple was just a rectangular building, but the spring still bubbled.

She was holding the Diana stone I’d bought for her, face pale. She couldn’t do it here-it’s not easy in six and a half feet of water. But she was thinking about it.

Her shoulders were bare and cold to my touch, the skin flat and dead. As dead as the child we’d made together.

“I’m … I’m sorry I failed you. I should’ve known-should’ve realized … and-and I’m sorry we lost a child.”

Her face was emotionless. Empty, like Faro’s eyes. I shook her, her hair tumbling.

“Goddamn it, I love you! I don’t care if we never have children! I love you! Do you understand? You! Not your goddamn womb!”

She looked at me. Her hand crept to my face.

“You don’t want-you don’t want…”

“Of course I’d like to make a family-with you. Because I’d like to leave the world a better place when I’m gone, and the only way I know how is to make sure there’s a little bit of you still on it. But you … when I thought you might-please, God, please-please don’t…”

I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I clung to her, holding her so tight against my chest that I could feel her heart beat, even through the sobs that were shaking my body.

We stood like that for a long time. And the spring bubbled.

* * *

The look of relief on Lineus’s face endeared him to me.

“I see you’ve found her, Dominus .”

“Yes, and I’m never going to misplace her again, I promise you.”

I looked down into Gwyna’s eyes. “Lineus, please tell the litter bearers we won’t need them tomorow. Give them the day off. Could you make sure that for the rest of the night, we are not disturbed-I mean, complete privacy. Is that clear?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

He beckoned the door slave away and handed me a lamp. By the time we reached the bath, there was no one else in the entire wing.

She told me everything.

How she kept it from me because of Gnaeus’s death. She wanted to surprise me, give me life again. Give me a son.

She told me how she was doing some cleaning and bent down and started to bleed. It wouldn’t stop, and the pain kept growing. All she thought of was the baby-how to save the baby. I felt like I was bleeding myself, hearing how she fled to our room, holding a pillow to her abdomen, trying not to scream. She didn’t want Hefin to know.

She told me how she sent Coir for Stricta. Thank God she knew what to do. Stricta thought of Gwyna. She saved her life. The baby-the baby was four months along.

Stricta kept Gwyna’s secret. Even from Bilicho-because she knew Bilicho would tell me, and Gwyna … Gwyna didn’t want me to know.

Then she told me how Coir had seen the bloodstains, realized what happened. How she used the knowledge to keep Gwyna in the palm of her hand.

Despair gave way to anger. Anger at Coir, even a little anger at Stricta, but especially at myself. Gwyna didn’t tell me she was pregnant because she wanted to surprise me, bring me out of my guilt and depression. She didn’t want to interfere with my-duties. But the only goddamn duty that mattered was the one I failed her in.

She was still dressed in her purple gown, shivering. She needed the warm water. I did, too. I brought some towels and the oil and started to undress her, as carefully and gently as my shaking hands would allow.

“Ardur-what are you-”

“Shh. You did this for me once, when I came home dirty and sore and miserable. Now it’s my turn.”

She looked up at me, her mouth trembling. I was unpinning her tunic. When I started to unwrap her breast band, she tried to push my hands away.

“N-no, Ardur, I-I’m not-”

I held her hands in mine and raised them to my lips.

“I don’t know what you see, Gwyna. I see a woman with a beautiful, miraculous body, as desirable as the day I first saw it. More so, if possible. You don’t have anything to hide, and nothing-nothing-to be ashamed of.”

She stared at me for what seemed like forever. I unraveled her breast band and looked at her.

Her breasts were fuller, just as lovely. But all she could remember was the milk that had started to flow in them, and the baby that would never suckle.

I held her eyes up with my own. “You take my breath away.”

My hands cupped them, and she shuddered while I used my tongue.

“Ardur-Ardur, not-not now…”

“Now is the best time. No more waiting. No more running away. For either of us.”

After a few minutes, I gave my attention to the small briefs, as my hands molded the line of her hips down to her legs. She shuddered again when I slid them off. It was the first time I’d seen her naked since I’d left home, so long ago.

Her abdomen was gently swollen, and she hadn’t lost all the extra weight of the pregnancy. The telltale signs others had noticed, but not her blind husband.

I led her into the tepidarium and gently washed her with a sponge. I touched every part of her, made it mine again. She stopped shaking so much every time she felt my hands. Then I rubbed her back and buttocks with oil and massaged her legs, stomach, and breasts until her nipples were ready to burst.

We climbed out of the pool together, and I dried her with a towel. She reached a hand up to my face and kissed me, softly first, but with a growing need to blot out the night. While our mouths were still intertwined, I picked her up in my arms and stumbled toward the bedroom.