Gillian Bradshaw - Island of Ghosts

I felt pressed by that urgency from the first evening I saw her in Flavina’s house, smiling at me from beside the fire, as warm and shining as the light itself. Why, I asked myself, should I delay loving her? I had confidence in her, her grace and dignity, her strength to deal with anything that might come, her kindness-and every time I saw her, my confidence grew. Apart from anything else, so I told myself, delays would only damage her reputation. Everyone knew she was my guest, and had come because of me. Her name was joined to mine: why not her body as well? I knew what I wanted and I was fairly certain that she would not refuse. Why shouldn’t I be reckless, and ask?

On the evening of the third and final day of the Sada celebrations, I had my chance. Everyone was in the Sarmatian camp-my men, the Asturians, nearly all the villagers, the inhabitants of both the brothels. There was music, and a few strong fellows still had the energy to dance. All the officers, with their various womenfolk, were by the main fire in front of my wagon, under the awnings. The stars were white in the winter sky and the sparks leapt upward from the fire like a stream of molten gold. We were roasting chestnuts and drinking a little hot spiced wine.

“This is lovely,” said Pervica, dreamily. She was reclining against a bale of straw, and the firelight gilded her face and made deep shadows against the softness of her throat. “If you’re used to this, Ariantes, I’m not surprised you don’t like living in a house.”

“I still think a wagon must be pretty damn drafty to sleep in,” said Longus.

“It is very comfortable,” I said. “In our own country there are often deep snows in winter, even before the solstice. But we are always warm.”

Pervica twisted about to look at the wagon behind her. “Doesn’t the wind come up through the floor?” she asked.

“It has felt on the bottom,” I said, “and rugs. I will show you.” I got to my feet and held out my hand to her. She hesitated only a moment before taking it.

It was dark in the wagon, and I left the door open as much for the firelight as to keep things respectable. She couldn’t see the rugs, and tripped over the edge of the bunk. I caught her and steadied her, and she laughed. I did not. The desire I had felt for her ever since I saw her coming into the stables flared up when I touched her, like a dry pine branch on a fire, and I felt as though my heart had stopped.

“I’ve been wanting to see what they look like inside,” she said, standing there with my arms around her, “and now I’m inside, I still don’t know.”

“You are free to come inside this one whenever you choose,” I told her. I was saying more than I’d meant to, but I couldn’t regret it. “If you want it, it is yours. I offer it to you now.”

She laughed again. “You must have had too much to drink. I’ve told you, you shouldn’t give me any more gifts. Certainly not your own wagon. Where would you live?”

“Here. With you.”

I could feel the laughter go out of her, the muscles tensing under my hands. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she said uncertainly.

I let go of her. I should have realized I would have to be more formal. She did not know our customs on such matters, and I was unfamiliar with hers. “I am sorry,” I said. “I meant it honorably.”

“What?” she said. “I still don’t understand.”

“I was suggesting marriage, Lady Pervica. That is the usual custom of my people when a man and a woman share a wagon.” Repeating the offer in Roman terms only made me more sure of myself. I wanted her, not just now, but to come home to over years; I wanted her in my wagon, loving and beloved, filling the chasm Tirgatao had left. She had called me back to life, and I wanted her to remain, life in the place of death.

“Oh! Oh…” She stood very still, staring at me through the darkness. I could hear the others talking outside, and farther away, a man singing a ballad at another fire, an old slow tale of the deaths of heroes. “You don’t need to do this from gratitude,” Pervica said at last, slowly and with great firmness. “I would much rather stay single than have a man marry me from some misplaced notion of gratitude.”

I put both arms around her, pulled her against me, and kissed her. It was so desperately and impossibly sweet that I was shaken by it; I felt naked and helpless, as though it were the first time, the first clumsy passionate kiss of a young boy and girl. Pervica stroked my face, then held me hard. “You’re not doing it from gratitude?” she asked again, still, still, unconvinced.

“No,” I said, thickly.

She pressed her face against my shoulder. “Oh, my white heart, my dearest darling, yes. Yes. Yes.”

I kissed her again, touching her body, which was smooth, and strong, and answered mine.

“You shouldn’t have asked me, really,” she said, breathlessly, when I let her go again. “It’s just the way we met that’s done this. If we’d met one another on the road or at the market, you wouldn’t have noticed me, and I wouldn’t have spoken to you.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “But why should you say that what we saw in that extreme is false, and how we appear at a market, true? The gods gave with both hands when they spared me from dying in the water. For my part, I mean to take their gifts and bless them.”

“So I notice,” she said, and I could sense the ironic smile, invisible in the dark.

I kissed it. “You are laughing at me,” I told her. “People have been laughing at me a great deal recently. It is very bad for my reputation. I am supposed to be a bloodthirsty savage.”

She giggled. “And staying in here with you much longer will be very bad for mine. I’m supposed to be a modest young widow. You’re going to have to let me go back and reassure them all that I am a respectable woman, really.”

Whatever reputation she got in the fort now, she would have to live with over many years. I helped her down from the wagon, and we walked back to the fire.

Longus’ sister Flavina lifted her mournful dark face to Pervica and said, “So do you think it looks comfortable?”

Pervica sat down and hugged her knees, her face radiant. “Yes.”

Flavina laughed. “And when are you going to move in?”

“That will have to be decided,” I intervened. “But the lady has consented to marry me. Wish us joy.”

They all jumped up exclaiming, and wished us joy.

By the end of the evening we had fixed a date for the wedding-early February, which I hoped would give us enough time to sort out all the details of houses and lands and legal arrangements. I was not eager to sort out anything just then, in that perfect hour. I stood at my wagon watching when Pervica at last walked back to the village with Flavina, past the fires, under the thick winter stars. Already the line of her back, the way she held her head and draped her cloak, the soft shadow of her hair, were familiar to me. In a little while, I thought, I would recognize even the sound of her voice calling in the distance, or her body in the darkness; she would become more familiar to me than my own face, a pillar of my world. For all my desire, I felt in that instant neither anticipation nor dread of anything that fate could hold, but I was wholly content, at peace in that one shining moment of time.

I turned to go back into the wagon-and saw Facilis, still sitting beside the fire that the others had now left. When he saw me notice him, he got up.

“I need to talk to you, Ariantes,” he said harshly.

I sighed. “Tomorrow.”

“No. Now.”

I looked at him a moment in silence.

“There are some things I need to know,” he told me. “And I suspect there are some things you should have heard before you asked that lovely young woman to marry you.”