Jack Whyte - The Skystone

When I did so, I found her to be far more lovely than I had thought from a distance. The blue of her eyes was painfully deep and the kindness and welcoming warmth of her smile dried up my mouth. She spoke my name, and I marvelled, not at her knowledge of my name but at the texture and the timbre of her voice, warm and soft and mellow and deeper than I would have expected. She reached out and took both of my wrists in her hands, and the only things in my world were her face and the warmth and softness of her hands.

"Luceiia, you're here! What took you so long?" Veronica's voice seemed to come from a great distance, and her words completed my confusion. I could see her standing in the open doorway of the dining room, and she was obviously speaking to the woman who was holding my wrists. But she had called her Luceiia! Could this be Luceiia Britannicus? The woman Quintus Varo had described as unwomanly? Unfeminine?

She ignored Veronica's comment and kept her eyes and her smile directed full upon me. "Welcome, " she said. "We thought you might never come to our western land.

I was debating with myself as to whether or not I should have you abducted and brought here, just to have you nearby when Caius comes home. "

I swallowed hard and worked my tongue to moisten my mouth. I know I said something banal and stupid, but I have no memory of the words. They must have been appropriate, however, because she released my wrists and walked with me into the dining room, where she embraced Veronica and Quintus. In the ensuing babble of conversation, I had time to collect myself and recover from the astonishing impact she had had on me. Nevertheless, although the memory of that first sight of her is an undying but hectic one, the passage of the next hour or so is a blank in my memory, a blue-tinctured haze of warmth and pleasure.

I know now, from subsequent conversations with both Quintus and Veronica, that my condition was obvious and afforded them great hilarity during dinner, which they graciously concealed. Quintus admitted afterwards that he had been warned by Veronica not to talk of Luceiia's beauty. They had wanted to observe the effect she would have on me if I encountered her with no advance warning.

After dinner, the major-domo of the Varo household broke the spell I was under with an announcement that the fire had been lit in the outer courtyard, and that if we would care to be seated, the entertainment was about to commence.

Quintus thanked him and led the way to a built-in courtyard at the rear of the house. A huge fire was blazing in a pit there, throwing leaping shadows on the walls all around, and about a dozen people, whom I took to be the servants of the household, were sitting quietly in a loose group on one side of the fire-pit, listening to a young man seated on a log in the corner of the courtyard who was tuning some kind of a lyre. We made ourselves comfortable by the fireside and he sang to us for more than an hour, accompanying himself on his instrument. His voice was strong and clean and his songs were all of the beauty of this country we lived in. He could not have chosen a better theme, and he could never have had a more appreciative audience. Quintus Varo surprised me by remaining rapt from start to finish and offering lavish applause and encouragement at the end of every song.

As the lad's voice rose and fell, weaving a spell of beauty around us all, I sat and drank in the flame-washed beauty of the woman who sat across the fire from me. The emotion that was writhing in my breast here was a marvel beyond my experience. No woman, not the Cassie of my youth, not even Phoebe in my hour of greatest need, had ever affected me like this. I had never seen anything to compare with the sweep of those cheekbones, or the perfection of that mouth, or with the mysticism of that face, dappled as it was with firelight.

Eventually, the young man exhausted his fund of songs and was permitted to leave, rewarded with a coin from Quintus and another from me. His departure was the signal for all the other servants to leave, and soon there were only the four of us — Quintus, Veronica, Luceiia and myself— left in the courtyard.

For a few minutes after they had all gone, there was a warm silence broken only by the guttering of the fire. I raised. my eyes to look again at Luceiia, only to find her looking at me. Abashed, I returned my gaze immediately to the fire. When I dared look up again, her eyes were still on me, and she smiled a small, secret smile.

Quintus cleared his throat. "Publius, I cannot remember having spent such an enjoyable evening in many years, but now I am tired and must sleep. You will be leaving in the morning, and before that I want to have my day's work allocated and well in hand. Good night, my friend. Come, Veronica. "

I started to rise, but he waved me back to my seat. "No, no! There's no need for you to leave. Stay here and enjoy the fire with Luceiia. Luceiia, you know well enough by this time where your room is. Good night to both of you. Sleep well. We'll see you in the morning, before you leave. " After they had gone, I sat tongue-tied, not daring to look across at Luceiia. It was she who broke the silence.

"Poor Quintus is not very subtle, is he?"

I looked at her then, drinking enough beauty in one look to sustain me until I dared look again. "Subtle? What do you mean?"

"What do I mean?" Her laughter was like the sound of the boy's lyre. "I mean he's being outrageous in his matchmaking. ",

"Matchmaking?" I heard stridency in my voice and dropped it to a whisper instantly, so that I sounded merely foolish. "Oh. Is he?"

"Well, isn't he? I cannot imagine him leaving me alone with any other man at night under any circumstances. "

I swallowed, feeling highly uncomfortable. "I see. Would you rather go to sleep now? I mean, rather than stay here? With me, I mean?" I cursed myself for being a fool, providing her with opportunities to flee.

"No, thank you. I am quite comfortable. This has been a lovely evening. I have no wish to end it yet. "

That made me feel better, but the silence fell again, leaden and unbreakable by any effort of mine.

"My name is Luceiia. "

I blinked in surprise. "I know. " She was smiling strangely. I felt I had missed something. "Why would you say that?"

"What? That my name is Luceiia? Because it is, and I like it, and you have not said it once since we met. Although it seems to me that you called me at first by another name. What was it?"

I cleared my throat nervously. "Cassie, " I croaked, then I cleared my throat again. The name sounded strange on my tongue, like one from an ancient tale. Cassie might have been a figure from some dream, a ghostly presage of the woman I saw before me now. "When I first saw you, there in the atrium with your back to me, you reminded me of her. She was someone I knew a very long time ago, when I was just a boy. "

"She must have been important to you. "

"Yes, and no. I only met her once, one afternoon. "

"But you remember her still. "

I was growing more confident, coming to terms with the long-held memories of a boy, and gauging them beside the current evaluations of a man. I shook my head, dismissing Luceiia's comment.

"Not really. I recall the feelings she stirred in me, the mood she created. But in my mind she is still fifteen. She's a memory, no more. She had your kind of beauty, dark hair like yours, and she wore blue. "

"Were you sorry when you saw I was not she?" This time her eyes were not lifted to meet mine, and I smiled at the top of her head.

"No. Not at all. How could I be? Cassie was a child, and so was I. " There was silence for the space of a few heartbeats, then she said, "It's an unusual name. Cassie. "

"Short for Cassiopeiia. I don't even know if that was her real name. "