The Many Lives of Sexta Sertorius
Author's note: Chapter Two and the eventual explicit version on AO3 now.
Chapter One
The fortified city of Caffa (Modern day Feodosia, Crimea) – 1357
The two friends sat side by side, squashed together on the same stool, comparing their faces in a small tortoiseshell mirror. The brunette smiled at her likeness, evidently pleased with what she saw - and with good reason. Her companion was less happy with the image revealed in the silver backing. It was just as crisply outlined, no strigoi blurring effect interfered with the reflection, and she was just as pretty - but much less conventionally so.
Sexta Sertorius removed her head covering and sighed at the smooth, milk-pale dome it revealed. Her friend wasn't shocked or even surprised by the sight but Sexta grimaced and turned away.
'Never mind, Sexta,' said the other girl. 'At least, you don't have to pluck your eyebrows.'
Sexta watched Claudia carefully tweezing out some imaginary stray hairs now she had sole access to the mirror. She liked Claudia immensely but sometimes, well, nearly all the time actually, she could be a bit insensitive. She liked the whole Piambo family. Claudia's brother, Gerolamo had been her playmate throughout her entire childhood and they were still close, and their father had been very welcoming to her and Quintus ever since the plague had come to Caffa, ten years ago. Sexta couldn't remember those days but she could never remember a time the two households hadn't been on the most friendly terms.
Households, not families, because she and Quintus were not a family. He insisted that they maintain the charade of father and daughter and their appearances were so similar as to forestall any suspicion to the contrary but they were unrelated and Quintus, while always kind and scrupulously respectful, never once showed any paternal affection or warmth towards her. The only time he had ever shown anything akin to emotion was the last time she had listened to Claudia's advice.
Claudia had convinced Sexta that she could be an acknowledged beauty and the darling of all Caffa if only she had hair. Claudia had "borrowed" her stepmother's spare wig and Sexta had been so taken with the effect of long wavy black tresses that she had worn it home.
Quintus had been furious. His rage had been frightening and hard to bear because so unprecedented and, Sexta felt, so undeserved. It wasn't as if she had ever been told not to wear a wig and she hadn't hurt anyone. Worst of all, she didn't understand his passion. Had he felt insulted because she'd shunned the baldness they shared? Claudia had thought that it was more likely to be that she'd reminded him of someone from his past. In that point, at least, she proved to be the more perceptive of the two.
Sexta realised then that she knew nothing about her guardian and mentor. He had never hidden her own extraordinary origins from her and she had assumed that he was the same, part strix and part human. Certainly, although her eyes were slightly bluer than his they were still strikingly unlike those of anyone else in Caffa and, while her skin was just pink enough to pass as the pallor of some strange medical condition rather than Quintus' otherworldly complexion, there was no denying the similarity there either.
Indeed, that was how Quintus explained their peculiar looks to the Piambos and the rest of Caffa society. He said they both had an inherited skin disease. It was not contagious, he assured everyone, but it meant that they were particularly susceptible to sunburn and could only stand short periods of summer sunshine. This rule was not strictly necessary for Sexta because she was more tolerant of daylight than he was but she followed his guidance in this as in all things.
'Does your father ever smile, Sexta?' Claudia asked, out of nowhere and with forced nonchalance, as if she had been thinking about Quintus for a while.
'Not at me,' sighed Sexta. 'I am always to be kept at a distance, even more so since the hair incident. I wish I knew him better, Claudia. I wish he would talk to me as if we were friends – like Gero does.'
'My father doesn't often converse with me, Sexta. Girls are not like boys, you know.'
Sexta sighed yet again. 'Quintus doesn't treat me like a son, either, despite the warrior training. I am an apprentice soldier to him – or…or a weapon.'
'You two are very odd, certainly,' announced Claudia in condemnatory tones. 'Why do you call him by his Christian name and not "Father" like normal daughters? And, why, in the name of all that's respectable, is he teaching you how to fight?'
'I don't know, Claudia. Everything about him is a mystery.'
'Well, I think you need to solve some of these mysteries. If he's going to force you into questionable and unfeminine practices…' Sexta snorted with amusement, making Claudia glare at her before she continued, '…then he owes it to your reputation to explain himself.'
Sexta laughed aloud at her friend's pomposity but kissed her frown as she left. 'You are right, I know,' she announced as if she were deciding to face down a monster. 'I shall be resolute and speak with him tonight.'
On the way home, Sexta contemplated how to introduce the subject of Quintus' history and nature. She decided on a single question on a matter she'd often pondered, an aspect of his make-up that she was certain differed from her own. Yet the more she dwelt on it, the more anxious she became and when she saw him seated at his desk, quill in hand, his stern gaze focussed exclusively on his work, her nerve nearly failed her completely.
Sexta had never heard of an iceberg but if she had she would have compared Quintus to one – big, white, cold, dangerous…impossibly, untouchably beautiful and, of course, with hidden depths never revealed to a superficial observer. He was wearing the doublet and hose of a wealthy medieval gentleman, the definition of his thigh muscles visible through the thin leg coverings even in the semi-darkness. Naturally, he needed no additional light, unlike Sexta who held a candle in her trembling hand.
He must have been aware of her presence. He must have been able to smell the burning wick, if not Sexta herself and she felt that even a human could hear her pink blood pounding in her tiny heart.
Quintus Sertorius, however, was dealing with their recent altercation as most men do, by acting as if had never happened and, wherever possible, by avoiding the other party in the confrontation. If Sexta had obeyed her human flight instincts, he would have pretended that he'd never noticed her standing in the shadows. But Sexta was not human – not entirely - and, to Quintus' dismay, she swallowed audibly, smoothed her silk dress and stepped forward.
Quintus suppressed whatever he'd been feeling and rose chivalrously to take the candle from her. When he felt her quivering fingers, he said, 'If you are cold, Sexta, you should put on your mantle.'
He must have known that it wasn't the temperature but he maintained the charade of oblivious innocence, his tone flat and calm. Before she could reply, he took her hands in his as he had often done before, warming her chillier, more human flesh with his higher body temperature and demonstrating that there was no ill will. This time, though, she gasped a little at the simple, everyday contact. He should have released her, he knew, but for some reason he held on, not gripping or squeezing but not letting go either. For her part, she showed no sign of desiring escape, only a shy consciousness that his touch was no longer the easy gesture of comfort it had previously been.
'I am not cold, Quintus,' she said. 'I want to ask you a question and I'm nervous.'
'There is no need for embarrassment between us, child,' he said. And indeed he badly wanted to relieve this tension that had grown steadily between them in the past few days.
Sexta had been quite right when she spoke to Claudia, there was no smile for her and no warmth but there was a degree of welcome in Quintus' manner because she was welcome. Her presence always used to be a gentle domestic pleasure. 'Come and sit, child,' he bade her, hoping that if he kept repeating the word he'd be able to see her as a child again.
He guided her by the hand to a seat opposite his and she blurted, 'It's a personal matter.'
He withdrew his hand and leant back, his lips compressing almost imperceptibly.
Sexta quailed again but she was committed now. She pushed ahead, 'You don't feed like me, do you?'
He relaxed slightly. 'I drink blood just like you,' he explained, 'but I do not require the direct contact with the donor's skin that you do.'
Sexta relaxed in turn and asked with a child-like candour, 'But then… how do you pierce the flesh?'
He sighed and pondered the distance out of the window for a while. She waited patiently for her answer. Eventually, Quintus focussed on her again and said, 'I have this...'
He extended his stinger, slowly so as not to alarm her but it still made young Sexta's jaw drop. She reached out and tentatively touched a terminal fang. He allowed it to retract with Sexta's slight pressure so that she didn't prick herself on it.
'Like the Ancients,' she whispered in awe.
'Not exactly,' explained Quintus when the stinger had been slurped back inside his mouth. 'I am a half-breed.'
'I thought I was a half-breed,' argued Sexta. 'Why don't I have one of those?'
Quintus sighed again but this time it was more indulgent. 'Because you, child, are unique among all the creatures that walk upon this earth.'