When he was situated, his back against the rough headboard, she reached for a bowl and wooden spoon from the table, placing it in his hands before sitting back down. "There's no sleeping potion in this one, is there," he asked warily.
"No," she answered calmly, seating herself. The scent of the malted barely in the bowl made his stomach growl emabarressingly loud. He saw her lips twitch in amusement as she commented, "Seven days with little food does tend to make one hungry. The body has its own wisdom for survival, even if the will is lacking."
Disgruntled, he began to feed himself with his uninjured right arm, noticing with passing satisfaction his left side, while it still smarted where the sward slashes were, and the knife had been driven in, was not as painful as the night prior. Breathing too, seemed easier, though his bruised torso was still tender.
She watched him eat, carefully assessing the degree of his movement and returning strength with eyes nearly colorless, so light was their shade of blue. The eyes of a seeress looking into the distant furutre. Or, deciphering the deepest secrets of men's souls.
He finished the last drop with more gusto than he'd begun, the food pleasantly appetizing. She placed the emptied bowl on the table, reaching for an ointment jar and fresh bandages before seating herself next to him on the cot. He made no protest as she began to change his dressings, applying the poultice with deft fingers, feeling along his wounds with practiced skill.
The silence she worked in was not an uncomfortable one, for it allowed him a chance to study her as he hadn't had the night before, her features illuminated by the light of the Italian sun streaming through the unshuttered wondow and open door. Hair and head were unveiled, and he saw, despite being in her middle years, the faint lines of laughter fanning out from her eyes, on either side of the labile folds of her mouth, she was still a striking woman. In her youth, she must have been a great beauty; gracefully molded bone structure with features so even and fine, a sculptor would have paid half his life's earnings to capture her likeness in stone or clay. The dark fall of her hair, a chestnut brown, was gathered in a neat plate, scattered through with strands of grey, and as thick as a horses tail, hanging down her back. It's color made for stunning contrast to her eyes. Her skin was tanned in the way of persons who spent a great deal of their lives out in the sun.
He could feel the strength of her hands as she completed her task, placing his old bandages on the table. They were hands indicative of years of hard labor, but her Latin, as had been the case with her daughter the evening before, was spoken with the articulation of the literate, accented with the lilting quality of the northern isles. The poultice stung astringently in his wounds, cautioning him to move slowly as he leaned back once more.
She found her own seat again, sitting back to watch him with expectant regard. "Was it good," she asked before long.
"What, the food," he replied. She nodded. He affirmed with a short, "Yes, actually it was. It's your sleeping potions I've learned to be leery of."
"You didn't sleep well then," she inquired with her precise speech. She was clothed in a country dress of softened wool, undyed and sleeveless for the heat of summer, tied at the waste with a cinch of cloth. The garb of peasant folk, again at odds with her Latin.
"I think I slept a little too deeply. My dreams were not good ones, " he admitted.
She nodded again, in a knowing way. "That was not my potion, Spaniard," she explained with a trace of amusement. "that was your spirit wandering far afield. The dead, it seems, won't leave you alone just yet, will they?"
He struggled to mask his surprise at how she'd deciphered his dream when he hadn't even mentioned it, thinking ruefully, neither will the living.
"It is a gift, you know—not uncommon to those who have walked the lands of the dead and returned," she explained.
Balefully, he said, "If it's a gift, I've no wish for it."
That cracked her implacable demeanor, which until then had been one of patient indulgence. Not, as he might have expected—coming in the way of an angered rebuttal to his comment--but with laughter, pure, honest laughter.
In the same way he'd made Nemhyn self-concsious, catching her off-guard the night before with his won brief mirth at her expense, he suddenly felt discomfited by the woman's humor. "How like a Roman," she said, still chortling, "to think he can command the will of the Fates. It's obvious the mien of a slave did not come easily to you."
"What is it you want with me," he demanded then, the force of his words quieting her merriment. He was almost sorry he'd interrupted her amusement because the way she looked at him now, with an expression of solemn consideration, disturbingly mirrored the gaze of the god reflected in the eyes of Marcus Aurelius.
"The question you ought to be asking, Maximus," she addressed him, "is what you want of living."
"To be left alone after I heal. To live out the rest of my life as far away from the shadow of Rome as is humanly possible, and not be bothered by her incessant intrigues."
Maeve didn't recoil from his words. In fact, as far as he could tell, she didn't seem the least affected by his strong assertion, simply folding her hands in her lap in a composed gesture, watching him with faint amusement, the pale orbs of her eyes fathomless. "Well, well. How readily you forsake Her when you were ready to die for Her but a week ago."
He had no idea why he said what come out of his mouth next. "Lucius is dead, did you know that?" Perhaps it was to throw her off, break through her impenetrable calm.
Once more, he was sorely disappointed by her reaction when she only shrugged, replying, "So I learned last night at the house of the farmer whose wife I was attending. And now the seat of Ceaser stands without a contested heir. Who do you think will have the courage to lay claim to the throne guarded so devotedly by the Praetorians?"
Scathingly, he replied, "You can thank Lucilla next time you see her that my concern for the future of Rome's Caesers ended with her unanticitpated support to her brother. In essence, I really don't care who stands next in the line of succession."
Leaning forward into the morning light filtering in washed-out rays from the window, the white of her hair catching the glinting brillence as her braid fell over her shoulder, Maeve's gaze seemed to harden at his words, ice-pale eyes growing cold. "A mother's love can transcend the principles of state and law, Maximus. Do not think to comdemn her for trying to defend the life of her son at the expense of your own. She now suffers as you have, losing those she loved the most, entrapped by the Guard, and in greater peril than you find yourself, presently. Even so," she continued in her frost riddled voice. "Even so, I suspect she will not forsake the Empire as you seem yourself to desire"
"So what would you have me do," he challenged, meeting her gaze for gaze with a look as flinty as her own. "Go to Rome and announce myself Caeser…the general who became a slave, the slave who became a gladiator, the gladiator who died slaying an emporer, resurrected as an emporer himself?" The words were self-mocking, but any reply Maeve might have made was interrupted by a sound from outside, the braying of a donkey, and the entrance of Nemyhn just as he'd finished speaking.
"If you do that, Spaniard, I can imagine fewer ways of making a stunning entrance to the Queen of Cities. You might wish for more than me and my mother, though, to act as your supporting legions. Two women and an ex-slave, even one who's meant to be dead, are probably not going to strike awe and terror into the hearts of Rome's urban cohorts when we march down the Triumphal Way." She stood for a moment, in the doorway, her face shadowed by the backlight and the depths of her shawl, but the laughter in her voice was evident, breaking the mounting tension rising between him and Maeve.
"Elephants," the older woman said inexplicably, her hard expression transmuting once more, into humorous appreciation.
"What," he blurted, with puzzled simplicity. This conversation had suddenly gone from the serious to the absurd, leaving him confused and frustrated.
"Elephants," she clarified, tongue-in-cheek. "If we had elephants as our mounts, we would probably make a more astounding entrance." The look he gave was priceless, a mixture of non-plussed aggravation competing with the ghost of a smirk he couldn't quite keep from his face as the image filled his mind.
"But no," she picked up where their conversation left off, "to set your mind at ease, I'm not asking you to claim the seat of Ceaser. There will be more than enough contenders," she said, a fleeting expression of dread crossing her face, replaced in the blink of an eye with her prior calm, "for that valued position in the months to come. I only ask that you accompany my daughter and I back to Britannia."
About to reply, his response was precluded by Maeve's daughter who had moved, during this time, from the entrance to sit at the feet of her mother, arranging herself comfortably on the floor. She'd removed her cowl, and the sight greeting his eyes temporarily forestalled further thoughts. He only realized, he must indeed have been in some pain and misery last night not to have been aware of what he was now.
Raised to a soldier's rough life, and the rigid practicalieties of campaigning, one would have thought such sensitivities not cultivated in a man of his outward nature. He had always had an artists eye though, and an inclination to appreciate things of beauty—whether a transient sunset, a gracefully structured edifice, or…a lovely woman. And Nemyhn, as her mother must have been in her youth, was one of the lovliest had had ever seen.
Her features, if less finely molded than her mother's, were nigh as regular, and perhaps, more pronounced—fuller of lip, eyes broader set in a higher brow, a nose that boasted a slight arch, detracting not at all from the fine harmony of sculpted cheek-bones and pale skin, etched with a light scattering of freckles. She wasn't embarrassed by his momentary bemusement, staring back at him with eyes a pleasing shade of green-flecked hazel, reflecting a spirit of intelligence and humor. The motion of her hand as she tried to place stubborn curls of red-gold back into the coil at her nape, was one of unconscious practicality rather than vanity.
"Were you going to say something, Spaniard," she asked, a faint smile upon her lips.
He shook his head to clear it of the momentary distraction, shifting uncomfortably in the cot as he his eyes slid back to Maeve, not responding directly to her daughter. "For what?" He was forming a distinct impression that he was about to be manuevored in a way he couldn't quite decipher, and not adequately prepare for.
To his annoyance, she didn't answer his question, but addressed her daughter instead. "Nemhyn, was there news from Rome when you were at the market this morning?"
He heard an odd tone of strained enunciation as Maeve's daughter replied, looking to her mother and avoiding his gaze, "There was gossip at the baker's stall that Commodus' sister has been force into banishment on Capri, and the prefect who conspired to kill Commodus has declared Helvius Pertinax Caeser."
Before he know what he asked, the words were out of his mouth. "What of Senator Gracchus?"
That drew her attention back to him, briefly "There was nothing mentioned of the Senator." So saying, she paid him no more heed, turning back to Maeve, whose eyes were once more pools of ice. "Mother, what of Pertinax. What are we-
With a gesture, Maeve quieted her daughter's concern, letting the full weight of her indecipherable stare fall upon him. "So Spaniard, what do you say to events transpiring in Rome. Have you a care?" There was a chilly mockery behind those words.
"Absolutely none," he answered with a frigidity to his own words and gaze, moving his injured shoulder carefully about, testing the range of its limited motion.
"So, if you feel there is nothing left for you here, would you consider, perhaps, trying your luck abroad."
Never wavering from her look, her offered deliberately, "In Britannia, you mean."
Maeve's gaze didn't lose its chill, but a smile played across her lips, short-lived. "Where better? We were planning on departing today in any case—two women traveling alone could use a male companion to ensure their safety."
With spiteful incredulity, he laughed shortly. "Please, do you really think me so gullible. I haven't an idea who you or your daughter are, but something tells me you're more than the wandering herb-dealers you proclaim."
"Healers," Nemhyn interjected stiffly. The look he gave was not nearly as appraising as his earlier one had been, before turning back to Maeve.
"I've apparently been at death's door this last week, fighting off a fever only last night, and suddenly you expect me to be your protector for the while your on the road?"
"You'll find your injuries much improved today, I think," Maeve pointed out, watching as he sat up fully in the cot to swing his legs over the side. The bindings on his left inhibited movement some, and the vertigo he experienced was passing. But she was right, the pain of his wounds, while still present, did not hinder his breathing to the degree it had last night, though there was a lingering weakness, he suspected, from the fever—an unsteadiness that, as he stood, made him sit back down, promptly.
"That doesn't mean, of course, we're leaving right this minute," the older woman remonstrated, her voice tinged with humor once more, tracking his second attempt to stand with a careful gaze. Her daughter was doing the same—ready to move to his side in case he lost balance. "Or that we even expect you to stand in as our protector. It will take at least a month before you've fully regained your strength, and we'll hold to a slower pace for a time."
"You're rather quick to presume on my cooperation, given that I've not agreed to your offer," he responded flatly, giving her a look of contempt as he walked tentatively around the small hovel. He noted, in passing, his only other covering, besides his bandages, was a basic loincloth, covering him from waste to knee. Modest given the circumstances.
"You refuse us, then?" The older woman's expression was unreadable.
"Until you tell me why you and your daughter are so concerned about Helvious Pertinax taking the throne of Caeser, I'll not be accompanying you anywhere." Spoken with adamant finality.
He heard Nemhyn expulse an exasperated breath, rolling her eyes, saying nothing. She didn't need to, the gesture alone spoke volumes.
Maeve, in contrast, never altered her relaxed posture in the chair, arms still folded in a position of infinite patience. Her expression grew more intent, though, all at once searching and weighing him, digging to the bottom of his soul. He paused in his careful progress around the small hut, coming to lean against the table. She sighed once with a decisive sound. "If you accompany us at least to Genova, I will tell you of myself and my daughter along the way."
He'd moved back over to the wood-framed cot, sitting down without undue difficulty, attentive to his injured side. He may not have had the inclinations of a politician, but he knew when he was being put off trom his main objective. A feeling of frustration welled up again, making him think they would be on the isle by the time he discovered anything relevant. "Now is as good a time as any to say what you need to, " he said.
Maeve's look was one of staid patience. "I can tell you that we aren't simple peasant women traveling at our leizure across the vast expanses of the Empire. Would that satisfy you until we are on the road?"
He'd figured as much already, but he didn't say anything, remaining silent for some minutes, giving each of the women a dour look of resentment. He knew Maeve's words were the closest he would come to an explanation for now. Both women held his gaze steadily, the mother with her fathomless eyes, her daughter at her feet, the red-gold of her hair catching the morning sunlight from outside like newly burnished bronze. Until Nemhyn, with no trace of her mother's unflagging patience, said in a tone of frustration, "For gods' sake, Spaniard, don't be fool. You may be walking today, but you won't have full use of your arm for at least a month. You're as much at the mercy of wandering vagabonds or highway gangs as I or my mother would be if we chose to travel alone. Even an ox has sense enough to let people aid it when it's fallen into a hard way."
She had a point which he wasn't about to admit openly. "Don't think to bully me into this as you did with that sleeping potion last night, " he said threateningly. He noticed Maeve's eyebrows go up, with a questioning look at her daughter. Nemhyn blushed, and bit back the retort which was sure to come to her lips.
Her mother didn't pursue the subject, cutting their discussion short, probably sensing her daughter's words hit with acute persuasion. "The time grows late to depart, Maximus, and I will not press you further. We must get the rest of our supplies readied and loaded."
She moved to the door, pausing before leaving. "Whether you accompany us or no, I'm sure you'll wish to wash up. There is a basin outside with water and softened lye soap. My daughter can give you a fresh tunic and scissors if you also wish to groom yourself."
Nemhyn, who'd stepped past her mother, came back in with a clean garment, cut to the simple pattern of rural folk. In essence, a shorter version of the full-length, colorless wool composing the women's own apparel. He wondered, inconsequentially, what they'd done with his bloodied gladiator garb.
"Thank you," he managed to say. Maeve nodded before turning to leave him with her daughter, who gripped his good arm to balance him as the world swayed somewhat upon his standing.
"Why do you have such little love for Pertinax," he asked, as they stooped under the doorframe.
She ignored him initially, reaching for a stick of knarled wood leaning against the overhang posts. It was t-shaped at one end for support. "Here, use this, it will help you balance better."
"I'm not an invalid," he bit out, taking it from her despite his contrary words, shying form the brightness of the sunlight.
"No more than my mother and I wish you ill," she said with a pointed look. Balanced on the crutch , he did walk with greater ease, following her to a basin placed on an ancient tree-stump serving as a make-shift bench.
He noted his surroundings briefly, taking in the small hut built of mud wattle and tree limbs, and a thatched hay roof. Surrounding it was a gently sloping glade, with groves of ash and elm going up a slight incline, that itself, descended in the other direction into a marshland of reeds and cattails swaying in a light breeze that brought the faint odor of swamp to his nostrils. He could hear Maeve moving about on the other side of the hut, preparing the wagon and tacking the donkey for travel.
Nemhyn's next words broke into his scrutiny of the sylvan setting. "I'm not sure how much affairs of the island reach the mainland here, but the peace of the tribes abroad has been tenuous at best these last few years." She helped place the crutch against the side of the tree-stump, indicating the soap and scissors, placing the fresh tunic away from the basin of water.
He looked at the utensils with a quick glance, listening to what she had to say.
"The governors and legates appointed during Commodus' rule have been largely ineffectual at quelling discontent amongst their own troops. Pertinax, unfortuaneately, was one of those governors who exacted extreme discipline in his own legions, so much so that the infantry cohorts and auxilia under his command mutinied, killing his amici, and mistakenly taking him for dead as well. When Pertinax later discovered who fomented the treason, his vengence on troops, both numeri and auxilia alike, was such that he was forced to resign his position. Commodus offered him the prefecture in Rome as compensation."
Her features were troubled as she explained, "So, the name of Helvius Pertinax being haeralded as the next Caeser will bring little joy to most of the island's citizens—native and Roman alike. That is why I spoke his name with such little exultation."
His resentment forgotten for the moment, he nodded as another though occurred to him. "When legions are discontent under the rule of their provincial leaders and generals, there is less chance they will be able to adequately defend the peace that has existed under more competent officers."
"And that," Nemhyn confirmed, "is what has mother so troubled."
He knew something of serving under the banner of Rome, stationed in the far hinterlands, removed from a city spoken like a mythical god upon the tongues of common soldiers. That the respect and obligation binding troops to their commanders, and the commanders to the imperial house, was often a precarious unity at best. Rome, personified in the caricature of a weak emporer like Commodus, or an obsessively controlling man as Pertinax was reputed to be, introduced a fatal flaw in the chain of loyalities upon which the military opeated, making duty to Rome count for little if there was not a leader to personifty Her.
"What is it your mother has seen for the fate of Rome," he asked Nemhyn.
About to reply, Nemhyn's answer was cut short as they each turned in startlement to the sound of her mother's voice, for Maeve had just joined them at this juncture of their conversation. "Whatever scenes disturbed your sleep last night, Spaniard. That is what I have witnessed in my own visions for Roma Mater and Her people in the years to come." He saw, once more, the dread come across her face, reflected in her eyes and voice, before she buried in beneath her surface calm, saying to Nemhyn, "Come daughter, I need your help with the donkey's harness."
The younger woman nodded, looking to him. "You have everything you require for the moment."
He inclined his head in answer, watching her walk to the otherside of the hut, her mother about to follow, leaving him his privacy to bath. He stopped her on impulse with a rough jerk of her arm, and she turned back to him, expectant interest across her features. "Marcus Aurelius charged me with salvaging what was left of the ideals of Rome. That was also a part of my dream." He didn't want to tell her about the god, but her next words revealed she already knew.
"Not just the emporer, I think. It seems you've garnered the attention of the Shining Ones as well, Spaniard." His eyes flashed at that.
"Don't take it overly serious," she reassured. "You'll find The Wanderer a fickle companion, Maximus. His interest is not in you personally, but of the world in its entirety. The gods draw life from the actions of men, and he is one who has ever thrived on the changing dynamics of Middle Earth. These are uncertain times, and unfolding events capture his curiosity." She added with understanding, "Their presence can be uncomfortable though, no?"
"Whatever my place is in all of this, I already told you I am finished serving Rome," he insisted with a blazing look, the feeling of unnamed events spinning beyond his control, sweeping him up in their wake, making grip her arm tighter.
Maeve gently removed his hand. "That, I suppose, is your choice Spaniard. You are a freeman again, and it is up to your own conscience to do as you will with your life. If you chose to join me and my daughter to chance the shores of Britannia, I will warn you now, this is not the last you will hear of Rome and Her dream."
"Why should you are so much," he snorted derisively.
Her look was one of infinite tolerance as she spoke in tones of subtle intensity. "Rome's peace is something I would think all Her citizens value. Our lives—our very livlihoods—depend on it. As I said Maximus, it is for your own counsel to decide if you will find some way in which to preserve Her ideals, or to let Her crumble slowly, waiting for the dust to settle before you chose to step over the pieces She once was." With that she turned to go help her daughter, leaving him to contemplate her words. The sense of desolation he'd woken to earlier that morning washed over him, thinking of Lucius dead, the seat of Caeser controlled by the will of the Guard, and Rome but a plain of ashes trampled by the barbarian hordes.
An hour later, as the women climbed into the wagon, he approached the side, leaning on his crutch, walking with a noticeable limp, clothed in the fresh tunic, beard trimmed to its usual close shaven length, cleansed in body if not in spirit, smelling of pine scented lye-soap. The bandages and his injured side had hindered him some, but he'd managed sufficiently. The women had even given him a new pair of sandals, purchased by Nemhyn, as his tunic had been, that morning from the near-by market of Ravenna.
The donkey brayed in welcome, alerting the women to his advance, and he reached out to pet its velvety muzzle. It was near noon, and both women were cowled from the sun riding in the azure spring sky of Italy, shreds of feathery clouds overhead. He was loath to verbalize his acquiescence to their offer, and Maeve, perhaps picking up on his feeling, said it for him. "You've decided to accompany us."
He nodded shortly.
Nemhyn handed the reigns to Maeve, jumping down to rummage for something in the back of the wagon. "Climb on, Spaniard," she called back. He looked at her, frowning, when she returned with a hat, its brim broad and low hanging, such as the type shepards wore as they tended their flocks in the day.
Taking it from her, he asked, "Am I supposed to wear this?"
Nemhyn explained hesitantly, looking to Maeve. "You probably won't be recognized by most of the commoners we pass, but-
"But," Maeve filled in for her daughter, "there are always cohorts moving about on the roads we will travel, and while it is unlikely any will know you for who you indeed are, Maximus-
She broke off, letting him finish. "There is definitely more of a chance my face will be identified. I see your point," he said, surprisingly amenable, seating himself next to Maeve. "Are you riding in back," he asked Nemhyn.
Shaking her head, Maeve's daughter answered, "No, I'll walk up by Hercules for a time. He needs more prodding to make him pull the load of a wagon after he's had a week of no work."
For a moment, his sullen expression lifted in poorly disguised bafflement. "Hercules? You've named a donkey Hercules?"
He heard Maeve beginning to chuckle as her daughter explained with an effort to keep her own face straight, "We had to think of something heroic to make up for the fact he's gelded. Otherwise he may not haul our wagon so unfailingly without complaint." She gave him a meaningful look before walking up to take the donkey by its halter. "Persuasion is so much more effective than force, don't you think?"
Maeve twitched the reigns once, and the wagon lurched forward to head up a trail winding through the groves of trees in the clearing, merging with a wider path that led out to a humble spread of houses consisting of thatched roofs and wooden frames.
"You would know," he vociferated loudly enough for her to hear over the wagons creaking wheels. "You're the one who got me take that medicine last night. Was that persuasion or force?"
The words were not said without an indication of wry amusement, and while she didn't not look back at him from her place at the donkey's—Hercules'—side, her could hear her laugh at his comment, light, like the brisk breeze blowing at the whim of the Italian spring.
Against his will, a smile softened the grimness of his own countenance. If not soothing his inner turmoil, it did help to raise his spirits, if only for a moment, as they passed through the village's small square, where women were filling their clay jugs with watar from the well, and the smithy was busy pounding away at newly formed iron trappings for a farmers plow. The inhabitants paid little attention to the small group as they made their way out of the village proximity, for they afforded no more interest than any other peasants on their way to market in Ravenna; one man with a crutch placed over his lap, features concealed by a shepard's hat, the two women, one seated next to him, the other afoot, both with shawls pulled up to shield their skin from the Italian sun and their faces from public view.