Authors: L. M. Roth
Marcus sped on
his way, careful to evade the soldiers that he knew would be patrolling the
borders of Valerium. It was not only the sentinels on the wall he must evade,
but those posted within a five mile radius of its environs. Vigilance was
exercised rigorously to keep invaders out of the land and he knew he must keep
to the woods and away from open spaces as much as possible.
He wondered
what his wayward daughter had done? Had she traveled back to Lycenium after all?
Kyrene had certainly thought otherwise, and why run away from Solone and upset
them all if Lycenium had been her destination from the start?
It did not
make any sense. And where had Felicia gone?
By keeping to
the woods and traveling under cover of darkness as much as possible, Marcus was
within five miles of the city limits of Potentus within three days of entering
Valerium. He decided not to risk entering the city itself, knowing that he
would be recognized. Yet he had to book passage on a ship to return to
Lycenium.
He pondered
this dilemma for several minutes. And then he remembered the tiny port of
Clarus, just ten miles south of Potentus. Ships leaving Potentus called there
to take on the wares of flaxen cloth woven by local merchants as well as the
occasional passenger.
He turned in
the direction of the south and made haste for Clarus.
Marcus felt
that the time spent in Clarus was the longest he had spent anywhere in his
life. It was true that few of his friends in Potentus would visit the tiny port,
but there might be some in Clarus who had visited Potentus on special
occasions, and might recognize him.
He kept the
hood of his cloak close about his head and spoke to no one. He checked the port
register and discovered that a ship would call within three hours, bound for
Lycenium. Dominio be praised! he thought. The sooner he left Valerium the
easier he would breathe.
Marcus boarded
the ship and made straight for the little cabin he had booked. He flung his
parcel down on the floor and looked with longing at the bunk with the primitive
bed. It was not as luxurious as his own bedroom in Lycenium, but after a week
of roaming the woods with only the forest floor to lay his head on it seemed
the answer to all of his needs.
Without even
bothering to unpack and place his garments in the cupboard he plopped down on
the mattress and sank at once into a deep and restful sleep.
When he woke
it was dark; he had slept through the dinner hour and was now famished with
hunger. He wondered whether he should call a hand for some food, and then
decided to venture to the kitchen and ask the cook for a scrap of something to
eat.
With this goal
in mind, he set out in search of the galley. He located it quickly, and an
appetizing aroma made his saliva rise in his throat. How long had it been since
he had eaten a real meal and not just nibbled on what he could obtain in the
woods, or the dried fruit and cheese he had carried from Eirinia?
He opened the
door cautiously and was greeted by a saucy looking young man with dark hair and
eyes who sat at a table chopping vegetables with a large knife. The young man
glanced up from his work and gave Marcus an impudent grin that revealed a gap
in his front teeth where one was missing. He nodded and bade Marcus to enter.
“Come in, come
in!” he said. “It’s not many who visit the galley and I am glad for the
company. Have a seat!”
Marcus took it
gladly and after exchanging greetings introduced himself and explained that he
had slept through dinner, and was there by any chance some food still to be
had?
“Aye, sure,”
the young man smiled. “Always have something left over; but then I make plenty
so no one starves. Not in my kitchen they don’t! For I was one of eight
young’un’s and I know what it is to be hungry, that I do.”
He promptly
filled a wooden trencher with stew and gravy and produced some dark bread and
shoved it across the table to Marcus. Marcus devoured it, and then remembered
his manners. He shuddered to think what his wife’s reaction would have been had
she been here to see him!
“Thank you,
thank you very much,” he addressed the young man. “You certainly make a hearty
stew. I feel strengthened by it already.”
“Always happy
to do a service, that I am,” the young cook answered. “And you, sir, are rather
different from most of the passengers that ship here from Valerium. You are a
human being, I’ll say that for you, and not like the aristocrats that make
demands on me all day long.”
Marcus bit his
tongue on the words that sprang to his lips. For was he not an aristocrat
himself? Better not to tell the young man that bit of information. While he was
in the environs of Valerium he should draw no attention to himself.
But the young
man was speaking, and Marcus’ ears suddenly perked up.
“Ah, not like
the man we just left in Potentus,” he said sagely, with a wag of his shaggy
dark head. “So important he was, and bound to never let me forget it. Get me
this, get me that, all day it was. And then turned up his nose he did at
everything I made.”
And the young
man exhaled a long sigh at the remembrance of the inconsideration of his late
passenger.
“I am sorry to
hear that,” Marcus soothed. “I am sure you work hard all day and it must be
trying to have a difficult passenger who requires more of your services.”
“Aye, that it
is! Not all of the aristocrats are like that one, but he was a real trial, he
was. I asked someone who he was after he deigned to enter the galley one
evening to reprimand me about the quality of my cooking, and I was told that in
his case nothing I did would ever satisfy him, him being that sort of person,
you know.”
Marcus
chuckled in appreciation and shook his head as if in a shared bewilderment at
the incomprehensible behavior of his fellow man.
“Who was he,”
he asked idly, not really caring but wishing to make conversation with the
friendly young man to show appreciation for his services.
“Well, that
was the real surprise,” the young man exclaimed. “I was told his name was
Decimus Hadrianus, and his father used to be the Governor of Lycenium, but this
Decimus is considered a real nobody. But he sure acted like he was somebody!”
Marcus’ body
jerked as his feet flew up from the floor in his surprise. Why would Decimus be
in Valerium? His roots had always been Lycenium, with no family in Valerium
that Marcus knew of. For what possible reason could he be in Valerium?
Marcus at last
arrived in Lycenium weary of body and anxious of heart. Something was gnawing
at him, but he could not place his finger on what it was. It eluded him as the
morning mist evaded one’s fingers; if you tried to grasp it you were met with
nothing but air.
When he
entered the atrium he called for Otho, whose face creased into a radiant smile
at the sight of Marcus. He hurried to take his cloak and bag, and then clapped
for a maidservant to bring cold water for refreshment. Marcus drank it
thirstily in a single swallow, so hot was the June day.
After he had
refreshed himself, he asked Otho to summon Tullia. To his astonishment the
butler paled and hesitated before replying. He cleared his throat and glanced
anxiously at his master, but before he could reply he was interrupted by the
sound of light steps scampering down the staircase and bursting into the
atrium.
“Father!”
Felicia exclaimed, and thrusting ceremony aside, leaped up into Marcus’ arms as
though she were a small child again.
He was nearly
knocked off of his feet, but overcome with laughter, he picked her up and swung
her around in a circle before setting her down on her feet. How he loved this
daughter!
Then he remembered
her recent escapade that had so alarmed the family and Kyrene, and pulled a
sober face down over his grin with the effect of a shade blotting out the light
of day when evening comes. Felicia saw the expression and braced herself for
her father’s rebuke.
“Well, young
lady,” Marcus began, “what do you have to say for yourself? You alarmed your
mother and me and upset your Aunt Kyrene who so graciously accepted you as a
pupil and whose hospitality you abused. I want an explanation, if you please.”
Felicia
shuffled her feet on the floor and looked to them for inspiration. None came.
Then she sighed deeply and raised her head to face her father.
“I was afraid,
Father,” she murmured in a low voice. “And I was angry with Mother, yes, I was!
For she promised me a year in Solone and then broke that promise. So I decided
to take matters into my own hands and left before she could come to fetch me
like some cloak she had left behind to be collected at her convenience.”
Felicia thrust
her chin up defiantly at these last words, and Marcus smarted at the utterance
of them.
“For shame,
young lady!” he reprimanded in the sternest voice he possessed. “Your mother
gave in to your wishes against her own inclination and, indeed, her own
training and background, and you abused that privilege. You also caused a great
deal of anxiety for Kyrene, who blamed herself for your running away. Do you
have any idea of the turmoil you have caused everyone, Felicia?”
Felicia turned
away, but Marcus took her by the shoulders and forced her to turn around and
face him. He loved his daughter, but her disobedience must be punished. Felicia
tightened her lips and looked him in the eye with an anger that matched his
own.
“Yes, Father,
I do,” she huffed, her face reddening with the effort to keep her anger in
check. “I have already been scolded like a child, and that is why I came home
instead of continuing to my destination.”
She folded her
arms in front of her in the gesture that Tullia hated, and Marcus did what she
would have done had she been there: he removed them and forced her arms down to
her side. Felicia pursed her lips and exhaled noisily, flinging her head back
in a movement that set her curls dancing. Marcus merely tightened the grip on
her arms and she cried out in pain.
“No defiance,
Felicia. You are a young lady now; try to act like it instead of a spoiled
child.”
He released
her arms abruptly and she rubbed them with tears filling her eyes. Never in her
life had her father physically punished her, and the experience was one she was
not likely to forget. Marcus kept his eyes glued to her face, alert for any
further demonstrations of rebellion. Seeing her vanquished spirit, he
continued.
“Your mother
and I guessed that your destination was Eirinia. Is that correct?”
Felicia nodded
and hung her head.
“And why did
you not continue?” Marcus asked, a puzzled frown creasing his brow. “For one so
bent on getting her own way you certainly gave up easily enough.”
Felicia made a
small gasp of protest, and put a hand on her father’s arm in a beseeching
gesture that never failed to move him. He thought that today might the first
occasion when it did.
“I came home,
Father,” she shrieked in a small indignant voice, “because I met an old friend
of yours on the voyage who made me see how wrong I was to run away, and that I
owed it to you and mother to return home. And so I did.”
Tears filled
her eyes once more, and she forgot that she was now a dignified young lady and
wiped her nose on the sleeve of her robe. Marcus found himself responding in
amusement, so typical was the gesture of his daughter, but he quenched the
chuckle that rose to his lips, knowing it was sure to give offense. He extended
an olive branch by putting an arm around her instead. She snuggled up
gratefully with the confiding air of a small child, and kissed her father’s
fingers, now curled around her shoulder.
She smiled up
at Marcus, and he could not resist smiling back. He kissed her brow and
embraced her warmly. This only served to be her undoing as she dissolved into
tears that racked her body and tore at her throat.
“Hush! There,
there, be quiet now,” he soothed.
“Oh, Father, I
am
so sorry!” she whimpered into his chest. “And I did come home instead
of going on to Eirinia. I did not mean to cause grief, truly I didn’t!”
“I forgive
you, Felicia,” Marcus whispered as he dropped a tender kiss on the head bowed
against his chest. “All is well, my little darling; all is well.”
Felicia heaved
a sigh that quieted her sobs and she went limp, her head leaning against her
father’s breast. For a few minutes neither spoke; then Marcus recalled her
words.
“You said you
met an old friend of mine on the voyage? Who was that, Felicia?”
Felicia now
wriggled out of his arms and turned a tear-stained face up to his. A smile of
excitement lit her face as she related the encounter.
“It was Bimo!
I met him at one of the ship’s stops and befriended his daughter. He recognized
the name Maximus and asked if I was your daughter. Then when I told him I had
run away, he made me see the wrong I had done, and that I owed it to you and
mother to return as you would be very worried about me. He said he traveled
with you long ago.”
Marcus’ face
suddenly appeared to his daughter as if the years had dropped away, and he
seemed but a youth. His eyes lit with a soft glow, and a smile caressed his
face as memory struck him. He turned to her and nodded.
“Yes, Bimo. I
remember Bimo!” he laughed. “Oh, what a good friend he was to me, to all of my
companions. I have wondered what became of him. Tell me, for I long to know.”
And Felicia
recounted all that Bimo had told her of his history, and her father hung
eagerly on her words. She listened with a thrill to how Bimo had saved Marcus
and his friends so many years ago from the wrath of the Flame Throwers, and how
he had proved such a great help to Dag in the early years of the Eirinia
colony.
“Ah, well, he
was always like a bird that could not be caged,” Marcus remarked. “But it
sounds by your account that he is happy at last, and I am glad to hear it.”
He stood for a
moment, lost in memories of the past, and his adventures in the days of the
Empress Aurora. Then he returned to the present with a start and suddenly
looked around the atrium.
“Where is your
mother?” he asked abruptly. “She should be here this time of day. Yet, I have
not heard her since I entered the villa.”
He did not
inquire after his mother-in-law, Felicia noted. But then, no one really wished
to converse with her willingly in the first place.
“I do not know
where Mother is,” she answered. “Otho told me when I returned that she and
Lucius left on an urgent errand, but did not say what it was. Even my
grandmother does not know, and was very worried at their sudden departure.”
“Did she leave
a message for me?” he asked his daughter.
Felicia shook
her head.
“No. She did
not leave a message for anyone.”
Marcus stared
at his daughter with unseeing eyes. It was not to search for Felicia that
Tullia left, for she knew that Marcus would look for her in Eirinia. And why
did Lucius leave with her?
What could
possibly have been so urgent that Tullia left everything behind, and with no
message for her husband?