The Skystone

XVI

The villa that Quintus Varo called home was enormous, far bigger than anything I had ever seen around Colchester. In fact, when I first saw it from the top of a small hill as we approached from the east, I almost took it for a small, walled village. I was to discover in a very short time, however, that the Villa Varo was, in all honesty, a modest establishment for this part of the country.

Later, when I had had time to gain some kind of understanding of the values that applied in this region, I realized that the villa suited its owner. Quintus Varo was an honest, open man of simple tastes and unsophisticated ideas. He was a fanner who had been a soldier for a time, and the fact that he was a noble and titled citizen of Rome was a matter that bothered him but little and only very occasionally, when self-important visitors demanded to be entertained and courted. His villa was a family place, dedicated to cultivating the land and raising children in a loving atmosphere. It was a compliment to me that he did not treat me as a mere visitor, but chose instead to honour me by accepting me as a fellow soldier and an honest, unpretentious guest in his home. We had ridden south and east from Aquae Sulis on a misty, beautiful morning that soothed the ravages of the previous evening's drinking. By the time the sun had risen high enough to burn away the mists, I was feeling euphoric. Accompanied by the singing of a hundred different kinds of birds, we made excellent time on the arrow-straight road and penetrated deeper by the mile into the lushest farmland I had ever seen. The healthy fullness of fast-ripening crops of barley and oats was evident everywhere, and besides these I saw other crops that were totally alien to my eyes. Fat, healthy-looking oxen browsed knee-deep in rich grazing, and huge haystacks baked and browned in the warm, autumn sunlight. Throughout the entire day, Quintus Varo was never silent, and not once did I wish he would be. He talked endlessly and fascinatingly of the countryside, his family, his estates, his crops and his brother-in-law. And when he was not talking, he sang in a deep, strong, pleasant voice. We left the paved road eventually, around mid afternoon, and struck out across the fields along a rutted wagon track that eventually led us to the summit of the green hill from which I saw Varo's villa for the first time.

As I have said, it was enormous, and it was laid out as a great rectangle of connected buildings, with the villa proper set in an L-shape in the north-west corner and smaller buildings — lesser dwellings, workshops, storage buildings and cattle sheds — stretching out from each wing of the house to the southern and eastern corners and turning at right angles to meet in the south-east. The central stockyard must have measured three hundred paces diagonally, corner to corner, and there was only one entrance to the massive enclosure thus formed, as far as I could see. At first glance, it seemed to me that all of the buildings were made of stone and thatched with straw, although I later discovered that the walls were of mud and timber, thickly coated with some kind of dried plaster and artfully finished to look like stone. The central area, much like a forum, was filled with animals and people.

At my soft whistle of amazement, Varo threw me a questioning look, to which I felt obliged to respond.

"It's massive, Quintus. Much bigger than I expected. It's very..., " I groped for a word, "... fine!"

He grunted, half laugh, half scoff. "It's a farm, Varrus, just a farm. Wait till you see Cay's place. That's fine! My wife and I have neither his wealth nor his taste. But it's home, and it's as near impregnable as I can make it."

"Impregnable?" The word surprised me. "Why does it need to be impregnable? Surely you can't be afraid of attack. Not here. "

He reined in and I brought my horse to a stop beside him. Together we sat for a space, staring at the scene below us. He pointed at a thick column of smoke rising away to our right, its source out of sight to the north-east.

"Clearing more land over there. Not because we need the arable space, either. The woodland is just too damn close to the buildings. " He sniffed loudly, hawked up some phlegm and spat it out. "Not worried about an attack today. Nor tomorrow, either. But if you believe at all in what Cay says, then it's best to be prepared against some future tomorrow. I'd rather be laughed at and ready for anything than be caught unprepared. Anyway, it's land that we'll be able to use. Can always find a use for good farmland. "

Having delivered himself of that, he kicked his horse to a canter and I followed him down into the valley, where we turned onto a wide, deeply rutted track that led to the main entrance to the villa. On the way we passed several wagons, some two-wheeled and some four-wheeled, all drawn by teams of oxen. All of the drivers and all of the pedestrians we met greeted Quintus Varo courteously and cheerfully, and I noticed that they all addressed him as Domine or Master. He knew each of them by name and spoke to all of them in a tone that made me aware, although I had never doubted it, that the Villa Varo was a friendly, happy and well-run place.

Our arrival and my unexpected visit threw the entire Varo household into a turmoil, but in the upheaval I had unwittingly created I had time to admire Varo's wife Veronica and the control she had over both her large family and her staff of servants. A seemingly vast brood of children, ranging in age from a boy of about fifteen to a tiny, toddling sweetmeat of some eighteen months, were made known to me individually and then bustled away out of sight. Veronica lost no time in instructing her kitchen and household staff to prepare a welcoming meal and to ready the guest quarters for me. That done, she turned her attention to my immediate comfort and needs, which I tried without success to assure her was unnecessary.

Veronica was not a beautiful woman, but she was clear-skinned, healthy and attractive, and the evidence of abundant fertility and frequent childbearing was there in her matronly body. She was still young in face and in mind, and she had a sweet and cheerful disposition that made me feel comfortable and welcome immediately. Like her husband, she was fully aware of who I was and of much that I had done, including the story of my first meeting with her brother-in-law in Africa and our campaigns together thereafter. I found her attentions both flattering and gratifying, even though I was a bit flustered, being unused to having a maternal, organizing female force focused upon me personally.

Varo and I enjoyed a long and delightful session in his opulent bath house under the care and attention of a magnificent masseur named Nemo, who steamed and oiled and pummelled the hundreds of miles of road dust out of my pores and my muscles. When we emerged, a servant was waiting to tell us that dinner would be served in an hour, and Varo clapped me on the shoulder.

"That gives us time to appreciate some excellent wine ... an exploratory sip or two. I don't suppose you'd have any objections to that?" I grinned and bowed to him, "'None worth mentioning, " I said, "and I speak as a new man — clean, pampered and perfumed. A draught of good wine would be the final touch. "

He laughed and led me through two massive, magnificent doors of polished oak into the triclinium, the formal dining room of the villa, where two stone jugs of wine from Gaul — the one a deep, purple red from the south and the other a pale, golden yellow nectar from the central lands —

awaited our attention. The red had been slightly cooled and the yellow deeply chilled. I chose the latter and it was wondrous — smooth and very slightly sweet. Veronica joined us within minutes and drank some wine with us, sharing our enjoyment of the late afternoon sunlight. The household servants were evidently working smoothly, since there was neither sound nor sight of the children.

The declining sun threw long beams of golden light from the open shutters across the spacious room to spill in rectangles on the polished wooden floor and the solid, comfortable-looking furnishings, and I was conscious of a deep-seated feeling of well-being. I saw, without thinking about it, that four places had been set at the large, high table, and as I accepted a second cup of the delightful wine from Veronica, I ran my hands absently but admiringly over the carved, lustrous surface of one of the high-backed, cushioned chairs that flanked the table. Quintus noticed my gesture and smiled. "You like those?" There was no mistaking the inflection of pride in his voice.

I nodded in response, looking more closely at the carving of the chair's frame. "Yes, " I said. "They're magnificent. The man who carved these was a genius. "

Veronica's laugh was like the sound of a harp. "No, " she cried, "the man who carved those is a man of his time, who could never have endured lying supine to eat his meals as people did in the old days. He is a man who likes to sit up when he eats, believing it aids digestion when he keeps his back straight and his head erect. And you have made a lifelong friend of him with that remark. My husband made those and carved them himself. "

I was astonished and made no attempt to hide it. "Really? You made these, Quintus?"

He nodded, his grin widening. "I did. I love working with wood. It's my favourite way of passing time. Most of my friends think I'm strange. " I toasted him with my upraised cup. "Here's one who doesn't. I know exactly what you mean, because my mind works the same way. My passion's for metal. Mainly iron, but over the past few years I've started to work with silver, too. It demands a whole different set of skills, but it rewards one's efforts in a way iron seldom does. Silver has a beauty that is unique. "

We spent the next several minutes discussing craftsmanship. I learned that Quintus had literally made the entire room, from floors to doors, with his own hands. The doors were spectacular, each made from two massive, tongued and grooved planks of solid oak. On this side, facing into the room, they had been meticulously carved into panels, six to a door, depicting the labours of Hercules. The other side was plain, polished oak, ornamented only by handles. I had no need to pretend to be awed by the workmanship here as I pushed the doors open and closed, delighting in the ease with which the mighty weight of them was hinged. I declined a third cup of wine before dinner and excused myself in order to go to my room and change. It had been a long time since I had met anyone with whom I felt so much at ease as these two, and I found myself whistling as I changed into my best clothes. I checked my chin for stubble, ran my fingertips through my short-cropped hair to make sure that it was dry and behaving as it should, and then, still whistling under my breath, made my way back directly to rejoin my host and hostess.

I had barely begun to make my way down the stairway from the bedchambers on the second floor when I became aware of what I can only describe now as a blueness. There are moments in everyone's life, usually spontaneous, seldom planned, that are seminal. In a brief flash of time, events occur that change the status quo, immediately and drastically, forever. One of those moments had overtaken me and overwhelmed me before I had time even to realize that anything untoward was happening. I have tried for years to remember the exact sequence of events, actions and reactions that happened to me in the few moments that followed there on that stairway, but! have never been able to reconstruct my own thoughts clearly, or my reactions to what I thought I saw, I remember sensing a blueness; it seemed to me that the entire wall below me and ahead of me had taken on a bluish tinge, almost as though a blue light were flickering nearby. I believe I had even turned my head slightly, looking for the source of the effect, before I became aware of the woman who was walking along the hallway below. Her back was towards me and she was within three or four steps of the open doors to the triclinium. I had an instantaneous and overpowering impression of eerie, almost frightening familiarity. I saw long, straight black hair, a tall, graceful form in a blue robe and a gliding style of walk that seemed to owe nothing to feet or legs.

I heard a roaring sound in my head, and I know I clutched at the handrail of the stairs for support as her name resounded first in my mind and then in the stillness of the hallway.

'"Cassie?"

She stopped immediately, tilting her head forward slightly, as though listening, before turning back to face me, looking up to where I stood transfixed at the top of the stairs.

"Cassie?" I said again, my voice emerging this time as a croak. She did not speak, made no move. With a conscious effort of will, I began to move down the stairs towards her.

I remember thinking she looked far younger than she ought to, and not at all matronly. And then, as I approached her, I realized that she was not. Cassie. She was a complete stranger with only a slight resemblance to the girl I had known so many years before. She had the same black hair and large blue eyes, and she wore the same colour that Cassie had worn. But this woman was not Cassie. I stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked at her, and I knew that Cassie had always stayed a young girl in my mind and in my heart. This entrancing creature who faced me in silence was a woman in every sense of the word, and her beauty brought my heart up into my throat. I shook my head, whether to dismiss the last, lingering thoughts of poor Cassie or to begin an apology for having mistaken her, I do not know, but as I did so she began to walk towards me. As she moved, I was aware again of multiple, simultaneous impressions of height, dignity, effortless motion, breath-taking beauty and blueness. I saw her as a vision, tall and slim, self-possessed and lovely. She walked with her head high and erect, her back held straight so that the fullness and thrust of her breasts were apparent even beneath the dark blue stola she wore over the long, paler-blue draperies of her gown. Her clothes brought out the brilliant blue of her eyes, even in the shadowed gloom of the passageway, so that they seemed to blaze at me above the swellings of wide, high cheekbones. Long, dark hair, innocent of curl or artificial trickery, fell in straight cascades to frame her face and then swept back over her shoulders to hang behind her.

I had no idea who she was, but I knew that she was the woman I wanted above all others. My thoughts raced so that by the time she had moved two paces closer to me I had decided that she must be one of Veronica's personal servants, although I had never seen or heard of a serving woman so beautiful. It didn't matter, anyway. Mistress or servant, she was magnificent. Her beauty, mobility and dignity deserved my homage. I clenched my hand involuntarily over my breast in a military salute and bowed to her, moving backwards and away from her, my eyes cast down as she approached me. I saw the tips of her sandalled feet come up and then stop directly in front of me. In an agonized silence that seemed to stretch forever, I decided that I had to straighten up and look her in the eyes.

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. "

"Cassiopeiia.... It's a beautiful name. "

"No more than Luceiia. That is a beautiful name. " She looked up and smiled. "Say it again. "

"Luceiia. "

She was grinning now. "That's much better. Twice better. Now I feel as if we have been properly introduced. " I found myself grinning back at her.

"You are a fascinating man, Publius Varrus, " she continued. "I feel as if I have known you all my life, and now that we have really met, the feeling has not changed. The only thing I did not know was what you really look like. "

"And?"

"And what?"

" Do I look anything like the person you had imagined? " She smiled, and there was a teasing mischief there. "Well, now. How should I answer that?" I waited. "I could tell you that I had imagined you to be so handsome that the reality was bound to fall short of my expectations.... "

I was not used to playing games of words with women, and my face must have shown some of the insecurity I was feeling, because suddenly the mockery was gone from her smile and her expression was one of total sincerity as she continued.

"Caius talked incessantly of you. It was 'Varrus this' and 'Varrus that'

and 'Varrus would have... ' from morning to night, and my brother talks that way of no one else. It is not his way. Naturally, being curious about this paragon of military virtue and solid, straight-thinking values, I used to ask him things about you that might give me some idea of what you looked like. The picture I finally formed of you was almost perfect. I knew that you were tall, broad-shouldered and immensely strong in the arms and body. I knew that your hair was dark brown and cut short in the army style, and that you wore a short beard and moustache. I knew that there was enough grey in your beard and on your head to give you a silvery look from a distance. I knew that you had all of your teeth and that you laughed easily and often. And I knew that you had received a terrible wound in my brother's service that left you crippled, or at least with a permanent limp."

I felt a head-splitting rush of mortification at her casual reference to my crippled state, and then it was replaced by a growing wonder that she was not embarrassed in any way to mention it. She did not even find it worthy of further comment. She accepted it as being part of me and kept right on talking.

"The only thing I did not know, could not know, was the balance of your features, the shape of them, the expressions you would have. So your face was always a blank to me. Until today. Until now. "

I got up and placed another log on the dwindling fire, not wishing to lose the sight of her face to the gathering darkness that was crowding in on the dying flames. I had not felt so foolishly juvenile since I had stopped being foolishly juvenile, and I did not want her to stop talking. Her voice was low and pleasantly husky in a way that I had never heard before in a woman. A fountain of sparks jetted up from the fire-pit and I felt several burning pinpricks on my hand. I sat down again across from her, waiting for her to resume speaking, but she was waiting for me. I wanted very badly to ask her if she was pleased with the filled-in blanks, but I would have sat there all night before the courage came to me to voice the words. She laughed that lovely laugh again. "And now you sit there wondering if I like what I see, but too unsure of yourself to ask me. Am I correct?" She raised one eyebrow exactly the way her brother would have done, and I had to smile and nod my head. "Well, sir, you may wonder and wonder. There are some things a Roman lady does not do, and one of them is to flatter strange men. "

I had to chew on that one for a few seconds before I was able to see that it was a compliment.

"There now!" she said. "Having dealt with you, I think we should talk about me next. Don't you think that would be a delightful topic?" I had to laugh, feeling better and more relaxed by the minute with this marvellous woman. "Completely, " I said. "What do you think I should know about you, since I have not had the benefit of your brother's constant descriptions to prepare me for you?"

Her eyebrows went up. "You mean Caius failed to warn you of my beauty? My wit? My brilliance?"

"I was aware of nothing more than your name. " I grinned, now feeling almost miraculously at ease. She pretended to be upset, pouting her full lower lip slightly and frowning. "But I'm grateful to him, " I went on.

"Had I known the truth, I would never have been able to endure waiting to meet you. He did, however, tell me that you are his favourite sister. "

"Well, at least that's something, I suppose. Never mind that I am his only sister. "

"Seriously, " I said, smiling in sheer pleasure. "What should I know about you?"

"I wonder, " she said, and paused, frowning in mock concentration.

"What should you know about me?" She pursed her lips, giving me lots of time to admire the contours and the softness of them. "First of all, you should know that I am really delighted that you are here. I really have wanted to meet you for years. I think, too, you should know that I am regarded as something of an oddity because I refuse to behave like a woman, in that I am unwilling to do nothing except have babies. I have a mind, and I enjoy learning. I can hardly wait to have you tell me about your skystone. " She paused, thinking her next words over, and then went on. "You should also know that I am extremely unlucky when it comes to husbands. I have lost two so far, which explains why I am here, a twenty-five-year-old widow in the home of my brother, when I should be happy in a home of my own rearing large numbers of small Britannici. " Startled by this information, I stood up, then moved to sit on the bench by her side. "Two?"

She nodded. "Two."

"But how?"

"I don't know. Carelessness? No, forgive me. That was flippant. Perhaps I was guilty of hubris, punishable pride. I do not know. "

"Two! I knew of one. "

"How? Did Quintus tell you? Silly question, of course he did. Veronica is Julius's sister. " She was quiet for a few seconds, staring into the fire. Her stola had started to slip from her shoulders and I reached out and pulled it closer around her, marvelling at my sudden bravery. She was very close. I wanted to draw her closer. A tiny smile touched her face in acknowledgement of my attempt to preserve her from the cold.

"I hardly knew my first husband. He was a boy of seventeen when he was killed by a wild boar during a hunting party. I was fifteen at the time. It seems like centuries ago, and I remember him as I would a beloved brother. His family and mine had been close for generations, although we lived here in Britain and they had moved to Constantinople with the imperial court. We were married less than three months. " I said nothing, knowing she was not finished. "And then there was Julius, Veronica's brother. A very fine, upstanding man. Again, my father arranged the match. We lived quite happily together for one year, discovering ourselves, and then unhappily for three years, having discovered each other too well. He died four years ago and I mourned him only slightly, although he was far from being a wicked man. But I love his sister more than I ever loved Julius. " She glanced up at me, a look of inquiry on her face. "Do you find it shocking that I should say these things to you?"

I shook my head in a negative and she went on.

"I feel very strongly about things like that, and I suppose that is unfitting for a Roman woman. But I have done my duty as a faithful daughter. My father is dead now, and from now on, I arrange my own life. I am no longer a little girl. I am a woman, and a wealthy one. A wealthy young woman! Twenty-five is not so old, and I flatter myself that I could still attract a husband of my own choice, if the idea appealed to me. " She paused. "I really have shocked you, haven't I?" She had, but I shook my head again in a lie.

She chose to believe me. "Good, " she said, approvingly. "I had an aunt, Aunt Liga. A remarkable woman. She was firmly convinced that men rule in this world simply by default, because women are content not to challenge their supremacy. She went into commerce. She bought real estate and amassed a fortune. She was quite scandalous in her youth, even in Rome, which was a scandal in itself, but by the time she died she had achieved a kind of respectability through sheer notoriety and ridiculous wealth. She left all of it, her money and her lands and buildings, to me. " She stopped, looking me straight in the eye again over the two feet or so that separated us.

"I am a very wealthy woman, Publius. I own a very large amount of the city of Rome itself, and a fair-sized portion of Constantinople, in the form of land and buildings. " She paused again and looked at me seriously before going on. "I love my brother dearly, but now that I have my own wealth, I find I also have the courage to indulge myself in my own ideas. I suppose what I really mean is I have come to agree with my Aunt Liga's ideas about life and the way one lives it. When I marry again, I shall choose my husband, much as it may distress Caius. I will not be treated like disposable property simply because I happen to have been born in a female body. I have a good mind. I read, I write, I think, and I conduct my own enterprises through my own lawyers. "

By this time I was truly confused about her motives in telling me all of this. "Have you said any of this to Caius?" In her company, strangely enough, I could no longer think of him as "the General. "

"No. I haven't had the opportunity. " She laughed. "I'm practising on you. Caius can be formidable when his sensibilities are outraged. He's so traditional. I know he disapproved of Aunt Liga very strongly. He will have an apoplectic fit when he finds out she has left all of her ill-acquired fortune to me. She died just a year after he left for Africa, and it was about a year after that I found out she had named me as her heir. Since then, I have been learning to run my affairs with the help of my lawyers — two here and five in Rome. I have been to Rome and met all of them, and I have spent much time since then studying my circumstances. I know they are all robbing me outrageously, but one of these fine days I shall deal with that. They're all going to get a nasty surprise. In the meantime, I have not had a chance to tell Caius anything about it. "

She looked away again, back into the heart of the fire, and again a silence fell. This time, however, there was no discomfort, for we were both thinking about what she had told me. A pocket of resin in one of the logs snapped loudly and the entire body of the fire settled inward; a million fireflies seemed to swarm on the burning logs signalling that they were starting to change from fuel to embers. I was wondering idly whether to add some more fuel when she decided for me.

"Put some more wood on and tell me about your skystone. " This time it was easy to smile at her. "What would you like to know about it?"

"Everything. It fascinates me. Before he left for Africa, Caius told me about the sword of Theodosius, about how it was made originally by your grandfather for your father from the metal of a stone he believed to have fallen from the heavens. Now I would like to hear the story from you. You believe the stone did fall from the sky, do you not?" I stood upright. "Yes, I do, " I said, "but the sword of Theodosius is nothing. Look at this. " I reached behind my back and unsheathed the dagger from where it nestled in its familiar place at the base of my spine.

"Be careful, " I said as I handed it to her. "It is far sharper than any other blade you have ever known. "

When I had finished adding more logs to the fire, I turned back to find her engrossed in looking at the blade.

"What makes the blade so silvery?" She held up the knife so that its blade reflected the flames of the fire.

I sat beside her and held out my hand and she reversed the dagger, slapping its heavy hilt into my open palm. Extending my arm towards the fire, I could plainly see the tiny print of her thumb on the shining blade. I moved the point from side to side, watching the reflection of the light as it ran up and down the blade.

"I don't know, Luceiia, but I think there's another metal in there besides iron. "

"Mmm, Caius told me. But tell me about iron. He also told me you said it was a new study."

"That's correct, " I said, my surprise showing in my voice. "But I said it is comparatively new. Why would you want to know about iron?"

"I told you, I have a mind. I want to know all I can about everything that interests me, and I know nothing about iron. Not a thing. "

"Very well, " I said, "I accept that. Where would you like me to begin?"

"At the beginning. But please talk to me as you would to Caius. Try not to think of me as a woman. "

I resisted the temptation to look at her breasts or at the way the material of her gown clung to the sweep of her thigh. I tried desperately not to see her hair or the arc of her cheekbone. I fought to ignore the fullness of her lips. I attempted, deliberately and positively, to ignore everything about her that was unignorable and to consider what I would have said to a man in response to the same request.

"Well, " I mumbled, "let me think about it for a minute. I've tried to explain this before — to Caius — and it isn't easy. I don't want to confuse you, and I don't want to bore you. " I collected my thoughts into an approximation of logical sequence. "For a start, I don't know much more than you do about the subject... nobody does. You know the story of the skystone, but do you know that my grandfather almost gave up on trying to melt it down?"

She nodded. "I do. It seemed strange to me at the time that anyone should try to melt a stone, but I didn't want to parade my total ignorance to Caius, so I let it pass. What about it?"

"Well, " I went on, "almost all metal comes originally from stone, but not all stone contains metal. The stones that do contain it are called ore-bearing stones, the ore being, if you like, the raw metal. "

"You mean raw, as in uncooked?"

I nodded. "Exactly. Iron ore is red. Have you ever seen hillsides in your travels that looked as though they were rust-stained?" She dipped her head in acknowledgement.

"Well, that's exactly what they were. The rock that produces that red-stained effect is iron ore. We take that stone and we crush it and wash it thoroughly, and then we dry it over heat. The washing gets rid of the ordinary soil and other soluble material. What's left we burn at great heat in a tall kiln, or oven furnace, for a long time. In the course of the burning, or smelting as we call it, the metal melts from the ore and drips down into a crucible in the bottom of the kiln. We finish up, when the kiln has cooled, with what is essentially a lump of pure iron mixed with slag, the residue from the furnace. Then we go to work with our hammers, and by simply beating this mass— which is like a big, dirty sponge — we hammer out as much of the slag as we possibly can. It just falls out. and we are left at the end of the process with a lump of iron. We call it wrought iron, because it has literally been wrought out of stone by the sweat of our bodies and the pounding of our hammers. You follow me so far?" She nodded again, wide-eyed and obviously interested.

"Good. Now, here's where it gets complicated. This wrought iron is solid iron, and good for all kinds of purposes. It's easy to shape and it's easy to work with. But it's too soft to hold an edge. A mediocre hammered bronze edge is much keener and longer lasting than a wrought-iron edge. Of course, iron is almost impossible to work with when it is cold. You have to heat it to a red-hot state to be able to shape it. " She nodded, acknowledging this well-known fact.

"Right, " I continued. "Next step. Somebody, somehow, long ago. nobody knows when, made a momentous discovery. Everyone who worked with iron had known for centuries that to keep an edge on an iron blade you had to hammer the edge and then allow it to cool slowly. If you cooled it too quickly, the edge wouldn't hold. But somebody, one day, must have decided to re-edge a blade, and by accident must have left the blade in a charcoal fire for longer than was necessary at the time. He might even have hammered the edge into the blade and then reheated it. When he realized what he had done, he may have thought he had wasted his work, and then plunged the blade into water to cool it quickly, so that he could start all over again. Nobody knows how the discovery occurred. It was an accident. But the fact remains that iron, reheated in a charcoal fire and then plunged into water to cool quickly, takes on an edge that is unbelievably hard, whereas the same iron, heated without the charcoal and then plunged into the same water, will not hold its edge. "

"That sounds impossible. "

"I know it does. But it's true. "

"Is there some kind of magic in the charcoal?"

"There must be. " I shook my head, as I had done so many times over the same puzzle. "It must be magic, of some kind. But I don't believe in magic. And I refuse to believe that, with all the things in the world that are supposed to be magic but are not, there is only one thing, charred wood, that is not supposed to be magic and is. No, Luceiia, it isn't magic. It's just something that we don't understand yet. "

She smiled at me, a marvel-laden smile of warmth and admiration, and I almost stretched in the joy of it like a cat.

"No wonder, Publius Varrus, that you spend all your time over a furnace! That is absolutely fascinating. It can't be the water that softens the edge, so it has to be the charcoal. "

"No, quite the opposite. It's the lack of charcoal that makes iron soft. "

"Yes, the lack of it... that's what I meant. So the charcoal holds the secret of the hard edge. And nobody knows why. That is fascinating. "

"Isn't it?" I hurried on, revelling in her approval. "Of course, you understand that nobody caught on to this quickly. The hardening was a hit-or-miss process for ages. But gradually, a method for making hardened iron came into general use, and as smiths learned how to increase the heat of their fires, the quality of the iron increased from black to the pale grey colour of our iron of today. "

"Wait a minute. What do you mean, they increased the heat of their fires? What can be hotter than fire?"

"Hotter fire. " I laughed at the expression on her face. "That's why we force air into our coals with bellows. The air blast increases the heat of the coals. No one knows how or why. And some fuels bum hotter than others. Some burn more slowly. That's why we use charcoal. It burns hotter and more slowly than ordinary wood. It can build up to fierce temperatures. My grandfather almost gave up on smelting the skystone, as I have said. He had tried a number of fuels, different kinds of charcoal, and increased the flow of air to his furnace to an extent that he'd never tried before, but none of it had worked. And then, finally, when the furnace cooled after what he'd sworn to himself would be his last attempt to smelt the stone, he noticed that, although he had achieved no melt, the surface of the stone did look different somehow, almost as though it had started to change. So he resolved to try one more time, and to find some way of really increasing the heat in his furnace. By this time he had spent seven months fooling around with the thing, but it was his hobby, and he considered the time well spent. "

Again I noted the rapt expression on her face. She was far from being bored, I felt, but then I thought that perhaps she was merely pretending interest. I allowed my voice to lapse into silence, giving her the chance to change the subject if she so wished.

"Well? Then what? I know he was successful, but how did he do it?" The eagerness in her voice was genuine. I smiled and continued.

"He mentions in his notes that an associate of his — a merchant of fuel and oils — had found a deposit of coal that he couldn't use. Apparently, this coal he had found was too brittle. It broke up into tiny little pieces and it wouldn't flame. My grandfather remembered this. The man had not said that it would not burn, you understand? Merely that it would not flame. My grandfather knew that charcoal wouldn't flame, either, and yet it burned hotter than the wood it was made from. He became curious. He asked his friend to sell him some of the coal. The fellow snorted in disgust and told Grandfather where he could find it for himself, and wished him luck.

"Grandfather Varrus collected some of the coal and mixed it with some of his highest-grade charcoal to see if it would burn hotter. It did. It burned hard and clean, and by the time he had experimented with the proportion of coal to charcoal, he had evolved a furnace fire hot enough to smelt the skystone. The rest you know. He had enough metal to make the sword for my father, and this dagger for me. "

"But he mixed the sword blade with ordinary iron?"

"No, " I said. "It wasn't ordinary. It was his best. But Theodosius's sword is nowhere near as brilliant as the skystone dagger. " Luceiia had a strange and thoughtful expression on her face. I waited to hear what she would say. When she did speak, however, she asked a question that surprised me.

"How long ago was this, Publius?"

"No idea. It must have been just after I was born. My father left for the last time shortly after that. Thirty-three years ago? Thirty-four?

Something like that. I suppose I could pinpoint it exactly from the old man's notes. "

"He was that meticulous a note-keeper, was he?"

"He was. He wrote notes on everything available, from waxed tablets to papyrus and scraps of parchment. "

She smiled again, a quiet, mystical smile. "He was a wise man, your grandfather. Could you find out exactly when all of this happened? Would that be possible?"

"I suppose so. Why? Is it important? For what reason?" She shrugged my questions off. "Oh, I don't know. But there has been something niggling at me, something I heard about quite recently. I don't want to say anything until I have checked it out, but it might be very interesting. It was something I heard, or I think I heard, last time I was in Aquae Sulis. You know the people there believe in dragons?" I gave her my version of the Britannican eyebrow. "Dragons, Luceiia?" She nodded.

I grinned at her. "I see. I have travelled across Britain to find people who believe in dragons. "

Her grin matched my own. "Scoff not, friend. Accept them as they are. I think they are your dragons. "

I could tell from the expression on her face that she had something she was not telling me, but I had no idea what it could be. I did not want to feed her a line to tease me with. My mind raced as I tried to guess just what she was referring to, and why these dragons should be mine, but it was hopeless.

"Very well, you have me beaten, " I said, holding up my hands in surrender. "I don't know what you are talking about. How and why are these my dragons?"

"Because you will adopt them as soon as you hear about them, and you will hear all about them tomorrow. The fire is almost out, and I find I am tired, quite suddenly. "

The fire was indeed almost dead; I had not noticed it dwindle. I rose to my feet reluctantly, unwilling to let her go, even to sleep for a few hours.

"Pardon me, " I said. "I had no knowledge of the time passing. "

"I know. No more did I, and I enjoyed every minute of it. " She rose as she spoke, and again I noticed how tall she was. She was standing close enough for me to be aware of the warmth and the scent of her. I could have hooked my arm about her waist without even leaning forward. But of course I did not. She looked me straight in the eye for a long moment and my mind screamed to me how soft and delicious those lips would feel against my own. Then she smiled again, softly and somehow knowingly, and adjusted her stola more warmly around her shoulders. She started to turn away from me and then caught herself, as though with an afterthought.

"What is it?" I asked her. "Is there something I can do for you?" Again the same smile. She reached out her right hand and touched me, very gently, with the backs of two of her fingers on my right cheekbone. I barely felt the pressure, but it burned. "Good night, Publius, " she whispered. "Thank you. " And then she turned to go. I stopped her with a touch of my hand on her elbow. She turned back, her chin cocked as she looked half over her shoulder, and I was abruptly tongue-tied again.

"Yes, Publius?"

I had to say something. "Tomorrow. " I stammered. "I will see you?

Before you leave?"

"Before I leave?" There was a question in her laugh. "Aye. and after. You are coming with me. Don't you remember? We discussed it at dinner. The Villa Britannicus is your home from now on. " I had no recollection of the dinner-table conversation at all. She laughed again, obviously at the expression on my face. "Don't worry, Varrus. " There was delicious mockery in her voice. "It's big enough for both of us. " It was almost completely dark now in the enclosed courtyard, but I watched the glorious sway of her hips as she moved until the blackness swallowed her up. She could not have heard my whispered, "Good night, my love. "

I stared into the dying fire for a while, my thoughts in a turmoil, and then I went to my own bed in a daze.