‘I pray to Mars and Mithras that the governor doesn’t ask us to join him in the spring,’ Falco said ruefully as his men stumbled past, faces as red as a legate’s banner and breath steaming in the thin winter sunlight.
Valerius smiled and wrapped his cloak closer around him. ‘He already has my report. Garrison duties only for the men of Colonia.’ But mention of Suetonius Paulinus’s spring campaign made him uneasy. Was there anyone in Britain unaware of what was about to happen?
Not Lucullus, certainly.
That winter Valerius developed a liking and a curious respect for the little Trinovante. When the frost was followed by snow unlike anything the young Roman had ever experienced even the exercises ended and the legionaries huddled in their tents or around glowing braziers, attempting to avoid the frost-blight that first turned toes and fingers black and then caused them to fall off. They prayed for the coming of spring or a posting to some paradise where the sun shone for more than four hours in a day, preferably both.
With little of military value to keep him occupied, he worked to repay the hospitality he had received during the previous months from Colonia’s leading citizens. It was surprising what a legionary cook could achieve given the time and ingredients, and a string of dignitaries and their matrons complimented him on his table and the service provided by legionary servants, prominent among whom was Lunaris, who would do anything to find some warmth.
Falco and his fat little spouse came often, as did Corvinus, accompanied by his very beautiful and very pregnant wife. Valerius even found time to entertain Petronius, though he was never able to like the quaestor, who seemed obsessed by lineage and appeared to have a worryingly comprehensive knowledge of the various well- connected branches of the Valerian family.
Colonia’s most influential Briton was occasionally among the guests, and what could be more natural than that he in turn should invite the tribune to his home on the slope across the river. At first, Valerius had regarded Lucullus as a figure of fun because of his terrier like pursuit of Roman ways. But as he came to know him better, he discovered the ingratiating smile hid a shrewd intelligence and an unfailing generosity. But Maeve was right to be concerned about her father’s business dealings. Had the times been different, he would have been rich, successful and respected; but the times were not, and they and his ambition had, despite his outward success, combined to leave him floundering in a sea of debt. A Roman would have kept it his secret shame, hidden in the papers in his tablinum, but Lucullus, for all his airs, was not a Roman. He was a garrulous, unprincipled Celt, who laughed at his predicament and invited you to laugh with him. Valerius enjoyed his company very much.
Lucullus normally visited Colonia unaccompanied, but when Valerius rode out to the Trinovante’s villa Maeve would invariably be waiting to greet her father’s guest in the portico. The first time this happened her welcome was excessively formal and, in that nervous way of a man in love, he worried their relationship had already lost some of its lustre.
He was still fretting at the table when Lucullus startled him by wondering how the governor’s advance troops would be faring in the mountains of the Deceangli with the snow up to their necks and their toes turning black. But everything else was driven from his mind when he became aware of Maeve’s presence over her father’s shoulder. The look she gave him sent a shudder of desire through his body and her right hand reached up to touch the golden boar amulet at her neck.
‘Are you well?’ Lucullus asked, his plump face filled with concern. ‘You have gone quite pale.’ He picked up a plate and sniffed it. ‘That factor! Gereth! It’s these damned oysters again.’
It should have been impossible, but they managed to make it only difficult. Snatched conversations in corridors and doorways. Clandestine touches as they brushed past each other on entering or leaving a room. Each encounter only served to inflame the thing growing between them, though it created a frustration that grew in equal measure. She persuaded him to brave the snow and her father’s estate wardens and contrived to meet him by chance on a forest ride. At last they could talk unhindered and he found her quick of mind and quicker of temper. She was like no Roman woman he had ever met. She had views on everything — even military tactics, which would have bored any other girl he knew — and she was unafraid to speak her mind, but always it came back to one subject: her people.
She was also practical.
They repeated the encounter a week later. A new fall of snow had thickened the glistening blanket enveloping the land to north and south, transforming it into a world of wondrous sculpted humps and hollows. Large flakes still fell from a sky the colour of an old bruise, turning the air around them into a whirling cascade of white petals. Valerius worried that they might become lost, but Maeve only giggled.
‘It will help cover our tracks,’ she insisted. ‘Come with me.’
Valerius reined back his big military horse to keep pace with the little skewbald pony she rode side-saddle. He found it difficult to keep his eyes off her and as they ventured further into the wood he found his natural caution replaced by a deeper, more visceral anticipation, and an outcome his mind shied away from.
‘Here,’ she said eventually, laughing when she saw the look on his face. He was staring at a wall of sheer grey rock. ‘Help me down.’
He dismounted and took her by the waist, lifting her from the pony and delighting in the warmth of her body, then tied the two animals to the nearest tree. By the time he’d finished she stood at the base of the wall where a large evergreen bush hung heavy with snow.
Something in the way she stood gave him the first hint of what had become inevitable. Then he looked into her face and saw the message there and it felt as if a fire had been lit inside him. The fathomless brown eyes were deadly serious but they contained an unmistakable challenge, and her cheeks burned with colour that matched her lips, which were sensual, swollen and inviting. When he walked towards her, her eyes never left his, and when he reached her she pulled the bush aside with a flourish that was only spoiled by the snow that fell from the branches on to her head.
‘Welcome to my lair,’ she said laughing.
It was a cave.
A narrow fissure cut into the rock formed the entrance, which widened almost immediately into an area as large as a legionary’s eight-man tent. It must once have been inhabited, because niches and shelves had been cut into the rock walls where she had placed oil lamps that now turned their surroundings into a diamond-studded grotto. Tiny fragments set into the stone glittered in the lamplight like unquenchable sparks of blue, green, red and a dozen other colours he had no name for. The atmosphere, almost religious, gave him a sense of wonder magnified a hundred times by the presence beside him. Smoke from the oil lamps disappeared into the darkness above and he had the impression of a great endless void. But his eye was drawn to the back of the cave, where two large fur rugs lay on the earth floor.
‘I wanted us to be warm,’ she whispered. ‘Do you like it?’
Yes.
Her dark eyes stared back unflinchingly into his and she wiped a tear from her cheek, and raised her lips towards his. The kiss seemed to last an eternity; with every passing second it grew in passion and intensity so that when they finally parted they were both breathless. Now Maeve’s eyes filled with something that might have been fear, but quickly faded to shocked surprise at the new emotions burning like wildfire deep within her body.
‘Come,’ she said, and led him by the hand towards the furs.
Thus far, the day had been Maeve’s to command. Now, by unspoken consent, it was Valerius, the more experienced, who took control. A shudder went through her as his fingers plucked at the tie of her cloak and when he had completed the task she lay back entirely still, uncertain of what she should do or not do. Wanting what was to come, but, at the same time, half fearful of it.
Valerius sensed her hesitation. Very gently, he reached down and pulled up the hem of her dress, exposing the length of her ivory-pale legs. She immediately understood what was wanted of her and raised her bottom to allow him to take the rumpled wool underneath her body, then sat upright and raised her arms, so he could remove it altogether.
When she was naked he looked down on her with something close to wonder. Her breasts were full and rounded, with tiny, hard nipples of the most delicate pink. Between them hung the golden boar amulet and it somehow added to the eroticism of the moment. She had a narrow waist which flowed into hips that were seductively wide, but tapered again into long slim legs. He reached out to touch her and then recoiled as if he had been burned. Her smooth skin resonated with life and heat. Impatient, Maeve took his hand and placed it on her breast, then drew it down her body with agonizing slowness that made her draw in her breath sharply.
