“Oh, yes, sir.”
He beckoned the door slave away and handed me a lamp. By the time we reached the bath, there was no one else in the entire wing.
She told me everything.
How she kept it from me because of Gnaeus’s death. She wanted to surprise me, give me life again. Give me a son.
She told me how she was doing some cleaning and bent down and started to bleed. It wouldn’t stop, and the pain kept growing. All she thought of was the baby-how to save the baby. I felt like I was bleeding myself, hearing how she fled to our room, holding a pillow to her abdomen, trying not to scream. She didn’t want Hefin to know.
She told me how she sent Coir for Stricta. Thank God she knew what to do. Stricta thought of Gwyna. She saved her life. The baby-the baby was four months along.
Stricta kept Gwyna’s secret. Even from Bilicho-because she knew Bilicho would tell me, and Gwyna … Gwyna didn’t want me to know.
Then she told me how Coir had seen the bloodstains, realized what happened. How she used the knowledge to keep Gwyna in the palm of her hand.
Despair gave way to anger. Anger at Coir, even a little anger at Stricta, but especially at myself. Gwyna didn’t tell me she was pregnant because she wanted to surprise me, bring me out of my guilt and depression. She didn’t want to interfere with my-duties. But the only goddamn duty that mattered was the one I failed her in.
She was still dressed in her purple gown, shivering. She needed the warm water. I did, too. I brought some towels and the oil and started to undress her, as carefully and gently as my shaking hands would allow.
“Ardur-what are you-”
“Shh. You did this for me once, when I came home dirty and sore and miserable. Now it’s my turn.”
She looked up at me, her mouth trembling. I was unpinning her tunic. When I started to unwrap her breast band, she tried to push my hands away.
“N-no, Ardur, I-I’m not-”
I held her hands in mine and raised them to my lips.
“I don’t know what you see, Gwyna. I see a woman with a beautiful, miraculous body, as desirable as the day I first saw it. More so, if possible. You don’t have anything to hide, and nothing-nothing-to be ashamed of.”
She stared at me for what seemed like forever. I unraveled her breast band and looked at her.
Her breasts were fuller, just as lovely. But all she could remember was the milk that had started to flow in them, and the baby that would never suckle.
I held her eyes up with my own. “You take my breath away.”
My hands cupped them, and she shuddered while I used my tongue.
“Ardur-Ardur, not-not now…”
“Now is the best time. No more waiting. No more running away. For either of us.”
After a few minutes, I gave my attention to the small briefs, as my hands molded the line of her hips down to her legs. She shuddered again when I slid them off. It was the first time I’d seen her naked since I’d left home, so long ago.
Her abdomen was gently swollen, and she hadn’t lost all the extra weight of the pregnancy. The telltale signs others had noticed, but not her blind husband.
I led her into the tepidarium and gently washed her with a sponge. I touched every part of her, made it mine again. She stopped shaking so much every time she felt my hands. Then I rubbed her back and buttocks with oil and massaged her legs, stomach, and breasts until her nipples were ready to burst.
We climbed out of the pool together, and I dried her with a towel. She reached a hand up to my face and kissed me, softly first, but with a growing need to blot out the night. While our mouths were still intertwined, I picked her up in my arms and stumbled toward the bedroom.
We kept kissing while I kicked the door and laid her gently on the bed. Then my mouth traveled lower down her breasts to below her belly, until she objected.
“Ardur-what-no-”
“Shhh. Trust me, my love. Trust me.”
The happiness I felt when she gasped with pleasure, and gave herself over to it, helped cleanse some of the guilt and washed away a little of the pain. It was equaled later when we were both crying out, not with sorrow, but with a love that was our whole life. Toward morning, we fell asleep in each other’s arms.
* * *
I woke up before dawn. Gwyna nestled in the crook of my arm, hair tousled and curling on my chest. She groaned and stretched and opened an eye.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning to you. How do you feel?”
She blushed. “Like a loose woman.”
Some anemic moonlight filtered in from the small window. She sat up and stretched again, making a shadow on the wall.
I yawned. “You feel nothing like a loose woman. I’ve had a few.”
She threw her pillow on my face, and I reached up and pulled her down on my chest again.
“Ardur.”
“Yes, love?”
“What-what do you think happened last night?”
I sat up in bed, set her in front of me. “A fraud, Gwyna. Someone put Faro up to it. Someone’s trying to hurt us.”
Her face held doubt as if she were reluctant to let it go. That was the problem with cons like Faro’s. That’s what made them so evil.
“Darling-listen to me. None of that-none-was real or true. Please believe me.”
She lowered her eyes and shook her head. “All-all right, Ardur, but who-who knew about me?”
“Philo, for one. Sulpicia, for another.”
“Sulpicia? Philo, I can understand-I-I asked him about it-said a friend of mine-”
“He would’ve guessed it was you, and Sulpicia may’ve had-I don’t know-some similar experiences. Maybe she recognized how you felt. She seemed to-well, be sorry.”
Gwyna looked over at me with a little of her normal spirit. “When I want her pity I’ll ask for it.”
“The point is that they knew, and maybe other people-women-could guess. Everybody except your doctor husband, of course. Too busy sticking his head up-”
Her fingers brushed my lips. “Shhh. I don’t want to hear it. It’s over.”
“It’ll be over when I’m done with Faro. I’m sorry, but I think I ruined all the rest of our social life in Aquae Sulis.”
“What did you do?”
“I told Materna to shut her face before I shut it for her.”
She shook her head. “We can’t forsake appearances. That might be exactly what they want us to do. Give up going to the baths, give up Aquae Sulis. We can’t, Ardur. Or we’ll let them win.”
“That’s fine. We’ll go to the baths. I’ll wear a toga. But I’m still going to handle it in my own way.”
My jaw hurt. Gwyna ran a finger down my cheek. “Ardur-don’t put yourself in danger. I know you want to hurt Faro.”
“I don’t want to hurt him. I want to kill him.”
She lay stomach down on the pillow and propped herself up with her elbows. The view of her cleavage distracted me.
“What about Bibax? Where does he fit in?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t-goddamn it. Shit!”
“What is it?”
“I was supposed to meet Calpurnius last night at the spring. At the fifth hour.”
“You were busy at the fifth hour.” She gave me a half-smile.
My tongue was slow. “We were both a little-busy-last night.”
I set her in my lap. She wove her arms around my neck, and started to make a few noises when I buried my face in her breasts. Then a knock sounded at the door.
I looked at Gwyna, and she smiled. I was breathing hard.
“What?! What the hell is it?”
A thin voice came through the wood. “So sorry, sir-but there’s someone here-very important-need you.”
That’s all I got. Lineus was too well bred to be any louder. A lesson in deportment I never quite mastered.
“Just wait a goddamn minute!”
Gwyna climbed off of me and put her feet on the floor. “Go on, Ardur. It must be something serious. We have”-she leaned over and brushed her lips against my neck-“we have the rest of our lives.”