Luceiia opened our bedchamber door as I reached it and was surprised to find me there. She came to me directly and threw her arms around me, ignoring my filthy condition and my weak attempts to save her from contamination. She spoke through her kiss. "Where were you going?"
"To find a place to collapse." I held up my blanket for her to see. "I'm in no condition to lie on anything clean. Where have you been?"
She told me that she had organized as many of the women as she could find, turning them towards the preparation of food and drink for the men returning from fighting the fire. I had to ask about Lignus, then, and what had happened down here at the villa.
Her first instinct, she said, had been to join the group heading for the hilltop, but then she had realized that if this was a major fire, there would be a need for food, bandages and medical assistance. She began assembling her own women and delegating tasks, the first of which was to split up and find all the women colonists remaining in the cottages around the villa. She had gone herself on that errand, and one of her calls was to the cottage that now housed Lignus's wife and daughters. Luceiia had been accompanied by two of her own women, and they had heard screams and sounds of struggle from a long way off. Not knowing what was wrong, they had emerged into the clearing in front of the cottage to find one of Lignus's daughters, the pregnant one, lying bleeding on the threshold of the hut, with the noise of strife coming from inside. Luceiia had pushed her way into the hut and seen Lignus in a corner with his back to her. He was struggling furiously with the other sister while the mother lay bleeding and moaning on the floor. He had thrown his sword on the floor to free his hands and was now punching brutally at the body struggling against him. Luceiia realized that he must have started the fire on the hill to give himself time and opportunity to avenge himself on the women. Without even thinking what she was doing, so great was her anger, she swept up his sword from where it lay on the floor and, holding it two-handed in front of her with the hilt against her breast, ran at him and thrust it into his back with all her weight behind it. The point had slid cleanly between his ribs and into his heart, and he had fallen dead at her feet before he had time to turn around fully to see who had killed him. Moments later, Sita and his soldiers had arrived on the run.
When she had finished talking, I stared at her for a few moments in silence, thinking that we little knew the people we loved. What she had done was completely in character and should not have surprised me at all; she was the sister of Caius Britannicus and an imperious aristocrat of the old order, accustomed to taking charge, to making decisions and to being obeyed. But she was also my wife and I loved her deeply as a woman, so I seldom considered the steel that underlay her womanish exterior.
She was gazing at me, waiting for me to speak. I kissed the end of her nose. "Good for you," I whispered. "How do you feel?"
She touched the spot I had kissed with the tip of one finger. "How should I? I am tired and hungry, but I feel as if I could carry on forever, or for as long as it takes to clean up this mess Lignus has caused." She paused and squinted at me. "If you really mean how do I feel about having killed Lignus, then the answer is that I don't. I would do it again without thinking, as I would destroy any animal threatening my family or this Colony. Lignus was not a man. He was a wild beast, mad and dangerous. What about you? How do you feel?"
"About Lignus, nothing. About the fire, anger and concern but no great urgency yet, although if we don't get a good harvest this year it's going to be a long winter. About you, I feel proud and wonderful. About sleep, I'm not capable of feeling anything. I'm on my way to find a quiet corner where the soot and grime that crusts me can do little damage, then I'm going to collapse and slip into a coma."
She thrust her face into the hollow of my neck and sniffed deeply. "You do smell rather smoky." She pushed me away and smiled up into my eyes. "I know you don't want to hear this, but you might sleep far better after being bathed and massaged. I know it seems like too much trouble at this moment, but life will be much the better for steam and perfumed oils and a brisk pummelling. Hmmm?"
I nodded my head, scrubbing at my eyes with the heels of my hands. "Very well, my love," I muttered, "you are correct, as usual. I'm going, I'm going."
I have no recollection of entering the bath house or of removing my clothes, but I do remember walking through the tepidarium, where I splashed cool water all over myself, dislodging some of the soot that covered me, and into the steam room where, for the next quarter hour or so, I luxuriated in the intense heat, feeling the dirt and the grit being washed away by the natural rivers of my own sweat. I ended up with a series of plunges into the hot and cold pools before subsiding and lying face down on the masseur's plinth, regretting his absence as I imagined how he would go to work mercilessly on my ill-used body. But he had been up at the fire too, working as hard as everyone else, and would be sound asleep somewhere. I could have sent for him — I even considered it, half-heartedly — but in the end I did not have the heart to disturb his rest, wherever he was.
I dozed off, eventually, then awoke again, plagued by the discomfort of the plinth I lay on. I felt cleaner and more presentable, but I was dead tired as I made my way towards my own chambers. Luceiia was still not abed, but our little invalid Dora, our four-year-old daughter, lay in our bed peacefully asleep, her thumb stuck deep in her tiny mouth. I bent over and touched her cheek, marvelling, as I always did, at the miraculous softness of her skin and the utterly helpless innocence of her trust. I dropped my clothing where I stood and crawled into the bed beside her, cradling her tininess in my arm before I fell asleep.
BOOK TWO- The Regent
IX
Father,
Greetings from an errant son, whom you have probably consigned long since to perdition for a lack of filial attention, if you do not believe me already dead.
I am alive, healthy and well, and hope, with guilty optimism, that you are, too. How foolishly we treat the rushing passage of time! I deeply regret having permitted so many years to pass without making any serious attempt to write to you. I remember you telling me, on many occasions, how difficult it is to write down one's thoughts so that they reflect, accurately, one's feelings on any particular subject at any one time. Words, you told me, are but ungainly tools, ill suited to the use of serious, intelligent men. I have often recalled, with bitter irony, the scepticism with which I dismissed, in my youthful omniscience, the import of those words. I now know, as the result of many long hours of effort, how accurate your observations were.