The Centurion's Woman

Chapter 7

        Brasus nodded agreement, a quick smile pulling at the corner of his mouth as he regarded his commander. "She appeared much finer when she was clean than when I first laid eyes to her," he tested. When Ixillius still didn't look up, Brasus quickly composed into a serious manner again. "You should bed her. You may be able feel Rome without ever leaving Bonna."

        Ixillius nearly dropped his cup and Brasus burst out laughing. He'd thought Brasus had seen plainly into his thoughts, but his friend was again chiding and Ixillius chuckled along from relief as well as from humor. The wine was clearing a lot of his thoughts, just not the one where he imagined tracing each of her scars with his fingers.

        They ate in better spirits once the serious conversation ended, talking instead of what they were going to be doing once they returned home. Brasus carried a full skein of wine, whistling a clear tune as he walked back to the camp outside Bonna, looking for a game of dice or cards with the men. Ixillius balanced a plate of dinner in one hand and two wine skeins in the other back to his room.

        A whore departing from another room in the hall helped him with the door to his room on his insistence, her eyes immediately downcast and her shoulders slumping. A normal reaction of any women around him. The whore quickly departed with a relieved breath when she spied the woman on his floor, nearly scurrying to get away when she saw he made no move to detain her further. He could see that the woman from the pit was awake, although still lying down, and he paused to appraise her fully from head to toe now that she was clean and wearing something other than rags. A single raised eyebrow was his only reply when his long stare came back to her face. He saw humor in her eyes, nothing more. Her look spun his thoughts away again with the sharp contrast to the departed whore who mirrored most women he'd met. Or passed in the street.

        He set the plate and one of the skeins on the table, then closed the door and latched it from the inside. "You clean up rather nicely," he complimented, tipping the skein he held toward her slightly, as if toasting her, and then taking a drink.

        She sat up slowly, but easier than he'd seen her do any time before. She eyed the plate of food and then him alternately. His thoughts felt pleasantly light from the wine, and he decided to see what would happen if he didn't back away like he normally did.

        "Yes, see," he said, "you happen to be living in my room, and are – at this very moment – actually between the sheets of my bed. So this meal you can eat with me."

        He sat on the stool at the table, then reached back and grabbed the stool from beside the washstand and plunked it on the side of the table closest to her.

        She watched him closely as he took another drink, but didn't move even though he could hear her belly rumbling for the food. Her eyes followed the skein as he lowered it. He couldn't read her expression as she looked back to him and closely studied his face. She wasn't fearful, but she was far from being at ease. Ixillius chuckled and shook his head at her.

        "I haven't laid a hand on you in any way improper in the days I've cared for you," he said, stoppering the skein. "You can at least have a dinner with me."

        He threw the skein he'd been drinking from on the bed, then held up his hands to show them empty.

        She moved cautiously once she started toward the table. Crawling the few steps to the stool, and then using it and the table, she pulled herself up. He wanted to help, but assumed that if he moved she would retreat again, or the usual fear would surface. So he sat very still and watched, earning a wary stare each time he mumbled a word or two of encouragement. She didn't seem to hide anything from him, her motions the same as when he'd watched her washing earlier when she thought she was unregarded.