NOT MUCH TIME had passed when Ixillius woke her up again. Alex noticed that she felt less sore and stiff, and was now pleasantly achy. The exercise that morning had done her good.
Ixillius still looked apprehensive, and now smelled strongly of wine, and Brasus and the shackles were both gone. The heavy leather and metal band rested hard against her collar-bones when she sat up and she fiddled with it for a few moments to see if she could move it to a more comfortable place. Not succeeding, she felt to see if there were more holes at the buckle so it could be tightened. He tried to stop her as she unfastened it and she had to bat his hands away.
"Ixillius proprius Alex, yes, I know," she told him impatiently. Alex chuckled and shook her head at the sudden worried look on his face from where he knelt beside the pillow. She snugged the collar to the smallest hole in the band and made it fit like a choker necklace. She had to put two fingers under it to pull it uncomfortably tight, and her head and shoulders still moved easily with the full range of motion she had right now. In a few weeks the bulk may be a hindrance, but by then she should be able to figure out how to work around that. It was a lot more comfortable up high like this.
Alex pushed back the blanket and slid her legs over the edge of the cot. She still needed to move carefully, but figured this would be a lot easier than trying to get up off the floor. Sleeping on the bed had been a gentle treat, which was apparently over. As she braced her hands on the edge of the cot to start pushing herself up, Ixillius's arm dropped across her lap.
The anxiety was coming off him like a stink, and suddenly she felt her stomach drop. Something was wrong. This was why he'd just today put the collar on her. Something had happened and he had no way of telling her, the language barrier was too great. Alex pressed her hands down onto his shoulders, fear clawing at her that this small place of safe recovery was about to tip her out. This respectful (and respected, she thought, remembering how all the men under his command acted toward him on the last day of the trip here) soldier was going. She was going to be without male guardianship in a time where a good woman was worth less than a bad horse if she wasn't doted over. She definitely didn't fit the culture as a good woman, and she wasn't healed enough by far to enforce her own place as an equal to the men. She barely noticed his armor was missing as her fingers curled into tight fists, clutching his shirt.
Something in his expression changed, but he looked down before she could see what. He closed his hands around her waist and laid his head in her lap. Alex scanned the room for a way to talk to him. The plates! He'd been doodling in the gravy left on the plates after he'd eaten his midday meal. The plates were gone, but the table stood bare, and she'd spilled enough water on it while washing to know that the surface discolored when it was wet. It would be like drawing on one of those tranquility boards her clients sometimes brought to help them on whatever spiritual journey they thought started with survivalist camping. Being someone who usually had little emotional or spiritual baggage, she accepted too much at face value, Alex had always thought the boards were overrated.
She grinned ruefully and slapped Ixillius on the shoulder, pushing him to let her stand. He moved slowly when he did finally move, and sullenly glared at the collar she was wearing. Alex rolled her eyes and stood up, grabbing his hands off her waist and pulling on him to stand up. Everything about him looked darkly irritated, but she didn't have time to waste playing sweet. In her life, she'd learned that playing sweet only had two consequences: bad, and worse. Right now, she needed to know why he was irritated, and this idea might just be crazy enough to let them talk.
She left him at the table and poured some water into a cup. Dipping her fingers, she turned to the table and drew two stick figures. One she drew a line for a sword coming from the right hand and gave another line as a cloak, the other she drew a short line across the neck.
"Ixillius," she said, trying to draw his attention to the table top. He fastidiously ignored her, his lower jaw jutting forward, arms crossed over his chest, as he glared at his feet. She didn't have time for this shit. This time she shouted, "Ixillius!" And banged her fist on the table.
He jumped like she'd struck him and spun, kicking one of the stools hard enough to knock it over, rounding on her. Before he could start another tirade, or possibly act on the very real threat of hitting her, she interrupted him with a gesture and knocked on the table.
"Ixillius, Alex," she said, pointing at the two fading stick figures in turn. He looked at the quick drawings on the table, and then stared down at her like she was mad.
She quickly dried off the remaining smears from the stick figures with the bottom of the sheet she wore as a shirt and dipped her fingers in the cup again. She needed to tell him something he didn't know to see if it would work, but it had to be something so simple that he would understand what she was trying to do. Then it occurred to her. She barked out a laugh at how easy the idea was and drew the same cloaked figure as before.
"Gigno," she said, tapping on it. Then she drew an obviously female form, trying to remember what her gigno had called her momma. "Matter?" She wondered out loud. "Motor, meager..."
"Mater?" Ixillius asked, suddenly keenly watching.
"Mater," Alex repeated, throwing a quick smile his way and turning back to the table. She drew a V-shape with the top of each line ending so it pointed at the crotch of each person, and drew the same cross-necked female figure at the tip of the V.
"Alex Gigno, Alex Mater, Alex," she said, tapping on each in sequence.
He studied the table, and then studied her face. She erased the quick sketch, then drew two sword-carrying figures side by side, with a bunch of shields beside them and carts and horses, then drew the cross-necked figure for herself in one of the carts.
"Ixillius, Brasus," she said, tapping each of the fading sword-carrying figures. "Alex," she added, pointing at the figure in the cart.
Understanding rolled over his features. He smeared out the drawings and Alex set the cup of water between them. He quickly drew simple figures, one cross-necked and sitting on something, two with swords. He tapped the sitting figure and then pointed at his bed, then tapped one of the sword-carrying figures and pointed at the bench.
"Ixillius proprius Alex," he said.
He'd drawn the earlier scene from today. Alex smiled up at him, they could talk like this. It would be slow, but it was working.
He erased the sitting figure and one of the sword-carrying figures, then tapped the remaining figure he'd drawn.
"Alex gigno?"
She simply nodded in agreement.
"Ixillius, Brasus et Gigno?" he asked, touching the water-drawn cloak and sword and she nodded again.
He traced a line from her eye down her cheek with his finger, and then pointed at his armor lying on the bench behind her.
"Geesh. Figure out how to talk and you go right to the easy questions, don't you?" she replied.
She chewed her lip and thought of how to answer why his armor had made her cry a few days ago. After a moment, she drew a female form, obviously pregnant, but then erased it after thinking up a better way to start. She drew a cloaked figure in slave shackles, a sword lying beside it at a small distance away.
"Gigno," she said, figuring a captured Legionnaire would be easier than trying to explain a time traveling one.
Ixillius looked rather shocked, but didn't say anything. Alex drew an open circle, half circle, solid circle, and half circle facing the opposite direction, then pointed east and arced her hand up and over to the west.
"Luna?" Ixillius asked seriously.
"Luna," Alex replied. She should have known that one. She drew a large oval around the moon cycle and wrote a Roman numeral 'IV', then tapped on the fading, shackled figure four times.
The way her parents had told the story, her gigno had hidden out in her momma's apartment for about four months before she could coax him outside. He'd been rightfully terrified, but had finally trusted her enough to let her lead him around, and had even taken a car ride – which Alex now understood must've been his first. They'd soon moved to her momma's family-owned cabin. Alex reached over and darkened the lines on the drawing of her gigno, then drew a female figure beside him and erased the shackle lines.
"Mater propria Gigno," she told him. Ixillius looked like he'd just been hit by lightning, but kept his thoughts silent. Alex drew a Roman numeral 'XVI' above the fading moon cycle, then drew a curved line that made the female obviously pregnant.
"Gigno, Mater," she tapped once on each figure, then pointed at the female's belly and said, "Alex."
She erased the cloaked figure's arms and redrew them to go around the pregnant female, then drew a box with an open top that looked like the bench beside the washstand. She tapped Ixillius's hand to draw his attention away from the table and pointed at his armor on the bench when he didn't get the open box shape. She tapped the cloaked figure's chest, tracing the cloak again and pointing at the armor. Understanding finally dawned on his face, her father was wearing the armor, so she continued. She erased the woman figure's pregnant belly and drew a small child between the two figures that she was calling her parents.
Alex smiled at the little family, then erased all of it and drew a cot with a woman lying on it and the cloaked figure holding the hand of a female shape half his size. Alex remembered staring at the hospital bed and a few tears escaped. She stopped her hand from shaking so that she could keep explaining. That had all happened a long time ago. Ixillius watched her sorrowfully as she erased the woman gently, leaving the empty bed, her gigno, and herself. He seemed confused at her strong reaction to her momma dying, but she had no way of explaining that women often outlived men in her time.
Ixillius wrapped an arm around her back at her waist as she swiped the tears away and erased the empty bed and remaining people. In his time, it was common for family members to die, she knew that, but it was nice that he was at least sympathetic for the keenness she felt for her own loss. She redrew the box, but this time with the cloak shape inside it, and then she drew the man figure, now without a cloak, holding the small girl's hand. She grew the girl taller by drawing over top of the first small figure, then erased her gigno and drew the girl taller again, alone. After looking up at Ixillius for a moment, she added the cross-line at the neck and tapped on the collar he'd put on her. Alex didn't see a point in telling Ixillius yet that her gigno had only put away the armor, about the sword she'd trained with under his guidance before she'd even been strong enough to lift it properly.
Alex erased the drawing, chewing her lip again while thinking of a reason to even be here, in this now. She drew a face in profile with a hand raised to the brow as if looking out over a distance at one edge of the table, facing a small cloaked figure at the far edge.
"Alex," she said, tapping the face and then pointed to the small figure and said, "Gigno."
Ixillius looked at her with a touch of wonder. She felt a twinge of badness for lying to him like this, but it was the easiest way to say why she was alone, so easy to get captured by the village and still be close to here. The omissions she felt less bad for. Although he seemed like a good man, she still didn't really know anything about her new owner.
Ixillius released her waist and dipped his fingers in the cup and drew a cloaked figure with a sword through it. "Gigno?" he asked.
Alex just shrugged. She honestly didn't know if he was dead or not. She also didn't know if he'd even been born yet ...
They watched the table dry in silence. Ixillius suddenly dampened his fingers and drew just a single dot close to them, and another farther away.
He tapped the first dot and said, "Roma," then tapped the second and said, "Bonna." When she just looked at him in confusion, he stamped his foot a couple times and pointed around the room. "Bonna," he repeated.
"Ah. Gotcha. Bonna," she replied, nodding. Now she knew the name of this town.
He tapped the first dot again and said his own name. Then he walked his fingers to the second dot and repeated his name. He lifted his hand and gestured at the rest of the table.
"Alex?" he asked.
She sighed and pushed her hair out of her face, shrugging again. Alex had no idea how to explain where she was from. Her concept of the world was a lot different than his. Besides, after her momma had died, she and her gigno had simply wandered, typically staying away from any heavily populated or modern parts of the world. She'd lived in the northern hemisphere her whole life, usually in unpopulated locations across Canada or Russia, but there were random times in Canada they lived in towns and she'd gone to regular schools. Those times usually ended with her in foster care, though. But that never lasted long either, Alex saw to that.
In reply to his question, she just started walking her hand around all over what would be the northern part of the table, pausing for a second to rattle off a town she remembered stopping at before moving on again. It wasn't a good answer, but it was the only one she had, and it was almost completely honest. His face settled into a frown and he pointed at the Bonna dot again, asking why she was here with just body language.
Alex had been waiting for this question since he first told her where they were. She dipped a finger and drew a straight line from Bonna to Rome. "Omnes viae Romam ducunt," she replied, repeating the words from her university history class: All roads lead to Rome. She lifted Ixillius's chest piece from the bench and set it on the table, tapping the center of it.
"Gigno, Roma," she said, then tapped the dot closest to them. "Alex, Roma."