Barbarian’s Concubine

Two weeks later I was living in Sygarius’s grand city house and sleeping in his bed—with Clovis. Lady Lydia and her daughters had fled before we arrived, and her quarters were now vacant, pending the arrival of Basina and Audofleda. Clovis had decided to move his court to Soissons, the better to subdue the province and secure his hold.

“It’s weird, isn’t it, Nimia?” Terix said, as we strolled the gallery surrounding the large courtyard garden. Guards stood watch over an ever-growing pile of loot squashing the plants in the center. “Being back in this house.”

“It feels like we’re dreaming, doesn’t it? Everything looks familiar, and yet everything is different. The rules have changed, and I don’t know yet what we’re supposed to be.”

“I know. We’re no longer slaves, but then, what are we?”

We paused to step into the garden and give Bone’s ears a scratch. He lay in the sun, heaving dog sighs of contentment. He’d been stitched and splinted, and given more meat than his belly could hold, and more doting attention than he knew what to do with.

We resumed our stroll around the shaded gallery.

“And have you noticed the way everyone looks at us?” I said, as a female servant scurried past, eyes flashing a sidelong, wary glance. “People I’ve known most of my life look at me as if I’m going to stick a dagger in their ribs, just for the fun of it.”

“Girls look at me like I’m going to order them to bend over and spread their legs. Mind you, I think most of them are hoping that’s what I will do.” Terix hooked his thumbs in his belt and puffed out his chest. “What with my new status as a mighty conqueror. Gets them wet, you know.”

I laughed.

The house had been empty of all but a few aged servants when Clovis took it over, but over the past week the slaves and servants had begun to return. They needed food, shelter, a place to work—no matter for whom. Clovis had given me the authority to choose who could work in the house, based on what I knew of their loyalties and their character.

In short order the house was running almost as smoothly as I remembered: the servants were eager to make a good impression on their new lord, and they put their backs into the effort. They were wary of Terix and me, perhaps recalling past moments when they had been less than kind to us, but with increasing frequency I was catching cautious smiles from familiar faces.

A group of Franks entered the far side of the garden, their arms laden with treasures they added to the pile. Clovis had explained that it was their custom that all the spoils of war be shared out by drawn lots, with the captains of each regiment making their choice of the loot, with all shares to be equal. Everything looted from the city was brought here, and should any man be found to have secretly kept a piece of treasure, he would have both his hands, and then his head, lopped off.

One of the Franks caught my attention. Instead of tossing shining metal onto the mound, he was squatting to one side, carefully unwrapping something protected by layers of cloth. As it came out from its covering, it caught the sunlight, glinting and flashing.

I sucked in a breath.

The pink, transparent stone vase, from the church. The one with the labyrinth inscribed inside it. The one that had given me a vision of my future child.

I rushed over to the Frank, my limbs shaking as I squatted down across the vase from him, my hands fluttering above the glimmering surface.

The Frank grinned at me: most of them still thought I was a daughter of Nerthus, a demigoddess who had come to use her powers in service to Clovis and the Franks.

“Beautiful,” I said in Frankish; I’d learned a smattering of the language by now.

“Like my lady.”

I smiled back at him. I wanted nothing more than to scoop the vase up and run to my quarters with it, there to gaze into its depths and feel what messages it might bring me. Instead, I forced myself to stand and walk away from it. I was as bound by the Frankish laws of treasure division as were the others.

“I want that vase,” I said when I rejoined a mildly puzzled Terix.

“That? When there are jewels, and piles of gold?”

“I have to find Clovis. I have to have it.”

“I can’t imagine you won’t get it, even if Clovis has to choose his loot last. No man in his right mind will pick a stupid pink vase over gold. You’re the only person who could possibly want it.”

But he was wrong.

I found Clovis some hours later, after he returned from a tour of the city. There was still looting going on, but he had put a stop to destruction, and patrols were in place to keep the citizens from harm by warriors drunk on both victory and wine.

I dragged him to the courtyard and pointed out the vase, but instead of the easy, “Of course I’ll get it for you,” response I expected, he pulled his hand over his face, stopping with his palm covering his mouth as he thought.

“There’s a problem,” he said at last.

A sick feeling roiled in my stomach.

“Someone else already came to me, asking for it.”

“Who?”

“Remigius. On behalf of Albus, and the entire Christian Church. He asked that even if none of the gold is returned to them, that at least the vase be.”

I fisted my hands, panic fluttering in my breast as I gazed at the vase, which sat now in the shadows of twilight. “He can’t have it. You can tell him no, can’t you?”

“I already said I would give it to him, if possible.”

“But why does he want it?” I complained. “It’s not a Christian thing. It has nothing to do with his church!”

“How do you know?”

“I know!” I was losing control of my emotions, and wasn’t sure why I was getting so upset, so quickly. “I think it’s from my people, the Phanne. I feel it.”

“Then why would it be in a Christian church?”

“Maybe they stole it from us.”

“Nimia, that doesn’t make any sense. The Christians want no part of the old gods, the old religions.”

“Why is Remigius so eager to get it back, then? Doesn’t that strike you as strange? What reason did he give?”

“He said it was from the Holy Land, and that it made the local Christians feel closer to their Christ. He said it was an object of beauty in their otherwise difficult lives.”

“He’s not telling you the truth. It’s a thing of power, Clovis. I felt it. It brought on a vision when I touched it.”

That perked his interest. “Of what?”

“I saw—” I started, but found I did not want to tell him of the boy child I’d envisioned. Not yet. “—the golden swarm I always see, when a vision is coming. But then those men grabbed me.”

He sighed, and ran his hand through his hair. “I already promised the vase to Remigius, and that may be for the best. He and his church will be happy, and you can go see it in the basilica whenever you want. It’s the best of both worlds.”

“But the vase is not for the Christians! It was never meant for them!” I raged, my emotions spinning out of control again.

“Stop it! I’ve made my decision. I won’t have you question me.”

I burst into tears and ran from him, back to our quarters. Even as I threw myself facedown on our bed, weeping bitterly, a part of me stood to one side, watching, and wondering what had come over me. I was acting like a madwoman.

Was it the vase, causing this chaos inside me?

Or was it . . .

I caught my breath and held it, listening to my heartbeat. And listening, too, to my body. I rolled onto my back and placed my hand over my womb. Was there something there? Inside me, too small to feel, had a life begun?

My woman’s flow, regular as the tides, was due to arrive on the morrow. My emotions might be no more than the turmoil that hit me every moon at this time.

Or it might mean that the son I’d envisioned was already forming.

Sygarius.

Clovis.

Either could be the father.

Gods help me if I was pregnant, and it was Sygarius’s seed that had taken root.