The Centurion's Woman

Chapter 7

IXILLIUS STOOD FOR a moment longer at the window slit, Brasus silently smirking at him. Once he was certain she was asleep, he motioned his friend to come away with him and they edged off the walkway and down into the still-busy street. Ixillius turned toward the nearest lodge serving dinner and Brasus quickly matched his step.

        "Spying at the window of your own room?" Brasus finally chided after a few more steps. "And at your own slave, no less."

        "Yet we both feel inclined to speak in hushed tones, even at this distance," Ixillius returned with a sigh, scrubbing his hand over his face. "You've seen everything I have. Do you really think she's a born slave?"

        "Not everything. You didn't let me at the window for the good stuff."

        "She is mine," Ixillius replied, a quick smile flashing at his friend. "Well, she's living in my room," he added with a shrug.

        Brasus was quiet, thinking his words through as he often did. It was the first of the two things that Ixillius liked best about his Optio, the way that Brasus would collect an entire thought prior to opening his mouth. Ixillius assumed that the inside of Brasus's mind was a very tidy place.

        They were seated in the warm lodge, at a quiet end of a long and busy table, before Brasus finally spoke.

        "You know my history. My mother was a Freeman wife to a Freeman Legionnaire in Hibernia, and I their only son. I have two sisters, both younger, and aging parents now in Rome. Since I sent them to live with my father instead of following me around all over the Empire, my sons send me letters to tell me how all my family are doing. Both my sons' mothers are dead and buried, and my three daughters' mother is a slave I'll most likely need to figure out how to outwit as in his last letter my oldest boy announced she had earned the funds to buy herself free from me, on top of sending all three of our girls for schooling," he paused, taking a drink of the strong wine placed on the table while he was speaking. "I've seen slaves plenty, and I've owned a few. All the slaves I've seen are just men and women, no different than you or me, or our wives or sisters."

        Ixillius waited, the wine he was drinking turning sour in his stomach. "But?" he asked at length.

        Brasus leaned forward and spoke in hushed and serious tones. "When that woman in your room crawled from the pit, I really believed you'd opened a gate to the Underworld and a corpse had walked out. If I hadn't put my hands on her myself to move her these past days and felt the steady heat from her skin, I'd still believe it. The bruises, the welts, those I expected to see for how slowly she recovers."

        The plates were heaped with biscuits and cheese on top of the usual dinner of wheat cereal when they arrived at the table, but Ixillius ignored them. He and Brasus instead finished their wine and held their cups up for more.

        "But?" Ixillius asked again once their cups were replenished. Brasus started eating before he replied.

        "I'd like to see if she can sit a horse," he said between mouthfuls. "There are lots of merchants about Bonna, from all corners in the empire and some dark corners outside of it, we should see if any can speak with her. Then maybe you can ask her about those old scars."

        Ixillius looked down into his second cup. It was half-drunk already, and the increase in strong wine was easing the knot in his stomach considerably. He hoped that it would soon ease the swirling thoughts in his mind as well.

        "She looked of Rome, didn't she?" he asked his friend, not looking up from his cup. "Once she was cleaned, the look of it in her breeding was unmistakable."