Celtic Fire by Joy Nash Page A

approach.
    “How did you get up there?” she asked.
    He pointed to the upper gallery fronting Rhiannon’s bedchamber. A stout vine climbed from the garden to entwine the railing.
    “It wasn’t hard,” he said. “I can get up on the high roof, too.”
    “You’re a resourceful lad.”
    “I suppose.” He clambered across the slates and down the vine. His dark head bobbed between the plantings as he approached. The sun’s muted rays were not yet strong in the square patch of gray sky framed by the walls of the Roman house, but morning light sparkled in the lad’s eyes.
    Rhiannon sat back on her heels and brushed a damp strand of hair out of her face. She’d awakened at dawn on this, the second day of her captivity. She’d spent the first confined to her chamber, attended by a young slave woman. In response to Rhiannon’s careful questioning, the girl—Bronwyn—revealed a fact that caused Rhiannon’s heart to leap. A man of Cormac’s description—and surely only one man fit that image—was a slave in the fort commander’s dwelling.
    She’d made her way to the garden to await him. He would come to her when he was able, she was sure of it. Rhiannon only hoped Lucius didn’t find her first.
    A pool of water shone in the center of the courtyard. Around it, rigid garden plots overflowed with clumps of a thorny shrub Rhiannon had never seen before. A few red-green leaves had unfurled, but many more were wanted before the unsightly canes would be covered. Nestled among the roots of the odd plants were clusters of more familiar greenery—betony, coltsfoot and meadowsweet, among others.
    “What are you doing?” Marcus asked again.
    She smiled up at him. “See this bit of betony? It can’t take a breath for want of space. I’m clearing a path around it.”
    “Do plants breathe like people, then?”
    She nodded. “They speak as well, at least to those who know how to listen.”
    “What do they say?”
    “They tell why Briga, the Great Mother, has granted them life. Like people, each has its purpose—healing, coloring cloth, or flavoring food.”
    The lad hunkered down beside her and cocked his head to one side. “I don’t hear anything.”
    Rhiannon’s smile deepened. “Plants don’t speak in words. It takes much patience to learn their language.”
    “Oh.” Marcus pondered this revelation. “Will you teach me? I think I would prefer the language of the garden to that of the Greeks.”
    Rhiannon laughed at that. “Perhaps,” she hedged. If all went well, her time in the fort would be far too short to allow it.
    “I wonder if Uncle Aulus could hear them. He never wrote to me of it, but he knew a lot about plants. I’m sure he tended these himself.”
    “Your uncle lived here?” Rhiannon asked.
    Marcus’s eyes clouded. “He was the fort commander. He was killed last autumn.”
    So the man who had fallen to Madog’s sword was not only Lucius’s kinsman but also his brother. The revelation hit Rhiannon like a blast of winter wind. For a moment, she stood again in the shadow of the great stones, the dying man’s bloody fingers clutching her hem, his despair echoing in her heart.
    He’d spoken to her before he died.
Tell him.
Had he been speaking of Lucius? Had the dying man’s torment called his brother north to seek vengeance? An icy chill settled about her.
    At that moment, as if she’d summoned it, Lucius’s rich voice drifted from the far corner of the courtyard. Rhiannon sought him with her gaze, heart pounding. A door giving out onto the covered walkway opened. Demetrius emerged with Lucius a step behind.
    Marcus shrank down behind a cluster of bare canes. “Quiet,” he whispered fervently. “I’m supposed to be in the library translating Aristotle. If Magister Demetrius sees me, he’ll skin my hide. And take pleasure in tanning it.”
    Rhiannon ducked her head—she certainly had no desire to attract attention. She peered through the thorn branches and watched the two men