“Yes.” Gaius’s brows rose, the lamplight flickering over his regal features. “My great-aunt had met one once, she’d told me.”
“Really?” I asked eagerly. “When was this?”
“She’d been a little girl when she met her.” He chuckled, taking the jug of ale when Trajan passed it to him. “My great-aunt, Lucretia was her name, was fond of stories.” He passed the jug to me, but I shook my head. “She’d told me many far-fetched stories that I doubted were real.”
“But you believed the one about her meeting a bloodsinger?”
“No.” He laughed lightly again. “Perhaps you can tell me if it sounds true to you.”
I nodded for him to go on. Trajan nudged me with his elbow. “Eat,” he murmured.
I began to eat the bread, tasteless and dry, just to get Trajan to relax.
“Her father,” Gaius began, “was a Roman statesman and had been sent to Sarmatia to tend a new province. It was when they crossed through the land of Dacia that she met the bloodsinger.”
“My homeland,” I whispered.
“Is it?” asked Gaius, his brow furrowed.
“Yes. Please go on.”
“Aunt Lucretia was a spoiled daughter of Rome, and a bit wild for her father’s tastes. They’d stopped in a village for food and to rest the horses. While her father talked to a local leader about the best passage north into Sarmatia, Aunt Lucretia crept away, following the sounds of music and laughter in the tavern.”
I listened, imagining the young Roman girl slipping into a tavern full of rowdy Dacians.
“My aunt said she saw a woman dancing upon a table.”
“A Dacian woman dancing?” I asked, my heart skipping faster.
A Dacian dancer. Like I once was. Like my sisters.
“Indeed. Aunt Lucretia said she was more beautiful than the goddess Juno herself. Probably looked much like you, dear.” He smiled with kindness, not lechery. “As she told it to me, the woman finished her dance and all the men at the table tossed up a coin, but one of the men refused to chip in for the dance. He was a big, burly man. The Dacian told him, ‘If you don’t pay up, I’ll make you give me a dance for free.’”
Gaius chewed his last piece of bread then went on merrily, the ship rocking as we slipped faster down the Tiber River.
“The men all laughed and the big man said to her, ‘Go on then. Make me dance.’ So she jumped down from their table and pulled a brooch clipped to her waist and told him, ‘Give me your hand.’ The man laughed, not threatened by the young woman at all, and held out his hand. She pricked him with the pin of the brooch. He didn’t even flinch as she lifted his hand by the wrist and licked the tip of his finger. My aunt said the men all laughed and cheered with vulgar words to her, but then she said to the big brute, ‘Get on the table and dance for me.’ The man did instantly, making a bloody fool of himself.”
He laughed and I laughed with him, imagining the scene.
“All the men at the table and everyone in the whole tavern went quiet and watched in awe. The Dacian told him, ‘You need to wiggle your hips more and prance in a circle.’”
I laughed. “Did she really say that?”
“That is what my Aunt Lucretia said. Apparently, he obeyed every command she gave him until finally she told him to stop dancing and hand over her coin. Panting and sweating, he reached into his pocket and handed her payment, then she told the dumbfounded men at the table, ‘Always pay the dancer. And never test a bloodsinger.’ Then shemarched out of the tavern with her chin in the air. Not a soul whispered as she passed them by.”
My heart expanded at the story. Not that it was so exceptional or sentimental, but that it made me think of home. That it reminded me of something Bunica had told me once.
We are descended from a line of mystical women. Their blood runs through ours. So does their magic.
Trajan watched me intently. “Are you all right?”
I nodded. “Just tired. Today has been long and…” I blew out a heavy breath, my body weighted by all that had happened since I woke up in Fausta’s home this morning. Now I was on a ship leaving Rome, finally escaping this nightmare I’d been living for so long, and Gaius had told me a story about a Dacian dancer. A bloodsinger. My entire soul sagged with exhaustion.
“Lie down,” said Trajan, urging me to recline onto the mattress. “Get some rest.”
“You still haven’t told me what happened at Caesar’s or where we are going from here.”
“It can wait.” His expression was grim. “You need to rest for a while. I’ll tell you all when you wake.”
