XLV
SIX MONTHS LATER
Felix dribbled water into a pot sitting in the neat rectangles of light pouring in through the barred window of the stone quarry’s medical shack. The seedling dripped and bobbed beneath the drink, recalling Adel to mind yet again. Hardly a day went by when he didn’t think of her. She’d been a prisoner behind stone walls too, once. Collecting seeds in a jar, trying to coax them to life in a bit of pottery. Where was she now? Putting those seeds in the ground? Setting roots of her own? Was she happy? A pang struck his chest that he would never see her so.
“Medicus, the manager wishes to see you.”
His ankle chains clinked as he turned to find one of the overseers silhouetted in the doorway. “Now?”
He glanced back at the makeshift medical office, empty for once of prisoners with broken bones and infected cuts. He’d been in the stone quarry for only a few days when word had gotten out that he’d been a medicus in Rome. His skills had quickly been put to use setting broken bones and removing crushed limbs, advocating for more food.
“Now.” The overseer gave an impatient jerk of his head toward the stone building housing the manager’s office and quarters for the guards.
They left the wooden medical shack and crossed the barren quarry yard, dust rising in dry clouds beneath Felix’s bare feet. The chain joining his ankle shackles jingled and bounced over the packed ground. He squinted against the summer sun, bright and hot in the south of Gaul, and strained to hear insects buzzing in the trees beyond the impenetrable quarry walls. Hardly a scrap of green touched the inside of the place. What he wouldn’t give to step into the shade of a tree. To see a field of flowers. Probably why he’d attempted to grow his own in the shack. Although, with the way it had sprouted so quickly, there was a likelier chance it was a weed. But wasn’t a weed only a plant out of place? This was certainly not out of place. No matter what it was.
Ducking into the manager’s office, Felix blinked the sudden dimness back into view. A wooden cabinet guarded the back wall, doors hanging open to reveal mounds of papers stuffed into every available space. They spilled onto a plain desk, where the quarry manager sat with yet another paper clutched in one hand.
“Cassianus,” he sighed. “I’m loathe to do this, as you have been such an asset to me. But I must obey.” He lifted the paper and held it out. “This came for you.”
Felix accepted the paper and scanned it. The words on the page seemed too good to be true.
“An order for your immediate release.” The quarry manager delivered the news with all the emotion of a man who’d just been informed that his every investment had failed. He gave a reluctant nod to the guard, who bent and inserted a key into the latch of Felix’s ankle irons.
“Release?” Felix repeated, still trying to make sense of the sudden change.
The manager didn’t elaborate on the reasons. “I appreciate all you’vedone here in the past months. My marble quota has never been so high, and I think that’s thanks to my workforce being healthier.”
And actually fed. Felix hoped the man would continue feeding the slaves the way he’d petitioned. Though the quarry was filled with criminals, they didn’t deserve to be starved. Many should not be there at all.
“Thank you, sir.” He hesitated. Was that it, then? After all this time, he could simply walk free of the place?
The guard waved him toward the door. “I will see you out.”
They left the coolness of the stone office and stepped into the warmth of the Gallic sun. Across the barren quarry yard, the iron bars of the gate in the wall showed several people waiting on the other side. His family had been good to him. Leaving Rome and settling in the nearby city of Nemausus. They had visited with food and clothing when the manager had allowed. Pater had discovered a dearth of plumbing in the city and had taken it upon himself to remedy the issue. Felicia and Ilias had married and now expected their first child. Cassia and Oppia were, in turn, as quiet and lively as ever.
But none of them stood outside in the cluster of family members waiting to deliver food for their loved ones. The guard opened the gate and pushed Felix through it with little fanfare. It clanged shut on his heels. Several of the lingerers edged back, unsure of him.
Felix hesitated. What now? Head to town and try to locate his family, he supposed. Get as far from this place as possible before the manager changed his mind. The crowd parted for him and he moved toward the edge of the road, the buzzing of insects drawing his gaze to the intoxicating green of the trees shading that side. And then he froze.
Two figures stood among the trees. One short and bearded and the other... the other making his breath falter with his steps.
She was not supposed to be here. She was supposed to be on the other side of the empire. Free, and home, and growing things. Not staring at him with a look that... he’d never seen before.
“Adelgard.” His feet remembered how to move and he stumbled in her direction. In Gaius’s direction too, although the monk’s presence was less of a draw.
She looked different. The poised self-assurance he recognized, but it was softened somehow. Perhaps it was the sleeveless gown the color of beach sand that brushed the tops of her feet, or the pale blue shawl wrapped around her shoulders. The giant dog at her side.
Why was it so hard to breathe? To think? “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be tending a garden and raising trouble.”
The wolfhound at Adel’s side stalked toward him, overbold and more than a little threatening. Not unlike her mistress, who stepped toward him too, one brow flickering. “What makes you so certain I have not been doing both?”
The dog circled him, a low growl rumbling in her throat. He kept one eye on her, the other on Adel. The latter smiled.
“Linde likes you.”
“Are you certain?”
Adel nodded. “You are lucky she has not thrown herself in your arms.”
