Jovian nodded. "Aye, and the prince loves Casia even as she loves him, but he cannot say it to her. He told me once when he was in his cups. When this night is over, I will tell her. It will give her comfort, I think. Now I must leave you both else Gabras become overly suspicious of why I linger here."

The door closed behind Jovian, and Wulf set the wooden bar into place, which would protect their privacy. Cailin's heart was beating very quickly. It was really Wulf! With shaking hands she poured two goblets of wine, sipping nervously at hers as he turned back to her and took up his own goblet.

He drained it swiftly and said bluntly, "So you are to be married. You have the look of a woman who has prospered, and one who is well-loved."

"And you who loved me for my lands left those lands quickly enough. You told me you had tired of fighting, but perhaps a gladiator earns more coin, and certainly he has better privileges than a mere soldier in the legions," Cailin countered. She had been mad to come, and madder still to believe there was anything left between them.

"How came you to Byzantium?" he asked her.

"In the hold of a slave galley out of Massilia, Wulf Ironfist," Cailin said harshly. "I was walked the length of Gaul to get there. Before that my time was spent in a drugged state in a slave pen in Londinium." She gulped at her wine. "I believe our child lives, but what Antonia did with it, I cannot say. Were you even interested enough to find out?"

"She said that both you and the child had perished in the ordeal of childbirth," he defended himself, and then went on to tell her of what had transpired when he had gone to Antonia's villa to bring her home.

"What of our bodies?" Cailin said angrily. "Did you not even ask to see our bodies?"

"She said she had cremated you both, and even gave me a container of ashes. I interred them with your family," he finished helplessly. "I thought you would want it that way."

The macabre humor of it struck Cailin, and she laughed. "I suspect what you interred was a container of wood, or charcoal ashes," she said, draining her cup and pouring herself more wine.

"How is it that you know Jovian Maxima?" he suddenly demanded.

"Because he bought me in the slave marketplace, and brought me here," she told him coolly. "Are you certain you wish to know more?"

She was not the same person, he realized, but then how could she be? He nodded slowly, then listened, his face alternating between anger, pain, and sympathy, as she told her tale. When she had finished, he was silent for a long moment, and then said, "Will we allow Antonia Porcius to destroy the happiness we had, Cailin Drusus?"

"Ohh, Wulf," she replied, "so much time has passed for us. I thought you would stay with the lands that were my family's. I believed you would have taken another wife by now, and had another child of your loins. How could I have ever believed that we would meet again here in Byzantium, or anywhere on this earth?" She sighed, and lowered her head to hide the tears that had sprung into her eyes from nowhere, it seemed.

"So you went on with your life?" he asked her, almost bitterly.

"What else was I to do?" she cried to him. "Aspar rescued me from this silken Hades, and freed me. He sheltered me, and loved me. He has offered me the protection of his name despite incredible odds. I have learned to love him, Wulf Ironfist!"

"And have you forgotten the love that we shared, Cailin Drusus?" he demanded fiercely. Reaching out, he pulled her roughly into his arms. "Have you forgotten what it once was like between us, lambkin?" His lips gently touched her brow. "When Antonia told me you and the child were dead, I was devastated. I could not believe it, and then she was handing me that damned container of ashes. I returned to our hall and buried them. I tried to go on with my life, but you were everywhere. Your very essence permeated the hall, the lands! And without you there was nothing. None of it meant anything to me without you, Cailin. One morning I awoke. I took my helmet, my shield, and my sword, and I left. I didn't know where I was going, but I knew that I must get away from your memory. I wandered the face of Gaul into Italy. In Capua I met some gladiators at a tavern. I enrolled in the school there, and once I began to fight, I quickly became a champion. I had no fear of death, you see. That fear is a gladiator's greatest enemy, but I did not feel it. Why should I? What did I have to lose that I had not already lost except my life, which was now worthless to me."

"And did you escape my memory in your combats, in a wine jug, or in the arms of other women, Wulf Ironfist?" she asked him.

"You have been ever with me, Cailin Drusus. In my thoughts and in my heart, lambkin. I could not escape you, I fear." He held her close, breathing in her scent, rubbing his cheek against her head.

The stone that her heart had become when she saw him again began to crumble. "What do you want of me, Wulf?" she asked him softly.

"We have found one another, my sweet lambkin," he told her. "Could we not begin again? The gods have reunited us."

"To what purpose, I wonder?" she answered.

He tilted her face up to his, and his mouth slowly closed over hers. His lips were warm, and so very soft, and as the kiss deepened, Cailin's heart almost broke in two. She still loved him! Worse. She loved Aspar, too! What was she to do? Unable to help herself, she let her arms slip up and about his neck.

"I no longer know what is right, or what is wrong," she said helplessly. "Ohh, cease, Wulf! I cannot think."

"Do not!" he said. "Tell me you do not love me, Cailin Drusus, and I will help you to escape Villa Maxima now. I will leave Constantinople, and you will never see me again. Perhaps it would be better that way. Our child is lost to us, and the life you lead here in Byzantium is a better life for you. Civilization suits you, lambkin. You know the rough destiny facing us back in Britain." Yet despite his words, he held her close, as if he could not bear to let her go.

Cailin was silent for what seemed an eternity, and then she said, "The child might yet live, Wulf. I somehow feel it does. What kind of parents are we that we do not even seek to find our child?"

"What of this Flavius Aspar? The man you are to wed?" he asked. "Is there not enough between you that you would remain here with him?"

"There is much between us," she replied quietly. "More than you can possibly know. I give up much to return to Britain with you, Wulf Ironfist; but there is much waiting for us in Britain. There are our lands, which I have no doubt Antonia has appropriated once more; and there is the hope of finding our child. The land has a certain meaning for me. Aspar's love, however, far outweighs it. It is our child that tips the balance of the scales in your favor.

"Once, and it seems so long ago now, we pledged ourselves to each other in wedlock. Our marriage would not be recognized by those in power here in Byzantium should I choose Aspar over you. It was not celebrated within their church. But the vows we made in our own land are sacred, and I will not deny them now that I know you live. I am a Drusus Corinium, and we are raised to honor our promises not simply when they are convenient, but always."

"I am not a duty to be done," he said, offended.

Cailin heard his tone. She smiled up at him. "No, Wulf Ironfist, you are not a duty, but you are my husband unless you choose here and now to renounce the vows we made to one another in my grandfather's hall that autumn night. Remember before you speak, however, that in denying me, you deny our lost child to us as well."

"You are certain of what you are saying, lambkin?" he asked.

"No, I am not, Wulf Ironfist," she told him candidly. "Aspar has been good to me. I love him, and I will hurt him when I leave him; but I love you also, it would seem, and there is our child."

"What if we cannot find it?" he questioned.

"Then there will be others," she said softly.

"Cailin," he whispered, "I want to love you as we once loved."

"It is expected of us," she replied, "is it not? The door is barred, and they will leave us in peace until the morning, but you must take that short tunic off, Wulf Ironfist. The gods! It leaves little to the imagination, and I prefer you without it."

Now they both stood naked in the flickering light of the lamps. Cailin filled her eyes with him. She had forgotten much, but now memory surged strongly through her. Reaching out, she touched a crescent-shaped scar on his chest, just above his left breast. "This is new," she said.

"I got it at the school in Capua," he told her, and then held out his right arm to her, "and this one at the spring games in Ravenna this past year. I was blocking a net man, and thinking he had me, he already had his dagger out. He died well, as I remember."

Cailin leaned forward and kissed the scar upon his arm. "You must never go into the ring again, Wulf. I lost you once, but I will not lose you again!"

"There is no safe place," he told her. "There is always danger lurking somewhere, my beloved." Then his two big hands cupped her face and he pressed kisses on her lips, her eyes, her cheeks. Her skin was so soft. She murmured low, her head falling back, her white throat straining. He licked hotly at the column of perfumed flesh, his lips lingering at the base of her neck, feeling the beating pulse beneath. "I love you, lambkin," he murmured. "I always have."

She suddenly seemed to flame with desire. She devoured him with her kisses; her lips and her tongue kissing, touching, licking at him. She touched the scar on his breastbone with her mouth, and he groaned as if in pain. She straightened herself, and they stared deeply into each other's eyes for what seemed an eternity. They were past words. Reaching out, she touched his manhood, stroking him gently, her fingers slipping around him to softly caress his pouch of life.

"You will unman me, sweet," he grated.

"You are no green boy," she reassured him, "and we may as well put to good use the things I have learned for our mutual pleasure." Slipping to her knees before him, she kissed his belly and thighs, then taking him in her mouth, she loved him until he begged her stop, pulling her to her feet to kiss her hungrily.

He drew her over to the dais, and they lay together upon the mattress, their bodies entwined, kissing more. She was no longer the shy girl he had known. Her hands were bold and touched him knowledgeably. He didn't know whether to be shocked or delighted, but in the end he erred on the side of delight. He had lost a sweet young wife. He had regained a passionate woman. Cradling her in the crook of his arm, he began to stroke her body, and she purred at him like a well-fed feline, encouraging him, crying out softly as her own pleasure began to build.

He cuddled the perfect globes of her breasts tenderly, leaning forward to lick at the nipples with a warm tongue, rousing the rosy tips. The taste of her was exciting, and he began to lick at her warm, silken skin, his tongue sweeping over her flesh; between her breasts, up her throat, back down again to her belly.

Cailin moaned fitfully and half sobbed, "Do you know how to pleasure a woman as I pleasured you?"

"Aye," he rasped, and lowered his head that he might do her bidding, flicking lightly at her little jewel, but then he probed at her more deeply, his tongue pushing into her suggestively.

"Ahhhh!" she cried out, and her body arched to meet him. He was driving her wild, and she sensed he knew it. Then Wulf pulled himself up, and seeking her woman's passage, slid slowly and sensuously into her. When he had sheathed himself as deeply as he could, he let himself rest a moment, his manhood throbbing its passionate message to her. Then grasping her hips in his hands, he moved rhythmically within her until her whimpering cries rang in his ears. Cailin's lids were heavy, but she forced her eyes open that she might look into his face as he possessed her.

He took her tenderly, kissing her face, murmuring his love and longing into her ear. She was full of him, and yet she longed for more of him. She had forgotten the passion that had once existed between them, but now he stirred the embers of her memory until she was afire, and remained so throughout the night as they made love to one another over and over again, seemingly unable to gain satisfaction for very long.

Finally exhausted, they fell into a light slumber, only to be awakened by a pounding upon the door of the chamber.

Wulf stumbled to his feet. The floor lamp and one of the smaller oil lamps had burned out. Unbarring the door, he opened it to find Casia and Jovian before him. "What do you want?" he growled.