Celtic Fire(59)

“Truly?” How could anyone frown on such a talent?

Marcus waved one hand over the papyrus to dry the ink. “He says they’re nonsense. But I won’t stop,” he added fiercely. “Uncle Aulus said I should draw every day, as he did.”

“Your uncle was an artist, too?”

“Yes. And a storyteller. Father called him frivolous.” Marcus recapped the inkwell and stowed it with his pen in the bottom of the brass tube. Carefully, he picked up the papyrus and passed it back and forth through the air until he was satisfied it was dry. Then, placing a blank sheet atop it, he rolled it tightly and slid it into the tube with the rest of his supplies.

“We should be going back.” He grimaced. “No doubt Magister Demetrius is already searching for me.”

They retraced their steps along the battlement and down the ladder. As they stepped clear of the gate tower, the black dog they’d seen earlier raised its head. Rhiannon smiled at the creature. It looked underfed, but its golden eyes held a soulful light. The animal tracked their progress, ears erect. Then, as if coming to some canine decision, it loped toward them.

Marcus laughed in delight. “Come, boy.” He held out his hand and stood as still as a whisper. The dog nuzzled Marcus’s hand, then turned its attention on Rhiannon. She allowed the beast its exploration, then scratched its ears. When they turned down the alley between the barracks, the dog followed. A few minutes later Marcus stood at the front door to the fort commander’s residence, frowning down at the animal.

“I don’t think he wants to leave you,” Rhiannon observed.

“Father will be furious if I let him in the house.” A spark of longing showed in his eyes. “We had hounds at our country home outside Rome, for hunting, but they stayed in the stables. I used to sneak out to play with them. Mother never allowed me one in the city.”

The dog leaned against Marcus, tail wagging, nose in the air while the lad’s fingers tangled in its dirty mane. The scruffy fur about its head gave it a comical air. Despite her anxiety, Rhiannon smiled. The beast’s head came nearly to Marcus’s chest.

“We’ll bring him to the storeroom and bathe him,” she said on impulse. “I’m sure your father won’t mind having a dog about if it stays out of sight.”

Marcus shot her a look that said he feared for her wits; then he giggled. “All right,” he said and pounded on the door.

The porter gave them a startled glance but made no comment as Marcus scurried through the foyer, the dog at his heels. He had no trouble coaxing the beast into the kitchen, where it promptly rose on its hind legs and snatched a hunk of raw meat from a platter on the worktable.

Claudia grabbed a knife in her beefy hands and shrieked. Bronwyn, slack-jawed, dropped the container she’d been wrestling to the stove, splashing water over the loaves ready for the oven. Seizing the scruff of the dog’s neck, Rhiannon helped Marcus wrestle his new pet to an open area in the rear of the storeroom.

She found a pair of hide buckets and returned a few moments later with water from the courtyard fountain. “What will you call him, Marcus?”

“Hercules,” he said with a decided air. The dog looked at him and thumped his tail once on the ground.

“He seems to approve.”

Hercules did not approve of his bath, however, deciding if he were to be drenched, it was only fair Rhiannon and Marcus be soaked as well. After much wrestling and laughter, the brute shook off the last drops of water and settled in a dry corner of the storeroom, chewing on a bone Marcus had pilfered from the kitchen.

Rhiannon surveyed the soggy ruins and shook her head. “Where shall we have him sleep?” she mused. “I doubt if Lucius’s dour-faced man will allow him a place with the servants.”

Marcus giggled. “No, Candidus will likely give birth to a cow when he sees Hercules. I’ll let him sleep in my room.”

The unbounded joy on Marcus’s face was contagious and Rhiannon grinned in response, despite her fears for the future. At the same time, her heart clenched and she sent a prayer to Briga for wisdom. How could she get the lad and his father away from the fort?

“Great Zeus!” Demetrius appeared in the doorway, a look of pure astonishment on his face. If his grizzled brows rose any farther, Rhiannon thought, they would disappear into his scalp.

“Do you like him?” Marcus asked ingenuously.

The healer let out a word that Rhiannon suspected wasn’t part of Marcus’s Greek vocabulary. “Your father—”

“—won’t even notice he’s here,” Marcus supplied quickly. “I’ll keep him out of the way.”