Chapter 1
Apiolae, Roman Empire
264 A.D.
She didn’t know that today was going to be the day that she died, and even if she had, it wouldn’t have mattered one bit.
The pains of labor were coming hard and fast upon Camilla now, and she was tilted back to minimize her discomfort. The smells in the small hut were overpowering—the sweat, the stink of childbirth made her nearly want to gag. She was perspiring, her skin clammy. She could hear the sound of her own straining. In her head, it sounded like wood being pushed to the snapping point. The pain between her legs heralded the baby’s coming. That or her death, she figured.
“Camilla,” came the voice from down there, down by the pain. She looked upon the darkened face of Aelia, the midwife. “Things are moving quickly now. I will have you push upon the next swelling of the pain.”
“It is all pain,” Camilla said between abruptly drawn breaths. They were like fire taken into her body, each of them.
Aelia smiled sweetly, the cow. “I see the top of a head. Do you have a name for the child?”
Camilla drew another ragged breath, trying to keep from screaming. “Marius, if it’s a boy. Aureliana, if it’s a girl.”
Camilla did not miss the subtle flickering of Aelia’s face as she glanced down, then back up to meet Camilla’s eyes. “Is Marius the father’s name?”
Camilla took another impatient breath. She’d kept the father’s identity to herself. It didn’t bear talking about, in her opinion, that she’d met a strange man and fallen prey to his charms. She’d woken up groggy, disoriented, and barely able to see straight the next morning.
She’d found out about the baby not too long after.
And for the life of her, she could not remember his damned name. She remembered his low words, but barely, the smooth lines of his face, the near-glow of his green eyes. His caress when he brushed her arm and shoulder had felt silky at first. She remembered him speaking to tell her his name, but it was as though the words themselves had been ripped from her mind with a touch.
A touch that had turned to fire.
Camilla had had lovers before, had been with men in dark places and felt their touch. Rough or gentle, she’d never met a man who made her feel a searing in her skin before, all pain and no pleasure.
And what in the skies of Jupiter was his name? It was gone. Just gone.
“The baby is crowning,” Aelia said, her tone neutral. The cow sounded as though she were delivering nothing more important than a baby … well, cow. She had helped deliver more than a few of those, Camilla supposed. “A few more good pushes and we’ll have them out.” She glanced up and smiled. “As I said, it is moving fast. Another few minutes at most and you’ll be holding your baby.”
“Oh, good,” Camilla said. The pain was interminable, and hearing that there was a definite end to it was a comfort in itself. She could buttress herself against the torment for a few minutes more if that was all it would take. She could feel the agony rising within her for another wave and she pushed as furiously as she could.
Her nerves sang in pain, screamed in pain, and after a moment of resisting she added her own voice to the chorus because WHY NOT OH IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS AIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—
Camilla realized after a moment that she had started to scream along with the pain, had sung with it. The searing fire built to a crescendo and then began to subside, replaced by her own labored breathing. She sagged back on the bed, feeling the steady burning in her loins.
“Very close now, Camilla,” Aelia said. “The head is out and I’ve very nearly got the shoulder clear.” She sounded so calm, the cow. Like she was in the midst of something ordinary, as though there wasn’t pain, pain, pain as far as the eye could see, the ear could hear, the skin could feel—
Camilla grunted. The pain she felt now was not like the other pain. It was a burning that was continuous, a searing that seemed to be rising in her groin, independent of the labor pains. This one sizzled inside, inside her like—
“It burns,” she moaned and felt her face contort even as the other pain—the labor pain—rose again within her.
“It comes quickly now,” Aelia said, her voice muffled, not looking up. “This will be the time—”
“It burns!” Camilla screamed as the crescendo of labor clashed with the screaming, burning fire against the skin of her insides where she could barely feel the baby lodged within her. Even with the pain she could tell there was something wrong, something different from the waves of agony that had come with the birthing. That was rising again, too, there was no stopping it now, but the other pain—