When Marcus emerged from the office with Uncle Kaeso, Aunt Valaria had trembled with excitement, all her plans having reached fruition. Cottia to marry a Roman citizen—and a former centurion to boot! She had long despaired of Cottia catching the eye of anyone she deemed “respectable,” and she claimed all the credit for Cottia’s match, never mind that she would have forbidden the garden meetings that led to the match had she known of them.
Her pleasure was dimmed somewhat when she found out that Marcus would not be taking on some respectable official position with the Empire but instead intended to take his wife, his former slave, and his wolf to live in a wattle-and-daub hut in the Downs and take up farming. She comforted herself with the knowledge that he at least had land—and gifted by the Empire for some mysterious service that was the subject of much gossip in Calleva—and that any children Cottia bore him would be Roman citizens as well.
Cottia herself would not miss the comforts of the fine Roman-style house of her uncle. What did heated floors and a courtyard matter when she would be living with Marcus and with Cub?
With Esca, too, of course, because wherever Marcus went, Esca would go. She had seen the foundations of that laid that day in the arena—of all the audience, only she had been seated close enough and paid enough attention to see the looks on the two men’s faces when their eyes met for the first time. And after securing Esca’s freedom and whatever dances with death they had survived north of the Wall, their bond was something that nothing short of death could sever. Esca would guard Marcus’s back, be his strength when his leg plagued him, and Cottia would be thankful for that.
There was the question of how it would all work, though. She did not mind the thought of sharing a small home with both of the men—in her village, more people tended to share even smaller spaces. And though Esca was a Brigante and she an Iceni, enemies of generations past, he was at least of the Britons and would have familiar ways.
But she did not relish the idea of living with something unspoken expanding until it filled every crevice of the hut. A few weeks before the wedding, she caught Esca on the road back from the market.
He and Marcus had been away from town for some days, building the home Marcus would bring Cottia to once she was his wife, and the two men had only just returned to town. Cottia had spent the evening before in the garden with Cub’s head in her lap and Marcus’s hand holding her own. She would have liked a more intimate reunion, but with Nissa hovering, that was impossible. She had to be satisfied with hand-holding and conversation; Marcus had told her about the land, their house—small but well-made, and easy to add to should the need arise—his plans. They had not spoken of the wedding, which both of them cared little for, but only of the life that would come after. And in all their plans, Esca was there too, as she had known he would be.
Esca eyed her now as she stepped up to him at the turn of the road under the newly-budding ash. Not warily nor with bitterness, but as she had noticed he looked at all women—as though they were foreign creatures he knew not how to speak to.
Cottia, though, knew how to speak. “Do you resent me?” she said in their own language without preamble. She was straightforward in temperament and that, at least, she shared with Esca.
His shrug was easy, though the look in his eyes was still careful. Esca always kept his eyes shuttered when he looked at her, though she had seen him look at Marcus with his whole heart in his gaze. “I always knew a man like that would marry. They all want sons.”
Cottia knew her eyes flashed with anger at this—to be reduced to only a broodmare! She opened her mouth to say something sharp, but then Esca spoke again, though his eyes flicked away to watch a robin lighted on a bramble of a blackberry bush. “He might have picked a silly woman. Some men do, though for the life of me, I couldn’t tell you why. So many of the Roman women are silly.”
Well, that was true enough. Aunt Valaria certainly was silly, and Nissa was worse. Cottia had developed a private theory about this, about the limits that the Romans placed on their women. If a woman was only allowed to dress and preen and gossip and go to the baths and produce sons, how could she be anything other than silly? It didn’t make her dislike that silliness any less, but she at least could see where it came from.
And then Esca added, “Those Marcus chooses—those who choose him back—seem to be sound enough.”
She was as much irritated by this backhanded compliment as she was gratified. “And they seem to stick to him like a burr.”
But Esca seemed only amused at this, so she said it out loud, the thing they were both thinking: “Will his bed be big enough for three?”
She had seen the way Marcus and his former slave looked at each other, knew that the easy way they had with each other’s bodies was not the usual way between a man and his body-servant. If she had been raised in Aunt Valaria’s house or in any Roman home, perhaps she would not have noticed these things. Cottia was young, and she had only sipped the heady wine of Marcus’s kisses once or twice, and had never even looked at another man before him. But she was an Iceni, and her people did not hide such things away.
Now he swung his head around to look at her, and his face was tight in a way that told her that his previous nonchalance had been a facade. “Will you ask it of him? To keep to yours alone?”
And though he tried to keep his voice matter-of-fact, she heard a note she recognized, the same one that had sounded in her heart all those long months in Aquae Sulis.
There would be no point. “He would not,” she said. “Or he would try, perhaps, and it would make him miserable.” And then she said, “If there is both you and me to hold him, he will not look elsewhere.”
Esca’s expression did not change, but something had relaxed in his shoulders, his wrists. “No. He will not look elsewhere.”
And then the next moment, he was talking about the house, newly finished, and she found herself squabbling with him over the best mixture of daub, and they parted easily when they came to the split in the road.
The conversation did not settle the question of how, exactly, it would all work, but Cottia no longer worried about that. And at the wedding, Esca looked truly happy for Marcus.
The wedding itself was an entirely respectable Roman affair, but the next day, Cottia shed her stola and put on British clothes again, and she and Marcus and Esca and Cub went to their new home.
After Marcus showed her around—not that there was much to show—and they ate a dinner Sassticca had sent with them, Esca announced that he was going hunting. Marcus looked surprised, and then grateful, and though his olive skin did not show it, Cottia thought that if she pressed her hand to his face, she would feel the warmth of a flush.
Esca strode off into the night and took Cub with him; the wolf had finally decided to believe that Marcus would not abandon him again and so could be persuaded to go hunting with Esca now and then. Cottia was very glad to have the little house to herself and Marcus during that first week when she was learning many things about both herself and her new husband. It would have been awkward, truly, if Esca had been there, sleeping on the other side of the hearth.
Cottia didn’t say anything for the first few days, but a question was growing in her mind, and one evening as they lay in bed, the door standing open so that they could see the crimson streaking the sky, she said, “It must be very different. What you do with Esca.”
She had not been curious before her marriage about what Marcus and Esca did together. What had mattered had been what Marcus felt, not what he did. But now that her body knew what things a man and a woman could do together, she found herself wondering about what two men might do.
Marcus had been propped up on his elbow, but at her question, it gave way and he almost toppled out of bed. Cottia was too lazy with afterglow to laugh, but she felt a smile stretching her face.
Marcus righted himself, but then he started stammering, and for just a moment, she had the sick feeling that he was going to deny it. “You’re not going to lie to me!”
“No! Of course not!” He seemed as horrified at the idea as she was.
“So then, did you think I didn’t know?”
“No. I don’t know.” Again, he stumbled over his words. “I suppose I just tried not to think about it.”
Wasn’t that just like a man? When she laid her hand against his cheek, she found that, yes, it was warm with embarrassment, and she felt a rush of affection that had a different flavor than the passion she had for him. “I don’t mind,” she said, and she mostly meant it. “I know how you love him, and he, you.” She did not say, He is the only one who could ever love you as I do, and that is the kind of love you deserve, but she thought it. “As long as it is only Esca.”
Again, he looked horrified, this time at the thought that there would be anyone besides Esca, and she had to giggle. She had never been one for giggling, but she found that it kept happening, time and again, in Marcus’s bed.
“Only Esca,” he swore, and turned his head so he could kiss the hand that still cupped his cheek. “And only my Cottia. Only and always.”
It was a different kind of vow than the ones he had made at the wedding, and one that would have scandalized Aunt Valeria. Too, it was something she had known down to her soul without having to be told. But somehow it was nice to be told.
A few days later, Esca returned with a deer carcass slung over his shoulder, and then a few days after that, he and Marcus disappeared down to the burn, allegedly to wash off the sweat of the day’s work. They were gone for longer than a bath would take, but Cottia said nothing. Marcus was so happy these days, a kind of happiness she had not ever thought to see in him. Part of it was being married, she knew, having her beside him. Part of it was Esca, of course. And part of it was having land of his own and work to do. He worked very hard.
They all did, harder than Cottia had ever worked in her life. She didn’t mind; hard work was better, by far, than a cage, and in her village, everyone had their work to do. She had known from childhood what woman’s work was and had lived with her parents long enough to learn from her mother how to do most of it.
Marcus was sometimes surprised when Cottia or Esca’s way of doing something diverged from the Roman way, but he accepted it easily enough, going along with however the other two insisted on doing things. Cottia and Esca bickered often over whether things should be done the Iceni way or the Brigante way—he swore that her way of cooking fowl was far inferior to his mother’s, and she still said that his daub mixture would never last as many years as hers. At the beginning, Marcus watched them anxiously when they argued, gaze swinging back and forth between them. But eventually he realized that it was just their way, and after that he grinned to listen to them quarrel.
Through that spring and summer and into the harvest, they worked, the three of them side by side, with the wage help of a few other men from the nearest village. Cottia had tried not to hope, but when the harvest came and it was pitiful, she was more crushed than she’d thought she would be, and she could see the same on Esca’s face.
“I always knew that the first year would bring us nothing,” Marcus said, a stubborn smile on his face. “It’s always the way. And we’re learning. Farming here is so different than in Etruria, and Esca’s a hunter by both training and disposition, not a farmer. It will take us some time to master it. We have enough to carry on for two more harvests.”
He had explained to her that he was trying to do this without his uncle’s help if he could, but that he would go to Aquila if need be after the third harvest. Until then, they would manage.
This suited Cottia’s pride and independence very well, but that winter was hard. They had enough to eat, but only just, and they stayed cold most of the time.
They spent a great deal of time in bed, tucked up under the hides that Esca had skinned and Cottia had treated, and Marcus divided his nights between the two beds. When he was in hers, Cottia buried her face in the pillow or bit her lip till it bled, trying to be quiet enough that Esca could pretend not to hear them. She did not feel shame—she was Marcus’s wife, after all—but she and Esca had an unspoken agreement to be as considerate as they could.
But she knew it was pretense, for when she lay alone, their sounds made their way to her despite the crackling of the fire and the roaring of the winter wind. Those sounds left her hot and desperate for attention, and she had to sternly remind her body that it was not her turn. Sometimes, though, she slipped her hand down between her legs while the sounds of her husband’s moans filled the small hut.
One night, when Marcus went to slide into the bed beside Esca, she followed. “Enough of this,” she said, dropping her robe before climbing in after him. Marcus threw her a wild, startled look and opened his mouth to protest, but Esca just grunted. “It’s too cold to sleep alone,” he said, and scooted over. Marcus, that poleaxed look on his face, lapsed into silence.
That night, they did no more than sleep, but it was warmer with three. And when she woke and found Marcus hard against her thigh, she was not surprised. Marcus stammered, and Esca made to rise and go out, but she pulled them both back down.
It was difficult with three, but through some silent consensus between herself and Esca, they kept Marcus between them and made it work. Esca never looked at Cottia’s body, much less touched her, but he met her eyes often enough that she understood: he was not interested in her or any woman in that way, but he did not resent her presence. Not when Marcus was so happy to have them both pressed against him. When they lay panting together after, Marcus let out a short laugh that was almost a sob and gasped, “I never thought—”
Cottia smiled as she ran her hands through his sweaty hair where his head rested on her chest, and Esca leaned over and pressed a sweet kiss to his cheek and took his hand.
For the rest of the winter, they shared the sleeping place between the three of them. When spring came, Cottia went back to her own place most nights, and Marcus returned to going between them, though sometimes he seemed to need them both together.
One brisk morning in early spring, when the trees were just budding and the birdsong still new, Cottia told them both what she suspected, and the joy that burst forth on Marcus’s face drove the last of the cold darkness of winter away. He went to Calleva the next day to tell Aquila the news and share some imported Etrurian wine.
Cottia sought out Esca where he was working on a pen for the sheep they planned to purchase at the market fair. She sat down on a sun-warmed stone and watched him work, weaving together branches for a fence. He ignored her, continuing with his work as though she wasn’t there on the stone with her knees tucked up under her chin, her berry-colored cloak wrapped around her shoulders, the sun on her face.
They weren’t often alone together, but when they were, they had been easy together for some time. Now, though, things had seemed brittle between them since Esca had come into the house the night before and Marcus had shouted the news that he would soon be a father. Esca’s joy for Marcus was sincere—it always was. But he had been careful not to look at Cottia after that, in a way that he had not avoided her since before the wedding.
“Esca,” she said. “Don’t you want sons, too?”
This seemed to surprise him and he looked up at her quickly. “What’s that?”
“I was just thinking, back before the wedding. You said that men like Marcus wanted sons. But you said nothing of yourself.”
He went back to his work in silence for a long moment, then said without raising his head, “I always knew that I did not want a wife. I never thought to have children of my own.”
“You know this child will be just as much yours as Marcus’s, don’t you?”
Again, his head jerked up, startled. “You can’t—that’s not—”
She cut off his stammering. “How could it be otherwise? You will raise him with us and teach him everything you know, just as Marcus will. He will not call you Father, but what does that matter? He will never know a life without you.”
Esca set down the branches he’d been working with and slowly straightened. Now he met her eyes, and he held her gaze for a very long time. Then, suddenly, he smiled, though his voice was solemn when he said, “Lady,” using the British word for a high-born woman of great honor. “Those Marcus chooses, who choose him back, they are all sound.”
“Sound enough,” she agreed, and smiled in return.