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The day after Marcus and Esca left, Cottia gathered some scraps of meat in a cloth and slipped into the Aquila garden. It was so early that the household was only just rising. She caught a glimpse of Marcipor carrying a bucket of water to the kitchen, but otherwise all was still and silent.

Cub came when she whistled, though, dashing down from the house, tail wagging.

“There you are!” she exclaimed, relieved. She had been afraid he might not come to her without Marcus there.

Cub happily accepted the food she had brought, and when she sat down on the bench, he laid down next to her, ears pricked, his eyes focused on the road.

“They will not return for many days yet, Cub,” Cottia told him. She petted the soft fur behind his ears. “But they will be back. Do not be afraid that they will not come back.”

At the sound of footsteps, Cub jumped up, a quiet growl rumbling in his throat. But it proved to be Marcus’s uncle, and Cub settled down again by her side.

“I see you have a protector,” Aquila said. He wore a broad-brimmed hat to shade his eyes from the sun, but she could see his bushy white eyebrows and the sharp angle of his nose.

Cottia swallowed and her hand went self-consciously to Marcus’s bracelet, which she wore on her wrist. “Marcus asked me to look after the Cub, sir,” she said.

“So he told me.” Aquila lowered himself to the bench and regarded her for a moment. Cottia lifted up her chin, determined not to appear intimidated.

Aquila did not say anything, but he nodded once, as though he had made a decision about something, and then turned his attention to Cub. “Now that you have a playmate, you will not have to bother poor Procyon anymore,” he told the wolf.

Cottia smoothed the fur around Cub’s bronze studded collar. “He is still a puppy really.”

Aquila huffed. “An overgrown pup who disturbs my studies with his barking,” he said, although Cottia felt he did not sound particularly angry. “Well, you must come to the kitchen and have something hot to drink before you go home. There is a definite chill in the air this morning.”

In the kitchen, Cub would not eat when Sassticca gave him a bowl of scraps. Only when Cottia held them out to him in her hand did he take them.

“What a naughty pup!” Sassticca exclaimed, shaking a wooden spoon at Cub. “What would the young master say if he were to come home and find that you had wasted away to skin and bone? It is a good thing you are here,” she added to Cottia.

“I will make sure he eats,” Cottia promised.

Sassticca nodded approvingly. “So, you have caught the young master’s eye, I see,” she added, gesturing to the bracelet on Cottia’s wrist.

Cottia flushed. “It is not that,” she stammered. “He could not take it with him, that is all, and asked me to look after it.”

“Asking you to look after two of the things that mean the most to him in this world? If that is not a sign of a young man’s affection, I do not know what is,” Sassticca replied, smiling.

Back in the garden, watching while Cub prowled under a tree in hopes of catching a squirrel, Cottia thought about what Sassticca had said. Could Marcus really feel so deeply for her? She believed them to be friends—very good friends. But he was so much older than her, and he had never said anything plainly.

And if he did, it would mean things like marriage and babies. Her throat grew tight and she called out to Cub to race her to the gate in order to hide the sudden pounding of her heart.

*

“What business can you possibly have at Aquila’s?” Aunt Valaria asked. She had come into the atrium just as Cottia was wrapping a shawl around her head and preparing to go feed Cub.

“I am looking after Marcus’s wolf while he is away,” Cottia replied.

“His wolf!” Aunt Valaria stared at her, mouth agape.

“Yes,” Cottia said, pleased at having provoked such a reaction.

“It can certainly not be seemly,” Aunt Valaria began, but Cottia tossed her head and fled the house, ignoring her aunt’s shouts.

“Do you think that Marcus loves me?” she asked Cub later, as they sat under the shade of a tree. Cub wanted his belly rubbed, and she obliged, scratching her fingers through his fur. “Do I want Marcus to love me?”

She had not thought about such things. She had only been glad to have a friend, someone who listened to her and respected her opinions and gave her the chance to escape the house and Nissa. But Marcus was a Roman. He would never go live with a British tribe. If he did love her—and if he returned and asked her to marry him—she would lose any chance of returning to the Iceni.

If! If! It was all too impossible to contemplate. Cottia put her arms around Cub and buried her face in the thick fur around his neck.

*

Cottia scowled down at the round black stone that Aquila had just placed next to one of her white pieces. He had boxed her in again!

She moved another of her pieces on the opposite side of the board, abandoning that one to its fate. Aquila raised an eyebrow at such a rash move. Cottia resisted sticking her tongue out at him. They had only played twice, but she already detested latrunculi. She could see why Marcus had always complained so about it. But it had seemed impolite to refuse when Aquila asked her to play with him.

“You must be around fifteen summers, yes?” Aquila asked her, snatching up the white stone.

“Fourteen,” Cottia replied, watching as he slid his black stone into the now empty spot. Then he moved it one square to the left. Now why in Epona’s name had he done that? He must be setting some sort of trap.

Aquila hummed, waiting for her to move. “Marcus was younger than that when his father and mother died.”

“I know. He told me about it. Although he is not sure his father is really dead.” She glanced up at Aquila, suddenly not sure she should have mentioned that. Perhaps Marcus had told it to her in confidence.

But Aquila only sighed and took a sip of his wine. “That is to be expected. But I fear his hopes will come to naught.”

Cottia picked up a stone and weighed it in her palm. “He will find the Eagle, though. And that will make things better.”

Aquila did not say anything, only waited until she had placed her stone and then took it two moves later, springing the suspected trap.

*

Cub stood at the gate, whining. He glanced up at Cottia and wagged his tail a little.

“I can’t bring them back, Cub. I’m sorry,” she told him. “But I know Marcus thinks about you.” She wondered if he thought about her, too. Did he miss her?

She missed him. She missed the sound of his accented British and his dark eyes. She missed the quietness that always settled around him, pulling her close and calming whatever passion had agitated her that day. She wondered if that meant that she loved him.

She had often imagined what it would be like to return to her mother and the Iceni. She had dreamed of the horse she would own and the dagger she would wear at her belt and of letting her hair fly loose in the wind.

Once, she had been sure that the dream would come true. As she grew older, the certainty faded with each passing year.

Perhaps it was time to have a new dream. A dream befitting a young woman and not a silly little girl. Reaching down, she twined her fingers around Cub’s collar, the studs biting into her skin. At least Marcus would never cage her. He did not want a prim and proper Roman maiden, of that she was sure.

“He gave you the chance to run wild and free,” she said to Cub, blinking back the sting of tears. “I never even had the hope of such a chance.”

She crouched down beside him, and Cub licked her cheek, letting her put her arms around his broad chest. “But you came back to him, didn’t you?”

After a few moments, Cub grew impatient and shook free, trotting expectantly towards the kitchen. Cottia glanced once more at the empty road and then stood up and followed.