"I sat up all night thinking about what she had said and about the earnest desire for the match that my father seemed to express. But I came to the conclusion, and it was the only one that I had managed to find all that night, that I was not a man that was going through with anything like marriage for anyone but myself. My poor father would have to accept my decision. In that respect most certainly, Synnove was right. She would go against her father and mine if she came to the decision that she could not love me; I knew that I owed her the same respect.
I was listless and irritable throughout council the next day, berating a serving boy for some small blunder in his serving of the wine. My father promptly excused me from his presence. My mind, was of course, on the subject of what to do with Synnove and the proposed marriage? I could not get the image of her unearthly sky blue eyes out of my mind or the remembrance of her intelligence and common sense in a matter where most women would be at a complete loss. She would make and excellent match for any man in my position, but would she make a match for me? I had to find out. A brisk walk across the marketplace quickly led me to the steps of the General's home. I was admitted by a slave and promptly informed that his master was not about, but allowed to stay when I announced that I was here to meet with the lady of the house. He nodded in some confusion and left to summon her.
"She appeared shortly from the garden doors in a light, silk mantle for the hot summer weather. Her black hair was pulled back and wrapped round itself and allowed to coil in a thick, shimmering helix.
"'Forgive me Sebastien, I was not expecting any visitors today and allowed the shade of a tree and a book of Homer to draw my attentions. What is it that brings you to me this day, we had agreed upon one week?'
"'Thoughts of our conversation last night.' I took her arm gravely, then and lead her back outside in search of the shady tree that she had just left. It was not difficult to find, a monster of an oak, the book of Homer still lying underneath. I helped her to the ground and then took my place beside her. 'It has occurred to me, that it is difficult to make such a decision as the one that we are both faced with, when we only know each other by one brief meeting. I thought that we might talk the day away and perhaps begin to understand one another.' She nodded her head with sense and smiling widely. I had no doubt of her fast growing affection for me, though it seemed to be entirely honest.
"We spoke of Homer, the summer, the senate and my thoughts of war. We crossed her ideas of Rome's glory and the current state of affairs in the city. We covered our respect for our fathers; it seems that each of us knew the other well though we had never really met betwixt their many meetings. We talked of the Christians and other religions, such as the Greeks, who were close to ourselves. We spoke of all of this nonsense before finally coming to the heart of it all. It was nearing the dinner hour; her house servants had already informed her that her father and brothers were not to be home tonight and to ask if I would be remaining for dinner. She nodded her reply to the young woman and gave her explicit instructions for the dinner before dismissing her and returning her full attention to me.
"'Tell me Sebastien, what is in your heart? Does it call out to you to run or does it yearn for something else?' I looked up surprised. The sun shone red across her black hair creating an orange halo about her head, or at least it seemed to me. She leaned in towards me, placing her delicate hands on my cheeks before kissing me passionately on the lips. The hunger I felt for her at that moment was like nothing I had ever felt before. I would have taken her right there in the garden had not the thought of propriety struck me. I felt the urge to protect her from the worst of myself and from anyone else. She also, with that single gesture, created in me the need to have her with me, to have her body touching mine in some way or another, perpetually. To put it simply, I felt that I must have her always, and that she must have me always. In that one simple act she had caused me to answer the question that she had proposed a week to answer only the night before.
"I pushed her back gently, and she searched my eyes intently for the answer.
"'What is in my heart, Synnove, is certainly not the instinct to run, but it was never truly there in any aspect of my life. What is in my heart, I do not completely know. Or perhaps it is that I do not yet understand it. Still, I know this, you, aspects of you, are there and I believe that you always will be, if you have not always been before. There is also the desire to please my father and most of all the desire do what is best for myself and follow what I believe to be in my heart.' I remember breathing hard at this point, the words I had chosen to speak next choking in my throat, but at the same time willing themselves to be heard at any cost of my manly freedom. 'I think... I think I would follow you, Synnove, to the end of the earth as Orpheus followed Eurydice.
"'Now it is your turn, tell me what is in your heart?' I almost whispered as my grey eyes met with her widening blue ones, and my hand grazed first her cheek and then the silken flesh of her shoulder. She looked down for a moment, choosing her words before speaking with a delicate tenderness.
"'My heart holds a home for all the men in my life: my father, my brothers and you. I have loved well in my life and I have loved you well already.' I looked at her sharply, wondering what she had meant. 'Do not judge me yet, I have not finished my words. You have been little exposed to me in your life, but I have been greatly exposed to you. You would not recall the young girl that waited in the shade of the alleyway for her father to come forth from the Forum as you walked by in heated discussion with your own father. I was barely thirteen; you were twenty-one. I have never forgotten the passion in your eyes as you argued with him the last points of some decision that senate was to vote on. You would not let it go no matter how much he protested that you might. My own father had to shake me to his attention.
"'The next time I would see you, was three years later. A woman, blonde with dark eyes was on your arm and your father looked indignant. It was spring festival and I was a foolish young girl waiting for love to find me. Fertility rights were being performed all around me, my brother's wives were each being honored with them, and my father kept me close to him. You were standing near the shaded grove on the edge of the marketplace talking to other senators and trying to suppress the chatter of the woman that clung to your arm. Again, I could not take my eyes off you and I had recognized you instantly. I had thought of you every night, arguing with such heat for your belief.
"'I hated that woman, you know, I hated them all. My heart soared whenever I heard that you had flung another one aside, then it plunged as I heard of the next in your bed. Every time I wanted it to be me.
"'At this time I also knew of my betrothal. I had had many suitors already and each was promptly sent away by my father. One I was angry with him for at least not considering, a young senior centurion I believe. He let me know, in no uncertain terms, that the decision had been made years ago, shortly after my birth, that I was to marry Baratus' only son; namely you.
"'My heart positively sang at the words, and then sank again thinking that you would not have me, thinking me a foolish girl with lofty dreams. But the worst of it was knowing of the long line of women that I had seen go before me. I was convinced that you would not marry or if you did that you would never be a faithful husband: that I would be only a figurehead.'
"'Most, would have believed themselves wronged in your position, or stormed my home to let me know of my position and yours.'
"'That would be foolishness. You are a man and could reject me if you wished it, it would not be so easy for me to do the same, for all the sensibility that you say I possess I still have a woman's heart and would follow it to my end.'
"'But you could and can do that should you choose it.' She nodded but made no motion to revoke what she had said earlier, so I proceeded with my questioning of her. She confused me greatly, my sense told me that she was not one of my women but they also told me to be careful of it, but that I do believe was more my programmed reaction.
"'What was it, Synnove, that really drew you to me? I cannot make sense of it.'
"'Your eyes.' Her answer was simple, immediate and completely foreign to me, and she saw that in my face. 'They burn, Sebastien, with the fire of your heart, be it in the forum, recreation, or just a passing glance. Your very soul reflects itself in your grey eyes, and in them you can hide nothing. They show your excesses and your sensibility, they display your fine heart and your temper; they are a fine man's eyes. I gazed into them once, and I have been simply lost in them ever since.'
"A slave appeared then on the path that lead to the tree, a signal of supper. She rose and offered me her hand to aid my own rising and I took it gratefully. She had displayed her hard, man's mind the eve before and this day she had now displayed her soft heart. She was a fresh, young woman, with the heart of both a woman, and the child that she still was in her innocence; she was both foolish and wise in it. I was completely lost to her as we walked slowly towards the house to dinner.
"I went home to my father that night to announce that Synnove and I had accepted each other as he sat on a heavily cushioned chair by the fire. He smiled and nodded as he continued to read the large volume that he held in his hands, but his smile broadened with every nod of his head.
"Synnove and I saw little and much of each other in the next two and a half weeks as she began the moving of her things to my home, as well as redecorating it to erase the traces of my other women and preparing for the wedding ceremonies. She would, from time to time, run small details passed me whenever she was uncertain of what I would want. Her sense and attention to detail in all aspects continued to amaze and delight me.
"She ran errands with the slaves and made preparations throughout the day, and then was on my arm every night as we went to dine with either family or with other necessary persons. She proved herself to be the well-bred and mannered woman that she was expected to be. Synnove possessed the power to befriend the wives of important men with her beauty and skills, while charming their men with her sense and understand of the concepts of war. It was rarely that we were alone and it was these times that we cherished the most.
"On the last eve that we managed it, we were dining with out families at my father's home. My mother and brother had even consented to return from the country for the event a few days early for this little party. She had taken to Synnove almost instantly, realizing that this young woman was much like herself but was better able to alter my moods than she had been able to do with my father.
"As the next fight, in and already long line of them, broke out between my parents, we dismissed ourselves to the cool of the garden to enjoy the solitude and leave the General to call the match. As we stepped out the door, I grabbed her wrist and pulled her around the corner to ravage her lips for the first time in weeks. The flesh of her back, left open by her mantel, was like satin under my callused hands and she shivered before pulling back. The look in her eyes told me she had something that must be discussed pressing on her tongue.
"'What is it my love? Some detail of the wedding?'
"'Yes,' she breathed. 'It is of a somewhat controversial subject and I wished to speak to you of it before that happy night is upon us.
"'It is tradition for the nuptials to give each other a gift to symbolize their union, and as the Christians are living amongst us in apparent harmony under Numerianus, I thought you might allow my gift to be this.' She reached into a fold of her mantle to produce a small intricately painted wooden box, which she then placed nervously in my hand. 'It is a symbol of the unending, as who can trace the origin of a circle,' she whispered sucking in her breath. I pushed the release and the lid popped open with a small sound to reveal a man's gold ring sitting on a blue silk pillow. The Christians often wore them, though theirs were plain; this one was engraved with the symbols of Rome. She had smartly disguised it should the persecutions begin again in our lifetimes. I turned it into the light to find an even more delicately carved inscription inside the band: 'Not even the Realms of the Dead shall ever part us from one another.' I looked up at her smiling.
"'It will do very nicely. You shall not fear of my not wearing it.' I kissed her cheek then and handed the box back to her until the ceremonies were to take place. The wind blew lightly then and we moved further into the garden and its shelter. The fight inside the house continued to heighten, and lovers wish not to hear such things.
"The wedding was set for three weeks to the night that we were first introduced: an evening ceremony to commemorate it. Time both flew and dragged until the moment that I stood before the altar with her hand in my own; her silken robes blowing softly in the night air and her hair shining in the light of the braziers and the sacrificial fires. I remember the coppery smell of the blood of the sacrifice as it mixed with the sweet scents of the flowers that covered the garden. I remember the initial feel of the gold ring that she placed on my finger as her token of love. And I remember the light in her eyes as I gave her mine, the name of Synnove: Gift of the Sun. I cannot remember; as you have surely noticed, any name for her other than that one, so completely it did suit her and over take her being. Some days I wish that I could recall it, but that is all that she could ever be to me and I could never erase that image of the sun's halo about her black hair as she kissed me under the oak. It was that image, and that image alone that kept me from completely losing my sanity to the horrible vision of her death.
