Fic: The Threefold Tie, chapter 4
Oct. 9th, 2013 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerTitle: The Threefold Tie, chapter 4
Fandom: Rosemary Sutcliff, Eagle of the Ninth
Pairings: ALL THE PAIRINGS. Esca/Marcus, Esca/Cottia, Marcus/Cottia.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: So not mine. :(
Summary: After an argument with Esca and Cottia, Marcus is left alone on the farm. Can they repair their ties?
Also on AO3: Chapter 4: Cottia
It was later than usual when Marcus awoke. He could hear the snow melting outside, as if a stream passed directly by the door, and the door itself was open to let in the sun. The air was soft and warm with spring.
Esca sat by the fire, shaping more barley bannock. “Esca,” Marcus said groggily, and Esca looked at him.
“Marcus?” he said. His face held the start of a smile, but he did not let it grow, and in that check Marcus saw a question: Did Marcus stand by their conversation of last night? It had been night and Marcus had been feverish: he could take it back.
Marcus would have given much to take back saying I would rather be a cuckold than live another winter like the last. He teetered on the edge of it, and Esca must have seen the struggle in Marcus’s face, because his smile faded; and Marcus could not do it. To disclaim that conversation would send Esca away, and Marcus did not want, could not be alone any longer.
There was some shame in admitting it; and yet in thinking it he felt lighter than before.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Marcus said, and leaned over and kissed Esca’s cheek, a darting morning kiss of the kind he had once given Cottia in the mornings.
Had Esca seen that? He must have, the house was so small.
Marcus had not thought before how difficult it must be for Esca to see Marcus and Cottia’s happiness - back when they were happy. Though probably it was not easier to see two people he loved so well unhappy with each other. Two people -
He must stop thinking about Esca and Cottia. They were far apart from each other, and could not touch, and in any case Esca had promised he would not touch Cottia, even if she was here. And she was not.
Esca was smiling at him, his cheeks flushed with more than fire heat. “I’m glad you’re here, too,” he said.
And he had said, last night, that he wanted Marcus - that he did not think being wanted shamed him. Possibly Marcus had imagined that. But he did not think he could imagine something so unlikely on his own.
Marcus scooted gingerly toward Esca, taking care not to jar his leg. He reached up and touched his hand to Esca’s cheek, above the drooping mustache, and stroked his thumb across Esca’s skin.
But Esca pulled back. “There is Cottia to think of,” he said.
“Cottia!” Marcus said. He fell back on his pallet; he threw his blanket over his head. “Cottia is not here,” he protested, voice muffled by the cloth. “And she will not come back, unless I call the babe - ” He stopped so swiftly that his teeth clicked together.
“Guinhumara.”
Marcus’s hands clenched on the wool. “Yes, that!”
“Can you not even say the name? Is that why you do not like it, Marcus, the sounds are too complicated for your Roman mouth?”
Marcus thrust the blanket away from his face. Esca looked down at him, half-teasing and half-wary. “Guinhumara,” Marcus snapped. “I can say it well enough. I am not so petty as all that, Esca. If it were only that I could not say the name, I would have said.”
“I know,” said Esca. His face was suddenly serious. “But I do not understand why you are so insistent that the baby must be called Flavia, even here at the farm. Even if you must call her Flavia, could you not let Cottia call the child Guinhumara?”
Marcus plucked at the blanket, struggling for words. “And you?” he asked. “What would you call the child?”
Esca was silent for a moment. Then: “Guinhumara,” he said steadily.
Marcus struggled against bitterness. It would be easy - it was on the tip of his tongue to accuse Esca, again, of being in love with Cottia and meaning to cuckold Marcus. But he knew it was not true; and he knew that saying it would only drive Esca to leave again, and that Esca would not return a second time.
His stomach clenched in on itself. He had to agree: he could not live alone anymore. But he could not bring himself to simply surrender. “I do not see that it is any of your business,” Marcus snapped.
“Because she is your wife, and this if your farm, and it is your own life to destroy as you please?” Esca asked, not unkindly.
Marcus pressed his fists into his thighs. His bad leg smarted under the pressure. “Why would you call her Guinhumara?”
“Because,” said Esca. “It is a name my people use.”
Marcus kicked off the covers, restless. Goosebumps rose on his legs in the chill air. He would have paced, but his leg hurt too much. Instead his stubbornness coiled in his stomach, smoldering toward a rage that burned up his throat. He swallowed it down. “I suppose,” he said, “you do not much like my name, it being Roman.”
“I don’t mean that at all,” Esca returned. “I mean that she is half Iceni, and there is everything in the world to convince her to forget that as much as she can, and the Iceni should not be forgotten.’
Marcus clenched his hands in the pallet. The straw, much crushed after the long winter, barely crackled. “But it will be easier for her in Calleva if she used to being called Flavia,” he said.
“And so she will be, if you call her Flavia,” Esca replied calmly.
“What if she doesn’t want to be called Flavia at all? What if she rejects the name, as Cottia rejected Camilla? Camilla was only a name that Aunt Valaria gave Cottia, but Flavius is my name.”
And he stopped, shaken. He had not put the thing so baldly to himself before.
“Oh, Marcus.” Esca seemed to hesitate, then placed a hand on Marcus’s arm. “Cottia is rejecting - she is not rejecting you. You are not Rome - and she is not even rejecting all of Rome; she would not have married you if she did. She is just...she wants her children to be Iceni, too. Think, Marcus: the girls may marry Roman magistrates, the younger boys will join the Roman army. They will have Roman names too; they will be very Roman indeed when they are grown. Can you not let Cottia have this one thing?”
“You’re right,” said Marcus. It was hard to say the words: but once they were said, he felt suddenly so light that he might almost float. “You’re right,” he said again, and it was as if he had wanted to say so all along: it was so clear, now, that he had been stubborn, had tormented himself - no; had tormented all of them - for no reason.
Esca had forgiven him. Would Cottia?
A great urgency grew alongside the lightness. Marcus pushed back his blanket and stood. He could not float after all: he staggered on his leg. Esca stood quickly, but Marcus did not lean on him. “I have been wrong,” Marcus said, gathering up his cloak. His leg steadied as he walked. “I will go to Cottia in Calleva. I will tell her so.”
***
Esca thought Marcus was too weak to go to Calleva, and perhaps he was right. No, certainly he was right: but this time, Marcus was right too. If he did not go to Cottia now, when he still remembered how horrible that lonely winter had been, perhaps he would never be able to bring himself to apologize.
So they went to Calleva, and when they arrived at Aunt Valaria’s house, she sent Marcus to the garden. “Camilla is always there with the child,” she said. “I wish you the luck of it.”
He did not see Cottia at first, but only her freedwoman Clio, who sat in the sun near the garden gate. Clio saw him, and her old face warmed. He was surprised to see it. Clio had taken her feelings toward him from Cottia, and after Flav - after Guinhumara’s birth, Clio had always given him the burnt bannocks.
Perhaps Cottia had missed him. His heart began to pound. Perhaps the lonely winter had been hard on her, too.
Of course it had. He had been a fool not to think of that before; and thinking of it, suddenly he was full of a sweet remorse. Apologizing was not just right: it would be a pleasure. Why had he not come months ago?
Clio gestured, and following her arm Marcus saw Cottia at last, sitting on a bench half-hidden behind a flowering bush. Her fiery hair was bound up in braids around her head, and beneath them her face seemed very white and small and tired - perhaps more so, because she was trying to smile down at the baby, who stood precariously, clinging to the edge of the bench with her fat little hands. Cottia brushed a hand over the baby’s downy red hair.
Marcus opened the garden gate. Cottia turned at the noise, then sat very still, staring at Marcus, her chin lifted in defiance.
The babe, as if Cottia’s gaze had been keeping on her feet, plopped to the ground. She too sat very still, looking around as if surprised to find herself suddenly on the ground, then tugged on a flower with a chubby fist.
“She is growing well,” Marcus said, his voice husky. Esca had been right: Marcus was too ill for the road, and his throat burned with fire. He cleared his throat, and it felt as if daggers pierced his neck. “She is growing well,” he repeated. “Our Guinhumara.”
“Oh!” cried Cottia. She rose, she stood still for a moment; then she ran across the garden to him, hugging him so hard that his dragging leg almost buckled beneath him. “Oh, Marcus!” she cried, and burst into tears. She thrust herself away from him and smiled, her beam radiant, though tears still coursed down her face. “Guinhumara is - oh, Marcus!” She hugged him again.
Marcus was baffled, though he put his arms around her too. “Why are you crying?” he asked.
“I never thought you would change your mind,” she said, squeezing him tightly, face pressed in his shoulder. “You are so Roman and so stubborn.”
“I! I am stubborn!” Marcus protested.
“We are both stubborn,” Cottia said, and kissed his neck. Her soft hair, coming out of its complicated braids, brushed against his jaw. “That is why we must never argue, because otherwise we may never make up again, and I love you too much for that.”
Marcus would have been happy to stand there holding each other forever, or at least for a week; and they did stand there a long time, Cottia light in Marcus’s arms, her arms tight about him, and her breath warm on his neck.
But Marcus’s leg was not made for long standing. It twinged, and he staggered, and remembered that there were things that he must say to Cottia, which might make her angry but must be said.
It was a struggle to force words through his mouth, but he said, “When she comes to Calleva, Guinhumara will have to be called Flavia - in Calleva.”
Cottia flared briefly, drawing away from him. On his weakened leg Marcus almost fell. But she caught him, and her face softened, and he saw that tiredness again. “She will be in Aunt Valaria’s care when she comes to Calleva,” said Cottia. “And Aunt Valaria will make sure she is called by her proper Roman name.” She shifted, moving to brace Marcus against her shoulder. “Marcus, you have a fever. Let us get you - Clio! Come look after Guina! - ” The freedwoman hurried forward. “Marcus, let us get you inside - ”
But as they came in sight of the gate, Cottia suddenly stopped very still. Marcus, who had his eyes on his feet, did not at once understand; but then Cottia cried, “Esca!”
If she had not been holding Marcus up, Marcus thought Cottia might have run to Esca. Instead a shining smile lit her face, and she turned to Marcus. “Marcus! Esca is back?”
She said she loves me, he reminded himself. “Yes,” he said gruffly.
Cottia squeezed her arm around him again. “You will be so much happier now,” she said. “You were an awful ass when Esca was gone - Esca, he was extremely irritating after you left!” Cottia shouted, and Esca laughed and came across to them, slipping his shoulder under Marcus’s other arm.
“I am sorry to hear it,” Esca said, teasing her.
“Are you? Perhaps you should be happy to hear he missed you so,” she said.
“I missed you both,” said Marcus. He stroked his thumb across a curl of hair that had fallen loose over the nape of Cottia’s neck. “You have no idea how I missed you both.”
Leaning on Cottia and Esca, Marcus walked into the house.
Fandom: Rosemary Sutcliff, Eagle of the Ninth
Pairings: ALL THE PAIRINGS. Esca/Marcus, Esca/Cottia, Marcus/Cottia.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: So not mine. :(
Summary: After an argument with Esca and Cottia, Marcus is left alone on the farm. Can they repair their ties?
Also on AO3: Chapter 4: Cottia
It was later than usual when Marcus awoke. He could hear the snow melting outside, as if a stream passed directly by the door, and the door itself was open to let in the sun. The air was soft and warm with spring.
Esca sat by the fire, shaping more barley bannock. “Esca,” Marcus said groggily, and Esca looked at him.
“Marcus?” he said. His face held the start of a smile, but he did not let it grow, and in that check Marcus saw a question: Did Marcus stand by their conversation of last night? It had been night and Marcus had been feverish: he could take it back.
Marcus would have given much to take back saying I would rather be a cuckold than live another winter like the last. He teetered on the edge of it, and Esca must have seen the struggle in Marcus’s face, because his smile faded; and Marcus could not do it. To disclaim that conversation would send Esca away, and Marcus did not want, could not be alone any longer.
There was some shame in admitting it; and yet in thinking it he felt lighter than before.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Marcus said, and leaned over and kissed Esca’s cheek, a darting morning kiss of the kind he had once given Cottia in the mornings.
Had Esca seen that? He must have, the house was so small.
Marcus had not thought before how difficult it must be for Esca to see Marcus and Cottia’s happiness - back when they were happy. Though probably it was not easier to see two people he loved so well unhappy with each other. Two people -
He must stop thinking about Esca and Cottia. They were far apart from each other, and could not touch, and in any case Esca had promised he would not touch Cottia, even if she was here. And she was not.
Esca was smiling at him, his cheeks flushed with more than fire heat. “I’m glad you’re here, too,” he said.
And he had said, last night, that he wanted Marcus - that he did not think being wanted shamed him. Possibly Marcus had imagined that. But he did not think he could imagine something so unlikely on his own.
Marcus scooted gingerly toward Esca, taking care not to jar his leg. He reached up and touched his hand to Esca’s cheek, above the drooping mustache, and stroked his thumb across Esca’s skin.
But Esca pulled back. “There is Cottia to think of,” he said.
“Cottia!” Marcus said. He fell back on his pallet; he threw his blanket over his head. “Cottia is not here,” he protested, voice muffled by the cloth. “And she will not come back, unless I call the babe - ” He stopped so swiftly that his teeth clicked together.
“Guinhumara.”
Marcus’s hands clenched on the wool. “Yes, that!”
“Can you not even say the name? Is that why you do not like it, Marcus, the sounds are too complicated for your Roman mouth?”
Marcus thrust the blanket away from his face. Esca looked down at him, half-teasing and half-wary. “Guinhumara,” Marcus snapped. “I can say it well enough. I am not so petty as all that, Esca. If it were only that I could not say the name, I would have said.”
“I know,” said Esca. His face was suddenly serious. “But I do not understand why you are so insistent that the baby must be called Flavia, even here at the farm. Even if you must call her Flavia, could you not let Cottia call the child Guinhumara?”
Marcus plucked at the blanket, struggling for words. “And you?” he asked. “What would you call the child?”
Esca was silent for a moment. Then: “Guinhumara,” he said steadily.
Marcus struggled against bitterness. It would be easy - it was on the tip of his tongue to accuse Esca, again, of being in love with Cottia and meaning to cuckold Marcus. But he knew it was not true; and he knew that saying it would only drive Esca to leave again, and that Esca would not return a second time.
His stomach clenched in on itself. He had to agree: he could not live alone anymore. But he could not bring himself to simply surrender. “I do not see that it is any of your business,” Marcus snapped.
“Because she is your wife, and this if your farm, and it is your own life to destroy as you please?” Esca asked, not unkindly.
Marcus pressed his fists into his thighs. His bad leg smarted under the pressure. “Why would you call her Guinhumara?”
“Because,” said Esca. “It is a name my people use.”
Marcus kicked off the covers, restless. Goosebumps rose on his legs in the chill air. He would have paced, but his leg hurt too much. Instead his stubbornness coiled in his stomach, smoldering toward a rage that burned up his throat. He swallowed it down. “I suppose,” he said, “you do not much like my name, it being Roman.”
“I don’t mean that at all,” Esca returned. “I mean that she is half Iceni, and there is everything in the world to convince her to forget that as much as she can, and the Iceni should not be forgotten.’
Marcus clenched his hands in the pallet. The straw, much crushed after the long winter, barely crackled. “But it will be easier for her in Calleva if she used to being called Flavia,” he said.
“And so she will be, if you call her Flavia,” Esca replied calmly.
“What if she doesn’t want to be called Flavia at all? What if she rejects the name, as Cottia rejected Camilla? Camilla was only a name that Aunt Valaria gave Cottia, but Flavius is my name.”
And he stopped, shaken. He had not put the thing so baldly to himself before.
“Oh, Marcus.” Esca seemed to hesitate, then placed a hand on Marcus’s arm. “Cottia is rejecting - she is not rejecting you. You are not Rome - and she is not even rejecting all of Rome; she would not have married you if she did. She is just...she wants her children to be Iceni, too. Think, Marcus: the girls may marry Roman magistrates, the younger boys will join the Roman army. They will have Roman names too; they will be very Roman indeed when they are grown. Can you not let Cottia have this one thing?”
“You’re right,” said Marcus. It was hard to say the words: but once they were said, he felt suddenly so light that he might almost float. “You’re right,” he said again, and it was as if he had wanted to say so all along: it was so clear, now, that he had been stubborn, had tormented himself - no; had tormented all of them - for no reason.
Esca had forgiven him. Would Cottia?
A great urgency grew alongside the lightness. Marcus pushed back his blanket and stood. He could not float after all: he staggered on his leg. Esca stood quickly, but Marcus did not lean on him. “I have been wrong,” Marcus said, gathering up his cloak. His leg steadied as he walked. “I will go to Cottia in Calleva. I will tell her so.”
***
Esca thought Marcus was too weak to go to Calleva, and perhaps he was right. No, certainly he was right: but this time, Marcus was right too. If he did not go to Cottia now, when he still remembered how horrible that lonely winter had been, perhaps he would never be able to bring himself to apologize.
So they went to Calleva, and when they arrived at Aunt Valaria’s house, she sent Marcus to the garden. “Camilla is always there with the child,” she said. “I wish you the luck of it.”
He did not see Cottia at first, but only her freedwoman Clio, who sat in the sun near the garden gate. Clio saw him, and her old face warmed. He was surprised to see it. Clio had taken her feelings toward him from Cottia, and after Flav - after Guinhumara’s birth, Clio had always given him the burnt bannocks.
Perhaps Cottia had missed him. His heart began to pound. Perhaps the lonely winter had been hard on her, too.
Of course it had. He had been a fool not to think of that before; and thinking of it, suddenly he was full of a sweet remorse. Apologizing was not just right: it would be a pleasure. Why had he not come months ago?
Clio gestured, and following her arm Marcus saw Cottia at last, sitting on a bench half-hidden behind a flowering bush. Her fiery hair was bound up in braids around her head, and beneath them her face seemed very white and small and tired - perhaps more so, because she was trying to smile down at the baby, who stood precariously, clinging to the edge of the bench with her fat little hands. Cottia brushed a hand over the baby’s downy red hair.
Marcus opened the garden gate. Cottia turned at the noise, then sat very still, staring at Marcus, her chin lifted in defiance.
The babe, as if Cottia’s gaze had been keeping on her feet, plopped to the ground. She too sat very still, looking around as if surprised to find herself suddenly on the ground, then tugged on a flower with a chubby fist.
“She is growing well,” Marcus said, his voice husky. Esca had been right: Marcus was too ill for the road, and his throat burned with fire. He cleared his throat, and it felt as if daggers pierced his neck. “She is growing well,” he repeated. “Our Guinhumara.”
“Oh!” cried Cottia. She rose, she stood still for a moment; then she ran across the garden to him, hugging him so hard that his dragging leg almost buckled beneath him. “Oh, Marcus!” she cried, and burst into tears. She thrust herself away from him and smiled, her beam radiant, though tears still coursed down her face. “Guinhumara is - oh, Marcus!” She hugged him again.
Marcus was baffled, though he put his arms around her too. “Why are you crying?” he asked.
“I never thought you would change your mind,” she said, squeezing him tightly, face pressed in his shoulder. “You are so Roman and so stubborn.”
“I! I am stubborn!” Marcus protested.
“We are both stubborn,” Cottia said, and kissed his neck. Her soft hair, coming out of its complicated braids, brushed against his jaw. “That is why we must never argue, because otherwise we may never make up again, and I love you too much for that.”
Marcus would have been happy to stand there holding each other forever, or at least for a week; and they did stand there a long time, Cottia light in Marcus’s arms, her arms tight about him, and her breath warm on his neck.
But Marcus’s leg was not made for long standing. It twinged, and he staggered, and remembered that there were things that he must say to Cottia, which might make her angry but must be said.
It was a struggle to force words through his mouth, but he said, “When she comes to Calleva, Guinhumara will have to be called Flavia - in Calleva.”
Cottia flared briefly, drawing away from him. On his weakened leg Marcus almost fell. But she caught him, and her face softened, and he saw that tiredness again. “She will be in Aunt Valaria’s care when she comes to Calleva,” said Cottia. “And Aunt Valaria will make sure she is called by her proper Roman name.” She shifted, moving to brace Marcus against her shoulder. “Marcus, you have a fever. Let us get you - Clio! Come look after Guina! - ” The freedwoman hurried forward. “Marcus, let us get you inside - ”
But as they came in sight of the gate, Cottia suddenly stopped very still. Marcus, who had his eyes on his feet, did not at once understand; but then Cottia cried, “Esca!”
If she had not been holding Marcus up, Marcus thought Cottia might have run to Esca. Instead a shining smile lit her face, and she turned to Marcus. “Marcus! Esca is back?”
She said she loves me, he reminded himself. “Yes,” he said gruffly.
Cottia squeezed her arm around him again. “You will be so much happier now,” she said. “You were an awful ass when Esca was gone - Esca, he was extremely irritating after you left!” Cottia shouted, and Esca laughed and came across to them, slipping his shoulder under Marcus’s other arm.
“I am sorry to hear it,” Esca said, teasing her.
“Are you? Perhaps you should be happy to hear he missed you so,” she said.
“I missed you both,” said Marcus. He stroked his thumb across a curl of hair that had fallen loose over the nape of Cottia’s neck. “You have no idea how I missed you both.”
Leaning on Cottia and Esca, Marcus walked into the house.
