His words and the lulling tone worked. Also, the wine had begun to. Rufus sat quiet a moment, nodded, beamed, tossed off his drink, held out a band. “By the Three, right!” he cried.
Lugo clasped the hard palm. The gesture was fairly new in Gallia, maybe learned from Germanic immigrants. “Splendid,” he said. “Just speak fully and frankly. I know that won’t be easy, but remember, I have my reasons. I mean to do well by you, as well as God allows.”
He refilled the emptied cup. Behind his jovial facade, tension gathered and gathered.
Rufus drank. His vessel wobbled. “What d’you want to know?” he asked.
“First, why you got into grief.”
Rufus’ pleasure faded. He scowled beyond his questioner. “Because my wife died,” he mumbled. “That’s what broke the crock.”
“Many men are widowed,” Lugo said, while memory twisted a sword inside him.
The big hand tightened around the cup till knuckles stood white. “My Livia was old. White hair, wrinkles, no teeth. We’d two kids what grew up, boy and girl. They be married, kids o’ their own. And they’ve gone gray.”
“I thought this might be,” Lugo whispered, not in Latin. “O Ashtoreth—”
Aloud, using today’s language: “The rumors that reached me suggested as much. That’s why I came after you. When were you born, Rufus?”
“How the muck should I know?” The response was surly. “Balls! Poor folk don’t keep count like you rich ‘uns. I couldn’t tell you who be consul this year, let alone then was. But my Livia was young like me when we got hitched— fourteen, fifteen, whatever. She was a strong mare, she was, popped her young out like melon seeds, though only the two o’ them got to grow up. She didn’t break down fast like some mares.”
“You may well have reached your threescore and ten, then, or gone beyond,” Lugo said most softly. “You don’t look a day over twenty-five. Were you ever sick?”
“No, ‘less you count a couple times I got hurt. Bad hurts, but they healed right up in a few days, not so much as a scar. No toothaches ever. I got three teeth knocked out in a fight once, and they grew back.” The arrogance shriveled. “People looked at me more and more slanty. When Livia died, that broke the crock.” Rufus groaned. “They’d been saying I must’ve made a deal with the Devil. She told me what she heard. But what the muck could I do? God give me a strong body, that’s all. She believed.”
“I do too, Rufus.”
“When she fell bad sick at last, not many ‘ud speak to me any more. They’d shy from me in the street, make signs, spit on their breasts. I went to a priest. He was scared of me too, I could see it. Said I ought to go to the bishop, but the bastard stalled about taking me to him. Then Livia died.”
“A release,” Lugo could not help venturing.
“Well, I’d gone to a whorehouse for a long time,” Rufus answered matter-of-factly. Fury flared. “Now they, them bitches, they told me go away and don’t come back. I got mad, raised a ruckus. People heard and gathered around outside. When I came out, the scumswine yelled at me. I decked the loudest mouthed o’ them. Next thing I knew, they were on me. I barely fought free and ran. They came after me, more and more o’ them.”
“And you’d have died under their feet,” Lugo said. “Or else presently the rumors would have reached the prefect. The tale of a man who never grew old and was dearly no saint, therefore must be in league with the diabolical. You’d have been arrested, interrogated under torture, doubtless beheaded. These are bad times. Nobody knows what to expect. Will the barbarians prevail? Will we have another civil war? Will plague or famine or a total collapse of trade destroy us? Heretics and sorcerers are objects to take fear out on.”
“I be none!”
“I didn’t say you were. I accept you’re a common man, as common as I’ve ever met, aside from— Tell me, have you known or heard of anyone else like you, whom time doesn’t appear to touch? Kinfolk, perhaps?”