I could bear it no longer. Cunoarda gasped as I leaned forwards, throwing back my veil. “She has another heritage…”
Lena’s eyes grew huge, and for a moment I thought she would faint.
“But you died in Rome…”
“I died to Rome,” I corrected. “By revealing myself now I place my life in your hands. Listen to me, Lena—you and Crispa are all that is left to me of my grandson, who was the beloved of my heart. I am going where even the Emperor will not follow. Do you have the courage to come with me?”
I could feel Cunoarda radiating disapproval at my side. She had never really believed we could escape together, and no doubt counted our chances even smaller burdened with this fragile woman and a child.
A flush of colour suffused Lena’s cheeks and then drained away, leaving her even paler than before. “I always wondered,” she whispered, “why Crispus wanted to marry me. He was so glorious and brave, and I was always afraid. But I see that the time has come to prove myself worthy. We will go with you, my lady, whether it be to the Hesperides or Hades!”
“It is to the Hesperides that we shall travel, my dear,” I said softly, “to the apple isle of Avalon…’
Crispa, sensing her mother’s emotion, came skipping over to stand at Lena’s knee, her gaze straying from our faces to the candied figs on the table and back again.
“Crispa,” I said softly. “Do you remember me?”
She frowned a little, and then for a moment I saw an ancient soul looking out of her blue eyes.
“You are my mother,” she lisped. Lena and Cunoarda exchanged worried glances, but I reached out to take the small warm hand.
“Yes, perhaps I was, but in this life I am your other avia, little one,” I said softly. “Would you like to take a journey with me?”
By the time we arrived at Ganuenta, there were new silver threads in Cunoarda’s red hair. But if the Emperor’s agents were watching us, they had orders not to interfere. When we reached the Rhenus at Mogontiacum we sold the horse and carriage and took passage on a barge carrying timber. It was a pleasant way to travel, and the drama of the gorge just north of the town moved even Cunoarda to wonder. The greatest danger was that Crispa, who clambered all over the barge with the agility of a monkey, would fall overboard.
The Rhenus carried us swiftly past the outposts Rome had built to guard the border. As we drifted by Colonia I gazed at the wall where Constantius had told me we must part, and realized that the old wound to my heart had finally healed. These days I had only to close my eyes to call up his image, and relive the times of our happiness.
Sometimes, when I sat thus, I would hear Lena whispering to her daughter to be quiet, for old people sleep often and should not be disturbed. But these days it was not sleep that claimed me, but the waking dream called memory. Crispus cuddled, warm and golden, in my arms, as real as the little daughter I saw when I opened my eyes. When I lay in my bunk on the barge, Constantius stretched out beside me, telling me what he had been doing during our years apart. Even Constantine came to me at times in the shape of the boy he had been before he became infected with that disease called Empire. And as our journey continued, I was visited more and more often by the folk of Avalon.
Very quickly I learned not to mention these ghostly encounters. At worst, my companions thought my mind was wandering, and at best it made them uncomfortable. Fortunately Lena had improved in health and strength with every mile away from Treveri, and she and Cunoarda had forged an alliance. Anyone who resisted Cunoarda’s blunt competence could usually be impressed by Lena’s aristocratic manner, and I found that I could leave the ordering of our journey in their hands.
Why had no one ever told me that old age held gifts as well as pains? As a child, I had wondered why the old priestesses looked so content as they dozed in the sun. They knew, I thought, smiling. And sometimes, as I hovered on the threshold between sleep and lucid dreaming, I seemed to glimpse people and scenes that I recognized from some other lifetime. Little Crispa was the only one I could talk to when these far-memories lay heavy upon me, for the very young have just come in over the threshold which the old are about to cross, and at times she remembered the life we had shared before.