Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [64]
But you did not.’
Barbara knelt down, pressing her ear close to the stone so that it amplified the voices.
'It was your decision to leave, not mine to command you to leave.'
'Command?' Gabrielle shrieked. 'You would have me share a roof with that woman?'
Barbara winced. Clearly Gabrielle hadn't got used to the idea of Barbara remaining as a house guest. In a roundabout way, Barbara understood her feelings. It cannot have been easy having your home life disrupted in such a way and by an outsider. Barbara decided that she would go downstairs immediately, apologise for her intrusion but assure Gabrielle that she harboured no wish to break up her family, and that if Hieronymous was agreeable, she would leave as soon as a safe place within the city could be found for her.
'I intend to make that woman my wife,' Hieronymous said.
'What?' Gabrielle asked, a fraction of a second before this was echoed by Barbara herself.
'She is a good and wise woman with numerous qualities that I greatly admire. She will make a good wife.'
Gabrielle's reply was predictably myopic. 'She is a spy,’ she cried, as Barbara scurried down the stairs and stood at the bottom with her hands on her hips and a look of disgust on her face.
'Now just one blinking minute,’ she said quickly. 'It is traditional even in your culture, I believe, to tell somebody that you have intentions towards them before announcing it to the whole world?'
'Barbara,' Hieronymous said with an embarrassed gulp.
'You heard nothing but speculative words.'
'Indeed,' said Barbara, cutting off Gabrielle who was about to say something spiteful and vindictive. ‘And that is all they shall remain. I have no wish to marry you, Hieronymous. I am grateful for your kindness and hospitality, and for protecting me from ignorance when it would have been easier for you to have thrown me to the wolves. But I have no desire for you. I am not your cuckold, and neither am I your slave.' She turned to Gabrielle, still angry and confused. 'And as for you, young lady, your father is a decent man and deserves better than the treatment that you have seen fit to shower him with.
For your information, I have no desire to remain in this house for a single second longer than is necessary for my own safety. I will not be used as an excuse for either of you to shatter the harmony of this home. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. A blessing be upon all of those who dwell within this house,' she concluded sarcastically.
Barbara turned her back on the silenced pair and walked slowly back to the staircase with an unseen yet rueful smile on her face. That's been and gone and torn it, she told herself.
At the stairs she stopped and turned back to the still-silent Hieronymous and Gabrielle. Ì am disgusted and annoyed with you both,' she said. 'I feel betrayed by you,’ she continued, pointing to Hieronymous. 'And you, madam, belittle me with your suspicions. I am what I am. A woman of a strange land trying to keep her head while others all around are losing theirs. You both wrong me in different ways. I have said my last word on this matter.'
She hurried upstairs, listening intently for a break in the silence. At long last Gabrielle began to speak but Hieronymous stopped her with an almighty roar of anger and pain. 'Return you to your widow woman, for that is where I wish you to remain. If you see Phasaei or Titus, inform them that I wish to see them.'
'Very well, Father,' Gabrielle replied, tearfully. 'Goodbye.'
For a long time afterwards, there was an eerie and tangible quiet about the house. Barbara was almost afraid to breathe. And she certainly didn't wish to face Hieronymous again for a while until his emotions had been calmed by the passage of time.
Some time later, she heard Titus and Phasaei's unmistakable voices at the door and, again, listened closely at the head of the stairs.
'Come in,' said Hieronymous with a mean-spirited and harsh voice that made the hair of Barbara's neck stand on end.
Here was a man who had suffered a brutal and humiliatingly public