Seduced by Her Rebel Warrior

by Greta Gilbert

  Rab shrugged. He had not slept a single minute the night before. His heart was heavy and his head throbbed. He was too exhausted to argue.

  * * *

  It was late afternoon the next day when the entourage finally stumbled on to the shore of the great salty lake. The sweaty, tired men dropped their weapons and rucksacks and plunged into the water like a troupe of boys.

  Rab noticed that Atia was not among them. He searched the shoreline and caught her ambling northwards towards a lone date palm.

  Her stride had changed. Only days before, she had been bounding up and down the hills in long, energetic steps. Now she was barely picking up her feet. At last she arrived at the base of the palm and took her seat in its meagre shade.

  Why was she so crestfallen? Had his rejection of her offer really hurt her that much? It did not seem like the behaviour of a woman without a soul.

  ‘We rest here tomorrow,’ Plotius announced to a storm of cheers.

  Fools, Rab thought, saying nothing. He turned from the shore and made his way up a craggy cliff overlooking the sea. Arriving at the flat of a natural lookout, he saw the black coal dust of a campfire. Just beyond it, an area had been cleared to make room for several bed mats. There was the small figure of an acacia tree carved into one of the boulders.

  Rab was seized with a terrible foreboding. The sign of the acacia was what the rebels used to mark their territory. Clearly a group of rebels had been here recently and likely patrolled the site. If they spotted the Romans, they would not hesitate to attack.

  Rab gazed out at the Bitumen Lake, trying to calm his nerves. It was such an unremarkable name for such an unusual lake. Whereas other salty seas held the bounty of life, this sea’s only bounty was black and tarry—like the bile of the earth itself.

  And that bile was precious.

  Bitumen, it was called, and it floated up several times a year to be harvested by the bitumen traders, who would sell the sticky black substance for use in waterproofing everything from boats to mummies. Rab could see the bitumen pontoons still afloat even at this late hour—their figures obscured by a horizontal layer of liquid air.

  He peered north. If the rebels were here, they would likely approach from that direction, for the steep, craggy shoreline offered many places to hide. Now, however, the only sign of life along the sun-baked shore was Atia. She was still there, still seated beneath the lone date palm. But she was no longer staring out at the lifeless sea. She was gazing up at a man standing over her, his hands gripping his formidable hips. Plotius.

  * * *

  ‘I am worried about you, Atia,’ said Plotius. A thin line of salt had dried in a circle around the edge of his fleshy face, making it appear as if he wore a mask.

  ‘I do not wish to speak with you, Plotius,’ said Atia. She turned away from him, but he only hobbled back into her view.

  ‘You have not been yourself, Atia. Your enthusiasm is lost. You do not even wish to bathe in the lake.’

  ‘It should not matter to you whether or not I wish to bathe in the lake.’

  ‘Oh, but it does,’ he said and the fissure of a smile opened across his face. He squatted low and she felt her stomach tighten.

  ‘If you dare touch me, I will let out a scream to shake the heavens,’ she said. She peered down the shore, instinctively looking for Rab. He was nowhere to be seen. ‘And I will run. Faster than you.’

  ‘Calm down, woman,’ Plotius said. He was laughing casually as if they were two old friends teasing each other. ‘I have only come to deliver a gift,’ he said. He held out a small bottle.

  ‘What is that?’ Atia asked.

  ‘What do you think it is?’

  Atia shook her head. ‘No, thank you, Plotius.’

  ‘I have plenty for myself,’ said Plotius. ‘Think of it as an olive branch.’

  Atia smiled politely. What kind of olive branch came in the form of debilitating poison? ‘Gratitude, Plotius, but I no longer use the tears.’

  ‘Yes, instead of using them, you have decided to shed them.’

  Was it that obvious? She had been weeping all day, though she thought she had been careful to conceal her emotion beneath her scarf.

  Now she wrapped that scarf around her face several times.

  ‘I will leave the bottle here at the base of the trunk,’ said Plotius.

  ‘I told you, no!’ shouted Atia, but her voice was muffled by her scarf, and by the time she had unwrapped herself, he was already halfway back to camp.

  And there was the bottle.

  ‘I do not want it!’ she cried out.

  Just a few days ago, the statement would have been true. But now it was a lie. She wanted it badly. She knew it was the only thing that would stop the chest-splitting pain she had felt since the moment Rab had rejected her.

  The tears will wash away the pain, she told herself. They always had in the past and they were the only thing that could now. She lifted the small but heavy bottle. In its weight she felt the promise of lightness. In the memory of it, the promise of forgetting.

  She ran her fingers over the cork and gently tried to pull it free. It would not come loose, thank the gods. It was wedged too firmly inside the bottle. It would take a good deal of effort to get it free.

  But once she did get it free, she would have her bliss—perhaps for days. It was a good amount of tears and she would drag out the oblivion for as long as she could. Her energy would flag, of course, and she would be unable to keep up the march. She would have to ride atop one of the donkeys. But it would be worth it, for she would no longer feel this terrible sadness.

  And when the tears ran out, what then? The sickness would return, along with the headaches and restlessness and shameful trembling. She would be plunged once again into the realm of Tartarus and have to fight her way back out.

  And that was not even the worst of it. If Plotius tried to steal a goat or harm someone or seek to undermine Atia, she would not have the will to stand up to him. She gazed into the bottle and understood for the first time the real danger of the tears: they robbed her of her ability to do the right thing.

  She stood and hurled the small bottle into the sea.

  When she turned, she peered up at the distant cliffs and caught sight of Rab. He was gazing down at her, his long ghutrah fluttering behind him in the breeze. She lifted her arm in greeting and waited for him to do the same. But he quickly turned away from her and disappeared among the rocks.

  A tiny part of her soul seemed to break in half. Of course he had turned away. He no longer wanted anything to do with her. And rightfully so, for she had insulted him in the most profound way that one person could insult another. She deserved his disdain.

  She walked slowly back to camp and waited for him to return, but he never did.

  * * *

  That night she could not sleep. She lay on her back and stared at the stars. They seemed dimmer here than they had been in the mountains—smaller and further away.

  It was not just the stars, it was as if everything was receding. She had lost her appetite and could find no satisfaction in the trail. Even the ethereal blue of the Bitumen Lake had seemed greyer when she had finally arrived on its shores and she had had no desire to feel its healing waters.

  It was as if the world had become a kind of mirage and the only reality was the pain inside her heart.

  And every time she closed her eyes, the pain acquired a new facet. Because as she sorted through her memories of him, she could only find joy. Rare, luminous joy, along with a kind of all-encompassing sense of safety in his presence.

  And that damnable pull of her body towards his.

  She searched her mind, trying to remember the bad, digging for evidence in the case against him. She could find none. The only crime had been the one she had committed. The one that could not be taken back.

  The full moon was risi
ng now, its light obliterating the stars. She watched it cast its milky path across the sea. She wished she could follow that path to the end of the world, then simply jump off the edge. Would she become a star? Or would she simply fall off into the darkness, his words echoing inside her ears: You are not beautiful. You are ugly and you wish to make me ugly, too.

  He had made his thoughts as clear as glass and they hurt her as much as a thousand shards. There was no escaping the pain of what he had said to her. Eyes closed. Eyes open. It made no difference. It only hurt.

  Ugly. Not because of her big nose. Ugly because, in trying to compensate him for the valuable thing he had given her, she had unknowingly cheapened it and also cheapened him.

  She gazed at the moon, who seemed to wear Rab’s face.

  Why did you do such a thing, Atia? he asked.

  Because I wanted you to feel that it was worth it.

  Why would it not be worth it? Do you doubt my desire for you? My love?

  Love?

  I thought you were a different kind of Roman, Atia. I realise now that I was wrong.

  I am different! she wished to tell him. But how different was she really? She was the rich, spoiled daughter of a Roman governor. What more was there to say? Soon she would likely be married. If she survived beyond her foretold death, she would become the complicit, biddable wife of one of the most Roman men in the province.

  Suddenly, she wanted that death to come. She wished for it more than she ever had before, though she had somehow lost track of the days until its arrival. Was it coming in twenty days now, or was it nineteen? Eighteen, perhaps? It did not matter. Death was coming and she welcomed it.

  She sat up. Her chest felt tight; her breaths were short. She stared out at the vast black lake, instinctively searching for the splash of a fish. But she knew that nothing could live in its salty waters or anywhere along its sun-baked shores.

  It was truly a dead sea.

  Atia stood and began to walk. The moon was getting higher in the sky. It was flooding the silent landscape with its ghostly light. Across the water, the craggy hills of Judea looked shadowy and forlorn and Atia tried to imagine a time when they had been green and the sea below them full of life.

  Perhaps this was the fate of all places on earth. Perhaps all seas eventually salted up and all forests turned to dust. Perhaps there was just a small window of time when life could take hold. A small, precious window. Perhaps it was the same for love and she had somehow missed it.

  When Atia arrived back at the base of her lone palm, she observed the arc of its melancholy arms as moon shadows on the ground. She stepped beneath their strange shade and gazed out at the sea.

  That was when she saw the bottle. It had somehow washed up on shore. It was sitting at the water’s edge as if beckoning her.

  But how was that possible? She had thrown it away, had watched it plunge into the depths of the salty lake. Had the gods somehow retrieved it for her? But Atia was not important enough to be of notice to the gods. And yet there it was, the tiny bottle, like a divine gift.

  She retrieved the bottle from the water and studied it for many moments. A memory surfaced—a vision of the first time she had ever tried the tears. She saw herself standing inside her mother’s bedchamber, staring at her mother’s cold, white body. Even in death she had been beautiful, despite the terrible wound traversing her face.

  The wound that, in a fit of rage, her father had made.

  Even now, she could hear the sound of her mother’s wails inside her mind. She could see the look on her mother’s face when her father had announced that they would not be keeping her mother’s newborn. ‘I married you so that you would give me a son,’ her father had said. ‘Not another daughter.’

  Atia had listened outside her mother’s bedchamber to the sounds of an argument, then violence.

  * * *

  The next morning, Atia had entered her mother’s chamber and had at first believed her mother to be asleep. She had nearly tripped on the empty bottles littering the floor and it was many moments before she realised why her mother would not wake. She had gathered them up one by one and smashed them against the wall.

  She had sat beside her mother and wept for many hours. When her own tears ran out, she had caught sight of one last bottle inside her mother’s cold grip. It was still full.

  In a burst of anguish, Atia had wrenched the bottle from her mother’s hand and taken a long gulp. The pain inside her heart had disappeared instantly and a kind of bliss had coursed through her young limbs.

  Now she craved that bliss once again. She wanted comfort, for she would never again feel the warmth of Rab’s smile or hear the spark of his laugh or feel a thrill as his eyes burrowed into her.

  You are not beautiful, Rab was repeating in her mind. You are ugly and you wish to make me ugly, too.

  Pain. Sharp, heart-splitting pain. And right here in the palm of her hand was the antidote. She gazed up at the sky. Rab was still there, staring down at her, shaking his head in disappointment.

  Atia uncorked the bottle and raised it up to him, as if in a toast. Then she held it to her lips and took a small sip. She felt a rush of happiness. It tasted so good—like coming home. Her body tingled with joy. She waded out into the water until her feet no longer touched the ground, then she lay back. She was floating! Her body was suspended, cradled by the thick, salty water.

  What a wonder was this dead sea! What an absolute joy! Why had she not bathed in it earlier? She could hardly remember the reason. It was something to do with a man who had wanted her once, but did not want her any more. She opened the bottle and took another sip, and then another. She gazed out at the otherworldly landscape. Nothing lasted for ever, she thought suddenly. And if nothing lasted for ever, then nothing mattered at all.

  * * *

  Atia was still floating when Sol’s pale light began to paint the sky pink. Her mind was fuzzy with her lingering bliss. She spotted movement along the southern shore. In the distance she could make out the shapes of strange creatures. They had elegant long legs, sloping necks and backs like small brown hills.

  Camels. She watched in fascination as they neared, for their movements were so fluid and they seemed so at ease in this barren place. Equally at ease were their riders, whose long sandy robes and matching ghutrahs seemed to fuse with the colours of the camels so perfectly that they appeared as single two-headed beings—like centaurs of the desert.

  Camels. She loved them irrationally, for they seemed to represent everything she had come to appreciate about this quiet, desolate land. She laughed aloud as they came more fully into view. So quiet and deliberate in their movements. So graceful and humble beneath the sun.

  She wondered if the riders were traders coming to offer their wares. Or perhaps they were bitumen hunters coming to see if there had been any sightings of the large rafts of black tar that they pursued. The camels appeared to increase their pace, then broke into a run.

  But why were they running? What rush could there possibly be to arrive anywhere in the barren desert? They were getting closer and Atia saw the outlines of longswords hilted at the men’s waists. They were drawing the blades from their sheaths.

  ‘Raiders!’ Atia shouted, but it was too late. She stared in horror as the first two riders thundered into camp and began slaying the sleeping soldiers.

  ‘To arms!’ a Roman shouted. The Roman soldiers began to wake—though not quickly enough. The raiders flew down from their saddles with blades fully drawn. There must have been at least twenty raiders and as they fought they shouted expletives in the Nabataean tongue.

  Or were they shouting other things as well? Atia listened closely. She perceived the Nabataean word for justice and then the word for freedom. These were not simple raiders, Atia realised slowly. These were Nabataean rebels.

  Atia watched as a rebel thrust his sword through a Roman soldier’s
belly, slaying him instantly. Another rebel gave an ear-splitting screech and charged at a Roman from behind, slicing his head cleanly from his body. Blood spouted from the Roman’s convulsing corpse as it tumbled to the ground.

  Atia sank deeper into the water. Her thoughts were sluggish, her limbs lifeless and heavy. Her heart beat out a slow, even rhythm.

  She should have been feeling horror. She should have been feeling anything at all. But she had drunk a great number of tears and they had smothered her mind and numbed her heart. She watched another Roman take a blade in the throat, then saw a rebel who looked like a boy slain in the chest. She could only stare, waiting for the pain to come. It never did. She was cold and lifeless. Crocodilian. On the shore, the sand pooled with the blood of the fallen.

  ‘Form a phalanx!’ shouted Plotius and the remaining Romans scrambled to form a tight group. There was the clang of swords and a chaos of shouting as the Romans attempted to fend off their foes. Only a few of the Romans wore their chain mail armour. Fewer still had use of their shields.

  Atia spied two shields between the Roman phalanx and the shore. Perhaps she could retrieve them for the Romans. She swam closer to the phalanx, but when she was near enough to reach the shields, she simply could not summon the energy to get them.

  Move, Atia! she told her body, but it would not listen. The Romans were now fewer in number than the rebels, who were swarming the Romans’ small, defensive group like bees. Meanwhile, several of the rebels were plundering the corpses of the fallen Romans, taking everything they could.

  There was a loud noise from somewhere near and Rab’s robed figure came into view. He was bounding down from the craggy hills, his sword swinging, his terrifying bellow filling the air.

  Catching sight of him, the rebels ceased their efforts. They stared at the stampeding man in the silence of shock. And in that small window of time, the Romans were able to regroup and become the aggressors.