The Patrician

by Joan Kayse

  ***

  Bryna trembled as the chilling air of dusk brushed across her thinly clad shoulders. Without the mantle of her hair, she felt exposed, unprotected, and defenseless. She swallowed thickly. How she hated feeling defenseless.

  She rested her flushed cheek against her outstretched arm. The Romans had taken everything; her freedom, her home, her brother and now part of her very body. But she still had her pride, though it lay in tatters.

  The Romans returned to their festivities, still talking about the matron’s new wig. One of the men made a noise like a sheep as he walked by which brought roils of laughter from the crowd. Tears pricked her eyes. Jared was probably reveling in her humiliation.

  Behind her, Baal shouted to his guards to get the slaves into the estraglia. The crunch of the vilicus’ heavy footsteps closed rapidly upon her.

  “You piece of filth,” Baal growled into her ear. “You nearly cost me my position.”

  Bryna kept her face buried against her arm. He sliced through the thongs binding her to the pole. Losing her footing she tumbled to the ground.

  Blocking his voice from her mind, she concentrated on rubbing the tingling out of her hands. Only two more days and she would be gone. She had to keep her focus on that one goal.

  “My goodness, husband, the little beast is quite the sight without its fur.” Eda remarked sarcastically. “It will take liberal use of my cane to get any work out of her now.”

  “You’ll not have to set any tasks for this one,” answered Baal brusquely, motioning to one of his guards. The man hurried over, listened to Baal’s instructions, then bowed and returned to the line of shackled men. Baal returned his attention to Eda. “Our master’s wife has decided the girl is too unpredictable and dangerous to have about the household.”

  “She is to be sold?” Eda asked hopefully. “To the brothels?”

  “No.” Baal, reached down, grabbed her arm and jerked her upright. “The master believes he would get no good price for her and her wild ways. She’ll work in the fields.” Leaving Eda with her mouth opened, he dragged Bryna toward the blacksmith’s forge.

  Bryna stumbled alongside Baal, too stunned to resist. Work in the fields? Was she dreaming again? Would she wake from this nightmare to find it time to flee? It had to be a dream world. She couldn’t escape if she were chained.

  Wiping sleep from red rimmed eyes, the blacksmith pumped the flames of his forge to life. Waves of heat blended with her despair, dashing the remnants of hope into the pit of her stomach. The blacksmith took a ring of black metal and fitted it around her left arm. It was much too large for her slim wrist and he set to heating the band and making his adjustments.

  Bryna watched, numbly, as the metal, glowing from the fire, was fitted to her wrist. Tears sprang to her eyes as one hot edge blistered her skin. She let her breath out and could not find the strength to take in another as the pin slid into place with a loud click, locking the cuff together.

  With a deft twist of his hand, the smith attached a good two feet of chain to the band. He let the loose end drop, the weight of it dragging her arm to her side.

  Her head began to swim, Baal and the blacksmith whirled by in a flash of blurred images and gray despair. She would never be free. Never find Bran.

  Never.

  The noise of clanking chains barely registered before she turned and saw Baal’s man ushering Jared toward the forge, golden eyes blazing hotter than the smith’s fire.

  He stood stiffly as her chain was locked onto his own, his expression inscrutable. She swallowed hard. This could not be happening. She could not be robbed of her only chance of escape and then bound to an arrogant demon.

  Baal gestured to the guard. “Catch up with the rest. I want the estraglia locked up tight before the master’s feast begins.”

  The guard prodded Jared hard in the back. Practiced at taking measured steps, he walked toward the line of slaves, forcing her to take two steps for every one of his.

  One of the kitchen maids skipped along beside her laughing and pointing at her shorn head. Bryna’s cheeks burned. She made a lunge for the giggling girl’s own stringy hair, but was jerked back against Jared’s rock hard torso. He wound the chain around his fist to hold her against his side.

  “Be still!” he hissed into her ear sending shivers down her spine. “You have caused me enough trouble all ready. The Romans crave the least bit of reason to wield their whips.” Jared tensed as leather flicked across his back.

  “I? Cause you trouble?” Bryna replied low, her voice trembling with outrage. “I did nothing! Nothing!” With her free hand she touched the soft wisps curling around her ear, hot tears burning behind her eyes. They’d chopped her hair off and she hadn’t been able to stop them. That alone infuriated her. “I hate them.”

  “Are you really that thick headed?” he said beneath his breath, the sharpness of his tone adding to her foul mood. “You belong to Gaius. He owns you. He can do what he wants.”

  She put a fist to her heart, her voice choked, “He doesn’t own this!”

  They’d moved into shadow so that his face was hidden but against the backlight of distant torches his rigid profile softened. With a deep sigh, he slackened the chain and continued toward the prison. Unable to do anything else, she quickened her steps to keep up.

  An old man stood at the entry, handing out chunks of hard, brown bread. Jared tugged on the chain, urging her to take her portion. Nerves strung tight, it maddened her the way he used the tether to direct her every move. Clutching the stale bread in her hand Bryna followed him down a set of cold, damp steps slick with wet, black mold into the darkness of the estraglia.

  The prison barracks, buried deep within a rocky hillside, could easily accommodate sixty slaves. Gaius crammed in twice that number. What little light there was filtered through three long rectangular windows set near the top of the jagged rock walls. The openings were well out of reach, even for the tallest of the men.

  Apprehension tightened Bryna’s throat. She hadn’t been able to abide small spaces since her imprisonment in Coeus’ tiny room and this was much worse than that cell. It felt as though the room were alive, the walls closing in, sucking the air from her lungs. Her breath grew shorter as the cold, wet prison filled with the pungent odor of a hundred unwashed bodies. She raised a trembling hand to her closing throat. There was no more air to breathe. She was going to die.

  “What is the matter with you?” Jared grumbled irritably. He must have seen the panic in her eyes, because he caught her by the arms, forced her to look at him. “Concentrate on your breathing,” he said in a slow, even voice. “In and out, slowly. Good. One breath at a time.”

  Bryna forced herself to focus on the steady calm of his voice, the warmth of his hands on the clammy chill of her skin. Gods she didn’t want him to see her like this, weak and without control. She tried to pull away from his hold, but he wouldn’t allow it, gently held her still when she would resist. Beneath her ear, she heard the drum of his heartbeat. Slow. Steady. Soothing. Safe. She sighed, giving in to the moment, unable to fight it. Not really wanting to.

  It was the sigh that snapped Jared’s jumbled thoughts back into order. What was the matter with him that he was offering her comfort? She deserved every bit of fear and discomfort she got. She’d earned it the day she sent him into this hell.

  But as he glanced down at the ragged ends of her shorn hair, felt her relax against him he felt a wave of pity for her, knowing in the same instant she’d scorn his concern. Before he could clear his thoughts, she reached her unfettered hand to his chest and stroked it with her fingers. His heart stuttered and blood rushed to his groin. Her head shot up, eyes filled with shock as his erection pressed against her thigh.

  “Ho, now friend, do not keep all the fun for yourself.”

  Bryna tensed and tried to push away, but Jared wouldn’t allow her to move. Peering into the dimness he could make out a trio of his fellow wretches watching them. One was pleasuring himself, a drooling
slack jawed grin on his face.

  “I know it will be a bit awkward, you being shackled to the girl and all,” one continued, his manner congenial, “but we promise to make it quick, don’t we fellows?”

  His companions grinned wolfishly.

  “There will be no using of the girl,” replied Jared evenly. The very thought of anyone else touching her sent anger rushing through him. But he had to tread carefully. They were in tight quarters and he’d seen men beat others near to death just for their scrap of bread. “I’ll not have what little rest I get disturbed by a bunch of rutting swine.”

  “It has been too many months since we have had a woman!” The third one growled. “You have one and we demand a turn at her.”

  Jared shifted Bryna behind him and opened his stance. “We have all been driven to exhaustion by our taskmasters. We’re hungry and thirsty. I’ll allow that such desperate conditions can cloud your judgment. So I tell you for the last time, I will not lose sleep this night.”

  Scowling, the man drew himself up to his full height which put his head level with Jared’s shoulder. “There are three of us against your one.”

  Jared raised a brow. “Three?”

  The man looked at the empty space behind him.

  “Aghh! Keep her for yourself then!” he growled and stalked away, the chain at his ankles dragging in the dirt.

  Jared blew out a breath, sent Bryna a peeved look and pulled her with him to a niche along the wall that he had claimed for his own. He sat down, stretched his legs out and began to eat. Bryna followed suit though she sat as far away from him as the chain would allow. “Eat your bread,” he commanded.

  “I don’t want their rancid bread,” she said petulantly.

  Gods, he was in no mood for her stubbornness. “You will eat the bread. Every morsel, if I have to shove it down your throat, piece, by moldy piece.” He scowled at her. “I won’t be burdened with a weakling.”

  “Weakling! Women of Eire are not weaklings!” She tore off a chunk of the bread, popped it in her mouth and began to chew—and sputter.

  Jared rolled his eyes and slapped her on the back. “Slower. They do not allow us water to wash down our sumptuous meal.”

  The glare she sent him should have set him on fire but the harsh laugh that rose in his chest died out at the anguish he saw reflected in the depths of those beguiling eyes.

  He muttered a curse, stretched out on the hard ground and turned his back to her, forcing Bryna to lie close behind him to prevent the chain from jerking her forward. In an instant, he realized it was he who was in the awkward position. Despite her best efforts—and he heard her curses—she was forced to press against him.

  The pain of a dozen bruises, the lingering sting of cuts and lash marks, Jared noticed none of them. Only the sweet, soft touch of her body against his.

  Fuck.

  Chapter Nine

  Jared snarled, the sound distant and hollow in his mind. He was enshrouded in fog, alternating gray and foreboding and then whisper thin. He could not see, could not move, could not speak which fueled his soaring rage.

  Images shimmered then took form. The first was a man, dressed in a purple edged toga, a Roman citizen with eyes the mirror image of his own. He stared at Jared with regal dignity and disapproval. Jared opened his mouth to speak, to ask again the same question of why, to find a way to ease his bewilderment, but the man he had once called father, turned his back as always and faded into the pitch blackness.

  Another swirl of mist wavered into a petite, dark eyed woman, her midnight hair covered with a blue woolen veil, one Jared knew smelled of jasmine. Her expression was soft and gentle, the smile on her lips reflected in her eyes. Hot tears spilled down his cheeks. He strained to reach her, but she too melted away. The weight of sorrow was unbearable and he heard his childish voice call mother.

  His head dropped to his chest. There was no way to stop the constriction around his heart, no way to find solace or dispel the emptiness, the loneliness. There was no place for him. No way to change the past. No way to bring back to life what had died inside so long ago. It would have been better if he had died with all the others.

  It would have been better had he never been born.

  The fog began to churn around him. He raised weary eyes and watched blankly as another figure took form.

  It was a young woman, dressed in a simple shift of sea blue. She wore a torque of twisted gold around her neck. Waves of gold red hair spilled down her back, curling around her hips like a fire lit cloud. Her fair complexion reminded him of silk, soft and inviting and Jared’s eyes drifted along the gentle curves of her body. Verdant eyes watched his regard, reached out to him, beckoned to him. Waves of strength and love washed all the doubt and hurt away.

  He yearned for the salvation the woman’s arms promised. He bunched his muscles, pulled hard at his bonds, but the invisible force binding him, mocked his efforts, and tightened their hold. Desperate to reach her, he roared his anguish.

  A pain like a hammer hit him square in the chest and Jared gasped, eyes wide open. He gulped for air, was aware of dull, disinterested looks from the other slaves of the estraglia. He was covered in a fine sheen of cold sweat, trembling like a frightened two year old.

  Above him faint streaks of daylight stole through the barred windows. Restless clanking of chains reverberated through the dimness as the other slaves tried to ease their worn bodies into positions of comfort. The harshness of his reality quickly dissipated the images of his nightmare, leaving him feeling a vague apprehension. In all of his life, he’d never had dreams so vivid.

  Jared glanced down. In the night, Bryna had spooned against him, her firm little ass pressed against his body. He shifted his hips and the movement caused her to wiggle back into his warmth. He sucked in a breath as his cock hardened, willed himself under control even as the thought passed through his mind how sweet and hot it would be to sheath himself deep in her woman’s flesh.

  Idiot! Squeezing his eyes shut, Jared pushed the thought away. True, it had been months before his enslavement since he’d slaked his needs with a woman, but he’d cut his own throat before he’d join with the barbarian girl.

  In moments, the overseers would be rousing them for another day of labor but for now, he relished the respite, the time to study his adversary.

  Bryna was her name. A woman of Eire she had said, his merchant’s mind recalling a vague reference to a black isle close to Britannia. The Romans, both military and trade alike, had been unable to breach the foreboding place. He’d spent months thinking of her only as the bitch but now she had a name. He started to rub his other hand over his face but it was the one she was attached too and he didn’t want her to wake yet.

  In her repose, she seemed delicate, though her actions proved her headstrong and rash beyond sense. Her features were worthy of a goddess, skin the texture of fine, Persian silk. His lips pressed together at the dark bruise on her cheek from Gaius’ blow. Another reason to wish his hands around his master’s neck.

  He turned his attention to her butchered hair, the chopped ends still long enough to curl around her ears, trail down the nape of her neck like an unruly vine. He brushed the edge gently. It was so soft against the rough callus of his hand. Something in his chest tightened, an emotion that felt foreign, possessive.

  Mine.

  Jared pulled his hand away as if the tresses had turned to flame, and blew out a ragged breath. Gods, he was going mad. He glanced around the desolate prison, his emotions in turmoil. Being fettered to anyone else was a problem. To this particular woman both problem and solution. It was going to make escape difficult. But she held the answers, the keys to his revenge.

  And yet the singular thought that had kept him going, helped him endure the months of hardship had been what he would do when he found the traitorous oracle. And now she was only a hands breath away, impacting his life once more.

  And she had a name.

  Loud shouts accompanied the opening of the do
or as the overseers roused the slaves to begin another day. Bryna stirred, a frown creasing her forehead. Her eyes fluttered open and Jared could tell the moment she remembered where she was and what had happened. Wariness filling her eyes she scrambled to her knees and sat as far away from him as the chain would allow, staring at him.

  “What? No greeting to meet the new morn?” he asked bitingly. She pressed her lips into a tight line, but not before he saw the tremble in the bottom one. A quick glance found her eyes bright with moisture. Damn, there she went looking vulnerable again. Pulling on the chain harder than he intended, he led the way out into the cool dawn.

  They joined the line of men, making their way to a distant acreage that Gauis had decided should be readied for another vineyard. It was rife with stones and trees and Baal decreed it would be cleared by sunset.

  Bryna worked in silence, shooting him looks of pure annoyance whenever he reached to help her with a particularly heavy rock. It surprised him, this stoicism. Most females would have been wailing and bemoaning their fate. He motioned for her to stand aside and with the help of another slave began dragging a good sized log away from one of the felled trees.

  Bryna wondered which would happen first—getting her toes crushed by the huge piece of wood or having her arm ripped from its socket as Jared strained to pull the heavy tree trunk. The resentful glares he shot her when she moved the wrong way, causing him to lose his grip didn’t help her growing irritation.

  He hadn’t said a word the entire day, even when he was beaten and taunted and ridiculed by the guards. The Romans held nothing but contempt for all those they conquered, she knew well enough, but they seemed especially to hate him because he was a something called a Hebrew.

  His silence only caused the ridicule to escalate. They thought him weak and subdued. But she sensed the anger, the hatred churning within him. There was power in those gleaming gold eyes and those fools didn’t have the sense to recognize it. Dark and deadly, they promised revenge so potent, that she found herself holding her breath several times from the sheer intensity of it. That she might well become the focus of that promise caused her to shudder.