by Jayne Castel
And there, silhouetted against the pale sky, she saw the tall proud outline of her husband.
Chapter Four
The Spoils of War
Marcus had not seen her; she was glad of that. She did not want to distract him. He fought with the ferocity of a doomed man but would bring as many of the enemy down as he could before the end.
Not caring about her captor’s reaction, Lucrezia stopped, her gaze never leaving Marcus.
The barbarian nudged her in the small of the back. He then barked a string of words she did not understand, although his meaning was clear: she was to keep moving.
Lucrezia remained rooted to the ground. “My husband,” she gasped.
That got his attention. He stepped up beside her, his gaze following hers to the skirmish unfolding on the ramparts. They watched as Marcus slammed his blade home into a man’s belly, before yanking the blade free and slicing it into his next assailant’s neck.
“He fights well,” the stranger commented. He had deliberately slowed his speech so she could understand him.
Lucrezia ignored him. Marcus’s skill with a blade was not enough.
A tide of half-naked figures surged toward Marcus—men and women with long tangled dark hair and painted blue faces, clutching crude iron blades.
She had one last glimpse of her husband as he lunged forward to meet them. Then he went down under the onslaught and disappeared from sight.
Lucrezia choked and turned away.
“We can’t stay out here.” Beside her, the barbarian grabbed her by the arm. “This way.” Without another word, he pulled her with him and strode toward a vast stone building that dominated the center of the fort.
Tarl was beginning to wish he had chosen a different house to loot.
He now regretted that he had followed this woman’s screams and clubbed Wurgest over the head to save her. As lovely as she was, his captive was proving troublesome.
His left eye ached dully from where she had struck him. Not remotely grateful for being saved from Wurgest, she fought him every moment of the way, and had refused to give up the location of her gold store. She seemed to think him a simpleton, insisting that she had no riches when she lived amongst the kind of luxury he could only dream of.
It angered him to leave that dwelling without any gold or jewels. He wanted to return to Dun Ringill with spoils to gift his chief. Had time permitted he would have torn down her dwelling, stone by stone, till he found her treasure. Yet there had been no time for that. Wurgest might awake at any moment, and Tarl did not want to be anywhere close when he did.
It had been time to leave.
Still, it was not safe inside the fort either. He saw the hungry looks the warriors around him gave the woman—some men he recognized, although most he did not. It would not be long before one of them approached him and demanded his share. Like Wurgest, their blood-lust was high. Even good men were dangerous in such a state.
What he needed now was to find the other Eagle warriors; men and women who would stand by him and watch his back.
Tarl glanced over at the woman beside him as he entered the stone fort.
His breath caught. Even disheveled, her hair a mess, her right cheek swollen from where Wurgest had struck her, she drew a man’s eye. There would be many warriors here who would like to carry her off, to take her north and make her their bed slave.
Tarl clenched his jaw as a wave of protectiveness crashed over him. She was troublesome, but already he felt a sense of responsibility for her. He pulled her close to him and placed a possessive arm around her shoulders.
“Get away from me!”
She tried to shrug him off, but Tarl kept his arm locked around her shoulders. “This is for the best,” he grinned down at her. “There are too many wolves about for my liking.”
She glared up at him, her finely shaped dark eyebrows knitting together, her brown-eyes glittering with hate. Not for the first time, Tarl marveled at her strength. She had not wept after Wurgest’s attack, and she did not cry now, even though she had just witnessed her husband being slain.
Tarl was not much given to sentimentality, but he wished she had not seen that.
A sea of northerners milled inside the fort. Now that those guarding it were dead, they were picking over the riches within. Tarl and his captive passed two men bickering over a gold-plated ornament, while behind them another warrior tore down an intricately patterned tapestry from the wall and slung it around his shoulders, taking it as a new cloak.
Once more, Tarl marveled at the wealth and beauty of this place.
Unlike the fort he had grown up in, far north of here, the walls inside were smooth and fashioned of a gleaming pale stone he had never seen before. Grey and white mosaic tiles covered the floor, which was now perilously slippery from the blood that splattered across it.
“Look at the teats on that,” one of the men who had been fighting over the ornament spotted Tarl’s prisoner. “I’ll bet she’s nice to plow. I’ll have her after you.”
Tarl cast the warrior—a small, stringy man with lank dark hair—a censorious look. “I’ll not share her.”
The warrior’s expression darkened. “That’s selfish. There aren’t enough women to go around here—you can’t keep her for yourself.”
Tarl ignored him, although he tightened his grip on the woman and lengthened his stride. Ahead, a circular stairwell led up to the next level, and Tarl was about to climb the steps when a familiar voice called out to him.
“Tarl!”
He turned to see Donnel limping toward him. His brother was grinning, although he dripped with blood and was favoring his right side.
Tarl frowned, stepping forward to greet him. “You’re hurt?”
Donnel shrugged. “A graze or two, nothing to worry about.”
Tarl raised an eyebrow. Any fool could see that was not the case, but he was not about to argue with Donnel over it. He saw his brother’s gaze shift sideways then, moving to the silent sullen figure beside him. “What’s this then, a spoil of war?”
Tarl grunted. “Aye. Come … let’s get out of here before someone tries to take her from me.”
Donnel laughed, his gaze shifting to where the warrior Tarl had just exchanged words with was staring at them, his golden trinket forgotten. “You may end up with a fight on your hands, if you try to keep her for yourself. The men will think you’re greedy.”
“Let them.” Tarl steered the woman back the way he had come, falling into step next to his brother. Protectiveness rose within him once more, and he clenched his jaw. “She’s mine.”
Smoke rose high into a pale blue sky, and now that the battle had ended an unnatural stillness settled over the land.
Lucrezia followed her captor, moving woodenly as shock set in. She was still having difficulty accepting the barbarians had actually attacked and taken the fort.
The great gates of Vindolanda were open, ripped off their hinges by the sheer number of savages that had battered against them. As they approached, Lucrezia spied a group of local Britons enter the fort. Dressed in wool and fur, their gazes wide, the men and women who lived in the scattering of villages around Vindolanda murmured amongst themselves while they took in the carnage.
And among them Lucrezia saw two familiar faces: Ciara and Gwyna. The girls, both small and dark haired, watched her approach. There was no warmth on their faces this morning though, no concern in their eyes.
A chill traced down Lucrezia’s spine. Although they had served her for years, she had come to see Ciara and Gwyna as her friends.
But now they glare as if I’m the enemy.
Ciara, always the bolder of the two girls, snarled an obscenity in her own tongue—a curse that Lucrezia had no difficulty understanding. She then rushed forward, her neck snaking out, and spat at Lucrezia.
“Haughty Roman bitch—not so proud of yourself, are you now?”
Lucrezia reeled back, cowed by the girl’s venom. How many afternoons had she and Ciara spe
nt together shelling peas or weeding the garden while they gossiped about life in the fort? Never—not for a moment—had she sensed the hate she saw on the young woman’s face now.
They must have known this attack was coming.
“Get back, girl,” Lucrezia’s captor rumbled. He wore a vaguely amused expression, yet his voice held a soft warning.
Casting him a sour look, Ciara did as bid. Behind her, Gwyna favored Lucrezia with a cruel smile.
“He’s one of the Cruthini,” she said, using Lucrezia’s own tongue now. “Warriors from the far north. They’re said to be beasts in the furs ….”
Lucrezia went cold and shaky at this. Nausea welled up in her throat and for an instant she thought she was going to be sick. However, a commotion behind her came as a welcome distraction.
She turned to see a ragged group of centurions being herded into the wide space beyond the gate. Her breathing quickened when she spied a big, broad-shouldered man among them: Cassius Severus.
An iron helm covered the top half of his face, but Lucrezia would recognize the man anywhere. Bloodied and grazed, his breastplate smeared with gore, his once resplendent crimson cloak tattered—the general was limping badly, his breathing coming in short, wheezing pants. Like the other prisoners, his hands were bound before him.
Across the yard, his gaze met Lucrezia’s.
She did not like Cassius Severus, and like many at the fort feared him, yet at that moment there existed a bond between them—one borne of shared captivity. The general’s gaze slid over Lucrezia, shifting to where her captor’s hand clamped over her upper arm.
Cassius’s mouth twisted.
A heartbeat later, he gave a roar, elbowed the savage leading him in the chest, and lunged across the distance separating him and Lucrezia’s captor.
The barbarian’s reaction was swift. He let go of Lucrezia’s arm, drew the sword from where he had sheathed it across his back, and drove it straight through Cassius Severus’s guts.
The two men stared at each other, their faces just inches apart. The barbarian’s expression was cold, hard—while fury and loathing twisted the general’s features.
He spat a curse at the barbarian, but the man did not flinch. Instead he twisted the blade, watching as Cassius fell to his knees before him. Then he kicked the general to the ground and extracted the blade from his guts.
Lucrezia stood a few feet behind them, trembling like a barley stalk in the wind. She knew violence was part of her world; only she had never seen it up close before. Until now, her social rank and status as Marcus Donatus’s wife had shielded her from scenes like this one.
Cassius writhed upon the ground and clutched his belly, his roars of agony echoing into the stillness. The barbarian stooped over the general, and yanked the iron helm from his head. He then held the helmet aloft, inspecting it in the watery noon sun.
The savage tucked his prize under his arm and sauntered back to where Lucrezia waited, frozen to the spot as if her feet had grown roots.
Her captor raised an eyebrow. “Who was he to you?” he asked, enunciating each word clearly for her benefit. “A lover?”
Lucrezia choked back hysteria, shook her head, and turned away. If she uttered a word right now, she would begin screaming—and never stop.
Chapter Five
The Day’s Close
Lucrezia huddled inside the hide tent, teeth chattering. It was not cold in here, for the peat in the hearth before her threw out ample heat—yet her shivering was due to shock and grief, not a chill.
In the space of one morning, she had lost everything.
She was no longer Lucrezia, wife of Marcus Donatus and noblewoman, but a slave.
The rest of the day after Cassius Severus’s death had passed in a terrible blur. She barely remembered any of it, for the memory of seeing Marcus fall upon the wall was still burned upon her mind.
At least her barbarian captor had not yet tried to rape her—for that she should have been grateful. There had also been a number of incidents during the day when he had kept men away from her.
It seemed she was his prize, and like a cocky rooster protecting his favored hen he did not want any others touching her. It helped that he appeared to be a respected leader. When he had led Lucrezia into the camp, ten of his warriors had escorted them.
Lucrezia did not feel grateful.
I wish I were dead. Only misery awaits me now that I’m a barbarian slave.
Clenching her jaw in an attempt to stop her teeth chattering, Lucrezia pulled her knees up under her chin and stared into the glowing fire. She did not want to think about the future. Her bowels turned to ice whenever she contemplated the short terror-filled existence before her. Her only solace was that she would not live much longer.
The savages won’t suffer me among them. She thought of Gwyna’s malicious words and shuddered. Dwelling on her fate was not wise—she would only go mad if she let her imagination run riot.
Beyond the hide walls of the tent, she heard the gruff sounds of men’s voices, followed by coarse laughter. Her shivering intensified, this time in terror. If her feet and wrists had not been bound, she would have leaped up and fled like a rabbit into the night.
Better to be ripped to pieces by wolves than live with these people.
Lucrezia was just contemplating this, when the flap covering the tent’s entrance drew back and her captor entered.
She saw that his left eye was swollen and purpled, and felt a grim pleasure. She had never hit a man before, yet had enjoyed lashing out at him. She only wished she had managed to hurt the brute who had tried to rape her.
Her captor had washed the blood and paint off his face and body, which lessened his wild appearance. However, he still wore the blood-stained plaid breeches and leather vest of earlier. His shaggy brown hair was wet, and combed back from his face. In spite of her misery, Lucrezia found herself observing him keenly, noting that he was indeed an attractive male.
In one hand, he carried a loaf of dark bread.
The barbarian met her gaze and smiled, crossing the tent to her. Then he hunkered down and handed her the food. “Here.”
Lucrezia reluctantly took the bread from him. She should have been hungry, for she had not eaten since the night before—yet her belly was a hard knot of misery. She could not bear the thought of eating. Still, she knew the sensation would pass and when it did, she would be ravenous.
Once she took the bread from him, she hoped her captor would leave her be—but instead he stayed where he was, watching her with a frank, speculative gaze. “You are brave,” he said finally. “You will do well with my people.”
Lucrezia stared back at him, her face screwing up. He had spoken slowly and clearly; she had understood every word. He was wrong. She was not brave at all; her body pulsed in terror, her nerves had stretched to breaking point.
Watching him, she remembered the cold ruthless efficiency with which he had cut Cassius Severus down. This barbarian might have assumed the role of her guardian for the moment, but she did not trust him. He was as murderous as the rest of them.
The man continued to observe her, his grey eyes softening. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he said after a few moments.
Lucrezia watched him coldly, the compliment making her belly twist. “Let me go,” she replied stiffly. “I must return to my people.”
The barbarian smiled. It was a boyish expression that caused a deep dimple in one cheek. “You’re staying here … with me.”
She shook her head, denying his words. “I’ll run.” She choked out the words, barely able to breathe. “You’ll not keep me chained up.”
In response her captor leaned forward, his smile fading. “You don’t need me to tell you it’s not safe out there,” he said softly. “Escape, and you won’t get far.”
She glared back at him with loathing. He spoke the truth. Yet it would not have stopped her; if she could get free of these bonds she would run. She would come to harm here, n
o matter what she did.
Tarl ducked out of the tent and strode across to the nearest fire pit, where his brother was having his wounds tended.
There were a number of injured warriors scattered around the camp. Some would die of their wounds overnight, while others would linger awhile. Some, like Donnel, would hopefully heal. The groans and cries of the injured blended in with the rise and fall of excited voices. Already the warriors were spinning tales about this day. The savory aroma of roasting venison drifted through the camp as men roasted haunches over glowing embers. There would be a great feast later.
As Tarl crossed the few yards to the fire, his warriors called out to him. Their faces were gaunt and tired after the battle, but he saw the pride in their eyes.
“We showed those Caesars, eh?” Macum, a heavyset warrior greeted Tarl with a hearty slap on the back. “The Eagles have done you and Galan proud.”
Tarl grinned at Macum’s praise. He had dreamed of this day—when he would lead The Eagles to victory. The battle had claimed the lives of just two of his men, far fewer than some of the other tribes. Wurgest had lost six of his warriors during the skirmish upon the wall.
“We’ll sing songs about this day around the fire for years,” Tarl replied. “The day The Eagles of Dun Ringill helped stop the southern invaders.”
Together the two men reached the fire, where a warrior was doing his best to tend to Donnel’s wounds. They had not brought any healers with them on this campaign, but fortunately some of the warriors had skills in that area and could help with minor cuts and lacerations.
Tarl felt a pang of misgiving. He suspected his brother’s wounds were far more serious than Donnel had let on earlier. He bore a gash to his right flank, no doubt caused by a Roman sword blade. He also had a deep puncture wound on his right thigh—and it was this injury that concerned Tarl. These ones tended to fester.