The Warrior's Bride Prize

by Jenni Fletcher

  Hadn’t she?

  Chapter Eighteen

  The prison door closed with a resounding thud. Marius nodded to the guard outside, hoping he’d done the right thing in bringing the patrol back so soon, though both he and Ario had agreed it would have been foolish to go on. The audacity of the attack suggested that there were more warriors ahead, possibly too many, and he wasn’t going to risk losing good men simply to prove a point. He’d seen enough to convince himself.

  As he’d expected, the young Caledonian warrior hadn’t told them anything, though he hoped a few days on his own would be sufficient to change his mind. He had a few cuts and bruises, including a nasty gash on his arm—nothing dangerous, but one that could become infected if left untended for too long. He’d have to send the camp medic to him later after Ario’s men had been seen to. Injuries in battle were one thing, but he didn’t want the boy dying on him.

  His conscience pricked him at the thought. He would have preferred a full-grown warrior to a boy, even if a youth was more likely to talk, but there was too much at stake for him to be squeamish about it. If the boy was old enough to wield a weapon, then he was old enough to suffer the consequences, no matter how unpleasant the thought.

  He turned his weary feet in the direction of the villa. Would Livia be there? The sight of her standing, breathless and anxious-looking, beside the gate when he’d ridden back through had made his heart leap, even more than he would have expected, though her reaction when she’d actually seen him had bothered him for the rest of the afternoon. For a few hopeful moments, he’d thought she’d actually run across the courtyard to find him, but her expression when she’d finally met his eyes had been anything but pleased. She’d looked positively horrified. Had she been hoping to be widowed again so soon?

  No, he dismissed the thought as too harsh. He didn’t know exactly how she felt about him, but he was reasonably certain she didn’t want him dead. Strangely enough, he’d had the distinct impression that her reaction had had little to do with him and far more to do with his prisoner. Something about the evasive way she’d been staring suggested that she’d been trying very hard not to look at either of them.

  Was it the man’s nakedness that had shocked her? No, she didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who’d be so easily offended. Or was it simply that he’d taken a prisoner at all? If it was, her reaction appeared somewhat excessive, but then he supposed she wasn’t used to life in the army, especially on a frontier. The reality of it could be brutal, but he had a job to do and orders to follow—above all, he had Roman lives to protect. He’d have to explain that to her.

  He marched through the villa, resisting the urge to call out her name, not entirely convinced she wouldn’t hide from him if he did. As it turned out, he didn’t need to. She was in the courtyard again, perched on the low wall where they’d sat side by side the night before, hunched over with her face in her hands.

  ‘Livia?’ He came to stand in front of her, half-alarmed, half-irritated. How could she be so affected by the sight of one prisoner? ‘What is it?’

  She didn’t answer, her shoulders going rigid, as if she were still reluctant to lift her head and look at him.

  ‘It’s nothing.’ With her hands over her face, her voice sounded muffled.

  ‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’ He frowned at her denial. If she were one of his soldiers, then he’d simply demand to know what was going on. If only women were so easy...

  She dropped her hands at last, dragging them across her cheeks as if she were trying to rub some colour back into them. To his relief, her eyes, though wide and slightly wild-looking, were dry. At least she hadn’t been crying.

  ‘It’s just the thought of it. The thought of you in battle.’

  A wave of relief washed through him. ‘You mean you were worried about me?’

  ‘Of course!’ She sounded angry and offended at the same time. ‘You could have been injured!’

  ‘I’m a soldier. That’s always a risk.’

  Her gaze raked him up and down. ‘You have blood on your armour.’

  ‘It’s not mine. At worst I might have a few bruises.’

  ‘Good!’

  He lifted an eyebrow, even more confused than before. As much as he wanted to believe that such an extreme reaction had been caused entirely by worry for him, he wasn’t completely convinced.

  ‘So you’ve been right all along?’ Her voice had a quaver in it this time. ‘There really is a rebellion coming?’

  ‘It looks likely. We were attacked by a war party who were trying to stop us from seeing something, preparations for an assault on the wall most likely, but one skirmish doesn’t prove anything. Not yet anyway.’

  ‘Yet?’

  ‘We have a prisoner.’ He watched her reaction as he spoke. ‘With any luck, he’ll talk.’

  ‘I saw.’ She dropped her eyes tellingly. ‘He was injured.’

  ‘Not badly.’

  ‘He might still need attention.’

  ‘So do Ario’s men.’

  ‘Oh...yes.’ A guilty expression crossed her face. ‘Were any of them badly hurt?’

  ‘A few injuries, but no losses, fortunately.’

  ‘What about the war party?’

  ‘You seem very worried about them.’ He narrowed his eyes and folded his arms at the same time. ‘They’re our enemies, Livia.’

  This time she didn’t flinch. ‘They’re still people, too, aren’t they?’

  ‘So they are.’ He felt a shadow of suspicion at the back of his mind, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. ‘We inflicted some damage, but it was just a skirmish. There were no bodies left on the ground if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Livia?’ Briefly he thought about sitting down beside her and then decided against it. The intimacy they’d shared the previous night seemed a distant memory, as if there were another wall between them suddenly, one that he couldn’t cross to reach her. ‘What else is it?’

  She hesitated for a moment, drawing in a deep breath before she spoke again.

  ‘What if your prisoner doesn’t talk?’

  ‘We’re giving him a few days on his own to think about it.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  There was an accusatory gleam in her eye and he frowned, not sure what she was getting at.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, is that all you’re doing to him, leaving him on his own? Or will you do more? Will you hurt him?’

  He stiffened at the accusation. ‘Hopefully that won’t be necessary.’

  ‘But if it is...will you?’

  ‘No.’ He spoke in a clipped voice. Torturing prisoners wasn’t a practice he approved of, though he knew of several Roman officers who had no such scruples. ‘I won’t, but it might not be up to me.’

  ‘You mean if you take him to Coria?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about afterwards? What will you—they—do to him after he’s told them what they want to know? Will they let him go?’

  ‘No.’ He wasn’t going to lie.

  Her head jerked as if an invisible hand had just slapped her across the cheek. ‘You mean they’ll sell him as a slave?’

  ‘Possibly. I doubt the decision will be up to me.’

  ‘It’s your responsibility! You took him prisoner!’

  ‘Because he attacked us. He’s a barbarian!’

  ‘He’s a boy!’

  She leapt to her feet, her tone anguished, and the shadow of suspicion grew longer. He’d never kept slaves himself, but the practice was widespread throughout the Empire. Most Romans accepted it. But then her mixed feelings about Rome had been obvious almost from the start. Perhaps there was more behind it than he’d thought...

  ‘You don’t approve of slavery?’ He arched an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t y
our family have slaves?’

  Blue-green eyes sparked with some fierce emotion before she twisted her face to one side.

  ‘Yes. That is, my brother and Julius both did, but my father freed all of his slaves before I was born. He thought it was wrong to enslave another person, Roman or not.’

  ‘Then I applaud him.’

  ‘You do?’ She whipped her head back round again.

  ‘Yes. Denying any man his freedom without just cause is wrong.’

  ‘How can you say so when you’ve just taken a prisoner?’

  ‘I said without just cause, but he was part of a war party that attacked us. Now he has to face the consequences. Under the circumstances, he’s lucky to be alive.’

  ‘You were in his territory.’

  ‘What?’ The words were so faint he wasn’t sure he’d heard them correctly.

  She lifted her chin, a look of defiance crossing her features. ‘You were north of the wall, outside Roman territory. He might have thought you were the one asking for consequences.’

  ‘Is that so?’ He advanced a step towards her, speaking slowly and meticulously. ‘And is that what you think?’

  ‘No.’ He noticed it took her a few moments to answer. ‘I just don’t think he deserves to be condemned to a life of slavery for defending his own territory.’

  ‘He hasn’t been condemned to anything yet.’

  ‘But he will be!’

  ‘Probably, yes.’ He took a deep breath, trying to quell his own temper. ‘Why the hell do you care so much about the fate of one warrior? Because your mother was Carvetti? It might have escaped your notice in Lindum, but the Caledonians are no friend to the tribes south of the wall.’

  ‘This has nothing to do with the Carvetti! It’s about what’s right and slavery is wrong!’

  ‘Not according to Rome.’

  He turned and walked a few paces away, feeling bone-weary all of a sudden. It had been a difficult morning and the last thing he wanted to do was argue, especially when she seemed so determined to cast him as the villain. It was a long way from the reunion he’d been hoping for...

  ‘Did your family keep slaves?’

  He glanced back over his shoulder. She was still staring at the spot where he’d been standing, her face flushed with emotion now.

  ‘I didn’t have a family, remember?’

  ‘The people you lived with, then.’

  ‘I lived with one of my father’s old soldiers and his wife and children. They hardly had the money to keep me, let alone anyone else.’

  ‘So you’ve never had slaves?’

  He frowned. Something about the way she asked the question told him there was more to it than just curiosity, as if his answer really mattered to her...

  ‘No.’

  She closed her eyes briefly and he almost turned back before thinking better of it.

  ‘I ought to go and check on the men. As for the rest, I’m only following orders, Livia. My conscience is clear.’

  He stalked out of the villa, struck by the uncomfortable realisation that he was lying.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The morning was cold and bright. Livia could sense it through the window shutters, though she waited until she was certain Marius had left the room before opening her eyes. She’d been in bed, as close to the wall as possible, when he’d come back the previous evening and she’d been determined not to get up again until he’d left. She didn’t want to speak with him. Until she’d calmed down, it was far better for them to keep out of each other’s way as much as possible.

  She was still furious. When he’d only been talking about leading a patrol north, it somehow hadn’t seemed so dreadful. He’d said that he’d only been going to look around, but the fact that he’d been fighting—fighting!—her mother’s people made her as angry as if he’d attacked her himself. It didn’t help that she knew he was only doing his duty. In his mind, he was protecting Rome, holding the frontier, working towards his ambition of becoming Senior Centurion. It wasn’t his fault that he’d married a woman with mixed allegiances. He didn’t even know. Because she hadn’t told him, not before their marriage or yesterday when she’d had the chance.

  The thought brought with it an unwanted stab of guilt, although surely he’d guess the truth soon enough if she kept on behaving the way that she was. She couldn’t help it. How could he talk about the boy’s future so casually, as if slavery was acceptable just because Rome said so? He’d even called him a barbarian, as if he were just as prejudiced as every other Roman! Which perhaps he was and she’d simply been too blinded by attraction to see clearly before. In any case, she certainly couldn’t tell him the truth now. Their whole situation was unbearable. She’d wanted to visit the wall for almost as long as she could remember, thinking it was where she belonged, but now she was trapped, caught between two sides in a war. Was that where she belonged? If it was, then she’d prefer to belong nowhere.

  At least Marius had never kept slaves himself. She’d been unable to shake Julius’s opinions on that subject—had actually shocked him by giving Porcia her document of manumission on the very day he’d purchased her as a gift—but then she’d given up hoping that he might change. She’d been unable to do anything for his other slaves either, ending up as powerless as she’d ever been in Tarquinius’s household.

  Well, this time, she decided, she would do something. She didn’t know what exactly, but she wasn’t going to stand by while anyone was treated as less than a human being. Marius wouldn’t appreciate her interference, but there was no harm in making sure the boy was all right, surely?

  She got to her feet and dressed with a new sense of purpose, trying to ignore the musky male scent of the blankets as she climbed across them, collecting a few items before marching determinedly out of the villa and across the fort. A few auxiliaries nodded to her as she passed and she nodded back, glad to see them all back safely, though struck with a twinge of disloyalty, too. She pushed it aside. Tending to the enemy didn’t mean that she cared any less about them, but someone had to do the right thing and make sure the prisoner was properly looked after.

  ‘I’ve brought some food.’ She spoke to the guard outside the prison, prepared for an argument that never came as he immediately stepped aside to let her in.

  The prison wasn’t a single large room, as she’d expected, but a series of cells lined with wooden bars, all of them empty except for the last where the warrior was leaning against the wall in one corner, his eyes closed. Judging by the bandage around his left arm, his injuries had already been tended to. So had his comforts. There was a pile of blankets around him, as well as a cup of water, a jug and an empty plate to one side, and she felt a fresh pang of guilt for having misjudged Marius. Again. Whatever else he intended to do with the prisoner, he clearly wasn’t mistreating him.

  She crouched down, bringing her eyes level with the warrior’s, though up close he looked even younger. His skin bore traces of woad, giving him an odd, bluish pallor, while his chest was decorated with a series of intricate, interlacing tattoos. She lifted her eyes to his face, looking for some semblance of her own features. There were no obvious physical similarities between them, but there was still something, a feeling of kinship that meant she couldn’t ignore or abandon him. For all she knew, they might be related.

  ‘Are you awake?’ She dragged the words from her memory, the Caledonian language her mother had taught her, and his eyes snapped open at once.

  ‘I’ve brought you some food.’ She rummaged in her bag and held out a chunk of bread. ‘I thought...’

  She didn’t finish the sentence as he sprang forward suddenly, reaching between the bars and grabbing her forearm.

  ‘You speak my language?’

  ‘Yes.’ She winced at the tightness of his grip. ‘Let me go.’

  He released her almost as quickly and sat back on his haunches
, his eyes burning fiercely in the half-darkness. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, but you can trust me.’

  ‘Trust a Roman?’ He spat into the dirt.

  ‘I’m not...’ She bit her lip before she could say it. She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t deny that side of her heritage any more than she could deny her mother’s and she didn’t want to choose. ‘I’m only half-Roman, but I want to help you.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You need to answer their questions. They already know about the rebellion, so you won’t be betraying anyone. If you tell them what they want to know, then they won’t hurt you.’

  His gaze narrowed, but she kept going.

  ‘The rebellion won’t succeed. It can’t. No matter how hard you fight, the new Emperor will keep on sending legions to defeat you.’

  ‘So you think we should just surrender and become slaves of Rome?’

  The word made her look away. ‘No, just hold your own territory. Don’t attack the wall. What’s the point of dying in a fight you can’t win?’

  He stared at her for a long moment and then spat into the dirt again. ‘Not all of us are prepared to make treaties with Rome!’

  ‘Livia?’

  A voice from the doorway made her spin round with a jolt.

  ‘Ario!’ She stood up to face him, feigning composure even though she felt as if her insides had just turned to water. ‘I was just giving the prisoner some food.’

  ‘I see that.’ His gaze swept over the prison cell. ‘Have you finished?’

  ‘Yes.’ She picked up her bag, resisting the urge to throw one last imploring look at the prisoner before making her way to the door, keenly aware of two pairs of eyes watching her. ‘I’m all done.’

  ‘Did Marius send you?’ Ario’s face was grave as they stepped back outside.

  ‘No.’ There was no point in lying when he could check her story so easily. ‘But I don’t see what harm taking the boy some food can do.’