The Warrior's Bride Prize

by Jenni Fletcher

  ‘All right.’ She pressed her nose against his. ‘Just be careful.’

  ‘I will.’ He kissed her fiercely before picking up his helmet and charging out of the room. ‘Just wait here!’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Livia sat on the edge of the bed, straining her ears to listen to the sound of muffled shouts and fighting outside, as if sound itself could tell her what was happening. The tension was agonising. Marius had told her to stay and wait, but for what? For him to return or for a horde of warriors to break down the door and burst in?

  She turned his gladius over in her lap, hating the weight of cold steel in her hands. Would she be able to use it if she had to? The very idea was terrifying. Then she peered closer, noticing the pair of initials carved into the hilt. His and his father’s. It was their weapon, the symbol of their family honour. It had meant a hundred times more to him than she’d realised and he’d risked it for her.

  The thought brought her resolutely to her feet. How could she just sit there and do nothing when Marius had already risked so much for her? If he were injured, then she’d never forgive herself. He might need her and, even if he didn’t, others might. The very least she could do was help the wounded.

  She dressed quickly, tucking the gladius inside her belt and then moving away the chest she’d barricaded against the door, peering nervously around the edge before making her way outside. The Via Principalis was deserted as she approached the west gate. Then she stopped, gripping the edge of a pillar for support as she stared, horrified, at the scene of chaos before her. Most of the fighting was along the top of the palisade, but a handful of rebels had already breached the defences and were battling auxiliaries inside the camp. Meanwhile, more warriors kept appearing over the top of the ramparts, so many that the Roman soldiers looked in danger of being overwhelmed. There was no sign of Marius.

  A nearby groan drew her attention to a soldier lying on the ground a few metres away and she broke into a run as she recognised him. It was Trenus, the quartermaster who’d been so generous when she’d arrived, clutching his leg as blood spurted from his calf.

  ‘I’m here.’ She dropped to the ground beside him, trying to sound reassuring. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

  ‘My leg.’ His lips were already turning white.

  ‘Hold on.’ Quickly she unfastened her belt and tied it around the top of his thigh, pulling it tight with a heave.

  ‘Good.’ He gritted his teeth at the pain. ‘As hard as you can.’

  She heaved again, tying the ends in a knot before tearing a strip of cloth from the hem of her stola and folding it into a pad to press against the wound.

  ‘Better.’ His head fell back to the ground with a thud. ‘Now get back inside. Marius will finish me off if he sees you out here.’

  ‘It’s not his decision. It’s mine.’ She tore a fresh strip of cloth from her stola, tying it around the pad to hold it in place. ‘Where’s the surgeon?’

  ‘No surgeon, just a medic, but he’s fighting.’

  ‘Then you definitely need me out here. There must be others who need help.’

  ‘All right, but don’t tell Marius I agreed with you.’

  ‘Will you be all right?’ She put a hand on his shoulder, looking around anxiously. He was vulnerable out in the open, but she couldn’t lift him by herself and there was no one around to help.

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m not done for yet.’ He held up a wicked-looking dagger. ‘Do you have a weapon?’

  ‘I have this.’ She picked up Marius’s gladius. It had fallen to the ground when she’d removed her belt, though lying next to a puddle of blood it looked even more terrifying.

  ‘Do you know how to use it?’

  ‘No.’ She rose up on her haunches, spying another injured soldier close to the gate. ‘But hopefully I won’t have to. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  Trenus gave a twisted smile. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  She clasped the gladius in her hand, darting a quick look around before crossing the space at a run. There was fighting on both sides of her, but she kept her gaze fixed on the injured man for courage, finally sliding to the ground beside him.

  There was an arrow embedded in his shoulder, she discovered, so deep that there was no evidence of the head, just a shaft of wood poking out of the flesh. She swallowed a wave of nausea, wishing that she had some kind of anaesthetic as the soldier cried out in pain. There was a bubble of blood around the wound and she tore another strip off her stola to staunch the flow, shaking her head as she did so. If she wasn’t careful, she’d have no dress left.

  ‘Hold this tight against the wound,’ she instructed the soldier, yelping in shock as he suddenly reached up and shoved her to one side.

  ‘What?’ An arrow thudded heavily into the ground where she’d just been crouching and she scrambled around, heart pounding at the sight of a Caledonian warrior charging at breakneck speed towards them.

  ‘My shield!’ the injured soldier screamed at her. ‘Pick it up!’

  She reached for the shield and gladius, trying to hold them steady in trembling hands as she clambered back to her feet and braced herself. The warrior wasn’t wearing any armour, she noticed, but she wished she was. He was almost twice her size and the look in his eyes was battle-crazed and terrifying.

  Then he stopped, his wild gaze taking in first her hair and then her torn, bloodstained stola. She swallowed, uncomfortably aware that her legs were bare from the knees down, though she felt a faint glimmer of hope, too. Had he recognised who she was? Did he feel some sort of kinship with her as she had with the prisoner? Would he leave her alone if he did?

  Then he spat out a word, one she didn’t recognise, though she didn’t need a translator to guess its meaning. It was obviously one her mother hadn’t thought suitable for a child, one that revealed exactly what he thought of her and her relationship to the Roman garrison. It made her suddenly furious. As if being judged by one side wasn’t bad enough, now she was being judged by the other, too!

  ‘Livia!’ She spun towards the sound of Marius’s voice. He was standing in the midst of the fighting on top of the palisade, at least fifty feet away, drawing one arm back and then hurling it forward again as he loosed a pilum into the air towards them.

  It was a warning call, she realised, turning her gaze quickly back to the warrior, a warning for her not to move. This was it, the moment she’d been dreading, when she had to make a choice between her Roman and Caledonian sides. She didn’t want to choose, but in truth there was no choice. She was on Marius’s side. And she wasn’t going to let this warrior kill her because of it.

  He was creeping forward now, closing the distance between them to within striking range, but she couldn’t flinch or retreat, had to hold steady so that he wouldn’t realise the danger until it was too late.

  There was a hiss of air and at the last moment her attacker twisted his head sharply, diving away as the javelin came down with a thump, missing his leg by a hair’s breadth. He gave her a furious look and then charged forward, but she darted to one side, lifting her shield and thrusting the boss towards him before swinging the gladius up with all her strength, aiming for his chest. It was no use. He blocked the blow with his axe, leering as though her efforts were nothing more than horseplay. She tried again, aiming lower, but this time he grabbed her arm, pulling her towards him and raising his sword to her throat.

  ‘Oof!’

  She dropped to the ground, landing heavily on her shoulder as Marius barrelled into the warrior from the side, knocking all three of them down in a heap. Quickly, she wriggled away, readying her gladius to help, but it was impossible. The two men were rolling over and over in the dirt, fists pounding so ferociously that she couldn’t get a clear aim.

  ‘Marius!’ she screamed out in horror as the warrior pulled a dagger from his boot, lifting it high in the
air before stabbing downwards. Instinctively she threw herself on top of him, grabbing his arm and clinging to it, trying to loosen his hold on the weapon. He twisted around, face contorting with rage as he shoved his elbow into the side of her head, so hard that the world seemed to go black for a few seconds before she hit the ground again with a thud.

  She reached a hand to her head, ears ringing, watching through a sticky red blur as the warrior lifted the dagger again and plunged. A cry rose to her throat, but no sound came out. Her vision seemed to be dimming, too, her eyelids closing against her will as she saw Marius’s hand come up, blocking the warrior’s wrist. There was another fierce tussle, a roar of anger followed by a bellow of pain.

  The last thing she saw was the warrior’s body slump to the ground.

  * * *

  ‘Livia?’ Marius leaned over the bed, calling her name as he rubbed a hand softly over her forehead, willing her to wake up, to give some sign that she could hear him.

  ‘It might take a while.’ Ario stood opposite, his face and voice equally grim. ‘Head injuries can take a long time to heal.’

  ‘I know.’ He grimaced at the thought. ‘What the hell was she doing out there? I told her to stay inside.’

  ‘Trenus says she was helping the injured. She tied a tourniquet around his leg before that savage attacked her.’

  Marius swallowed. He’d been fighting on the ramparts when he’d seen them. The sight of Livia wielding a paltry gladius in front of an axe-wielding warrior had made the bottom fall out of his stomach and his world. For a moment, he’d thought his very heart had stopped beating. He’d been on the verge of losing everything—and everything, he’d realised in a moment of blinding clarity, was her. He loved her with every fibre of his being. He’d never thrown a spear so hard in his life.

  ‘It still shouldn’t have happened. I should have protected her.’

  ‘You were protecting her.’

  ‘He still managed to do this.’

  ‘This—’ Ario gave him a pointed look ‘—was because she was trying to protect you. At least this answers the question of where her loyalties lie. I think we can trust her.’

  ‘We can.’

  He sank into a chair and put his head in his hands. It was true. He could trust her, only he’d found that out the hard way, in the midst of battle, when she’d put herself in danger to help Roman soldiers. He’d told her that she didn’t have to choose sides, but she had, risking her life alongside theirs and almost getting herself killed to save him. He should have trusted her all along instead of treating her like a prisoner, a traitor... She was no more a traitor to Rome than his father had been.

  ‘You need to eat.’ Ario rested a hand on his shoulder on the way to the door. ‘I’ll get some food.’

  ‘Not until she wakes up.’

  ‘Don’t be a hero, Marius. She’ll need you more than ever when she does. That was just the start of the rebellion and you know it. They were testing our defences, seeing how many of us are here. We held them off for today, but they’ll be back, probably in greater numbers, and then the real fighting will begin. You’ll need to defend her all over again, but you’ll be no use at all if you don’t get some food and rest.’

  ‘All right, but I’m not leaving this room.’

  ‘I didn’t expect you to.’ Ario patted his shoulder again and then frowned. ‘How long will it take Nerva to send reinforcements, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Marius ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. ‘He should have received our message by now, but it’ll depend on how many forts were attacked. I doubt that it was just us. If the rebels have broken through the wall, then the legion might be needed elsewhere.’

  ‘So no reinforcements?’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘Damned Romans.’ Ario swore. ‘If they’d only listened when you told them...’

  ‘They’ll be listening now.’ Marius turned his gaze back towards the bed. ‘In any case, I need you to get four of your best men ready to ride to Coria.’

  ‘Four?’

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded emphatically. ‘I need them to take Livia back to her daughter. She’s staying with Nerva’s wife in the fort. If Hermenia has any sense, which she does, she’ll take the girl to Eboracum for safety. Livia needs to go with them. I can’t abandon my post, but she needs to leave the moment she wakes up.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll go?’ Ario lifted his eyebrows. ‘You told her not to go near the prisoner and she ignored you. You told her to stay in the villa and she ignored you. Something tells me she won’t leave just because you tell her to either.’

  ‘It’s for her own good.’

  ‘And if you think that telling her that will make any difference, then you don’t know women very well, my friend. They’re stubborn and she’s already put herself in the way of a dagger for you.’ He held his hands up as Marius glared savagely. ‘I’m just saying that she might take some convincing, that’s all, but I’ll tell my men to be ready.’

  Marius glowered after Ario’s retreating back, assailed by a new set of worries. What if Ario was right and she wouldn’t leave simply because he asked her to? He didn’t doubt that she’d want to get back to Julia, but what if she decided it was her duty to stay and help? What if she wouldn’t listen to reason? There was little enough chance of survival for any of them in the fort. They would be a few hundred against a few thousand. In which case, he had to convince her. He had to make her leave, any way that he could...

  ‘Marius?’ Her voice was little more than a whisper, but he was on his feet in an instant, leaning over the bed and cradling her face in his hands.

  ‘Try not to move. You took a nasty blow to the head.’

  ‘You’re alive...and you’re smiling...’ She blinked a few times as if she thought she might be dreaming. ‘You never smile.’

  ‘I am now.’ Despite what he had to tell her, he couldn’t stop himself. The sound of her voice made his heart soar.

  ‘It suits you.’ Her own lips curved at last. ‘You should do it more often.’

  ‘Then I will.’ He was struck with a pang of regret, realising that he might not have time to do much of anything any more, ironically just when he’d found a reason to be happy. But at least he could still save her, which also meant that he had to hurry...

  ‘What happened?’ She tipped her head to one side as he smoothed his thumbs over her cheeks.

  ‘You saved my life, though I’m afraid you’re going to have a pretty big bruise to show for it.’

  ‘Then the attack’s over?’ Her expression turned hopeful. ‘Did we win?’

  We? He felt a warm glow in his chest. Apparently she really had chosen sides...

  ‘For now, but this is only a respite.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She tried to sit up, but he moved his hands to her shoulders, holding her down on the bed.

  ‘They’ll be back. The rebellion’s only just getting started.’

  ‘Julia!’ This time she succeeded in pushing past him, jolting to an upright position, her expression stricken with panic.

  ‘Don’t worry, she’s safe in Coria. There’s a thousand men based there, not to mention Hermenia. She’s worth a few hundred herself, although under the circumstances I’d expect her to take Julia south for safety.’

  ‘But she said that she’d never leave Nerva!’

  ‘Trust me, she’ll make an exception for your daughter. Hermenia’s loyal, but she’s sensible, too.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Ario’s getting some of his men ready to take you to Coria to join them.’

  For a moment, he thought she hadn’t understood, her forehead creasing as she stared at him silently for a few moments.

  ‘Livia?’

  ‘You truly believe that Julia will be safe with Hermenia?’

  ‘I do, but...’

  ‘Then how can I
leave?’

  ‘Because you need to be with your daughter.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head and then winced. ‘If you think that this is only a respite, then it means the rebels will attack again soon. How can you spare men to take me to Coria when you need every soldier you can get?’

  ‘They won’t be gone long.’

  ‘Long enough.’ She lifted her chin, moving her head more carefully this time. ‘I won’t abandon you, Marius. As long as Julia’s safe, I can face anything else. We’ll fight the rebels together.’

  ‘No!’ He stood up, half-touched, half-appalled by her words. ‘I won’t let you fight.’

  ‘Then I’ll tend to the injured.’

  ‘You’re injured!’

  ‘It was just a bump on the head.’ She rubbed her fingers over the swollen area. ‘I’ll be back to normal in a few hours. I’m not even dizzy.’

  ‘I don’t want you getting hurt again.’

  ‘Then I won’t be.’ She stretched out a hand towards him. ‘I’ll be more careful from now on. You can show me how to use a gladius and...’

  ‘You’re leaving!’

  He said the words more forcefully than he’d intended, wincing inwardly as he saw her eyes widen with a look of surprise followed by hurt. He hardened his heart at the sight. Apparently Ario was right. She wasn’t going to leave, not willingly, especially after last night. He’d told her that there really was a bond between them and now the only thing he could do was break it and persuade her otherwise. He had to tell her he didn’t love her just at the very moment he wanted to tell her how much he did.

  ‘I’m ordering you to go, Livia.’ He forced the words out. ‘You need to leave, you more than anyone.’

  ‘What do you mean, more than anyone?’

  Her eyes flickered with a look of suspicion and he clenched his jaw.

  ‘Because I can’t fight if I’m distracted.’

  ‘I won’t distract you! You don’t have to defend me.’