by Jane Stain
She nodded and waited for him to start forward, her eyes fierce with the need for vengeance even though she’d only just met the members of his clan.
He stood and admired her for a moment. Her fierceness did something to him. There were female fighters in his clan, but Jaelle’s passions surpassed those of any woman he had ever met. And he was up to the challenge of learning all of the many fighting styles she knew and someday besting her in a practice bout. He looked forward to that in a way he hadn’t ever anticipated fighting practice.
Coming back to the moment, he led the way down through the gaps in the bushes to another easy place to climb over the wall. He waited for her to catch up to him and then gave her a boost up to the closest foothold in the wall, then lifted her to help her climb, whispering in her ear as she passed by him on the way up.
“I’ll stay down here to catch you in case you fall. Wait for me at the top.”
She nodded and gave him a quick kiss, then climbed up to the top of the ten foot wall.
And gasped.
The last thing he saw of her was the panic on her face as she was grabbed and pulled over onto the invaders’ side.
Heart pounding, Breth turned around, grabbing his sword out of its sheath and raising it against the invaders he thought surely would be behind him.
But there were none.
Quick as the wind, he ran back up to the relative safety of the hilltop before yelling several times at the top of his lungs to the rest of his fighters.
“Retreat! It’s a trap!”
He cursed himself and his preoccupation the whole way to their meeting place and then was grateful to see that everyone else had made it out. He quickly explained what happened to Jaelle, and then he and all of his fighters started their retreat back to the safety of the cave, where they would plan their next attack.
Twenty-Two
Jaelle barely had time to register what was happening before she found herself on the other side of the wall, stripped of the belt with its scabbard and the bag containing the helmet and with her hands bound behind her back, walking as fast as she could while being half-dragged by her elbow through the courtyard toward the door of the fort. By Nechtan.
There were others with them, but she didn’t care who heard her. She knew she most definitely did not want to go inside that door. With any luck, the others didn’t speak Pictish. She knew they were Roman soldiers by their attire — which to her modern sensibilities looked like little mini dresses — so she surmised that the language they were speaking was Latin — and she understood that, too, in addition to the Pictish.
Apparently unbeknownst to them.
“This female savage has more meat on her bones than most.”
“Yes, but she is not for us. I hear Marcus asked for her.”
“Too bad. All that blue stuff on her gives me ideas.”
“It isn’t the blue stuff that gives me ideas.”
Crude laughter.
How charming.
But she concentrated on the druid, with whom she felt she might have a chance. Besides, he held the helmet bag in his other hand, along with her sword in its scabbard and her belt.
Hoping against hope that he didn’t realize what he had, she made her face as appealing as she knew how and beseeched this member of Breth’s clan.
“Please just let me go, Nechtan. Please.”
But this just made the little man laugh at her. It was an evil laugh.
“You should have considered the relative power of the two men you had to choose from. You chose wrong.”
Jaelle didn't even think.
Her mouth just went off, as it was wont to do.
"I wasn't making a choice. You didn't have a chance. I had already chosen Breth. And then you had to go butting in on something that wasn't your business."
There was that evil laugh again, and he jostled her by the elbow more than he needed to, making her trip. With her hands tied, the only thing that stopped her from falling flat on her face was his hold on her elbow, which was starting to ache.
But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of calling out in pain. A bit too late, she finally got control over her mouth.
This time his laugh was more mirthful ― but still not sympathetic ― as he prattled away at her in Pictish.
"And now you have butted into things that aren't your business, and look at the predicament you're in because of your meddling. You should have stayed outside the wall. I can’t believe you showed up. I thought Breth would leave you back at the camp. You don’t belong here. You don’t have the slightest idea how far over your head you are here. It’s no place for a woman from the future, where it is plain you are coddled. And Marcus has his eye on you anyway, but if he knew…”
Nechtan glanced around at the Roman soldiers walking with them, his look daring her to tell him ― no, to beg him ― to keep her secret.
Unwilling to beg, she stared at him. Her eyes sending a message.
Go ahead and tell them. See if they believe you.
His eyes on her were mocking, and they sent their own message.
Wait till you've been here a while. This place will wear you down. There will come a time when you beg me to tell them your secret on the off chance that they'll let you go.
What he said out loud was much less menacing.
"You're a stranger to this place, so it's understandable that you don't realize ... but you will."
They were at the door to the fort now, and he waited while one of the Roman soldiers pushed it open.
Normally, seeing men in mini dresses would’ve made her laugh, but since these men were menacing her, she just found their attire disgusting.
Once the door was open, she was dragged through it into a large room full of men — and one large rotund man wearing a toga and more jewelry than her mother had in her jewelry box.
Nechtan bowed to the floor to this man, dragging her down with him.
“Oh great Marcus, you sought to see the woman Jaelle, and look, I have brought her to you.”
Marcus then addressed Jaelle directly.
“Look up at me, woman. I would see your face.”
Nechtan jerked her upright.
While Marcus studied her, she saw his lecherous grin and was spooked to the point where she didn’t have anything to say.
A first.
Of course, she had never been naked in a room full of men before, either. But she refused to slouch or otherwise try to hide what God had given her. She was not ashamed, so she would not act ashamed.
Marcus turned to three women seated on the floor who were wearing scarcely more than Jaelle.
“Up, up, up. Follow these men who take Jaelle to the quarters I have prepared for her. See that she gets all this… messy paste cleaned off of her.”
The three women bowed their faces to the floor and then did as he asked, following as Nechtan handed her off to the Roman soldiers, who took her and the three women down the hall, unbound her hands, and pushed the four of them into a room, then locked the door from the outside.
Inside the room were a large Roman bathtub, a wardrobe, and a double bed. These things filled almost all the space available. The tub was already full of steaming water.
The woad clay was almost at the end of its magical life of two days anyway, so Jaelle didn’t resist when the women ushered her up to the tub and gestured for her to get in. There was soap and a wash rag, and she got busy, refusing to let the women help her.
So instead they opened the wardrobe and showed her the contents — a surprising selection of clothing that didn’t look complicated to put on. Just simple shifts, overdresses, and scarves in many different colors. There were shoes as well, and it all looked like it would fit.
Good.
She wanted to be dressed the next time she saw any of the men. Being locked in this room without any of them here seemed a godsend, and she sank into the hot water and let it be a balm to relax her — as much as was possible under the circumstances.
But
alas, this moment of peace had to end before the water even cooled.
The door opened and Marcus entered. He turned to the three women.
“Leave us.”
Without a backward glance at Jaelle, the three rushed out, closing the door behind them.
Jaelle took advantage of the small time it took them to leave by getting out of the tub and drying off with one of the towels that sat nearby. She was nearly done when he turned back to her with that evil lecherous grin.
Trying her best to ignore him — and to keep herself covered — she finished drying off, wrapped the towel around her, then walked over to the wardrobe and calmly sifted through her clothing choices before selecting a saffron dress.
He didn’t approach her, thank God, but stayed in the doorway leering at her.
“It’s no use you know, hiding behind that towel. I’ve already seen it all.”
Pretending to be very interested in the clothes, she selected three different overdresses and held them against the saffron before selecting a maroon one.
“Well, since you’ve ‘been there, seen that,’ you might as well turn around while I put these clothes on.”
Marcus laughed his own brand of evil laugh. Nechtan’s laugh was frightening enough in its bitterness at being rejected, but Marcus’s laugh took evil to a whole new level. His was predatory. And obviously accustomed to getting his way.
The proud toga-wearing corpulent man strutted across the room as if he owned it — and perhaps as the commander of this post he came as close as one could come to owning a fort — clearly trying to make her shrink away from him.
She refused to do so.
He stopped five feet short of her and put his hands on his hips — which looked really funny in a toga, making his nearness and his next words bearable.
“Nice try. But I like the view just fine facing this way.”
She supposed it was a good thing she was in no mood to laugh. She didn’t imagine he would take that well. As for herself, her hands trembled as she held the saffron dress over her head and put her arms through and pulled it down over the towel, then put the maroon dress on over the saffron dress and finally let the towel drop. But she maintained her dignity, neither cowering nor backing down.
And then he dropped the bomb.
“You’ll enjoy our marriage, and it will start soon.”
Twenty-Three
Jaelle passed most of the night doing the only thing she could think of that might do any good: carving her own version of this story into the base of the wall of her prison room with a nail file that had been left for her to use. It was much thicker than modern nail files and nicely suited to the purpose. She based her carvings on those she had admired in the cave, but she made them her own. This was a little because she hadn’t been taught the Pictish system of pictures and a lot because she was a stubbornly independent person determined to show the world she had a mind of her own.
But mostly this was just her way of coping with being locked up. She thought if she didn’t have something physical to do, she might just go mad. She carved until she was exhausted, then collapsed in the bed and fell asleep.
Kelsey was smiling when she first showed up in dreamland, smiling and dancing around. But then she saw Jaelle’s face and came right down to earth.
Amber was along, of course, and ran over to Jaelle and hugged her protectively as the two of them sat on the bed with their legs crossed Indian style.
“Where are you? How did you get here? Where’s Breth?”
Jaelle knew it was just a dream — well, not just a dream but not quite reality either — but even this virtual hug was infinitely more comfort than she’d had a moment ago. Aggravatingly, this allowed her resolve to crumble, and while she had held steadfast through talking with Marcus and Nechtan, this kindness from her friends made her blubber and cry.
She spoke through her sobbing, which made her sound like the drama queen she always resisted being, which in turn made her blubber even more. She could barely choke the words out.
“I was with Breth on an attack on the Roman fort just over the other side of the wall. That’s where we are now. I climbed up on top of the wall in front of Breth and… You know what, just watch it in my memory. So much easier than trying to tell you.”
So with the three of them sitting on the bed watching as if they were ghosts sitting on a ghost bed that floated around, Kelsey played Jaelle’s memory of being captured and Nechtan’s sneering derision at her plight as a modern woman — and Marcus’s declaration that they were soon to be married.
Jaelle squirmed the whole time, finding it odd to be watching herself.
Kelsey’s face was stricken.
“We have pictures of that helmet, Jaelle, and I will show them to the staff at Celtic University. I’ll find someone who can help you. Just stay alive. Do what you have to do, but just stay alive. Promise me.”
The choking and sobbing eased so that Jaelle could speak again, and she looked on her friend with the hope that she hadn’t dared harbor before.
“Yes, yes I’ll stay alive. Please do whatever you can to get me out of here.”
Amber hugged her tighter.
“Of course she will.”
There really wasn’t anything more to say, so the three of them just spent the next little while holding each other while Amber and Kelsey stroked Jaelle’s hair and told her it would be all right, that they would help her.
Jaelle was woken up in what she presumed to be the morning — although she couldn’t tell, because there weren’t any windows in her room — by the three women who had helped her bathe the night before. They came in clucking and talking while they turned down the covers and scooted her over and moved her feet down to the floor.
As if that weren’t bad enough, she didn’t at all like the things they were saying in a language Jaelle associated with the Catholic Church more than anything. It was so odd to understand Latin.
“Get up, Jaelle. You’re to be married now.”
“Your wedding was going to be next week, but with the—”
The third woman cut the second woman off, shoving her and giving her a stern look.
“Marcus has decided he can’t wait to marry you, so get up and get dressed so we can do what we do.”
The first two women got out a long white woolen blanket and walked to opposite sides of the room, stretching it out.
At first this puzzled Jaelle, but then she realized the white blanket was the makings of a toga that they were going to wrap around her.
A toga just like the one Marcus wore.
Wonderful.
Woman three was setting out a bunch of clay pots and handmade makeup brushes on the half of the bed Jaelle wasn’t sitting on.
But there wasn’t any joy in these preparations. The three women were clearly just obeying orders they were afraid not to follow. And who could blame them, what with being locked in rooms and all?
The first woman had finished walking to her corner of the room and turned to beckon Jaelle over her shoulder.
“We must make you beautiful ― so quick, quick, quick, get up.”
Somehow, the bath had been drawn again before Jaelle woke up — which must’ve meant carrying in buckets of water, because there wasn’t any plumbing in the room. She had a large earthenware jar under her bed as testimony to this, and it had been convenient.
However, Jaelle was stubbornly unwilling to be that clean for a wedding she didn’t want. She declined to get in the bath but just scooped up some water and washed the sleep out of her eyes before turning to the three women and giving herself over to their care.
“Go ahead, make me beautiful.”
The first two women removed Jaelle’s saffron and maroon dresses and then wrapped the long white wool blanket around her and shaped it into a toga, pleating it just so and tucking it in here and putting it over her arm there and fastening it with a brooch.
In an odd way, the toga reminded Jaelle of the great kilts the guys had
worn at the Renaissance faire.
But this went down to the floor and made walking difficult — unless one walked in a stately manner. Maybe that was the point of the cumbersome thing, to make one pause and consider one’s appearance before moving or speaking — or even breathing, truly.
The toga covered her well though, and for that she was grateful.
Going naked with just the woad paint had been close to unbearable in the company of Breth and his clan fighters who were doing the same. She hadn’t really stopped to think that she would actually be in front of the Roman soldiers looking like that. Well, she’d never thought she would be alone when she made her bare-skin entrance into the domain of foreign men.
It just went to show: one should always pick one’s outfit carefully, with every possible situation in mind.
Next, these captive women applied cosmetics to Jaelle’s face in an amount that astonished her. She had thought makeup was a modern invention. Not so. Why hadn’t any of this been in the history books she’d read so studiously? Maybe she needed to read some historical memoirs — if any written by women from this time could be found. Slim chance of that. Well, maybe in Rome itself, where some women were more respected.
But first she needed to find Nechtan and wrench that helmet from his little meddling hands and get away from this awful situation.
He was sure to be at her wedding ceremony, gloating over her fate. Wasn’t he? Well, she would plan on it. And as soon as she saw him, she would just run over to him and grab the helmet — which she was sure he would have in his possession, knowing how valuable it was.
Yeah, that’s just what she would do.
The three women rushed through their preparations, and all too soon they were banging on the door, which was still locked from the outside.
“We’re finished!”
“She’s ready!”
“Open up!”
Two men unnecessarily haggled the three women away down the hall. The women weren’t resisting, but the men were making a big show of urging them on anyway, probably enjoying the process.