Barbarian Slave Read online

  The heated look Cassius bestowed upon her now made Lucrezia shift uncomfortably in her seat. “The wine is very good,” she replied, her voice polite yet reserved, as it always was when she spoke with Cassius.

  “Not as good as home though?” He quirked a dark eyebrow. “This barbaric place is too cold to grow grapes for real wine.”

  Lucrezia smiled. She agreed with him there—what she would give for a sip of red wine made from the dark sweet sun-ripened fruit of her homeland. “That’s true,” she replied demurely, “but we must make do with what we have.”

  Cassius gave her a slow, suggestive smile. He was a big man with close-cropped dark hair and eyes the color of peat. Unlike some of the other men at the table who wore togas, Cassius wore a knee-length tunic with a heavy bronze belt at the waist. The garment accentuated the width of his shoulders. Although he used a gentle beguiling tone with her, Lucrezia was under no illusions about this man’s character.

  Cassius Severus—severe in name and in nature.

  His cruelty was well-known from one end of Hadrian’s Wall to the other.

  Lucrezia lifted the bronze cup to her lips and took another sip, enjoying the heat of the strong wine as it burned down her throat and warmed the pit of her belly. They might have been indoors, just a few feet from a roaring fire, but it was bitterly cold outside, and she would have to brave the chill to return home.

  Cassius leaned across the table, meeting her eye once more. “You are looking lovely this eve, Lucrezia. That stola is very becoming.”

  He grew bold—too bold. Lucrezia tensed, resisting the urge to cast a pleading look in her husband’s direction. She wondered if the other soldiers seated around the table had heard the comment. She was the only woman here and started to fervently wish she had insisted Marcus come to this supper on his own.

  This evening she wore a simple ankle-length tunic with a wine-colored stola—a long dress that wrapped around her form and was fastened by a girdle under her bust.

  Cassius stared at her breasts now, as if he had never seen the like before, and Lucrezia bristled. She wished she was flat-chested, but her breasts thrust proudly out before her making them impossible to ignore.

  Lucrezia’s throat constricted; she had avoided Cassius Severus’s lecherous attentions till now, but the look in his eyes this evening told her that he was running out of patience. Cassius did not see why Marcus could not share his wife, if he did not wish to avail himself of her.

  Lucrezia took another fortifying gulp of wine and pretended she had not seen the direction of the general’s stare. She had to find a way to distract him, to draw his thoughts to other matters.

  “Tell me, Cassius,” she said coolly, “are the rumors about the savages true?”

  Cassius leaned back in his chair, folding his huge arms across his chest. “I don’t know,” he rumbled, his tone infuriatingly patronizing. “What have you heard?”

  “My servants tell me there is unrest to the north, that there have been rebellions in Habitancum and Vercovicum.” Lucrezia was not lying—her two Briton servants had mentioned trouble in the outlying forts north of the wall.

  Cassius’s mouth pursed, as if the wine he had just sipped was vinegar. “You shouldn’t listen to the prattle of those girls. Tell me if those sluts continue to gossip, and I’ll have their tongues cut out.”

  Lucrezia drew back in shock. She was fond of Gwyna and Ciara; she would do no such thing.

  “So the wall is secure?” she asked finally.

  Cassius leaned forward and picked up a ewer of wine, before refilling his cup. “Do not fear, Lucrezia,” he replied with an intimate smile. “You are safe here with me.”

  “Please do not leave me at the mercy of that man again.”

  Marcus glanced at his wife as they hurried across the windswept courtyard outside Cassius Severus’s villa. Around them the north wind howled, digging through their clothing with icy fingers. Racing clouds obscured a full moon, and the braziers lining the walls of the fort guttered and smoked.

  Marcus frowned. “Who?”

  Lucrezia clenched her jaw. Her husband really could be oblivious at times. “Cassius—who else?”

  Her husband’s frown deepened. “What did he say to you?”

  “Too much. I’m surprised you didn’t hear.”

  She saw guilt flash across Marcus’s face. They both knew he had barely said two words to her all evening. His remorse did not lessen her irritation though. What good was a husband if he did not keep men like Cassius Severus in their place?

  The couple passed through the gates leading out of the fort. High walls reared either side, and Lucrezia spied the outlines of sentries against the night sky. They were her husband’s men, and he raised an arm to hail them. The sentries waved back.

  Linking an arm through Lucrezia’s, Marcus steered her right, up a narrow paved path leading to their villa.

  “I’m sorry, Luci,” he said softly. “I’m a poor husband.”

  Lucrezia cast Marcus a frustrated look. She did not want his apologies; she wanted him to look out for her. “Cassius scares me.”

  Marcus gave a grim smile. “The general scares most people—he thrives on it.”

  “You know he’s always flirted with me,” she replied, her voice low. “But he’s grown outrageous of late. It’s almost as if he doesn’t care who sees it.”

  She felt Marcus’s muscular frame stiffen, but he said nothing more. One look at his stern profile though, and she knew her point had been made.

  It was too cold to talk anyway.

  The vicious wind whipped away her breath and numbed her fingers and toes. Each lost in their own thoughts, Marcus and Lucrezia closed the distance between the western gatehouse and the low-slung villa they had lived in for the past seven years. The villa sat apart from the other dwellings and was surrounded by a dry-stone wall. White-washed, with a red-tiled roof, it was a comfortable home that Lucrezia had done her best with. Like many of the villas here, it was set out in a square, with an open inner courtyard.

  They entered the house through a wide atrium, an entrance hall with a white and grey mosaic floor. The air smelled faintly of peat-smoke from the hearth they had left burning.

  Lucrezia shucked off her heavy fur cloak and hung it up. Wordlessly, she reached out and took Marcus’s from him. It was a familiar domestic ritual between husband and wife, one that made a pang of sadness constrict her chest.

  How she had wanted this marriage to work.

  In the faint light of the cressets upon the atrium walls, which Gwyna and Ciara had left burning before returning to their homes for the day, Lucrezia studied her husband’s handsome face.

  She remembered the first time she had seen Marcus, at her family villa north of Rome. It was an arranged marriage, but she had welcomed it. Marcus was everything she had dreamed of in a husband. Breathtakingly good looking with jet-black hair cut short in military fashion, he had looked into her eyes that first time, and she had been lost. Her two younger sisters had been wild with envy at how lucky she had been; the favored daughter, the one their father had always spoiled had now found herself the most handsome man in the Roman Empire to wed.

  Lucrezia had felt as if she was living a dream—but that dream had only lasted as long as their wedding night.

  Feeling her gaze upon him, Marcus glanced up. “What is it?”

  Lucrezia looked away. “Nothing.”

  Marcus crossed to a nearby sideboard and reached for the ewer of elderberry wine. “A drink?”

  Lucrezia shook her head. She had consumed too much strong wine over supper and now had a slight headache from it. “What time do you start tomorrow?” she asked, watching Marcus raise the cup to his lips and take a long draft. She had never known a man who could drink like her husband. He could drain three jugs of wine and still be up with the lark at dawn.

  “Early.” His mouth twisted at the thought.

  Lucrezia did not blame him. The winters this far north were always bitter, but t
his one was colder than either of them could remember. Yawning, Lucrezia stretched, easing the muscles in her back. She gave her husband a tired smile. “I’ll see you at noon tomorrow then.”

  Marcus returned her smile, his dark eyes gleaming in the light of the cressets. “Sleep well.”

  Lucrezia left him, retiring to her chamber in the west wing of their villa. It was a small sparsely-furnished space, dominated by a low pallet covered in thick furs and cushions. A deerskin rug covered the cold stone floor.

  A fire burned in the hearth in the corner. Usually it heated her bed chamber nicely, but tonight the fire barely took the chill off the air.

  Shivering, her teeth chattering, Lucrezia stripped off her stola and dove under the furs still wearing her under-tunic. She leaned across and extinguished the lantern on the low table beside her pallet, throwing her chamber into semi-darkness.

  Lucrezia flicked her gaze toward the closed door, her ears straining for any sounds beyond. Marcus would retire shortly, as he always did after a nightly cup of wine. They had not shared a chamber, or a pallet, since the early days of their marriage.

  Over the years the couple had developed a different sort of closeness—a friendship and trust that meant a lot to Lucrezia. Yet on a night like this, when the cold wind clawed against the walls, she wished Marcus shared her furs. She now had twenty-three winters—not yet worn down and faded by life—but the past years had stripped her of confidence. The only attention she received from men was the kind Cassius bestowed upon her; the kind that made her want to scrub her skin with lye and a hog-bristle brush.

  Lucrezia let out a long sigh as loneliness pulled her down into its clutches. What she would give for the touch of a man who truly loved her.

  Chapter Two

  A Red Dawn

  North of Hadrian’s Wall

  The warriors moved through the darkness like fey shadows.

  Despite the chill dawn, many of them wore very little clothing—as was the way of these hard men and women of the north. Blue swirls of woad decorated their exposed skin.

  Upon his arms Tarl bore the whorls and designs that told the story of his own people, The Eagle. He wore plaid leggings, fur foot-wrappings, and a thick leather vest to ward off the numbing cold. He carried his square leather-covered shield across his back, and gripped the hilt of his iron sword in his right hand. Donnel crept forward to his right while Wurgest strode at his left. The Boar warrior carried two huge single-headed iron axes, his tread heavy in the predawn hush as he crunched across frozen earth.

  They were just a short distance from the nearest of the forts that lay north of the wall—Vercovicum the Caesars called it. They would have to fight their way through a number of small Roman settlements before reaching the stone defense. The wall itself was a vast structure that would need to be scaled for their attack to be successful. On the other side of the wall lay the great fort of Vindolanda—their destination this morning.

  The sky to the east started to lighten—a pale glow as the dark curtain of night drew back. The wind had died half-way through the night, allowing a heavy frost to settle over the earth. Around him Tarl witnessed a glittering silver landscape of rounded bare hills that reminded him a little of home.

  The Winged Isle—will I ever see it again?

  He was not like Donnel. Tarl wished to live, to return victorious to his people. He did not want to die upon a Roman sword.

  Even so, he was glad morning had come. Excitement and fear churned through him, clenching his stomach and turning his bowels to water. He was not afraid of battle. Tarl had already known many, having fought his first at sixteen winters. Still, he did not relish killing the way some men did. Next to him Wurgest was one such man.

  As the sun rose Tarl saw that Wurgest's face was set in a frightening grimace, his eyes wild with blood-lust.

  The three of them—Tarl, Donnel, and Wurgest—were part of the second wave of warriors who would rush forward to attack the wall, once the outlying forts were under siege. Tarl led the band of Eagle warriors who had traveled with him from The Winged Isle, while Wurgest led those of The Boar.

  Tarl had been concerned about how they would manage to scale the great stone fortification, but Wurgest had assured him they would have assistance from the inside. Apparently there were Roman soldiers at Vindolanda who were willing betray their own for a price.

  “Can the Roman traitors be trusted?” he asked Wurgest now, his voice low in the hush of the early dawn. “Can we take the word of any man who would turn on his own people?”

  Wurgest glanced at him, grinning. “Many a man’s trust can be bought with gold,” he rumbled. “Not only that—but morale on the wall is at an all-time low.”

  Tarl nodded; he had heard the tale. After years of ruthless generals and abuse of power, many of the garrison soldiers were tired of their life defending a land they cared little about.

  The time was right to strike.

  Tarl glanced across at where Donnel walked beside him. His brother met his eye and smiled. Donnel’s sword was drawn, his eyes almost black in the shadowy light. Their gazes held for a heartbeat, before Tarl raised his own sword and gently touched its iron blade against his forehead—a gesture all the warriors of The Eagle made before battle.

  Donnel repeated the motion.

  Tarl turned south once more, following the line of warriors up an incline. The air suddenly felt charged, as if a thunder storm was about to break. They were near now. Tarl could smell the excitement in the air.

  The front of their ranks broke over the brow of the last hill before Vercovicum. Tarl ran fast, his legs flying over the frozen ground, propelled forward by the sheer might of the men and women who thundered up the hill around him.

  A small fort lay in a shallow valley below, pale stone glinting as the first rays of winter sun kissed the walls. Smoke rose from the tiled roofs within, staining the winter sky.

  With a collective whoop, the warriors out front descended upon it.

  Lucrezia rose from her pallet early—it was too cold to stay abed for long—and roused the embers in the hearth. Shivering, she hurriedly dressed, pulling on a pair of fur-lined boots to warm her numb toes.

  The villa was empty as she made her way through to the kitchen, although Gwyna and Ciara would arrive shortly. In the meantime it was up to Lucrezia to get the hearths burning.

  Humming to herself, Lucrezia bustled about. This was her favorite time of day, when the rest of the world was still slumbering. She particularly liked spending time in the kitchen. Although the servant-girls helped her run the household, she preferred to do most of the cooking herself; it kept her busy. She had also enjoyed teaching her Briton servants some of the dishes of her homeland. The girls had particularly delighted over the wheaten pancakes she broke her fast with in the mornings, and had been impressed by her mid-winter specialty of roast fowl stuffed with chopped nuts and crab apples.

  Lucrezia pulled out a bowl of bread-dough that had been rising since the evening before, kneaded it, and shaped it into loaves. It was warming nicely inside the kitchen now, as the fire started to throw out heat. She wondered where Gwyna and Ciara were—both girls should have arrived by now. It was unlike either of them to be late.

  Once the bread was in the oven, Lucrezia took a pail, donned her fur cloak, and went outside to milk the two goats they kept in the garden behind the villa.

  Outdoors the morning was gelid yet magnificent—a blaze of red painted the eastern sky, casting a pink hue over the frozen earth. Lucrezia crunched across the frosty grass to where the two nanny-goats waited. The animals were small, with curved horns and shaggy dun-colored coats. Seeing her approach, they both bleated a welcome.

  Lucrezia smiled. “Morning, girls.”

  She tied the goats up, fed them some grain, and pulled up a low stool before sitting down to milk. This was usually Ciara’s chore, but Lucrezia found herself enjoying the task nonetheless. She closed her eyes as she milked, resting her forehead against the goat’s wa
rm belly.

  A short while later she went back indoors, expecting to find both Briton girls at work, apologizing for their tardiness. Yet the villa was silent save for the crackling and popping of the great hearths.

  Irritated now, Lucrezia went to the entranceway, heaved open the heavy oaken door, and peered outside. Her front garden twinkled with frost; the landscape had turned silver. Her gaze traveled down the path and to the road beyond. The grey bulk of the wall rose to the north, the first rays of sun touching its cold surface. Atop the fort, she saw the outlines of sentries taking the morning watch—Marcus would be among them.

  Lucrezia waited in the doorway for a few moments, but there was no sign of either girl; just a still, silent morning and the faint caw of crows in the distance.

  Where are they?

  Lucrezia huffed and went back indoors. She returned to the kitchen, just in time to catch the loaves of bread before they burned. Then she took a broom, and began to sweep the flagstone floor. As she worked, her mind shifted ahead to the day’s tasks. There was gardening to be done—clearing and weeding once the frost had melted. She also wanted to make a start on pruning the roses.

  So intent was she on her thoughts that Lucrezia paid little attention to her surroundings. It seemed she would do her chores alone this morning.

  The boom of the front door to the villa crashing open caused Lucrezia to drop her broom in fright.

  Furies take me, what was that?

  Surely the girls were not in such a hurry that they needed to risk damaging her front door on their way in.

  Lucrezia scowled, setting aside her broom. “Gwyna?” she called out. “Ciara—is that you?”

  They spilled over the wall, howling. There was no half-measures with an attack like this—a man had to charge at death or The Reaper was only too quick to claim him.