Daughter of the Rebellion
Prologue
VISIGOTH REBEL CAMP
OUTSKIRTS OF POLLENTIA, ITALY
The morning was quiet. Too quiet.
Adel shoved another stick into the coals beneath the cauldron of day-old soup, one eye on the line of trees separating the sleeping Visigoth camp from the river. Dawn had barely broken, setting the world in shades of gray and illuminating thin, shifting bands of mist across the grasses.
She pushed to her feet and brushed off the dirtied front of her blue tunic, the skirt slit to her thighs on either side to reveal green trousers beneath.
Her sword bumped against her knees, its weight both a comfort and a mockery.
She and the other women guarding the camp and supplies were trained and armed to the teeth—but they never got a chance to use their training.
Not against the Romans, anyway. The Visigoth warriors were too efficient, leaving in the morning and returning by evening, laden with overdue “payments” from the emperor.
At least, that’s how her atta—her father—justified pillaging Roman towns.
The emperor will keep his word and pay our men for fighting his battles, or we will take what we are owed by force. Until he deigns to speak with us, it is the only way.
Emperor Honorius could hide in his swamp city of Ravenna as long as he wanted.
But he would hear of his Visigoth mercenaries’ plight.
Of their demand for justice. No more would he call them to the front lines of his battles, use them as fodder, and let their families starve.
If he would not listen to their pleas for an audience, then let him hear the sounds of his cities burning.
Visigoth scouts had sent word that the Roman army was approaching, racing toward their camp, and led by the famed general Stilicho. That they would be here any day.
Closing her eyes, Adel cocked her head, listening. The camp was not all asleep, she knew. Scouts hunched in the grasses at the river’s edge, keeping watch. There was no need for the ball of snakes roiling in her belly.
A rustle in the grass behind her betrayed a heavy tread. Her hand went to her sword hilt.
Another step whispered closer.
She drew the blade and whirled, the jarring clack of steel on wood reverberating up her arm as her sword met a battered staff.
“A blessed Easter to you too, Adelgard.”
A copper shaft of light burst over the horizon, setting the silhouette of the white-clad giant in an angelic blaze.
The corner of Adel’s lips twitched. “Strike first, bless later, I always say.”
The giant chuckled, shifting his staff to break the contact and stepping to the side where his robe came into view, the simple cut and undyed fabric marking him as a servant of the church.
Adel was glad that Telemachus had persisted in accompanying Alaric’s war band, despite having equal success in dislodging their staunch Arian beliefs as he had in persuading them to pursue peace.
He was tolerated for his kindness and prayers, but his beliefs had placed him at the edge of camp society.
Adel’s own presence at her atta’s table had been strained for months now, and the two outcasts had become unlikely friends.
“You are taking some of my lessons to heart, I see.”
She nodded, and recited, “Be faster than your opponent. One step ahead is good; three are better.”
The monk smiled and raised an eyebrow, chiding her with a sort of fatherly pride that her atta had once shown. “If only you would take to heart the other lessons.”
Adel sheathed the sword and turned to face the fire once more.
His declaration that Jesus was God in flesh who’d died on her behalf, had been far easier to accept than the idea that her sins had been washed clean, were no longer remembered.
Perhaps she could believe it for a little while, until she saw the pained wrinkle in her atta’s brow every time he looked at her.
The stilted words hanging between them like a city wall that could not be breached. Some things could not be forgotten.
The slight breeze carried woodsmoke and the musty scent of earth that filled her nose and carried with it the sharp memory of home.
The feel of her mother’s arms wrapped around her and the profusion of herbs and flowers that nearly disguised their hut.
The ache of longing cut so deeply it hurt to breathe.
And yet, there was no future for her at home.
No security for an unwed woman in a village whose men had all gone to battle.
And when she’d tried to procure security for herself—
“You are not the sum of your mistakes, Adel.”
She tried to smooth away whatever expression Telemachus had read, his words threatening the dam of her emotions.
If only they were true. She might believe him in another time, another place.
But not here. Not now. To join the army as a war-daughter was nothing to be ashamed of.
Some might say it was her duty as eldest daughter.
And yet, Adel knew it was the wagging tongues in the village and not Visigoth pride that had been the reason she’d agreed to follow her atta and uncles to war.
For months she had done her duty, cooking meals, stitching wounds, washing clothes, guarding wagons of supplies and plunder, and listening around the fires as the men boasted of their exploits in the day’s raids.
She could only strive to work hard as a war-daughter, care for her family, and perhaps, in time, atta might look at her again with pride instead of pain.
And if she could not have that, then perhaps she could escape it all and earn wealth and security of her own.
“I could fight with the men.” Adel braced one boot on a dead branch and wrenched one of the ends, snapping it. “You know I could.” She tossed the broken piece into the fire.
“I know.” Telemachus sighed, as if she’d failed his lessons yet again. “You are very skilled. But that is not—”
“The Amazons fought.”
“Yes. And those women have disappeared into myth and legend.” He fiddled with the leather cord tethering a simple wooden cross around his neck. “A sword and battlefield will never fill that chasm inside.”
She raised a brow. “But fame and fortune might.”
Something changed in his demeanor, sent shadows across his face. “Adel.”
She scowled and threw the rest of the stick onto the fire.
Was it selfish to want more than a hungry life chained to crocks of mother dough and looks of derision?
To want bread on the table instead of dust?
A man in the field instead of one in the ground?
To for once, be worthy of the stories told around the evening fires, instead of those muttered between close heads as she passed by?
“You remain in the camp not for lack of skill, but because you are worth fighting for. I wish you would trust me and your atta.”
His words made her want to both laugh and cry. If only those words could be true too.
The fire crackled and snapped, thundered and—
Her head jerked up, gaze darting first toward Telemachus and then toward the line of trees separating the river from the camp. That was no fire. No storm, either.
Broad-shouldered bodies broke through the underbrush.
Not their own scouts clad in blue and green tunics, or even the small troop of spies sent out several days before.
The men rushing from the river and across the grassy meadow were dressed in scarlet, brass, and leather, brandishing gleaming short swords.
General Stilicho, and the emperor’s army.
Telemachus gripped her arm as the alarm horn roused the camp. “Get behind me. You must get away.”
She shrugged his hand off. Lightning raced through her veins, sending quivering energy to her limbs. “You have no weapon.”
“They will not hurt a man of God.”
There was certainty in his voice, though Adel felt none of it. These were Romans. Liars. Manipulators. Not men of honor.
Visigoth warriors burst through tent flaps, half dressed and fully armed.
Camp women rallied in an instant, the shrill ring of unsheathed blades rising to meet the enemy.
She glimpsed her cousin Berit among them, only sixteen.
She should not be fighting, should not be stretching an arrow on a bowstring.
Adel’s dampened fingers slid over the hilt of her sword, tightening around it with a grip that steadied her limbs. She drew it and lowered into a ready stance that seemed to calm her racing heart as the first wave of Roman legionaries swept over the Visigoth camp.
If this be her story, then let it be one for the fires.