Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Julia woke with her cheek pressed to the ground. Her entire body was stiff; her ribs felt bruised from the inside out. Her arms were tied at the wrist, and her legs at the ankle. She wrenched herself to a sitting position, and only then realized why she hadn’t frozen to death in the night. A thick, warm cloak had been draped over her.
Alaric’s cloak. It smelled of him; leather and pine trees and wide-open spaces.
It was hideously early. The day had that cursed gray dimness of dawn not yet risen. No one should be awake now. The men were already up and readying their horses. Alaric was across the clearing, adjusting the straps on his saddle, the burnished bronze of his hair glinting like barbarian treasure, despite the sad lack of sun. She hoped he fell in a ditch and broke his stupid, gorgeous neck. She rubbed her forehead with her bound hands.
Too bad Alaric was the only person who could save her from exile and certain death. That meant she must find some way to win him over. She had to. It was a matter of survival. This war of attrition had to end.
He hated her. And he had reasons. Her brother did try to arrest him at the banquet, and there was bad blood from his time as a foederati leader. Of course, her father had always been the soul of charity and Alaric was a treacherous, grasping bastard. Julia sighed. Seduction had not worked; she would not humiliate herself again.
What she needed were allies.
Julia watched the men saddling the horses. There were four, besides Alaric. The tall blond one, tattooed to his fingertips; the two dead-eyed boys. And a black-haired man with a patchy beard and a bowlegged roll to his step. A Hun. The very name sent a chill down her spine. The Huns were even more terrifying than the Goths.
One of these had to be the soft one.
Alaric started toward her, and Julia was once again struck by the sheer force of his masculine beauty. It was starting to feel like a personal insult, the way her body reacted to his. She kept her eyes resolutely focused on a spot beyond his shoulder as she braced herself for more contempt. But he only knelt beside her and offered a waterskin and another strip of dried meat.
“Best eat something,” he said quietly. “You’ll not get a chance again until nightfall.”
This time she did not refuse. The strip of dried meat was surprisingly flavorful—but just as tough as the bottom of a boot. As she ripped into it, Alaric took out a knife and cut the ropes at her ankles. Then he stood, ice-blue eyes gleaming down at her. “Get up.”
Rude. Julia rose to her feet, the blood rushing painfully into her cramped legs. He turned to walk away and she stared after him incredulously. “You forgot something, King of the Goths.” She held up her bound hands.
He turned, and the smirk that flashed across his too-handsome face made her want to open his throat. “As long as my arm burns, your hands stay tied.”
* * *
They rode hard. Alaric led his men through the lowlands, avoiding the port cities and the Roman roads. They passed towns burned out and crumbling, crops dead in the fields. Julia curled in his arms, her wrists tied in front of her. His arm throbbed through his shirt, but he gritted his teeth and ignored it. He had more important things to worry about.
Like the fact that they were being followed.
They weren’t bandits or refugees. And they didn’t sit their horses like the Roman cavalry. A lifetime at war had taught Alaric to trust his instincts; now every one was on fire. He’d roused them all before dawn; it felt dangerous to stay in a place so undefended. He veered west through thick forest and overgrown fields, circling back through a marsh and then making good time on a track leading due north that twinned the Roman road. Finally he tacked northeast and lost the pursuers behind a ridgeline.
Julia slept through most of it.
She was sleeping now, her cheek pressed into his chest, and Alaric gritted his teeth. He hadn’t known sleeping on a horse was possible , let alone at a gallop. Her body pressed warm and trusting against his, her hair rising up loose in his face. Smell of roses and intoxicating woman. Making a mockery of his resolve.
It was taking every scrap of will he had not to reach up a hand to cup her breast, press his lips to the pulse at the base of her throat. She was a distraction past bearing, but he would have to bear it. Alaric had ridden countless miles with blood seeping into his shirt from some wound, fought and killed at the end of it. He knew how to block out pain. This was just another thing he could learn to block.
* * *
This time they wouldn’t camp in the open.
It was only midafternoon, but the horses were blown and the men dog-tired. Alaric knew well enough that to lose a horse out here would be a death sentence. He chose for their resting place a tumbledown watchtower on a small hill. It was more visible than the deep-woods clearings, but also more defendable. Julia woke only when he cradled her down, more gently than she deserved.
She stood staring up at the ramshackle structure. “What happened here?” The diamond pattern of his chain mail was still livid on her cheek. “Was there a fire?”
“There was a war.” The watchtower had been torched while they’d fought for the ridgeline three years ago. He’d been in the thick of it then, leading his infantry into the teeth of the Roman defense. He could still smell the blood in this place.
Julia glanced at him with open dislike. “So you did this.”
Her gaze was a level ocean green, and for an instant he felt the dizzying pull of her, strong enough to sway him on his feet. Some devil made him give her a sharkish smile, all teeth and deadly promises. “I burned whole cities. This I left to my men.”
“Civil of you, King of the Goths.” Her tone was one of scathing courtesy.
This time he let himself lean close, his hand planted on the wall by her head. “It must be a strain on you, being so polite.”
His attention caught on the delicate bones of her wrists. The skin beneath the ropes.
He caught her wrist in his hand and turned it. “Let go.” Alaric ignored her. Instead he cut the ropes and cursed himself for his carelessness.
The weals were red and livid. He turned her wrists over gently, examining them. Soft, warm skin, delicate veins streaking beneath his fingertips. “Why did you not tell me?”
“There was a very good chance you’d make it tighter.”
“Don’t be a fool, Julia. Even a small wound like this can kill if the blood turns.” He took out the stone jar; spread yellow salve on her wrists. He kept his touch perfunctory; still, he couldn’t stop his body rising to the feel of her skin. “In future, you will tell me if you are hurt.” Julia’s eyes flashed and he bristled in annoyance. “The proper response is thank you .”
“I don’t need you to teach me manners.”
His mind assailed him with vivid images of all he might teach her. “Someone should.”
“Was there something else you wanted?”
You have no idea. “When I want something else, you’ll know.” He let his hands drop from her wrists; a clear dismissal. “Go.”
She swept off into the tower as if she owned it. Alaric watched her thoughtfully. Those welts were deep and she must have been in pain. But she hadn’t said a word of complaint.
His men were watching. Riga with a kind of knowing grin, Thorismund with barely concealed incredulity. “Something to say?” Alaric asked coldly.
“No.” Thorismund took a slug from his wineskin. “Fuck no.”
Riga kept his grinning mouth shut, which was its own kind of mercy.
“Thorismund, you’ve just volunteered to help me backtrack our trail.” There was still plenty of daylight left. “You saw them?”
Thorismund nodded grimly. “Not bandits, by my reckon.”
“No. I wager they’re not long behind.” He turned to Riga. “Keep the twins and the woman out of sight until I return.”
* * *
The tower had half a wall missing and no ceiling. Julia wrapped Alaric’s cloak around herself, still shaking from the brush of his fingertips against her wrists. She’d never thought a touch so light could be so searingly erotic. Never thought he was capable of gentleness.
Julia set her teeth. She did not have time for fantasies. The man would rather kill her in her sleep than look at her. She had allies to win over.
The twins had been avoiding her ever since that night in the tent. The other one—the Hun—seemed an improbable target. If there was anyone on earth who matched Alaric’s own fearsome reputation, it was the Huns.
The tall blond one, then. Tattooed to his fingertips, long blond hair tied back with a leather thong. He was formidable-looking, kept to himself, and carried a huge double-sided axe. Julia couldn’t believe that he was her likeliest bet. But moments later, he rode off with Alaric, leaving her alone with the murder twins and the Hun, who was building up wood for a fire.
Perfect. Her least likely targets.
After a few moments, the Hun glanced at the boys. “Is he gone?”
One of them checked through a doorway. “Long gone.”
“Excellent.” He set a spark to the kindling he’d piled on the cracked stone floor, and the boys sprawled loose-limbed beside him. “We’ll have to kick this out when we’re done. He’s been impossible about the fires.” He took out a leather bag and passed it to the nearest twin, who unscrewed the top and drank.
Julia perked up. “Is that wine?”
Three pairs of eyes turned to her. Her skin prickled.
But then all three broke into applause. “The woman of the evening!” The Hun laughed. “Well done with the nettles. I haven’t laughed that hard in years .”
“Did you see the look on his face ?” One of the twins giggled. “I thought he would kill you.”
“So did I.” Her death seemed to strike them as hilarious. She looked at the twins. “I’m sorry I drugged you.”
“You should be. Alaric will kill us both once we’re back in Noricum.” They seemed rather lighthearted about it.
“Come. You look like you need a drink.” The Hun held out his wineskin. “Milk wine. We make it from our mares.” It tasted slightly sour, but with a kick to it that warmed her limbs. Julia took a second sip, then a third.
The Hun’s name was Riga. He was a mercenary, he told her as he poured a handful of dried seeds into a metal plate set over glowing coals. He had joined Alaric on promises of plunder. Alaric had delivered on those promises many times over. Especially at Milan.
“I wasn’t in town for the siege of Milan,” Julia said, shivering. “But I heard about it. Bodies on pikes and severed heads in ball games. That sort of thing.”
“A severed head makes a terrible ball,” said Hengist. The quieter twin. “Too squishy.”
“Only after a few days,” his brother Horsa loudly contradicted him. “When it’s fresh it has bounce.”
“Did you hear of the impalings? That was me. I can make them live for days now.” There was a gleeful note in Riga’s voice—the tone of an expert craftsman, eager to share the machinations of his work. “I make the tips of the poles round, not sharp, so it moves the organs aside rather than piercing them. And then I send it up along the spine, so it won’t—”
Hengist broke in with something quiet in Gothic.
“Nonsense. Any woman who puts nettles in Alaric’s bed wouldn’t be scared off by a few old corpses.” He looked at her approvingly. “I’ve never seen a woman get under his skin like you do. Already I like you the best of all his women.”
“I’m not one of his women .” Then—because she didn’t want to know at all , but somehow she did—“Just how many women does that man have, exactly?”
Horsa and Hengist began a rapid-fire conversation in Gothic that involved multiple attempts to count on their fingers, and ended with Horsa turning back to her and saying triumphantly, “Countless.”
“Impossible to count,” Hengist added. As if that cleared it right up.
Julia rolled her eyes. “Numberless as the tall grasses. Boundless as the stars.” I’ll bet they can’t count past five.
“Keep making him angry.” Riga grinned. “Not because he likes it. Because I do.”
“So long as the three of you promise to protect me from his wrath.” Julia laughed.
Riga had been assembling a small metal stand as he spoke; now he stood it over the fire and rested the little dish upon it. The smoke turned white and pungent. Riga leaned over and wafted it toward himself with his hands. The boys followed suit with a practiced air. They all looked at her expectantly.
Well. If she couldn’t get Blue Lotus out here, she might as well try the barbarian drugs.
* * *
Hours of laying false trails, riding past ramshackle towns and crops rotting in fields. No sign of pursuers. Alaric almost regretted it. He could have used a good fight.
When he returned to the tower, it was well into afternoon. Julia was laughing with the twins and Riga as if they were old friends. There was a kicked-out fire in the corner, and the tower smelled of the Hunnic leaf.
Fuck. They’d have been sitting ducks for anyone who’d bothered to attack. Julia barely glanced in his direction when he walked in; for some reason, that made him grit his teeth in irritation. He couldn’t stop looking at her . He watched Julia laugh at something Hengist said. She lifted her hair off her neck, and he imagined striding across the tower and fisting a hand in that hair, tilting her head back, and devouring her whole.
He found a place on the other side of the tower and took out his spear to sharpen it.
* * *
“If you sharpen that spear any more, there won’t be anything left of it,” Riga remarked drily. The Hunnic mercenary sat cross-legged, stitching a repair into his worn scabbard.
Alaric looked down at the spear in his hands, the edge gleaming wickedly. Sharp enough to part skin like a sheet of silk. “Look to your own damn business.”
“I wouldn’t let her near anything sharp,” Riga said in Hunnic, following his gaze. “She’s mad enough to cut your throat, since last night.”
“She wouldn’t know which end of a dagger to stick in me.”
“Oh? How is your arm?” Riga slid him a sidelong look, grinning.
Something behind him interrupted the conversation. It wasn’t a sound; more a sound beneath the sound. A disruption in the tapestry of moving branches and birdsong and wind from the valley. For an instant Alaric went still, hands tight on the haft of his spear. Riga tensed with him, and across the tower the boys straightened, every sense alert.
Julia kept chatting merrily away, oblivious.
“You might as well stop lurking in the doorway, Thorismund.” Alaric went calmly back to sharpening his spear.
A curse preceded Thorismund over the ruined threshold. “One of these days I’ll take you by surprise.”
“I can’t even sneak up on him and I’m good at it.” Riga grinned.
“My people have a long and proud tradition of sneaking. You insult my honor.” Thorismund sat between them. “I followed the road south. There’s nothing in that forest except us and feral pigs. If you want my opinion, that boy still hasn’t figured his arse from his pisshole.” As he spoke, Alaric’s eyes strayed to Julia—arrested by the silvery chime of her laugh, bantering with the twins as they spread out bread and cheese on Thorismund’s massive shield as if it were a table. Thorismund followed his gaze. “Little shits. They’re eating food off it now.”
Alaric suppressed his irritation. “I noticed you still haven’t settled that.”
“Do not shame me. I know it already. I have forsaken my shield. I am no longer fit to stand beneath the halls of my forefathers.”
“If it helps, the halls of your forefathers are nothing but glowing coals,” Riga said.
“Same as all of ours,” Alaric added.
“The two of you haven’t an ounce of tact between you.” Thorismund glanced darkly at the twins. “They can’t even lift it, let alone fight with it. They’re keeping it just to spite me.”
Alaric rose to his feet. They couldn’t afford these honor games. “I’ll step in, then.”
“No. Wait. ” Thorismund gripped his arm. “If my men get wind of it, they’ll laugh into their tankards as I pass. They’d even compose songs about it. Hilarious songs. Completely at my expense.”
“They already do that,” Riga remarked.
“Get your shield back however you want, but get it back,” Alaric said, his patience at its limit. “You’re no good to me in a fight if you’re underequipped.”
* * *
Julia felt the weight of Alaric’s gaze on her all the way across the tower.
It seemed advisable to ignore him. What murderous Gothic warlord in her tower? There was no murderous Gothic warlord in her tower.
A shadow blocked out the sun. It was the tall blond one with all the hair: Thorismund. “Get lost, Roman.” He spit out the word like a mouthful of bloody teeth. “You little hooligans let me win back that shield. Or else.”
Horsa grinned. “But I haven’t carved my initials in it yet.”
“You do that, and I’ll skin you slow and make a coat of your weeping hide.”
The three of them exchanged more warlike words and then Thorismund stalked off, visibly enraged. Julia stared after him. “Is he always that eloquent?”
“He’s found a new tongue since we won his shield,” Hengist said darkly.
“He was so drunk .” Horsa laughed. “He challenged Riga’s horse to a duel.”
“Can you fight with it?” Julia glanced curiously at the shield balanced on Horsa’s knees. Elaborately carved, with the detailed image of an oak tree in the center.
“Not the point. We won it fairly. Besides, he’s funny when he is angry.”
“His face gets red as a slab of meat.” Horsa smirked.
“You provoke a man twice your size who threatens to skin you alive, because it’s funny ?” They nodded, identical toothy grins on their faces. “You really are fifteen,” she muttered.
It was easy to forget. Something ancient lived in the twins’ eyes; it shocked her to think they were two years younger than Honorius. Julia tried to picture Honorius in the same room with Horsa and Hengist, trying to dredge up conversational topics while the twins picked at the sweetmeats. The thought of it made Julia laugh. The twins would slit her brother from throat to sternum, if Honorius didn’t have them jailed for their insolence.
“Thorismund wouldn’t skin us,” Horsa was saying. “Not really.”
“Riga would,” Hengist added darkly. “Once he—”
The butt of Thorismund’s spear crashed onto the ground before them. Julia gave a surprised little squeak. “Alaric’s orders, pigshits,” Thorismund said. “Play me, or fight me.”
* * *
Thorismund couldn’t play latrones worth a goddamn. Julia sat with her knees curled up to her chest, watching him make mistake after obvious mistake. At first, she tried to help, quietly making suggestions; he brushed her off like a fly until she went.
Fine , she thought, retreating to her corner, wrapped in Alaric’s cloak. Alaric was engaged in a low-level argument with Riga, and the twins were busy batting Thorismund around the board with predatory glee. She fell asleep and when she woke, the sun was setting and everyone was wrapped in their cloaks on the broken ground.
Except Alaric. Alaric was gone.
Julia sat up. She’d fallen asleep with Riga’s wineskin under her head like a pillow, and there was still alcohol in it. Gratefully she took a swig. Warmth pooled in her limbs and she rose, looking automatically for Alaric.
She couldn’t say why she felt uneasy in his absence, as if she were safer under his fierce blue gaze than away from it.
* * *
Alaric stalked the rim of the tower. Below, a small boy was herding a flock of straggly sheep. Dark-haired and of indeterminate parentage, he couldn’t have been more than six, kicking dirt clods as he walked, not bothering to hide himself. Alaric barely remembered his parents, but he knew he’d have been beaten bloody for being this careless. Even at this boy’s age.
Aside from the boy, nothing moved on the horizon. Alaric didn’t like it. Stilicho ought to be breathing down his neck right now.
Scrape of boot against stone behind him, and a whispered curse. Wonderful. “What do you want, woman?”
Julia came to stand next to him, leaning against the parapet. She smelled of liquor, and under it, roses. It was strange, that haunting scent; beneath the sweat and mud of travel and the brackish water she’d bathed in, it seemed to live in her skin.
She took a swig from a wineskin. Riga’s. Apparently she was pilfering liquor from all his men. “Do you never sleep?”
“Someone has to keep watch.”
“You’d be in a better mood if you slept.” She proffered the wineskin. He declined. “Suit yourself.” She took another swig and gazed at him as if trying to read the future in his face.
“I am not some curiosity to boggle at. What is it you want?”
“Are you this damnably rude with everyone, or am I simply blessed?”
“Do you always find your courage at the bottom of a wineskin?”
Her eyes flashed green. “It’s really quite remarkable. You’ve been cursed with an excruciating personality. No wonder you’re such an unpredictable element at parties.” She took another drink. “This liquor is truly a marvel. Did you know the Huns make it from their mares?”
Irritation tightened his jaw. “You asked me to kidnap you at that party.”
“It was getting rather boring.” She looked at him through her lashes. “I was the one who tried to poison my brother at that banquet, you know.”
She said it as if imparting a secret to a chosen friend. So she was the one who’d nearly gotten them all killed. Strangely, he wasn’t angry.
There was an invitation here. Intrigue warred with irritation. A tiny smile played at her mouth and he felt a sudden, ruinous urge to lean over and kiss it off her.
He would regret opening this door. “Why?”
“You met Olympius. You saw how odious he was.”
“I saw a man sick with want for you. One of the richest men in the Empire. If you had wanted to be empress, why not persuade him to use his riches to bribe Stilicho’s legions?”
“I’d rather put out my own eyeball than ask Olympius for anything,” she said bitterly.
“So you attempted insurrection because you didn’t like your engagement.”
“As if you’ve never wreaked havoc to preserve your freedom. You’ve done rather a lot of it over the years. We’ve been riding through your wreckage all day, after all.”
His temper rose. What right had she to judge his actions? “Do you honestly think we haven’t tried anything else?” he growled. “It’s because of your father that my people haven’t had a permanent place to live in a generation. It was your father who put us in refugee camps, hoping to starve us down to nothing. Who enslaved us wherever we tried to sit still. Those of us who survived learned that the only way to live was to be the strongest. So all my people know how to do is pillage. All I know how to do is pillage. That is who I am.”
“And so your people slaughter mine, and mine slaughter yours, and there’s no hope of stopping it.” She glanced away, across the moldering countryside. “Have you noticed what we’ve been riding through? Farms ruined and abandoned, the countryside emptied. It’s almost summer and hardly anyone has bothered planting. And it’s unseasonably dry.” She stared out into the dark, her brows drawn down; suddenly serious. “I could fix this, you know. I could shore up the infrastructure and increase the grain dole and actually do things. I could help your people and mine, if we could only trust each other.”
He gritted his teeth. She sounded—almost fucking earnest . For a moment he was assaulted by a wave of something strange and powerful—lust, but something else beneath it. Protectiveness.
That urge to kiss her became almost too strong. He could do it now—kiss her and kiss her and never stop.
He curled his hands into the edge of the parapet. “No. My answer is final.”
“Nothing is final, King of the Goths.” She pulled the hood of her cloak— his cloak, damn it—up over her head. “I’ll be waiting if you change your mind.”
And then she was gone, picking her way down the crumbling stairs.