Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
That patrol had been no accident. All the roads were watched now.
Alaric suspected that Roman patrol must have doubled back and found some sign of them. He counted the ifs as he moved through the ravaged countryside. If the horse hadn’t gone lame. If they hadn’t stopped so close to that road.
If Julia hadn’t been so damn distracting .
The land was parched as death here; all the springs had run dry and the rivers moved sluggish in their beds. Alaric rode through plains of brittle grass that rattled against his horse’s legs like finger bones. All he had to do was keep them out of Roman hands for another few days. But the closer they drew to the mountains, the harder that became.
And sometimes, on the horizon, he caught a glimpse of riders following. Riders who weren’t bandits and weren’t Roman patrols.
* * *
It took three more days to reach the temple sanctuary.
The place was exactly where Alaric remembered it, on a rise at the foot of a cliff. Three terraced levels of porticoes, all of it sacked and left to rot. Already the forest was taking it back; ivy blanketed the tumbled marble statues, leaves dry and rattling in the wind.
They tied the horses at the foot of the sanctuary, where a spring overspilled a marble trough. Alaric let Hannibal drink deep, as the men stripped their horses and rubbed them down. They moved slower than they should; the horses’ heads hung low and their ribs moved in and out like bellows.
“We should’ve kept moving,” Thorismund grumbled as he wrung out a damp cloth on the back of his neck. “We’d reach the mountains in two days if we ride hard.”
“Thorismund, we’ve got one lame horse and the borders are heavily patrolled. If we tried to slip through now, we’d never make it.”
Riga shouldered his recurved bow down from his saddle and tested the string against his thumb. “What if they come to us?”
“The enemy can only approach from south or east,” Alaric said, pointing with his sword. “We’ll see anyone approaching from miles off.”
“Plenty of shelter for sniping,” Riga said.
“I’ll have the boys pile up slingstones.” He reckoned two deadeye slingers could hold this place against a contubernium , at least. He picked up his seax and war spear.
“You’re going to lay false trails, aren’t you?” Thorismund frowned. “Don’t be a fool. You’re as dead on your feet as the rest of us.”
“Someone has to do it.”
“You’re of no use to us if you get skewered on the end of some Roman pike.”
Alaric sighed. This argument was recurring. “Stay here, Thorismund. I need you and Riga to keep unrelenting watch.” A moment of inattention could be their death out here. “I’ll be back before dark.”
* * *
Julia huddled in the shadow of a crumbling temple, trying to keep warm in the wind.
Alaric had said that it would take two days’ hard riding to get to the border. But now they were taking shelter, and Julia was impatient. She wanted to be free of Italy. Free of Stilicho. Once those threats were gone, she had only one—the threat of Alaric sending her back.
If only she knew how much progress she was making with him. Since Hengist’s horse had gone lame, Alaric had barely spoken to her beyond basic commands. Eat this. Get up. Go to sleep. Even so, Julia was primally aware of the weight of his gaze, hot and hungry on her wherever she went.
Was she winning, or not? The man was mercurial as a war elephant.
In the past few days, their travel had turned even more brutal. Alaric had them moving fast over rough ground at night, stopping only for brief rests during the day. There were times Julia felt they were doubling back or waiting for something to happen. Sometimes Alaric would hold up a hand and listen; once he made everyone veer off trail and take a route that was near invisible. Once Riga disappeared into the trees and returned hours later with blood on his knife.
Now they had stopped in this mysterious place, with no explanation, and Julia felt the bite of impatience. She did not have endless time.
Riga was nearby, tending the mare that had gone lame. Her ears were delicate, her eyelids fringed with long, curved lashes. “Will she be all right?”
“Perhaps.” Riga straightened. “How is your campaign progressing, Princess?”
Riga saw everything. “Am I that transparent?”
“Not so transparent as Alaric is. This is the most entertainment I’ve had in years.”
Julia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Riga struck her as the kind of person who would gleefully watch a chariot crash just to see the mangled limbs. Still, he might have knowledge she could use. She smiled, conspiratorial. An invitation. “If I really wanted to get under his skin…”
“Solve a problem for him. That will grate on him.”
He was right. Alaric thought her useless; if she could prove him wrong in a way that would make him grateful—he would hate it. But he would be beholden to her. Perhaps she could use that against him. It was rather diabolical.
Now if she only knew what problem—
A bellow caught her attention. Across the temple, Hengist and Horsa sat atop an ivy-covered wall, Thorismund’s massive shield between them, giggling wildly. They appeared to be trying to carve their initials into it.
Thorismund stood at the foot of the wall, bellowing. Julia winced as he swung his massive two-handed axe and threw it in their direction. The boys ducked and fell over laughing.
“Is he trying to kill them?”
“If he can get his hands on them,” Riga said blandly. “He lost prestige by losing his shield to them in a bet, and he loses more by failing to win it back. Alaric doesn’t like these honor games. He thinks it’s a needless distraction.” His eyes gleamed mischief. “If you solved this problem for him, it would be a kick in the teeth.”
Thorismund was now trying to climb the wall. Julia shuddered. “Do you think he’ll kill me ?”
“Maybe.” Riga produced a wineskin. “Drink?”
Julia took a swig and suddenly she wanted to see the look on Alaric’s obnoxiously handsome face when she succeeded. Which she would, of course. She sucked down more of the milk wine and then slapped the wineskin back into Riga’s hands. “Hold this for me, will you?”
Then she was off, striding toward disaster.
* * *
Thorismund in a rage was all muscle and menace, his torso a rippling wall of tattoos and battle scars. He roared something murderous in Gothic as the boys jeered with their teeth bared and knives gleaming, and then he leaped at the wall. His fingertips just barely brushed the bottom of Hengist’s boots. He fell back, fury in every line of his body.
Julia had no idea where she found the courage to place herself between them.
“Stop it. Stop. ” She put her hands on her hips and faced down Thorismund, who eyed her like an insect he wanted to stomp flat. “What are you going to do if you reach them? Hack off their heads? What do you think Alaric will say about that?”
“He’ll say they had it coming.”
“He’ll be angry. He’s insufferable when he’s angry.” She drew a breath. “Let me win back your shield.”
His face reddened to the neck. “My honor will not allow it.”
“Are you under the delusion that you can win it back yourself?”
“My honor will not escape the stain if rumor spreads that I let a Roman win my battles. A woman at that.” He spat the words. “And they will. The twins won’t keep their mouths shut.”
“What about the stain to your honor if you fail to win your shield back from a pair of shrieking hooligans?” Julia asked mildly. “ I’ll spread a rumor myself that I did you a favor because you saved my life in a courageous fashion.”
“That would be a lie.”
“Yes, Thorismund. That’s the idea.” Julia turned to the twins. “The two of you will play me for that shield. If I lose, keep it. Carve your names in it for all I care.” She turned to Thorismund. “As for you , you can ride home with your shield on your arm, or not. Your choice.”
Thorismund’s expression darkened. He appeared to be reaching for his knife.
She gave an unflappable shrug. “Suit yourself. I look forward to seeing your further humiliation. It has been quite entertaining.” She walked back toward Riga, who was openly laughing.
Three. Two. One.
“Wait,” Thorismund said at her back.
* * *
The land was crawling with patrols. Alaric barely avoided being caught. It was after dark when he returned to the ruined temple by one of the hidden ways, in case he was being followed. But as he approached, he saw that all of his caution had been for nothing. All the patrols had to do was look up.
Despite his commands, the idiots had lit a fire.
Alaric halted among the broken columns and watched the smoke drift into the darkening sky. What he ought to do was berate them for not keeping careful watch and this needless indulgence of a fire.
But then he caught sight of Julia, and didn’t feel at all like doing what he ought to.
They were gathered around the twins’ latrones board—and Julia appeared to be playing . She had her chin in her hands, concentrating fiercely. Riga said something that made her burst into laughter—not the hard, brittle laugh of the Imperial Princess, but guileless and clear as wind chimes. It ripped right through him. He couldn’t take his eyes from that guileless girl.
Perhaps he would let the fire go. Just this once.
Despite his better judgment, Alaric propped his shoulder against one of the columns and watched Julia play latrones .
She was good at it. That surprised him, because latrones was a military game. Good players had to see seven steps ahead, to think around corners. He’d taught the twins during a grindingly boring stretch of time while he laid siege to Verona, thinking to teach them war this way, as Stilicho had once taught him. They took to it, cutting a large swath through his army. They were legendary by the time that siege was through.
And Julia was holding her own against them.
More than holding her own. Who the hell taught her to play? Beside her, Thorismund hulked by the fire, occasionally emitting a disapproving huff or a guttural curse when the game swayed one way or another. Riga laughed and drank and taught Julia curse words in Hunnic, which she lobbed at the twins as she played. Her brittle court polish had dissolved, and what was underneath was sharp and brilliant and feverishly alive.
* * *
Hours passed and soon it was fully dark. It was taking all of Alaric’s considerable patience not to shove the twins out of the way and win the game for them.
His attention was now wholly focused on the latrones board. The boys could’ve won the game three moves ago if they’d held some of their pieces in reserve. Then she’d have no recourse but to divide her strength.
Horsa chose that moment to hurl ribald invectives in Gothic; Julia parried with cool disdain in her high-palace Latin as she gutted his vanguard. He could see the shape of the pieces on the board; Julia’s formation falling in from the edges like a besieging army. If the boys would only retreat three spaces to the right now, where her defenses were weakest—
But no. The boys surged ahead, as they always did.
Julia played like a Roman, in the rigid style he’d learned from Stilicho. The twins favored a more freewheeling technique popular in his own camps; it should have been the antidote to Julia’s method, but not with a player at her level. The air became hushed; soon even Riga was focused on the game.
Then she began losing. The boys picked off one piece, then another. Thorismund began a steady stream of heartfelt cursing, interspersed with threats.
Deliberate losses. She was up to something.
Alaric had to stare at the board for long minutes before he spotted her trap. Neat and ingenious, a self-contained spider at the center of a web. He almost laughed aloud as she slowly opened a channel for them, lulling them into a false sense of security. Alaric was transfixed by the way her brows gathered in when she thought. Her lips curved in a tiny, secret grin that tugged at his gut like a swallowed fishhook.
Then she closed her trap.
Thorismund let out a hoarse shout. The boys broke off to confer, and for a moment they almost got a vanguard through—opening a new channel that should have had her spurting blood. That was when she flanked them. Alaric couldn’t keep the grin off his face as the game devolved. Horsa and Hengist staring in identical shock while Julia scooped up their pieces in an elegant series of closing moves. She’d won.
And then she was surrounded. Thorismund pulling her to her feet, pounding her on the back like a companion in battle. Riga leaning in to tell her something that made her laugh in delight. Even the boys joined in, and Alaric had to clench his teeth against a surge of jealousy.
He wanted that laughter. Wanted to bottle it up tight and keep it for himself.
“You did well.” He came out of the shadows. “Who taught you to play?”
“My father. He used to let me play his generals when I was a girl.”
It was a crack in her armor he couldn’t resist probing. “Why did he stop?”
“Because I beat Honorius and shamed him in front of his generals. Olympius said it was proper for my brother to win against them, as he would rule one day, but since I was a girl—”
She let the sentence trail off and shrugged lightly, as if this didn’t matter in the slightest. Alaric suspected this was a thing she did when something mattered very much indeed.
He decided if he ever saw Olympius again he’d beat the man to death with his bare hands.
“Your father wasted your talents,” he said quietly. “You should have been a general.”
A fevered pink spread across her cheekbones. “Does that mean you’ll make me empress after all, King of the Goths?”
“Don’t push your luck.” But he was laughing now, and she was laughing too, green eyes outshining the glow of the fire, and the pull of her was inexorable.
Damn it. He was going to take her to his bed after all.
An arrow whizzed past him, faster than a diving hawk.