Chapter Seventeen
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Julia gripped Hannibal’s torso with her thighs and hung on for dear life.
They’d been climbing for hours. Up fearsomely steep switchbacks in the screaming wind, the night sky relentlessly clear. Alaric sauntered along at Hannibal’s head, one hand loosely curled on the reins. He did not seem concerned about the men who walked with their bows half-drawn. Even Thorismund looked nervous. But not Alaric.
Julia pulled Alaric’s cloak tighter with one hand; with the other, she maintained her death grip on the reins. She didn’t like her tippy position, the way she kept sliding backward.
“Alaric,” she whispered. “Who are these people? What do they want with us?”
“Do not worry yourself. All will be well.”
As he spoke, his thumb glided across her ankle. A white-hot jolt of a touch. Julia snapped her mouth shut, her heart racing, as everything that had happened in that cave came rushing back. That pleasure, arcing down her limbs in waves of blue lightning.
Now she understood how a man could completely ruin a woman.
Her eyes strayed back to Alaric, drawn helplessly to the sway of his broad shoulders, the easy, relaxed cadence of his stride.
Julia understood such things were supposed to be pleasurable—but such pleasure had always eluded her. She always assumed that reports of such were profoundly exaggerated. She had never, in all her life, felt anything like that ruinous bliss that had ripped through her like lightning in Alaric’s arms.
What had he done to her in that cave? She felt as though she’d been enspelled. The slick reins slipped in her hands. Hannibal gave another lurch and Julia slipped backward in the saddle with a little squeak.
Alaric glanced back at her, as if nothing so miraculous had happened between them, as if that feeling for him was as expected as everyday bread. “Are you all right?”
She gave a strained laugh. “Of course.” Amusement glinted in his eyes and Julia wished for once he’d pretend not to see her cowardice. Her foolishness.
She gripped the pommel as they climbed into the windy dark.
* * *
Sometime in the small hours, Alaric joined her on the horse. Julia woke in his arms, sunlight stroking her face. She screwed her eyes shut, lulled by the closeness of him and the gentle movement of the horse. “Make it go away,” she muttered. “Tell it to come back later.”
“Make what go away?”
“The sun.” She’d been drooling on his shirt. How embarrassing.
“I’ll tell it, but I don’t think it will listen.” His thumb idly stroked her shoulder; a jittery heat shot through to her core. “Wake, Julia. We’re here.”
Julia opened her eyes to a looming wall of ashen stakes thick as ship masts, towering into a sky so blue it hurt her eyes. The ground was barren rock, tumbled steely gray; behind it, black mountain peaks sawed at the sky.
One of the tattooed men swaggered up to the gate, holding a curled bone horn to his lips. For a moment the deep, discordant note it made hung still. Then the gates swung open and the air filled with a cacophony of voices and buzzing horns.
* * *
Julia was used to being surrounded, but never like this.
She breathed in the animal tang of this place, smells of pigs and chickens and cooking food. She was accustomed to riding in litters, standing on porticoes above a sea of pressing bodies. But now she struggled to stay upright in the midst of a jostling crowd, clad in furs and rough-spun tunics, who showed her not the slightest deference.
They weren’t here for her. They were here for Alaric.
Julia caught sight of him in the thick of it, flashing a grin as he greeted tattooed warriors and women in colorful kirtles. Someone handed him a tow-haired boy and he held the child casually in the curve of one arm, smiling indulgently at his beaming mother. Julia was shunted to the side, holding Hannibal’s reins.
No one was looking at her. No one was paying attention to her at all.
A shouted greeting rang out and a woman strode down from the top of the slope, black hair woven into an elaborate braided crown, a pine-green cloak swirling about her heels. She threw her arms around Alaric’s neck with a whoop of joy. Alaric lifted her off the ground, easily, with one arm, with an answering grin that could make the stars weep.
Both of them were looking at her now. Alaric’s eyes a glacial blue, the woman’s moss green and discernibly cool. Julia was intensely aware of the state of herself—hair an irredeemable tangle, clothes that could walk by themselves. She stared back imperiously. Alaric might be king in this meager scrape of a village, and this woman its queen, but neither would intimidate her .
Then Alaric was striding toward her, the crowd parting before him. No one extended such courtesy to her ; someone knocked into her and sent her reeling into Hannibal’s shoulder. The horse snapped at her with block-like yellow teeth and she startled back.
“Easy, Julia.” Alaric’s hand curled around her bicep, a teasing, sun-warmed affection in his eyes that made her stomach flip over.
“You forget yourself,” she hissed. “I’m not one of your grizzled camp followers. See to your own damn horse.”
Laughter lit his eyes as he took the reins from her and spoke a few reassuring words to Hannibal. “I wouldn’t call them grizzled .” He astounded her by brushing his lips against her forehead. “I must leave you alone awhile. I have much to discuss with the chieftain of this place.”
Much to discuss indeed. An image of him gloriously naked with that woman punched her in the chest. “Fine,” she fumed. “That’s fine . Go discuss things.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her with a bemused expression; the chiseled beauty of his forearms made her lightheaded. “The twins will find you a place to rest and a change of clothes and a bath. If you are hungry—”
“A bath?” Julia blinked up at him. “A hot one?”
“If you wish it, yes.” His voice went warm and intimate. “I will find you later. You and I have much to discuss as well.”
“We do?” There was too much meaning in the way he said it. Was much to discuss some filthy Gothic euphemism?
He did not elaborate further, only strolled off toward the tall woman, Hannibal walking beside him, chickens and small children scattering at his feet.
* * *
Baths, Julia decided, were better than wine. Better than everything .
There was no gleaming marble pool superior to this half barrel of a size to hold a man. No rare scented bath oils that could improve upon this animal-fat soap with its meager lather. She would stay in this stone bathhouse until wind and rain wore down these mountains and nothing was left but dust. Or at least until the water cooled.
What was the matter with her? Ever since Alaric had rescued her from those bandits, she shook when he looked at her. She’d nearly given him her virtue in a cave . And just now, she’d watched Alaric turn the dazzling force of his smile on another woman, and the jealousy had eaten her alive. Then he’d come swaggering up to her as if nothing was wrong in the world, kissed her forehead like a wayward little sister, and flashed his forearms at her, and Julia was suddenly, acutely aware of the trouble she was in.
She sat up in the bath suddenly. Water sloshed on the floor. Oh good God, no.
She was in love with him.
This was intolerable. This was the feeling that had gotten Cornelius eaten by wolves.
She seized the soap and began to scrub herself vigorously as if she could scour the feelings off her body. A determined pounding shook the door. Julia started, the soap slipping through her fingers. “What?”
“What are you doing in there?” Horsa’s voice. “Hengist thinks you drowned.”
“You know perfectly well what I’m doing. Go away.”
“Finish up or we’re coming in after you!”
“Don’t you dare!” Julia squeaked, ducking to rinse herself. She wasn’t entirely sure they wouldn’t .
* * *
After the bath, the twins took her to a guesthouse unlike any that Julia had seen. A mushroom of a building, with a thatched roof pitched at a steep angle to the ground. The door was a leather flap of indeterminate origin. Her old self—not a month ago—would have fainted dead rather than sleep in such a place. But it was a far improvement from sleeping on the ground.
Inside, it was surprisingly pleasant. A single room, with a floor lined with springy moss and a firepit. A sturdy table stood along one wall, made of scarred blond wood. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling; it smelled fresh and clean.
Was this the home Alaric imagined for himself? She could believe his wants would be this humble. In one corner, there was a low platform bed piled with furs, and Julia’s thoughts immediately went to him in that bed. Gloriously naked. With that other woman.
Stupid. Now was no time to be lovesick and jealous; what she needed was a strategy . Alaric had women from one side of the continent to the other. If she played this wrong, he would simply take what she offered and then send her back to Honorius with his compliments, and perhaps a Gothic baby in her belly that would kill her in the coming out.
That image of him naked flashed before her sight again. Golden and gleaming, water streaming down the muscular wall of his chest. If she shut her eyes, she could still feel the heat of his hands everywhere he’d touched her, rough and strong, claiming her.
She wanted him so much she could sob from it. She could not—not ever —give any hint of her real feelings.
A change of clothes had been laid out on the bed. A light woolen dress dyed pale blue, and a creamy-pale underdress to go beneath. There was a woven belt and a pair of soft felt boots. There was even a small, bone comb, carved with horses’ heads. Julia dressed hurriedly, combed her hair, tried to gather her thoughts.
She still needed Alaric’s army. He must not send her back to Honorius. And she could not let him think she had such little value as to offer herself in a cave, or a field, or a ditch. She would not lie with him again unless it was on her terms. It could not be a thing he took lightly.
In the meantime, he might have women from one side of the continent to the other, but she would be the one he couldn’t have.
* * *
She went outside in the sunshine to find Hengist and Horsa talking in Gothic with a tall young warrior. The warrior’s hard, kohl-lined gaze shifted to her and Julia stopped in her tracks.
The warrior was a woman, surely not older than twenty. Her hair was very dark, shaved close to the skull on one side, on the other in long, narrow braids. She wore leather trousers and a fur-lined vest and two curved swords at her hips.
Hengist waved her over. “This is Ehre. My future wife.”
Ehre’s immediate laughter said that this was an outrageous joke. “The last time we came through, Ehre was seventeen and I fought a duel with Horsa over her. I won.”
Horsa gave him a black look. “ I won, braggart.”
Ehre ignored them both. “So this is the woman who travels with Alaric of the Goths.” She gave Julia a hard little threat of a smile, and said something in Gothic that sounded less than complimentary.
“Excuse me,” Julia said, politely. “The only things I can say in your language are piss , fuck , and your mother is a whore .”
Hengist laughed. “She said she wasn’t expecting you to be skinnier than a new calf.”
Julia shrugged. “Running from the Roman army will whittle you down, I suppose. My figure has been the least of my worries.”
“Our princess has not dishonored herself,” Horsa said. “One time she put nettles in Alaric’s bed. That was a laugh.”
Ehre glanced skeptically at Hengist’s arm slung casually over her shoulder. Julia could just see her making the calculations. The twins’ good opinion was apparently strong currency.
“I do not believe you did that. You’d be dead.”
It was Hengist who smiled, seeking to smooth the sudden spike to the conversation. “Ehre is sister to Brisca, the chieftain of this place. And Julia—”
Sister to Brisca. The black-haired chieftain currently warming Alaric’s bed, if Julia had eyes. “I saw your sister. Is it true she rules alone with no husband?”
“My sister won’t marry again. Not since Alaric killed her last husband.” Ehre regarded her steadily. “What about you? It isn’t often Alaric takes a Roman bed slave.”
Had the boys told her about the cave? Julia hid her outrage behind a thoughtless laugh. “I would rather say he is my bed slave.”
“You must be very generous, then, allowing my sister to borrow him,” Ehre said. “He lies with her whenever he comes through. The first time, she spent four nights in his tent and emerged the queen of this place. Perhaps he will lie with me and gift me a kingdom too.”
Julia felt her fists clench. So Alaric was in the habit of lying with women and offering them kingdoms. “Certainly he will lie with you. Me, you, your sister, or a hole in the wall at the appropriate height. I wonder how many kingdoms he has to give.”
“Shouldn’t I find out?” Ehre laughed as if it were all an outrageous jest and slung an arm around Julia’s shoulders. “Let’s go and do something fun.”
* * *
Alaric wasn’t certain when he’d made up his mind. Perhaps while watching Julia trounce the twins at latrones . Or perhaps in the cave behind the waterfall, listening to her tell him of the scars beneath her skin, before she turned to fire in his arms. Or perhaps he had come to his decision the moment he’d lost her to the bandits, searching for her on the long windward slope of the mountain. It didn’t matter when. He had decided.
He would not send Julia back. Not to her brother; not to anyone else.
Now, standing amidst the crowd in the fortified town of
Acerrae, with the village’s black-haired chieftain, he watched the twins draw her away—and wished fiercely that he was the one showing her the bathhouse. He’d bar the doors and take her in his arms and finish what they’d damn well started. And then he’d tell her, under no uncertain terms, that she would not be going back to Ravenna.
She would stay with him and be his concubine.
It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? He was assured that she wanted him ; her passion had not been false. He wouldn’t grant her an army, but he would give her safety. A place in the world. In his bed.
He wanted her in his bed. He would go to war if necessary to keep her there.
Alaric knew that claiming her would mean war. With the Romans, yes—but also with his own. The chieftains wouldn’t like it, but he would bend them to his will in this.
And he would need the hill tribes more than ever. That meant he needed Brisca more than ever. Everything depended on holding these passes.
* * *
Not long after, he sat with his boots propped on the scarred table in Brisca’s great hall, a cup of ale in his hand.
Brisca shrugged off her moss-green cloak and sauntered to the window. “Fuck you,” she muttered, almost to herself. “Fuck you, Alaric of the Goths.”
Alaric grinned. “I have had better greetings from you, Brisca.”
“You had better have a decent explanation for bringing that redheaded portent of disaster to my doorstep.”
Alaric laid it out plain. Stilicho’s invitation after Theodosius’s death. The unmitigated calamity of that banquet. “When I made you chieftain here all those years ago, I told you I may have reason to call upon you in turn,” he said. “Now is that time. I need the hill tribes to hold the passes, and I need your help in convincing them.”
“Alaric, three years ago your army came through as a cloud of locusts and stripped everything bare. I’d have better luck persuading a stone.”
“We were starving, Brisca. I had to let the men feed themselves in these hills, and I kept them away from the towns.”
“But not from the pastures.”
“There is no inch of these mountains not chewed over by those rawboned sheep of yours. To keep them out of your pastures , I’d have to teach them to fly.”
Brisca’s eyes flicked to his boots. “Get your boots off my table.”
Alaric slid his boots off the table and rose, crossing the room unhurried. He joined her by the window, propping an arm on solid stone.
“I need you, Brisca. Tell me what you want in return.”
Brisca’s eyes fell to his mouth. That old, familiar heat pulsed between them. “Well.” Her fingers lazily brushed the laces at the neck of his tunic. “I do need something.”
“And that is?”
“My cousin Black Nathan wants to marry me off to his kin, which would bring my territory under his control. Some among my people want to see me married too. It hurts their pride to follow a woman.” She lifted her gaze to his. “Black Nathan is too powerful to defy directly. I need you to be a forceful presence beside me.”
And in your bed. Alaric understood what his answer must be. Even as a pair of green eyes arose in his thoughts, flashing in rage and hurt.
He forced the thought down. If this was what he had to do to keep Julia his, then he would damn well do it. He would fuck his way across the continent if necessary. Julia used her body to get what she wanted; she had done it with him and it had worked . Surely she would understand that there were times when he must do the same. It meant nothing to her. She would know it meant nothing to him. If he tried to seek her permission, she would laugh in his face.
He hooked a hand into Brisca’s belt and pulled her to him. He put his mouth to her neck; she leaned her head back and he heard her moan her assent in the back of her throat. An image of Julia flashed before his eyes. Hair wet and streaming down her back. Eyes green and gleaming through all that steam, asking him to take her.
Lust slammed into him. Hard and violent.
He pressed Brisca up against the wall, kissing her deeply. If he shut his eyes he could pretend this was Julia, her lips opening eagerly against his, the warm silken heat of her tongue in his mouth. Longing flooded him. His hands shook. Gods , he wanted her.
But it wasn’t quite right. Brisca was taller. The leg twining around his hip now was more muscular, honed from riding horses and tramping through mountains. Not fined down from a week or more on the road, defenseless and in need of his protection. He was instantly, savagely hard now, just thinking about Julia’s legs, and how much she fucking needed him. Because she did. She needed him.
Brisca’s kiss was the wrong taste. What he wanted was roses and blueberries and under it the whole black sky. He opened her shirt, the laces giving way beneath his hands, his mouth closing on a nipple. Brisca gasped, arching up into his touch. In his mind, it was Julia wild for him and moaning his name, Julia with her fingers curling in his hair. No. Nails not sharp enough, not vicious like a little cat the way she clenched at his roots. Julia’s lust was always fired by rage. Same as his.
Laughter. Starlight scattering across a lake. Alaric stiffened.
Brisca hissed between her teeth. “What is it?”
He turned to the window, cursing. Below, a crowd had gathered, drinking and placing bets as a pair of young warriors sparred. Among the spectators, her head bent and whispering with a handsome young man, was Julia.
The sight knifed through him. She was wearing a woolen dress and kirtle, pale blue, her red hair braided and falling in a thick rope down one shoulder. She looked like some chieftain’s daughter whose battles were his .
Fuck. “Stay here,” he muttered, striding to the door. “I’ll be right back.”
* * *
Amidst the crowd below Brisca’s great hall, Julia sat with a young man whose brown hair curled to his shoulders, their heads together as if sharing some illicit secret. The sight filled Alaric with unreasoning rage and envy. He should be the one sitting on that bench in the sunshine, drinking with Julia and making her laugh.
It would hardly help his case with Brisca if he beat her kinsman to death in front of her.
Hengist was lolling in the grass, drinking, while Horsa diced in a circle of wild young warriors. Alaric nudged Hengist with his boot. “Get up.” Then he reached out an arm and yanked Horsa out of his circle by his shirt.
“Ow! Stop!” Horsa scowled. “What is it?”
Julia had noticed him now. She did not look happy to see him. “You know what it is.”
“Brisca’s kinsman? Berig?” Horsa scratched his head. “He’s a harpist.”
As if he gave a fuck. Across the yard, he saw her lips curve in that smug smile. It was provocation past bearing. He wanted to drag Julia back to the guesthouse, lay her down beneath him, and show her exactly who she belonged to.
“Take her back to the guesthouse. Don’t let her out for the rest of the day, and no visitors. Especially not him.” The boys gaped at him. “Well? Go. ”
Alaric watched them stride up to Julia and explain it to her; clearly they were making him the villain. Her blue-green gaze sliced across the yard to him, seething. He had a feeling Julia’s anger with him had to do with more than his orders.
And his own feelings for her had to do with more than lust. He wanted her. Not just in his bed. He wanted to sit in the sunshine and drink with her. He wanted—
“Did I just hear you order that woman confined?” Brisca’s fingers curled around his forearm. “Your guest is perfectly safe here.”
The sight of Julia under lock and key offended Brisca’s honor; it implied that she could not control her own village. But he could not have Julia unguarded. Last time he relaxed his vigilance, he’d nearly gotten her killed.
He ran an agitated hand through his hair. “You have no idea the trouble she gets into.”
“If you want my advice, you’ll keep her where you can see her,” Brisca said quietly. “Who would dare to spirit her off under your watchful eyes?”
“I’ll think about it.” Perhaps it was a better idea than leaving her with the twin geniuses. “In the meantime, we should finish our discussion.”
That distracted her well enough. It didn’t matter what passed between him and Brisca, he told himself. He would go to Julia after and explain his decision, and she’d agree.
And then, if he had her once—well, more than once , but just for the one night—he’d be free of this miserable preoccupation and could make decisions with a clearer head.