Chapter Forty-Five
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The bandits who followed Horsa were escaped slaves and impoverished farmers and ex- foederati , rounded up by the Romans and later freed by their own hand or the luck of a raid. Horsa had been close by, raiding villages for food when Ehre found him.
They rode all day to be free of the mines, Julia riding with Horsa, her arms wrapped tight around his waist and her face pressed into his back. As night fell, the bandits halted at a deserted village and raided homes, dragging furniture out of ruined houses, lighting a bonfire that towered over the rooftops. Then they drank and danced, the deserted village ringing with songs and battle cries.
Julia drank from any flask handed to her—Hunnic milk wine and fiery barbarian liquor that boiled her blood and old cavalry wine that was half gone to vinegar. And she danced, in the ruined village on the great ravaged plain of howling winds, her bones barely hanging together in her skin. She danced amidst a crowd of wild men and women, all fierce and sharp as the edge of a blade, all with the same look in their eyes. Feral. Wild. Devoid of pity.
Surely this was the last bonfire, burning at the end of the world.
* * *
The next morning, Julia woke wrapped in her cloak on the hard ground.
The air had a chill that had not been there before. How long had she been in the mines? Had summer passed already?
The bonfire still burned, and a crowd of bandits sat around it, sipping from flasks. In this light, they looked far younger than they had last night. Practically children.
She reached for her flask and the taste of the wine made her sick to death. She retched it out onto the ground and then poured out the rest, watching the red liquid sink into the earth.
Where was Horsa? She sat up, her head pounding viciously. Her eyes caught on a crowd beyond the fire—a group of people in filthy clothes, chained together at the ankle. Slaves from the mine.
* * *
Horsa was by the bonfire amidst a crowd, a pirate grin flashing that could have been Alaric’s grin, Alaric’s way with a crowd. Julia shoved through on shaking legs, her head pounding. She hated being sober.
“We must have words, Horsa. Alone.”
Horsa waved a lazy hand. Alaric’s hand, Alaric’s gesture. “I am King of the Bandits, Julia. Whatever you would say to me can be said to my followers.”
Julia reached down and twisted his ear. Hard.
“ Ow! Stop! Harpy! ” His followers laughed uproariously. “Fine,” he grumbled, and rose to his feet.
Julia dragged him to the edge of the crowd. “What do you intend to do with them?” she demanded, gesturing to where the slaves were huddled. “You’ll let them go, will you not?”
“They’re spoils , Julia. How do you think I persuaded the others to help me trash that mine? We’re going to sell them.”
“No respectable slave merchant would buy stolen slaves from a bandit . You’ll only get yourself crucified.”
“You’d be surprised what respectable slave merchants will do.” Horsa crossed his arms over his chest. “I have to sell them, Julia. The only way to stay Bandit King is to provide my followers with plunder.”
“Well. If that’s the case, then I’d say plunder is the Bandit King. Not you.” Julia arched a brow. “Alaric would have let them go, don’t you think? And he’d have kept the loyalty of his bandits anyway.”
“Alaric would have—” Horsa reddened. “Fuck him,” he grumbled. But then he turned, and Julia watched him swagger over to the group of slaves and fall into conversation with two men who’d been standing guard. They were older than Horsa, maybe Alaric’s age.
They didn’t like what Horsa was saying. One of them growled something murderous and the other put his hand on his sword.
Julia thought of the mines, the burning posca , the bodies on the cart. If this did not work, she would intervene. She had no idea how she’d keep from getting skewered, but over her dead fucking corpse would these people stay enslaved.
Horsa said something else, eyes heavy-lidded and insolent. After long moments, the two men backed down. One of them moved forward to undo the chains. Then Horsa came sauntering back to her, the expression on his face forbidding in its blankness. Only when he reached her did he break into a broad grin. “I am the King of the Bandits. Told you.”
* * *
That night, they sat together by the fire.
In the mine, Horsa had practically hurled himself off his horse and come running up to Julia, staring as if she were a ghost come to life. Then he’d pulled her into his arms and hugged her hard enough to break ribs. Now she knew why he had been so terribly glad to see her.
“He thinks you’re dead, you know,” Horsa said, poking at the fire with a broken chair leg. “We all did.”
He told her about the fire. Julia remembered seeing smoke rising from the city at her back, but now she was starting to realize that Bromios had set that fire. He had promised to cause a distraction. She hadn’t stayed long enough to see what it was.
Julia caught her breath. She did not know what to feel at that news. All she felt was numb. “I wasn’t dead. I fled .” She tried to say something else, but her throat closed and the words would not come. Horsa put an arm around her and she leaned into his shoulder.
“Alaric went insane after you went.” He spoke as if the same grip was on his own throat. “Fighting holmgangs , hanging his own chieftains on stakes. He talks to the dead now, Julia. Talks to Calthrax all the time. Thorismund said he refused the man a proper burial, and now his ghost walks the earth without rest. But I think he’s just mad now.” He glanced at her from beneath ash-pale lashes. “He asked if I had seen your ghost.”
“And what did you say?”
“I told him he’d been the one to kill you. Then he cast me out.” Horsa shoved the chair leg into the fire. “He’ll murder me if I set foot back in that city.”
His face was impassive in the firelight, underneath ravaged by grief. She took his hand and squeezed it. “That makes two of us,” she whispered.
They sat there for an instant, staring into the dying fire, both broken by the same man and not remotely sure where to begin picking up the pieces.
“What is wrong with you two! The sour faces!” Ehre came barreling into their silence, sliding down the bench, wine sloshing in her cup. “We should be celebrating!” She launched into a highly exaggerated narrative of how she had escaped the mine.
Julia closed her eyes and thought of the long, bleak road laid out before her now. “Ehre,” she said, interrupting the other woman’s gruesome description of what she’d done to the cart driver. “Will you take me back to Brisca?”
Horsa turned to her abruptly. “Why not stay with me?”
“I can’t be Queen of the Bandits, Horsa. I’m already Queen of the Goths.”
“Maybe I’ll be Queen of the Bandits. I’d be good at it.” Ehre grinned. “No, Julia. I am sorry. I came over the mountains to get out from under my sister’s shadow. The only direction I’ll not go is backward.”
Julia understood. All three had that in common; they could not go back where they’d come from. She felt the weight of the little finger-bone flute in the bag at her waist and shut her eyes. Her last lifeline. She watched it dissolve before her eyes.
“I have an idea,” Horsa said quietly.
* * *
It took three days to locate Thorismund. He and his followers had chained a circle of wagons together on a hilltop—a movable fort, visible for miles, bonfires blazing. It must have been a quarter of Alaric’s army. Julia had no idea so many followed him.
It was easy enough to gain entry; the sentries saw three ragtag, refugee bandits as no threat. Once inside, Thorismund’s tent was obvious. Above it fluttered a green flag with an oak tree blazoned on it; Julia had seen the same symbol on his shield.
When she walked into his tent, he rose to his feet with eyes wide, as if he’d seen a ghost.
His face was thinner than it had been before. He’d grown a length of blond beard, glinting over his jaw; he looked grimmer and more barbaric than she had ever seen him. It was only after he’d embraced her—held her at arm’s length as if to ascertain she was real—and then embraced her again that he allowed himself to break into a broad grin.
“Alaric used to see the dead, real as the ground beneath his feet,” he breathed. “I never thought I would.”
Julia wasn’t prepared for the emotions that flooded her upon seeing Thorismund again. She dissolved into sobs, her face pressed to his leather vest. His arms went around her, his embrace driving the air from her lungs, and for a moment they wordlessly clung to each other.
When she’d finished crying—it took an embarrassingly long time—Thorismund led her to one of the camp stools set up around a pit of glowing coals dug into the earth. He produced a flask and pressed it into her hands.
Julia laughed through her tears. “Is this the last of the batch?”
“The last of the batch isn’t wasted on you.”
But she could not drink. Even the smell of alcohol made her nauseous now.
“I never thought I’d see the day the princess Julia refused a drink. You must truly be a ghost.” Thorismund replaced it with cold water in a tin cup. “Welcome back to the living, girl. Where have you been?”
It was easy to talk to Thorismund. The story had been gnawing at her guts the whole time, and Julia found herself pouring it out, telling him of the mines, the posca . The man she’d killed. Julia talked until her throat was hoarse, and Thorismund listened with solemn attention. By the time she had finished, he took her hand in his.
“Julia, if I’d known, I’d have come for you myself.” He looked as though she had hit him with a brick.
“You thought me dead. How could you know?” She drew a shaking breath. “Why—why did you leave him?” She could not imagine Thorismund turning his back on Alaric. But then, she could not have imagined herself doing it either.
His brow clouded. “When I joined with Alaric, I believed he wanted what I did. A homeland, and safety for our people. In the beginning, he tried to rein in the chieftains and keep us from devolving into banditry, although these past three years we’ve had to plunder to survive.” He drew a breath, his great shoulders rising and falling. “But after you left, something broke in him. He stopped caring about the people. He let them starve and drove out chieftains who had been with him since the beginning. No king who neglects to feed his people will keep his right to rule.” He glanced down at their entwined hands, his brow heavy. “We fought the night I left. I accused him of causing your death, and he told me that if he ever saw me again in his city, he would kill me where I stood. I could not stay after that. I had my own to look to, and I still cared to protect them. So I left. I had to.”
“He would kill me too if I returned,” she whispered, thinking of the way his eyes had blazed with hatred the last time she saw him. “He hates me too.”
“No.” Thorismund shook his head. “Alaric loved you. He went mad because he thought he was the one at fault for killing you. That’s why he threw me and Horsa out—we both struck the same nerve.”
Julia’s hands clenched convulsively on his. Horsa had said much the same thing to Alaric, and had been driven out too. Could it be that Alaric’s madness was driven by guilt over her fate? She shut her eyes tight. What did it matter? There was nothing between them now but a blasted battlefield.
“Perhaps if I could just return for a little while and show him that I’m alive—” she sniffled loudly “—he would come back to himself.”
“I doubt he’d even recognize you,” Thorismund said gently. “But that is not the only reason you shouldn’t try. Julia, I just received word this morning. Lucretia’s husband has finally brought his revenge. Noricum is under siege.”
Julia’s head snapped up. “Then, you’re—going to ride to his rescue?”
“No.” Thorismund’s face was grave. “I’m not.”
“What do you mean, no ?” Julia gripped his huge, battle-scarred hands. “Thorismund, he’s always come back for us. He didn’t leave you when you were in the farmhouse with your guts out. He didn’t leave me with those bandits. If he knew one of us was in such dire straits, he’d break down city walls to get to us. We cannot just leave him there.”
Thorismund sighed heavily. Then he rose to light the braziers; when he turned back, grief was etched into his face.
“It would most likely do no good. Alaric was probably in Roman custody before that message reached me. He was in no sound mind to defend against a siege, and Noricum’s walls were in no state to withstand one. But even if I thought I could do any good, I couldn’t reach him now if I wanted. There are Huns between us and Noricum. Not even I can fight my way through.” He wiped his forearm against his forehead and she could see his exhaustion, his pain. “There are a thousand people outside this tent, relying on me. Not all are warriors. I will not lead them to their ruin.”
Julia remembered what Horsa had said. If he died on the battlefield and I walked away alive, I would never live down the shame. “You’ll be leaving him dead on the battlefield.”
“I know,” Thorismund said, and she knew what it cost him. Behind his haggard stoicism, he was as wild with grief as she was. “It is what he would do, if he were in his right mind. We must let him go. We must.” He came to sit by her again, gripped her hands tightly. “Ask anything else of me. Ask me to give you refuge. Ask me to send you back to Brisca with protection. You can start a new life. Only do not ask me to send you to your own death. He would never forgive me if I did.”
* * *
Julia was given a tent at the edge of camp, away from the bonfires. She lay for hours, wrestling with herself. Horsa had told her Alaric had gone insane. But she hadn’t quite grasped the reality until she’d spoken with Thorismund.
She drew her knees up to her chest beneath the piled furs, Thorismund’s words pressing down on her like a mile of earth. Alaric was under siege in Noricum, if not in Roman custody already. If captured, his death would be a spectacle in Ravenna. He would die as Cornelius had. And it would all be her fault. If he’d never met her—if she’d never made him love her, if she hadn’t insisted —none of this would have happened.
Love had ruined him, just as it had ruined her. Perhaps it had ruined him worse .
Let him go , Thorismund had said. For a moment Julia let herself imagine it. Stilicho would not look for her in Brisca’s village. She could lose herself in the highlands. Perhaps she could apprentice herself to the healers. And there would come another love, in a few seasons, who would help her forget—and whenever she closed her eyes, she would see Alaric dying alone and in pain, because of her .
She could not live in a world where she had ruined him with her love, and then left him to die alone. She could not.
* * *
Thorismund had set guards. But she still had her knife. It was short work to cut a hole in the back of the tent.
Outside, the camp was quiet. The bonfires had burned down to embers, and it was still hours before dawn. Carefully she made her way to the horses.
“And where do you think you’re going?”
Julia nearly jumped out of her skin. Ehre and Horsa stood behind her, their breath coalescing into cool steam in the moonlight.
“I’m going to Alaric,” she said, raising her chin defiantly.
“Is that so?” Horsa grinned crookedly. “How will you avoid the Huns?”
“How will you find food and shelter?” Ehre added.
“And keep away from the bandits? They’ll take a horse from a lone traveler unless you’re very good with a sword.”
“I suppose I’ll figure it out,” Julia said. “Don’t try stopping me. If you tell Thorismund, I’ll only escape again.”
“You misunderstand,” Horsa said solemnly. “I cannot leave Alaric alone on the battlefield, Julia. We’re coming with you.”