Chapter Forty-Six
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
As they rode south, the land only became more ravaged.
Roving bands of Goths had pillaged this country, as had bandits and Roman slavers. Julia and her friends hid during the day in burned-out villages and moved at night to avoid the Huns, riding toward a horizon streaked by lightning. Once they rode past a village that was entirely on fire. The road south was increasingly strewn with corpses.
Horsa told her that the Romans and Goths were both brutal—both prone to pillage and murder. But the Romans took slaves, and the Goths sometimes left people alive to weep over the glowing coals of their homes. The Huns, though—they did not take slaves, and they did not leave survivors.
Julia’s plan for Noricum was hazy. Her hope was that Alaric was neither captured nor dead, but still under siege. In her mind, she would somehow evade capture and sneak into the city, and her presence would snap him back to sanity. In her most fevered imaginings, he would fall to his knees and swear his undying devotion. It was a fantasy, of course. But she ignored her looming doubts. She would rescue Alaric, as he had rescued her so many times in the past. Somehow.
They were almost to Noricum when they fell into the hands of the Huns.
* * *
Julia lay in a pile of straw in a burned-out barn, somewhere between sleep and waking. She couldn’t say what made her lurch out of sleep—perhaps it was the silence. No birds chattering, no lone rooster crowing at the dawn. Not even any breathing. Horsa and Ehre were gone. Instantly she was filled with foreboding.
The door to the barn hung open. Movement caught her eye. She froze.
Across the yard, a black-clad rider held the reins of a bay horse, a wicked curved blade at his hips, a quiver of arrows bristling from his back. She recognized that bow, those blades, the hard-nosed silhouette of that horse.
Riga. Her first thought. But then he turned his face toward her and she realized he wasn’t.
A Hun.
Julia held perfectly still. The moment she moved, he would see her. They don’t take slaves , Horsa had told her, and they do not leave survivors .
Better death, then. Better than being a slave.
The man’s gaze snapped toward her as if she’d spoken aloud. He had his bow out and an arrow nocked to it in one smooth motion.
Julia raised an arm on instinct, flinching from the arrow that would send her into death.
* * *
Moments later, Julia found herself dragged out of the barn and into the ruined village square. There were more than twenty Huns scattered among the outbuildings, bristling with weapons. Ehre and Horsa were brought at sword point out of one of the houses, where they’d been pilfering supplies.
“What did you tell them?” Horsa whispered. “They should have killed us already.”
“Nothing! I haven’t spoken a word.”
“Keep your silence,” Ehre said grimly. “If you can escape, do it. Do not worry about us.”
Julia barely got a chance to object. They were separated, her hands tied with rough rope, and she was shoved up on the back of a horse.
* * *
The Hunnic camp was close by. It smelled of supple leather and fresh hay, mud turned over by a hundred hooves, and over that, a scent of spices and cooking meat that made Julia’s stomach turn over. How long had it been since she’d eaten?
She had always thought of the Huns as a single group and culture. But those here appeared to be from dozens of nations, speaking a multiplicity of languages. Men and women looked up as she passed, their curious gazes following. Julia knew what they saw: a stranger. A captive. She had a feeling they were all wondering why she was not already dead.
The largest tent was made of white cowhide. Julia was ushered in and found herself standing before a tall, imposing woman who wore cowhide leggings and a colorfully dyed tunic, fur stitched into the wrists. Her hair was very dark and straight, wound into a meticulous braid.
She spoke one word in military Latin: “Kneel.”
Julia knelt immediately. Forehead to floor. She wasn’t so foolish as to disobey.
Above her, the woman spoke again in rapid Hunnic to the men who had brought her. There were many languages in this camp, but Julia recognized this one. She’d sung ribald songs in it one night, in a tent full of smoke. It was Riga’s language.
She was jerked roughly back to her feet. Someone cut the ropes at her wrists, then held out her arm toward the woman, shoving her sleeve up to the elbow.
The woman’s eyes widened. She was looking at the mark Riga had cut into her palm.
“Where did a Roman slave come by that? I ought to cut it off you.”
Roman slave. Her pride rebelled. But was it not true? Had she not been a slave? “Cut it off if you like. I am in your power.” Julia did not flinch from the woman’s gaze. “But the one who gave me this mark promised it would grant me safety here.”
“Who are you? You do not drop your gaze like a slave.” The woman’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Who is this person making promises on our behalf?”
“The mercenary leader Riga. He rides with Alaric of the Goths.”
The woman hissed through her teeth. She grasped her wrist harder, examining the sigil. After a breath of silence, she spoke again. “Do you know what this is?” She tapped Julia’s wrist with the point of her dagger. “It’s the same mark he would put on a pet. Or a beast of burden, like a donkey.”
“A donkey ?” Julia stared in outrage. “Cut it off, then! I insist .”
“I decide what limbs are cut off in my own tent.” The woman looked down at her coldly. “Your friend spoke the truth. I have my honor. I will not harm you.” She hardly looked pleased about it. “In return for my generosity, you will tell me where Riga is now. I have unfinished business with my elder brother.”
* * *
Riga’s sister’s name was Kreka.
There was little resemblance between them. Where Riga was smiling and mischievous, she was stern and straight-backed with a kind of gracefully lethal self-possession. Not a strand of her hair was out of place. Julia had a feeling she stayed up late polishing and honing her weapons to flawless, obsessive sharpness.
Julia sat cross-legged on a pile of rugs by the hearth, sipping a cup of warm milk wine. Her stomach still rebelled at the smell and taste of alcohol, but she was not so foolish as to refuse hospitality. “Before I answer your questions,” she said, “I must know that Riga’s protection extends to my friends.”
Kreka frowned. “My brother’s mark does not extend to your entourage.”
“That may be. But those with me are dear to him too,” Julia said quietly. “I ask you to honor the spirit of his mark, not the letter of it.”
Kreka’s eyes narrowed, and Julia held her breath. In another life, she’d be terrified. But she had lived through the mines; she knew there were worse things than death. She met the other woman’s gaze and waited.
Finally Kreka inclined her head. “Upon my honor.”
“He is still with Alaric of the Goths,” Julia said, taking a slow sip of the steaming drink. “I was on my way to them when you found me.”
Kreka considered this. “You must have wanted to get back to my brother very much.”
Julia considered her next move, masking her delay with a thoughtful sip of the milk wine. Would it go harder or easier on her if Kreka believed she had shared Riga’s bed? Whichever she chose, it seemed unwise to disclose her identity, or her relationship with Alaric. She had a feeling the moment a word of it passed her lips, Kreka would turn her mind to ransom. Any rational person would.
She kept her story simple, the lies mainly by omission. “I come from Ravenna. My family were seeking a marriage not to my liking, so I ran away and found refuge with Alaric. Riga and I—became close.”
It was not a lie. It seemed better, safer to let Kreka assume she’d been Riga’s lover than Alaric’s.
But a mocking smile lifted Kreka’s lips. “So close that he marked you his donkey .”
Temper rose in her throat. Suddenly she didn’t care how Kreka saw her. What did it matter what happened to her? The worst had already happened, several times over, and seeing Alaric again was vanishingly unlikely.
Julia downed her milk wine in a single long gulp. “If I ever see Riga again, I will take that transgression out of his hide.”
She meant it. Horsa had shown her what to do with a knife. She’d already killed a man. There seemed nothing left to her now but recklessness, and when she glanced back at Kreka, the other woman was looking at her with a kind of fierce recognition. “If there is any hide left when I am through with him,” she said with chilling finality.
Julia could not help her curiosity. “If I may ask, what insult did Riga deliver his chieftainess?”
“I am not the chieftainess.” Kreka took a long sip from her cup, and looked at the fire. “It is tradition that the oldest son inherit the leadership of our tribe. But my older brother, Riga, ran off to make his fortune in the west. I was the one who stayed. And when my father fell sick, I ruled the people. I found the best pastures and the richest plunder. Now my father is dead and the augurers are demanding I step down until my brother can be found. The only way I can rule my people is to prove that he is dead—or find him and wrestle him into submission before the augurers to demonstrate I am the better to rule.”
Julia fumed. “That is the way of the world, is it not? For a woman to be accepted as a leader, she must be twice as clever and strong as any man.” It was infuriating. She glanced up at Kreka, and the opportunity was right there. Clear as a rope to a drowning man. Get your own army. “I know exactly where he is,” Julia said. “And I’ll help you get to him.”